FILM FRENZY

Amanda Deering Jones (right) is the director of Little Mother Lies, starring Pascale Roger-McKeever (far left) and Emilie Talbot (Photos: Friday Morning Films)

By Matt Brunson

(Q&A Corner is a semi-regular feature on Film Frenzy that focuses on those both in front of and behind the camera: actors, directors, writers, and other cinematic movers ‘n’ shakers of all stripes. In this installment, I interview director-producer Amanda Deering Jones.)

Forget about vaudeville singers or Whoopi Goldberg disguised as a nun: A sister act of a different sort is at the center of Little Mother Lies, a live-action short in which siblings Dorie (Pascale Roger-McKeever) and Marinka (Emilie Talbot) engage in a heated conversation about past, present, and future while Dorie’s son Owen (Elliott West) is in another room combatting his drug addiction.

Amanda Deering Jones is the director of Little Mother Lies, working from a script by Kitty Edwinson. Deering Jones has spent approximately the past two decades at various animation studios — among her many accomplishments are producing the Oscar-nominated animated short Borrowed Time, serving as script coordinator on DreamWorks Animation’s How to Train Your Dragon, and working as production coordinator on Pixar’s Toy Story 4. Little Mother Lies marks her directorial debut.

Film Frenzy: How did you and Kitty Edwinson initially hook up to make Little Mother Lies?

Amanda Deering Jones: Kitty and I met in 2019 through our mutual connection, producer Gwen Whittle. Kitty was writing the feature script, Mother Lies, which Gwen and I optioned as producers. While we were collaborating on it, we decided to pull pieces from the feature to craft into a short film. The short is both a proof-of-concept for Mother Lies and a chance for me to get my feet wet with directing.

For those who might not know, can you explain “proof-of-concept”?

A proof-of-concept short film is a demonstration of the look and tone you are reaching for with a larger project. It’s a snapshot; it gives you a sneak peak of the goal. It’s also a proving ground for a story and the vision of it. Tone is the core element and it’s achieved by all the details within (lighting, camera, costumes, set, music, performances) which must all work well together. The goal with this short is that it leads to interest in making the feature film.

How did you settle on Pascale Roger-McKeever and Emilie Talbot as your co-leads? And what quality did each most exhibit during the casting process that made you decide they would be best for these roles?

Pascale had this raw, deeply real quality to her audition. There were so many nuances she got from the script right out of the gate. There was a quiet strength balanced with utter exhaustion, which is exactly what we needed from Dorie. Quite the opposite in the best way, Emilie was larger than life. She nailed the life-of-the-party aunt who is oblivious to her self-centeredness and the consequences of her own actions — that is Marinka through and through. The next step was bringing them together to see their energy in person. Both characters have a profound presence that is equal but very different, and bringing them together solidified our instincts.

The two actresses are quite convincing as sisters of dissimilar natures. Did Edwinson craft some of these dynamics from personal experience? Does she have siblings?

Relationships with sisters have fueled Kitty’s life. She has one sister; her mother is one of two sisters, who also had two daughters. The absent mother in the short is inspired by her grandmother’s sister. Marinka shares many traits with Kitty’s hard-drinking aunt. The short and the feature explore how pairs of sisters reflect their shared early lives back to each other, and how that reflection warps depending on the character of each sister.

If you had to state a dominant theme, would you say this movie is more about the difficulties imposed by family dysfunction or more about the dangers of substance abuse?

One theme that interests us is the role of the culture we inherit, as well as genetics, in mental health issues such as addiction. How does trauma experienced in a family affect subsequent generations? The dominant theme is multigenerational family dynamics, with substance abuse as an integral part of those dynamics for this particular family.

It’s interesting how the scenes with Owen are filmed in such a dark, isolated, and even claustrophobic manner — if the dialogue hadn’t stated otherwise, it would be easy to initially believe that he was miles away in another location rather than upstairs in the same house as his mother and aunt. What was the thought process behind deciding how to stage these scenes?

The story is about the two sisters predominantly and Owen represents the result of their history and choices so I wanted to run their stories in parallel. Owen is also in the throes of withdrawal in a place he doesn’t know, which is all very isolating. I wanted a physical representation of Owen’s mental state. The isolation, the darkness, the haziness, the coldness — all of that comes from what he is feeling and going through. The camera is static and voyeur, adding to that isolated feeling.

Did Elliott West have much interaction with the two actresses outside of their single scene together?

He did not have much interaction outside of their scene. He actually cocooned himself in the room while we filmed their scenes, which helped his preparation for the isolation.

Was Little Mother Lies a deliberate and conscious break from animation in order to work in live-action? And are you interested in ever directing a feature-length animated film?

My training is in Theatre but I always planned to work in film. Animation is where I had an industry contact so that is how my career started. It’s been an incredible journey; it’s a very different world. But I have also longed for live-action so this was definitely a conscious break in routine. If the right project presented itself to me in animation, I would definitely consider it.