On White Horses, Paul Schrader & Other Luminaries: A Conversation with Randi Barros, Filmmaker, Editor, and Screenwriting Professor
“If you don’t ask, the answer is no.”
Last week’s post is a detailed list of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry book prizes—accessible here.
BOA Editions is accepting poetry manuscripts for its 10th annual A. Poulin Jr. Poetry Prize through 11/30.
Beginning Wednesday, 9/25 (6-8:30 PM PT), I'll be teaching a 10-week online short story workshop, "Four Beginnings, One Ending," for Stanford Continuing Studies - registration starts today, 8/19.
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In October 2021, the screenwriting mentorship organization CineStory hosted their annual feature retreat in the mountain village of Idyllwild, California. Around 30 screenwriters (novice to advanced) met for four days of mentorship with industry professionals who offered critical feedback and career advice.
It was at this retreat (highly recommended!) that I met today’s interviewee, Randi Barros, who was so warm and friendly from the moment we met that it felt as if we’d known each other for years. I met recent Bookish interviewee, dynamo Ellen Ancui, at this retreat too. (Ellen’s film Saverio, discussed in our interview, is “in the can” and now being edited. ⭐️)
Randi is a screenwriter and film editor based in San Luis Obispo, but she spent her formative years on the East Coast and attended Columbia University’s graduate program in screenwriting and directing before settling in California.
Earlier this year, Randi wrote and directed the short film, YES, which I saw a few weeks ago at its premier at AFI in Los Angeles. It’s an arresting and moving film (with moments of sly humor) about immigration, knee-jerk prejudice, and family, and I hope you’ll have a chance to see it soon too. Randi plans to enter it in a number of film festivals and is raising funds to help cover post-production expenses. I’ve embedded the link here if you’d like to contribute to YES’s GoFundMe campaign.
And now…
Christine/Bookish: You went to Columbia University and took classes with extremely influential filmmakers such as Paul Schrader. Who else did you study with at Columbia, and what were one or two things you learned during those years that you continue to think about often?
Randi Barros: I was at the Columbia MFA film program for Screenwriting/Directing, but I didn’t get an MFA from there. My undergraduate loan went into default in my second year, and I had just shot my thesis film, Goodnight Elizabeth. It was at the lab (back in the days when we still shot on film!), and I was desperate to get it out. I was already working as a film editor, and had a lot of work lined up, so I decided to just drop out, earn money editing, and finish my film.
I had a lot of wonderful teachers when I was at Columbia. Probably my favorite was Ralph Rosenblum—the editor of many iconic films like Annie Hall and The Producers. He was really supportive of my work even after I dropped out, and was full of wisdom and great stories about working with Woody Allen and Mel Brooks. I also was inspired by Vojtech Jasny, a Czech writer/director who was incredibly passionate—my husband and I (we met at Columbia) still quote him all the time.
He would tell us to push boundaries, never be afraid to ask for things (“If you don’t ask, the answer is no”), and to keep on making films, even if we had to pick up a camcorder and shoot them ourselves.
[Jasny] was convinced that white horses bring good luck and always stuck them in his films at opportune moments. We have a photo of a white horse in our house that we’ve named after him.
Paul Schrader was fascinating to me—he was tough but vulnerable at the same time. He would chain-smoke Carltons in the classroom (which I’m sure was not allowed!) while sometimes sharing personal stories about his life and struggles. Other times he’d challenge us with prompts or questions to help provoke us into becoming better directors.
Later, once I started teaching film at Cal Poly, I had to go back to school to finish my MFA. I found a wonderful low-residency program in L.A.—the Stephens Screen and TV Writing MFA, and that was fantastic. I had fabulous mentors there, especially Ken LaZebnik, who helped me develop my feature script, The Chicken Festival.
CS: You're a film editor as well as a screenwriter. Would you tell us about a couple of your recent editing projects?
RB: My most recent editing project was my short film, YES. It was a challenge to edit since I was also the writer and director of the film, but I tried to practice what Walter Murch, the great film editor, preaches about “seeing outside of the frame” and constantly stepping back to look at the film as a “virgin” audience would. I had to let go of a few of my favorite moments, but they weren’t advancing the story. It was strangely painful and liberating at the same time.
Other recent projects were the short film, Pennies, which is just starting to make the festival rounds. It was written and produced by Mary Beth Warner and directed by her teenage daughter, Lena Streitwieser, who is a bit of a directing savant. This is her sixth short film and she’s currently studying film at Trinity College in Dublin—and I don’t think she’s 20 years old yet.
I also recently edited a feature documentary, Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy Deville, which was directed by Larry Locke. It tells the story of the American musician and raconteur, Willy DeVille, who got his start at CBGB’s back in the early days of the Talking Heads and Patti Smith.
