{"id":799582,"date":"2019-09-18T17:01:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T23:01:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=371487"},"modified":"2019-09-18T17:01:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T23:01:23","slug":"a-film-of-friendship-standing-up-falling-down-kicks-off-the-39th-annual-breck-film-fest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/a-film-of-friendship-standing-up-falling-down-kicks-off-the-39th-annual-breck-film-fest\/","title":{"rendered":"A film of friendship: \u2018Standing up, Falling Down\u2019 kicks off the 39th annual Breck Film Fest"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u201cStanding Up, Falling Down,\u201d starring Ben Schwartz and Billy Crytal, will screen at the opening night of the Breck Film Fest on Thursday, Sept. 19.<\/strong>
Noah M. Rosenthal \/ Tilted Windmill Productions<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

According to former Edwards resident Matt Ratner, a key to directing movies is having a plan so one can deviate from it and building a production schedule that\u2019s ambitious but achievable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last thing you want to do is tell Billy (Crystal) he can\u2019t do a second take because we\u2019re out of time,\u201d said Ratner. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou got have to be secure enough in yourself and secure enough in who you are,\u201d he said. \u201cIf someone else has a good idea, I don\u2019t care if it\u2019s Billy Crystal or a PA, \u2026 this is this collaborative medium where I get to have these smart people around me who have all of these things to contribute. To not listen to them is insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

That flexibility has paid off and Ratner\u2019s directorial debut, \u201cStanding up, Falling Down,\u201d featuring Crystal and Ben Schwartz will screen at Breck Film Fest\u2019s opening night.<\/p>\n

The movie is about a struggling stand-up comedian (Schwartz) who moves back to Long Island after abandoning the Los Angeles comedy scene. There he forms an unlikely friendship an alcoholic dermatologist (Crystal) who gives him career and life advice. A fan of Alexander Payne\u2019s work like \u201cNebraska\u201d and \u201cSideways,\u201d Ratner aimed for the drama-comedy to have a tone that was grounded, yet elevated.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s looking for actors who are basing what they\u2019re doing on some sort of truth, not shtick,\u201d said Ratner as he talked about recruiting people who can execute his vision. \u201cThat carries through to everybody. A director\u2019s biggest job is hiring good people and making sure they\u2019re paddling the boat in the same direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Along with playing on the opening night of the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival, the film has already screened at the Vail Film Festival last month and Ratner is excited to return to his former home of Colorado. The Cleveland native grew up skiing, spent a year in Edwards after college and still returns to the area about six months a year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have to be home in L.A. for work, but in terms of lifestyle, I\u2019m just a happier person in Colorado. \u2026 That Sierra cement thing is real,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In Ohio he learned to appreciate the arts at an early age from his grandmother and his mother, who ran a gallery in Cleveland. Though he wasn\u2019t the stereotypical cinephile who made home movies with classmates after school, he watched foundational \u201980s films like \u201cRaiders of the Lost Ark\u201d and kindled his passion for storytelling by directing student plays in high school.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m Jewish,\u201d Ratner said, \u201cand growing up Jewish, there\u2019s so much storytelling that\u2019s part of the culture. It\u2019s a culture of storytellers. That was something that was always important to me.\u201d<\/p>\n

He followed that path by studying acting in college at Northwestern University, yet he gained more skills from the holistic education on multiple facets of the industry that he could use behind the camera rather than standing on the stage.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a director that\u2019s so helpful because if I know more about cinematography than my cinematographer, I\u2019ve hired the wrong person. But I\u2019ve got to know enough to have a conversation with them and articulate what I want.\u201d <\/p>\n

Though theater is Ratner\u2019s first love, it wasn\u2019t until after that year in Colorado and a brief stint in working at the Justice Department during the Obama administration that he decided to go to L.A. \u201cIt was really sort of good, dynamic, interesting work, but it was turning into a career and I didn\u2019t want to wear a suit to work everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reach and scope of Hollywood called to him so he became a producer. Eventually writer Peter Hoare handed him the script to \u201cStanding Up, Falling Down\u201d and Ratner called Hoare about developing it the next day. Ratner had found the movie he wanted to commit years of his life to by finally sitting in the director\u2019s chair.<\/p>\n

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Billy Crystal, director Matt Ratner and Ben Schwartz work on the set of \u201cStanding Up, Falling Down.\u201d Schwartz plays Scott, a struggling comedian who leaves Los Angeles, California, to move home to Long Island, New York. There he befriends the charming, alcoholic dermatologist Marty portrayed by Crystal.<\/strong>
Noah M. Rosenthal \/ Tilted Windmill Productions<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI really wanted to do this story because I thought it was real,\u201d Ratner said. \u201cAt times it\u2019s uproariously funny, but it\u2019s also deals with things I struggle with, things like the nature of regret. You\u2019re often crying and laughing at the same time.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Hoare\u2019s script and himself as a director and producer, all Ratner had left to do was the find the actors to bring the nuanced, layered roles to life. It started merely as a dream to get someone with Crystal\u2019s resume to be the dermatologist Marty, but Ratner was on a plane to L.A. to meet with the actor two days after Crystal read the script. It then wasn\u2019t difficult to convince Schwartz to come on board as the protagonist Scott once he heard Crystal was involved. As Ratner hoped, the two\u2019s comedic talents quickly shone through in addition to their earnestness.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of takes where you\u2019re biting your tongue so you don\u2019t laugh and ruin the take,\u201d Ratner said. \u201cThey both were incredibly committed. \u2026 If you\u2019re a fan of \u201cParks and Recreation,\u201d you\u2019ll see some of the Ben you know and love, but you\u2019ll also see him shift into another gear, and the same with Billy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Schwartz and Crystal never met in person before the shoot and they had only two days of rehearsal before the cameras started rolling. The pair naturally fed off of each other to deliver the moving performances Ratner wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith a big studio you\u2019d do chemistry reads to see if they\u2019d work well together. This was kind of a leap of faith and they\u2019ve become incredibly close. The relationship between the two of them on-screen and off-screen sort of mirrored each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the screening will be a Q&A featuring Ratner, Hoare and actor Eloise Mumford, who plays Scott\u2019s hometown girlfriend Becky. A theatrical release is planned for early 2020.<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cStanding Up, Falling Down,\u201d starring Ben Schwartz and Billy Crytal, will screen at the opening night of the Breck Film Fest on Thursday, Sept. 19.Noah M. Rosenthal \/ Tilted Windmill Productions According to former Edwards resident Matt Ratner, a key to directing movies is having a plan so one can deviate from it and building […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-799582","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-24 06:43:06","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799582","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799582"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799582\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799582"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799582"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799582"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}