"Brother's Shadow": Todd S. Yellin on Video Store Serendipity, Duncan Sheik, and Hebrew School

Interview by Josh Ford

"5 Questions for..." in which we ask WJFF filmmakers 5 things about themselves, their films and other stuff you want to know.

Brother's Shadow director Todd S. Yellin speaks with WJFF Director Josh Ford.

Tell us a little bit about the genesis of Brother's Shadow – you wrote the screenplay as well?

I co-wrote the film with Ivan Krim, who I met when we were teaching test prep (GMAT, LSAT, GRE, SAT) at Stanley Kaplan in NYC. Ivan and I both love early seventies dramas (Five Easy Pieces, The Last Picture Show, Panic in Needle Park, etc.) and wanted to write a screenplay that had the grit and texture of such character driven pieces. I was also looking to make my first feature after working in documentaries; what I needed was a script that would attract top notch actors but could be shot on a modest budget. Living in Brooklyn at the time, and having cut salmon in Alaska, I wasn’t hard pressed to pick the locales. The furniture making was more about immersing ourselves in a sub-culture we weren’t familiar with at the time; we wanted the main character to pursue a type of art that hadn’t been the focus of a feature film.

It is an amazing cast – how were you able to get Judd Hirsch and Scott Cohen on board for an indie film like this?

I worked my way through film school (USC) in the early nineties by managing the laser disc department of a Sunset Blvd. video store. Celebrity brushes were a daily occurrence; I sold the Planet of the Apes series to Roddy McDowell and The Godfather series to Diane Keaton. Always with my short film reel under the counter, I impressed an A-list casting director Louis DiGiaimo (The Godfather, Rain Man, Gladiator) enough to pay me $300 a week as his assistant. After six months of the hardest 300 bucks/week I ever earned, Lou and I went our separate ways. Over ten years later I called him and was pleased when he remembered who I was. He read the script, liked it and agreed to cast it for a fraction of his usual rate. Lou pulled in Scott Cohen and the two of them then landed Judd Hirsch.

How big a part does Jewish identity play in your characters? Did you think you were making a “Jewish film” at the time?

For a long time I rebelled against my Jewish roots, mainly because my secular parents forced me to go to an Orthodox Hebrew school, the one that had the least expensive dues and a convenient car pool arrangement. When writing the script we wanted to create flesh and blood characters; defining their relationship with religion was another way to make the Grodens well rounded. I had enough research to do about furniture makers and wanted them to have a religion that I knew something about. It’s a film about furniture craftsmen who happen to be Jewish.

Again, the soundtrack is amazing. How did Duncan Sheik get involved in the film?

I was invited to a Duncan Sheik concert while we were in post-production and was struck by how much the audience were exactly the people who I thought would connect with Brother's Shadow. I enjoy Duncan’s cerebral rock style and was thrilled when he liked the rough cut and decided to come on board.

If you could have one Washington, DC celebrity (political or otherwise) attend your screening, who would it be and why?

Barbara Boxer. As someone who lives in California, it’s refreshing to have someone who represents me that I respect both personally and ideologically.

Visit the filmmaker's Web site for Brother's Shadow at http://www.brothersshadow.com/

Brother's Shadow screens at 6:30pm at the Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema on Thursday, December 7, 2006 and at 3:20pm at the DCJCC's Aaron & Cecile Goldman Theater on Sunday, December 10, 2006

Interview by Josh Ford