His band, Mink DeVille, was the first of the CBGB’s bands to be signed, but Willy was a madman and kind of ruined all of his chances. He’s huge in Europe, but barely known in this country – so there was a lot of drama to explore there.
CS: As noted above, you recently made the short film YES. What is its logline and what was its trajectory from script to produced film?
RB: YES tells the story of a young girl who has been unable to speak since losing both of her parents in a fire. She’s jolted out of her grief when she discovers an immigrant mother and daughter hiding in her backyard shed and must decide what to do. It’s a story of migration and human connection, told through the eyes of two eight-year-old girls.
The film actually came to me on a sleepless night—I think I was in a semi dream state and it just kind of played before my eyes. I woke up the next morning and scribbled some notes about it, but didn’t pick it up again until a couple of years later when I was asked to try out a new screenwriting software, SoCreate.
I thought, Okay, I’ll write YES. Once the script was done, I shared it with my screenwriting group, and one of the members reached out to me after and told me the film had to be made and she was going to give me $1,000 to get started. That was almost a year ago now, and it’s been a long journey to raise the rest of the money, which I did with the incredible support of friends, family, colleagues, and credit cards—and to get the film from concept to completion.
I knew right away that I wanted to work with one of my former students, Curtis Yap, as the Director of Photography. He just has such a poetic eye, and I knew he could capture the emotion of the story through his lens. We had a fantastic cast and crew, and though I was a little nervous about directing—it had been more than twenty years since I had directed a narrative film—I just loved it.
The shoot was four long days, and I don’t think I sat down once. I was just so incredibly focused on making the best film I could. I can’t wait to get back and direct again, hopefully next will be my feature script, The Chicken Festival.
CS: You teach screenwriting at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. What are the biggest challenges and rewards of being a writing teacher and teaching writer?
RB: I’d say the biggest challenge is the time commitment. I usually have 24 students in my writing class. They are very often first-time screenwriters, and they do two drafts of each script, so it’s a lot of reading, commenting, and engaging with them one-on-one. My husband sometimes jokes that by the time I add up the hours spent on this, I earn way less than minimum wage.
So, that’s hard, especially because it leaves little time for my own writing. But I feel like if you’re going to teach writing, students need to write, and you need to thoughtfully react—I’m infuriated by teachers who write “great job” or “dig deeper” and think that’s enough.
On the positive side, I feel like when you teach, you learn. My students write personal, character-driven screenplays, and as I guide them through the process of tuning in and finding their own unique stories, I also remind myself about the potential of my own stories.
Another benefit is connecting with students and their generation, which can be really fun and inspiring. Also, I teach a production class where students pitch the scripts that they created in the writing class, and the class votes on which ones to produce. Working in groups of four or five, the students then cast, direct, produce, and edit short films that screen at the San Luis Obispo Film Festival, so that’s always an exciting experience.
CS: What are you working on now?
RB: I’m just finishing up the final color and sound work for YES. We had a sneak preview screening in L.A. on July 25, and it felt incredible to see it on the big screen with an audience of friends, family, and colleagues. People seemed to be really moved by the film. I’m just starting the process now of sending it to film festivals, so hopefully it will get some traction there.
As I mentioned, I’m also in development for my first feature film, The Chicken Festival, which I’m hoping to get off the ground in the next year. It’s a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age film that takes place at a rural chicken festival over a long, hot summer weekend, amidst a heatwave, a family in crisis, and a first love, and it’s loosely based on my teen years in Dover, Delaware.
I’m working with a wonderful producer, Jennie Lew Tugend, who I met at CineStory, and the collaboration with her has been life-changing. I’m also in the early stages of a new screenplay that’s kind of a midlife coming-of-age romantic comedy.
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An award-winning screenwriter and film editor, Randi Barros’s character driven stories often focus on misfits, rebels, and unexpected moments of beauty. Her feature screenplay, The Chicken Fesitval, a Nicholl semifinalist, is in development. Her feature and television scripts have been honored by CineStory, the Writers Lab, Athena, Austin, The Grey List, Final Draft, and more.
Recent editing projects include the feature documentaries, Heaven Stood Still: The Incarnations of Willy Deville and Lives Well Lived. Randi teaches Storytelling and Filmmaking at Cal Poly University. She attended the MFA Film Program at Columbia University School of the Arts and received her MFA in Screen and Television Writing from Stephens College.
YES’ GoFundMe campaign link
Coda
Q: What do you call 2,000 mockingbirds?
A: Two kilo mockingbird.
[Source: Woman’s World Book Jokes]
Marvelous! Randi is a true gem and so are you for composing this article!