City Arts write-up for Beach Town!

City Arts online just put up a very nice interview/review about Beach Town! Check it out here, complete transcript below!

A Rock n Roll Beach Movie of the Mind

Wednesday, May 27, 2015 | by TONY KAY

Nothing much happens in Beach Town—the movie or the place. And that’s a considerable part of its charm.

The third feature from Seattle director Erik Hammen—and his first to play the Seattle International Film Festival—follows Noelle (Sarah Winsor), a recent transplant to an unnamed backwater coastal town, as she ambles through the summer. Along the way she meets cute with Arthur (Ahren Buhmann), a local who sings lead in punk band,the Clanking Chains, but Noelle’s recent breakup with another musician renders her gun-shy at the prospect of a new romance.

Describing that thread of a storyline makes Beach Town sound a lot more literal—and a lot less special—than it is. It’s not so much about young romance as it is about capturing a corner of the world that’s not beholden to the tumult and grind of city life. It’s also about that strange confluence of memories alternately being made and remembered: Despite being set in modern times, Beach Town is shot in the soft, charmingly-faded tones of an old photograph nestled in your parents’ scrapbook.  Hammen—a musician himself—even nails the dynamics (and humor) inherent among a bunch of kids creating their own music scene in a sleepy small town. The end result is a guilelessly sweet, sometimes wryly funny and unexpectedly resonant snapshot that gently surprises you like saltwater circling your bare feet on a sandy beach.

Hammen—who also wrote, produced, edited, and composed songs for Beach Town—chatted about his movie and the inspirations behind its evolution.

Why this particular setting?The beach is great because it has an inherent tension in it, but it’s not overt. You’ve got this beautiful landscape but there’s something unreconstructed about those towns that has a sense of promise to them. I‘ve always felt this tension of promise at the beach. It’s exciting to me. That was the impetus of the movie. At certain points during a summer, you think, “This is great. This is perfect.” Usually, it’s just one moment. This movie’s kind of a compressed summer day, stretched over about a month or so. But it’s got the feelings that I wanted to evoke.

You’ve constructed a little composite beach town from Ballard and Georgetown for the movie, thanks to camera angles and editing. Was there ever a point where you’d thought about shooting in an actual beach town?I definitely thought that Ballard was it. Initially, I’d also thought of Alki: That has a big strip, just like an LA beach. But I didn’t want this place to look like LA. I wanted it to look like its own thing. The beaches in the Northwest don’t look like those beaches. I think that’s part of the beauty out here. Also, Georgetown worked because it’s got the buildings, and also if you get down low enough and shoot, you see sky instead of trees. You need a certain amount of sky to at least imply that you’re near a beach. It was mechanical but it was also aesthetic. A couple of scenes were also shot in the U District. We just kind of cut-and-pasted to make it work.

I shot a lot at Golden Gardens. That beach was so great. I love the publicness of that beach. Here’s a beach that’s not private and the people that show up are from all walks of life, all economic levels, all ethnic backgrounds. 

Your actors add a level of believability. The leads are both charming but they look like normal, functioning human beings.Great! That was crucial. With Sarah Winsor, I thought, “This kid is way too cool. She’s gonna get a better offer and she’s gonna leave.” This isn’t a horror movie or something that’s fashionable like that. And she is cool, but not too cool. She’s also bookish: She’s a reader and a little quiet. I didn’t know that until I got to know her. And Ahren, the boy who plays Arthur, was a happy accident: He was the boyfriend of the girl who plays the character of Farrah in the movie. He was also the technical director at Balagan Theater. That was his full-time day job, which is very involved. And he did the color correction on our movie, too.

The business with the bands and the DJ character who’s sort of a Greek chorus in the movie are funny without going over the top. Was it ever an issue keeping things outside of the realm of cartoonishness?
Not really. I basically told the actors, “This is what you’re doing,” and they did it. It was as simple as that. With your average indie movie set at a beach, it’d be made as a parody or extreme sports or it’d be some sort of edgy reinvention of a beach movie. This movie is none of those things. But the actors were really able to get into the spirit of what I was looking for.

The DJ character was fun. Steven [Sterne, the actor playing the DJ] got a huge kick out of playing it. That character’s funny, but we made a concerted effort to not make him too cartoonish, mostly out of respect for the film’s sense of place. Eccentrics like this guy can live in this [fictional] place, and they’re not getting priced out by condos. No one there is worried about rents. That’s beautiful—and that’s why it’s fiction!

Beach Town plays June 2 and June 4 at SIFF Uptown as part of Seattle International Film Festival.