Liars and Lunatics :: Film Blog

Looking over all our pix for our feature film Liars and Lunatics. We noticed that our stills photographer took scores of pictures of the ballerina figurine. In fact, the ballerina probably has had a total of more photos taken than any of our actors in the film!

We counted. And out of the 1,000+ pix, about 20% of them are of the ballerina! That’s right… 1 out of every 5 photos features the ballerina figurine.

Okay, so some of the photos are pretty much the same, taken at slightly different angles. Others turned out slightly blurry. But the fact remains that the ballerina was one popular photo magnet.

Take a look…

And just in case, you want to see yet another angle on the ballerina, here she is… again!

(Continued from Part One…)

Months prior to filming the first footage of Liars and Lunatics, we began our search for for the perfect ballerina figurine. There was one problem. We hadn’t found anything that suited our purposes.

And then, a few days before principal photography began, there she was. A dark-haired ballerina! But with one drawback; there was only one figurine available.

One of the scenes in the screenplay called for us to smash the ballerina to pieces. With that in mind, we had intended to buy at least two identical figurines in order to get at least two takes. Oh well, we’d just have to be extra careful.

As it went, we scheduled the “smashing of the ballerina” to occur on the final day of shooting. But then we had second thoughts…

We discussed all sorts of scenarios: whether or not to drop it, throw it against the wall, smash it into a mirror. What if we didn’t like the take? We couldn’t go back and redo it since we only had the one ballerina. Maybe we shouldn’t smash her at all?

So…what happened to our ballerina? Sorry! You’ll have to watch the movie…

{{ Photo :: To smash, or not to smash the ballerina? That is the question. }}

You may have noticed photos of a ballerina figurine on some of our webpages for our film Liars and Lunatics. There’s a story behind that…

In the movie, the ballerina represents the James’ dead girlfriend, Paige. (It makes some sense when you realize that Paige is a dancer.)

After Paige’s death, the ballerina comes to act as an idol of sorts for James; something he won’t let go of. (Which, it seems, is one of the reasons why he finds himself in a mental asylum.)

Our screenplay called for the ballerina to be smashed to pieces in one of the scenes. So, in order to prepare for this, we searched high and low for the right ballerina. In fact, several versions of the same figurine so we could do multiple takes if we needed them.

The thing is, we had trouble finding any ballerina figurines.

And all the ballerinas we did come across had blond hair and looked like they were five years old. Well, since our Paige (played by Maya Serhan) didn’t have blond hair—and she’s considerably older than five!—we had to persist in our search for the perfect ballerina figurine.

To be continued…

{{ Photo :: Paige (played by Maya Serhan) looks down at the ballerina. }}