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Arts & Entertainment

Middlesex Arts: Movie Magic, On a Budget

Ariel Frenkel's first film has made its way to the New Jersey International Film Festival

Movies cost a lot of money to make. Those action-packed blockbusters playing at the multiplex can cost upwards of a $100 million and even so-called small, art films have multi-million-dollar budgets.

Therefore, it’s understandable that Ariel Frenkel is feeling pretty good about “Pluto,” the feature film he wrote, directed and stars in and which is being screened June 5 during the New Jersey International Film Festival. Frenkel made his move for $25,000.

Frenkel says while he’s always done some writing, acting is his passion. He grew up in North Brunswick and received a BFA in acting with a minor in musical theater from Montclair State University. While in college, he won the Irene Ryan Acting Competition at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. He is a member of StrangeDog, a Jersey-based theater company and a New York improv group called Cake Battered Wives.

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These days he lives in Queens, NY, and is trying to make it as an actor. He’s performed professionally on regional stages throughout the country and has appeared in some television commercials.

One reason he made a movie is because he saw it as a way to show people in the film industry what he can do. Usually when filmmakers do that, they produce a short film. But even in this day of YouTube and being able to post anything online, Frenkel thought a full-length movie was the way to go.
“It’s such a crapshoot, who’s going to actually see these (short films), and it seemed to me that making a movie was the smarter thing to do,” he says. “So once I knew what I wanted to do, I started developing the story. Because I’m not a writer first, I was very open to taking lots of suggestions and I rewrote the thing a million times and did readings and got as many suggestions as I could from people with different experiences, whether they be actors or writers or directors or producers.”
“Pluto” stars Frenkel as the title character, a young man with a lot of money but little direction. He’s getting over his father’s death and spends his money on disguises and costumes in order to play pranks on strangers and the people in his life.
“It’s about his relationships and how his new hobbies affect his relationships, and then a new girl comes into his life,” Frenkel says, describing his movie as a “quirky, dark comedy.”
It took about two years for him to make the movie, a year for writing and a year to film and edit. He worked mainly with people he knew and also hired one professional actress, Elaine Bromka, whose credits include “Law & Order,” “Sex and The City” and the 1989 John Candy comedy "Uncle Buck."  Bromka plays Pluto’s mother.
While the movie is very much his vision, Frenkel says making it was a collaborative process as he worked with assistant directors, cameraman, his lighting and sound crews and the makeup person.
“It was real guerilla-style but definitely a real film set,” Frenkel says. “It looks great and I’m pretty excited that this festival already accepted it because validation from strangers is always better than from your friends.”

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Making the movie on such a tight budget was tough, he says, but the finished product is its own reward.

“People watch it and go, Wow that was a real movie, and I try not to be offended by that,” he says.

His small budget also led to him bringing some creative thinking to the moviemaking process.

“I have this philosophy with all art in general that if it looks bad it has to look bad on purpose,” he says. “So with that in mind I played around with certain effects on things, the style of film changes throughout.”

So far, the film festival at Rutgers is the only festival the movie has been accepted to. But he’s in touch with some others and plans on continuing to submit it.

“I think it’s pretty solid and I think people will really like it,” he says. “My goal is to get into enough festivals that maybe by the end of it. I can get some kind of distribution. Some of the stuff on Netflix is so bad, I know it’s a lot better than some of that.”

“Pluto” will be screened during the New Jersey International Film Festival on June 5. The program will begin with the short documentary, “Eatala: A Life in Klezmer” at 7 p.m. Ariel Frankel will be at the screening. The film will be shown at Voorhees Hall near the corner of George and Hamilton streets on the College Avenue Campus of Rutgers University in New Brunswick. Admission costs $10, $9 seniors/students. For information, call 732-932-8482 or go to www.njfilmfest.com

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