Twelve questions for Desi Van Til

Desi Van Til wrote and executive produced the movie Tumbledown, a comedic love story based in the town of Farmington. The movie premiered this spring at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City to a sold out show. It will also be featured as the opening night movie for Maine’s International Film Festival at the Waterville Opera House on July 10. Van Til is a Mt. Blue High School graduate.

1) Tell me about your experience growing up in rural Maine. How has it affected your career in creating movies?

Growing up in the Farmington area was one of the more fortunate things that ever happened to me. It has affected my career by being such a strong influence on who I turned out to be. The beauty of western Maine and the people that create the community there are both a powerful source of inspiration. During the years in which I lived in LA especially, I found myself thinking so much about quality of life, and how there are so many elements of the good life in Maine that money cannot buy because they relate to things like space and time. My childhood in Maine afforded me both of those things, which are necessary components to writing and happiness both.

2) Writing can be such a therapeutic activity. Is it the same for writing screenplays? Did writing or producing Tumbledown lead you to any self-discoveries?

I think screenwriting is therapeutic in that you end up exploring numerous facets of yourself through the characters that you create, and try to solve problems on screen that you can’t necessarily solve as easily in real life. As for self-discoveries, maybe it helped bring into relief for me that I was a little homesick for Maine. I was still living in LA when I started writing Tumbledown, and who knows if on some level, I began writing it so I would have a concrete reason to quit my good development job and move back east.

3) What advice you could offer to current Mt. Blue High Schoolers who are writers pursuing their craft?

My advice would be to spend more time actually working on your craft – whatever it is – than you do talking about it. Be open to criticism, but also have faith that what you are trying to accomplish may not satisfy everybody. As long as you give it sincere effort, you only have your own artistic sensibility to please. Most people don’t give specific notes to a painter or visual artist on their craft, but films are a more populist art-form, so people tend to feel more entitled to voice their opinion. So you have to be ready to accept feedback from those you respect just as easily as from those who have only an uninformed gut reaction; both can be extremely useful. Either way, be ready to sift through the responses until you find the critiques that really resonate with you, even if they are the most challenging. Otherwise, you’ll have mush at the end and please no one, least of all yourself.

4) How did you break through that ‘stuck’ feeling that is so often associated with small town life?

I think the only time I felt stuck was in the morass of middle school awkwardness, though I’d guess that feeling probably would have been the same no matter where I was raised. As for working in the film industry, it wasn’t until college that I met anyone who had spoken about that as a viable career option. When I was 22, after school and a year in Paris, with huge college loans and zero experience, I moved to LA hoping my enthusiasm and financial desperation would help me land some meaningful work. I’d had no internships, no real working knowledge of the business, and got an assistant job to my first of many mentors. So in some ways, the advice is merely to actually do the thing that interests you rather than looking for reasons not to, since there are always plenty of reasons not to take a chance on yourself.

5) You’ve had a really interesting career working with producers and studio heads in LA. How did you get started doing that? What made you want to make your own movies?

I got my first break as an assistant to a kind and tremendously talented man who is now the president of production for Warner Brothers. He spent two years patiently teaching me the business, which was another stroke of good luck for me. I don’t know that I would have lasted so long in LA had I not started with such a sensitive and brilliant exec who brought me into his family. And then I worked for five years as a development VP for two wonderful women who were like my LA mothers at Roth/Arnold productions where I had the opportunity to associate produce a couple of films, including 13 Going on 30. After those years of reading scripts and working with writers and directors, I was inspired to try my own hand at it. Once there was a working draft of Tumbledown, Sean was actually the one who begged me to leave my job and move to Maine so he could direct it.

6) Have you climbed Tumbledown? What is your favorite Maine hike to do?

I’ve hiked Tumbledown more times than I can count but definitely not enough! Some of my favorite memories involve leaping into that pond at the top and being astonished by how few houses you can see from its vista. Whenever I would bring a friend to my hometown to show them where I was from, I always felt like I had to take them up Tumbledown. Other favorite hikes include Little Bigelow for that breathtaking Carrabasset Valley view that you barely get a glimpse of until you make it to the summit and it opens out in front of you. It’s a good reveal.

7) I know that you worked really hard to get legislation passed that would have made it possible to shoot in Maine and that you were disappointed when that fell through, but I heard that you want to film your next movie somewhere in Maine. Can you give us any details about that? 

Sean and I are going to keep trying to make films in our home-state since we are both working on separate projects that are set here, and I think one of two things will happen. Either the state legislature will pass a bill giving Maine competitive film incentives to surrounding states (less likely), OR  some of the New England states will scale back their incentives and the playing field will be leveled, though I have a hard time imagining New York will lose their incentives anytime soon. Otherwise, we can try to make much smaller-scale films that don’t rely on incentives to make financial sense to investors. Either way will be a challenge but making movies always is.

8) What is your favorite memory of growing up in Farmington?

Hard to pick one, but here are a few: Playing ping pong in the Bogar’s barn on New Year’s Eve. Splashing down those natural water slides at Smalls Falls. Going to the movies with my parents at either Narrow Gauge or Railroad Square and breaking the films down on the ride home. Coaching little kids soccer at Bob Leib’s camp with my friends from the soccer team. Acting in the Miracle Worker at Sandy River Players. Lying on the dock at Susan Verrill’s camp on Parker Pond. Making a Romeo and Juliet on ice video for 9th grade English in which Seth Woodcock and I filmed a chase scene on a sled. Your basic Maine stuff.

9) I read that your husband, Sean Mewshaw, directed the movie. What is like working so closely with your husband? Were there moments of disagreement or was it pretty seamless? 

Over the many years of doing drafts of the script based on notes that Sean gave me, as we went from a dating couple to a married couple with children, there were definitely times where we wanted to light each other on fire, but once we were in production and the daily challenges of making the film loomed so large, we were each other’s best and safest harbor. It was an enormous relief to be on the same team. Plus, there is no one else I would have wanted to protect the script and direct this movie than Sean. He didn’t just help me make the screenplay its best version of itself, but he has grown to understand and love this town over the dozen or so years we’ve been together, which was important to me. Plus, he’s a genuinely gifted director, which helps.

10) Are the characters based on anyone in particular?

Some of the characters were based on actual Farmingtonians, most notably, my former boss at DD&G Kenny Brechner, who is played by Griffin Dunne. The character of Curtis was also loosely inspired by my old next-door neighbor growing up. But the lead characters are more invented, Hannah sharing more in common with me than anyone else.

11) Tumbledown was featured at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. What was that like for you? What were the highlights of the event? 

Premiering at Tribeca was an unforgettable experience for both of us, and definitely one of the most gratifying nights of our lives. This film took eight years to get made, so to share it with a sold-out crowd of 900 people in NYC with a truly responsive audience laughing and crying at all the right moments? It was awesome. It felt great that the long ride on this patience-testing roller coaster of indie filmmaking wasn’t for nothing. Plus, doing Q&As with Jason Sudeikis is always fun since he’s an improv genius.

12) Lastly, you live in Portland, where there are more restaurants than seagulls. Where is your favorite place to eat? 

Tough one, but if I had a dream day of pigging out I’d say Tandem Bakery for Brianna’s cinnamon bun, Hot Suppa for eggs, Eventide for a lobster roll at lunchtime, and anything at the cozy Blue Spoon for dinner.

For more information and to buy tickets for the upcoming festival, visit www.miff.org.