King me – Co-director Sean Richardson talks new comedy King of Herrings

When local portrait photographer Sean Richardson met Baton Rouge-based actor David Jensen, he was ushered aboard a passion project helmed by actor and writer Eddie Jemison (Ocean’s Eleven, Grey’s Anatomy) called King of Herrings. A brisk, Woody Allen-esque comedy of errors and convoluted relationships, 225 featured the film in our September issue. With a cast of former LSU students-turned-movie-industry-veterans, the movie debuts at the New Orleans Film Festival on Oct. 13 with a 5 p.m. screening at The Prytania Theatre.

Richardson quickly became Jemison’s co-director on the project, and here he tells 225 about the indie film’s unique creative process, the honesty of heartbreak and overheating in a Tiger Stadium bathroom.

The first person involved with Herrings that you met was [actor] David Jensen, right?
That’s right. He was handling lighting for a shoot for WebMD, and I was on that job. First thing he said to me was, “Top five movies, go!” I was like ‘North By Northwest,’ and I don’t even know what else I said, but I gave him a list of favorite movies, and he was like, ‘I love this guy!’

How did you first hear about this particular project?
Jensen gave me the script one day, and he said, ‘My friend Eddie [Jemison] wrote it, and I think you should make it!’ I thought he meant, ‘Eddie doesn’t have time to make it, so you go and make it yourself.’ So I actually started the casting process and spent time really thinking about how I would make this movie, then I talked to Jensen again and he was like, ‘What do you mean? You’re going to shoot the movie.” So then I realized I was going to be D.P. (director of photography) and Eddie was directing and casting and all of that.

Now, between Jemison and Jensen, plus John Mese, Joe Chrest and Wayne Pere, all these guys had known each other for so long. How did you navigate that and inject your input into the creative process?
I didn’t! At the first table read I just sat back and listened. Later, Eddie did call me one day and said, ‘Co-direct it with me.’ In my head I felt like I had to now get more involved and really put my stamp on it. But still, I wanted to have it so I talked to Eddie and then Eddie talked to the cast, because they have known each other for years. After a week or so, I got more vocal as I felt like they trusted me more.

There’s a large age difference between you and your collaborators, too.
In pre-production I felt very much like they were these veterans who were in the industry and really making it, and then there’s me who’s done my little independent short films and that’s it. But once we got going on it, age wasn’t a factor. They opened up to me and brought me on board.

There a several scenes in which your co-director Eddie [Jemison] is carrying the action as an actor, and there are some very intense scenes involving his character. In those instances did you have to step up with more of a director’s voice?
On those scenes, my main job was to direct Eddie. And he was still worrying about everyone else in the scene. He can see what everyone else is doing, but he can’t see himself in the moment, so I would give him notes on his performance, which was amazing, both as an actor and a director.

The cast was so tight knit, but the crew was small, too. How did that affect the finished product?
It was me, Eddie, John Mese, and two different sound guys. That’s it. I wanted it to feel like my micro-short films. Very nimble. Very mobile. So it was easy to try different things without waiting around for hours.

There’s an interesting balance between incredibly funny dialog and situations in this film and also a serious streak, a dramatic arc of the disintegrating relationship between Eddie’s character and the character played by his real-life wife, Laura Lamson.
When I first read the script, I got to those sections and thought, ‘Wow, this got serious quick!’ I loved that there was real conflict.

It’s bold. And it’s something you can’t do often in a big budget studio film where some executive would tell you to tone something down or add a punch line to soften the drama. An indie film like this can be more honest.
My one hope, when reading the script for the first time, was that it would not have a happy ending. I just felt like this story should be more real, that someone’s heart should be broken.

What was your favorite Baton Rouge location?
Jensen’s house was great, just because I love his house, and that was a fun scene. The most stressful location was inside Tiger Stadium. We shot in one of the bathrooms. It was 100 degrees out, and the camera overheated. The camera went down, and we lost half a day of footage. I didn’t talk to anyone that day.

One of the more interesting decisions was to have Leon, played by Wayne Pere, use an electrolarynx or “throat back.” Tell me about that.
That was in Eddie’s script all the way. During production we tried to capture all the audio on set, but in test screenings they told us they could only make out about 40% of what Wayne was saying.

The Bane problem.
Exactly. So we went in and had to ADR all his lines so they were more audible.

Where there any films that were specific influences on Herrings?
Not that I can recall. Afterwards, the first people who’ve seen it have compared it to something Woody Allen might do. But that wasn’t really in our minds. We did want it to feel like it was in an undefined period. Undated. Timeless. The black and white helped that I think.

Were there any improvised scenes? There’s such a comfortable flow and charisma to the dialog it almost feels like some of it was improv.
Not really. Maybe one or two lines in the whole thing. There was a lot of rehearsal though. I loved Eddie’s script so much, and for the most part, the actors stuck to that. It was almost Tarantino-esque in that sense that I didn’t want to encourage the cast to mess with the words. It was that good.

What’s next for you?
A lot of photography. I’m working on a series called Sorry, We’re Closed which is a collection landscapes of closed businesses, like rundown gas stations. I also want to start a portrait series on prisoners. Just gorgeous images of inmates. But I haven’t started that just yet.

King of Herrings debuts at the New Orleans Film Festival with a screening at the Prytania Theater on Sunday, Oct. 13 at 5 p.m. A second screening at the Prytania will take place Tuesday, Oct. 15 at 3:45 p.m. Tickets will be available starting Oct. 8. For more information on the film, visit kingofherrings.com or facebook.com/kingofherrings.

King of Herrings | The Trailer from King of Herrings on Vimeo.

The New Orleans Film Festival will showcase three additional films with Baton Rouge ties.

Water Like Stone: A Portrait of a Louisiana Fishing Village, a documentary by LSU filmmaker-in-residence Zack Godshall and Michael Pasquier, an assistant professor of religious studies at the university, will show Friday, Oct. 11, at 7:45 p.m. at the Contemporary Arts Center and a second time on Monday, Oct. 14, at noon at The Prytania.

A Man Without Words, a short film by Godshall and scored by LSU School of Music graduate Shane Monds, will be screen Sunday, Oct. 13, at 12:30 p.m. at The Prytania.

Father-Like Son, written by LSU alumni Mac Alsfeld and Andrew Megison, and including cast and crew of LSU students, will premiere Friday, Oct. 11 at a 10:15 showing at The Prytania.
The festival runs Oct. 10 – 17. Visit neworleansfilmsociety.org for more details and a complete schedule.