My Crucial Prop
2020 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL: Filmmaker Magazine asks one very open-ended question to all Sundance filmmakers and invites them to respond. This year the question was "Whether capturing or creating a world, the objects onscreen tell as much of a story as the people within it. Whether sourced or accidental, insert shot or background detail, what prop or piece of set decoration do you find particularly integral to your film? What story does it tell?”
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“MEATS” - director/writer Ashley Williams
It was an expensive prop, the dead lamb carcass that I chopped to edible bits with a “breaking knife” on camera for my short film, “MEATS”. The price of this towering, sinewy sacrifice was lumped in with our location fee at the butcher shop in Chelsea where we shot, after business hours. The flesh itself ran us about $1500, but was inarguably integral to the storytelling by way of acting as a visible elephant in the room, silently demanding attention throughout the roughly 8 minutes it is on camera. I was adamant that the film only ask questions, never answer them, which eventually translated into literal questions being directed to the dead animal itself, and in turn, to my audience. As of 2017, roughly 97% of this country was comprised of carnivores. Are we, the 97%, able to regard the reality of the food we take into our bodies? If so, how do those feelings present themselves? Gratitude? Shame? Are we brave enough to let those feelings affect our food choices?
When shot-listing with my DP, Roman Vasyanov, I quickly realized we needed to “turn around onto the lamb,” and get her coverage. As her scene partner I can confidently say that’s the best performance in the film. My involuntary sidekick stands, center frame, mouth agape, waiting to see what I’ll do next.
The day after we wrapped the short I went back to the Butcher shop and picked up every piece of her, now wrapped up in butcher paper like a grab bag of presents. I carried her home, all $1500 worth, in heavy cooler bags on the subway with the intention of feeding her to my family. She went into my freezer next to the frozen blueberries and that one bag of breastmilk I can’t seem to throw out. My kids take her head out every once in a while and touch the teeth, squealing.
Her presence as a prop in my house is almost more poignant to me now than its presence in my film. Her body is a constant reminder, now months later, of someone who gave their life so I could ask questions of my audience. Under the hum of the refridgerator, the biggest questions of all now echo through my kitchen: What are my choices now? What’ll I do next? Am I brave enough? Are you?
