We hosted Anna Boden as an Artist In Residence at The San Francisco Film Society recently. I found it interesting to hear her say she and Ryan Fleck had been inspired by Peter Sollet’s RAISING VICTOR VARGAS and the prize-winning short that preceded it 5 FEET HIGH & RISING. They had written the HALF NELSON script and in trying to figure out how to do a short that could help get the feature made they decided to shift the focus away from the focus on the teacher (later played by Ryan Gosling in the feature) and put in on Shareeka Epps the student (and who stars in each the short and feature). This is the short GOWANUS BROOKLYN that helped get the feature HALF NELSON shot.
The blog for aspiring & established filmmakers of independent films. by ted hope.
