TFT grad student uses Kickstarter to fund short film
Set aboard the SSV Tole Mour, “The Apple Falls,” UCLA graduate student Doug Turner’s short film, is currently fundraising on Kickstarter. (Guided Discoveries)
By Ashley Vu
Sept. 22, 2014 1:22 p.m.
Doug Turner’s film crew is set to shoot on deck of the SSV Tole Mour, the largest sailing school vessel on the West Coast, and backers on Kickstarter have been jumping aboard.
In a little less than three weeks since his Kickstarter launch, backers have donated more than $16,000 as of Monday to Turner’s short film project, “The Apple Falls.”
Turner, a UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television graduate student in the production/directing program, launched his Kickstarter campaign Sept. 3 with a goal of raising $18,000 by Sept. 27 in order to fund the production.
A story about Grant, a good-for-nothing boy born into wealth who seeks his father’s approval, “The Apple Falls” shows an ultimate switch in relationship roles between father and son. The project’s real-life inspiration occurred nearly 10 years ago when Turner took a business trip with his father to Belize. One night at a bar, Turner said, two women in their late 50s began flirting with his father, who became curious and asked Turner questions about women and relationships.
“Before then, I’d never thought of my father as a sexual being,” Turner said. “Now here he was, this successful man, asking me questions he didn’t know. It was a role reversal.”
As the night wore on, and the women grew increasingly persistent while Turner’s father grew increasingly uncomfortable, Turner said he did the only thing he could do to save his father’s situation: He made out with one of the older ladies. In his early 20s at the time, Turner said he could sense a shift in the father and son roles during the course of the night’s events.
“I remember him telling me this story in our improv class we were taking at UCLA,” said Lauren Hoekstra, Turner’s fiancée and an alumna of the UCLA TFT production/directing program who is producing “The Apple Falls.” “He told it in front of the whole class, and he got massive laughs, so I said to him that he had a perfect little moment for a short film.”
The positive responses to the story and Hoekstra’s encouragement spurred Turner to transform the humorous encounter with the older women into a short film, setting the project into motion nearly two years ago.
Since that time, Turner drafted several versions of the script. None satisfied him until the latest version written by Spencer Ballou, whom Turner met in a 2011 French crime film class at UCLA and approached to work on the script.
“When I read the draft (Turner) gave me, I saw the comedic potential in it,” said Ballou, an alumnus of the UCLA TFT screenwriting program and “The Apple Falls” writer. “I think everyone else did as well, and that’s why they jumped on board to donate.”
Turner said the promotional video on Kickstarter aims for comedy as well.
“So what’s my movie about?” Turner asks the camera matter-of-factly in the video. “It’s a father-son story. Like ‘The Godfather.’ But better.”
Growing up, Turner said he felt similarly to Grant’s character in that his dad was successful owning his own company while he, the son, felt like the slacker.
“(The title of the film) comes from the saying, ‘The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree,'” Turner said. “And like that, (Grant) finds he and his dad aren’t so different.”
Hoekstra said the casting process for “The Apple Falls,” currently in pre-production, has been difficult since Turner currently works as an assistant director for Jamie Babbit’s “Fresno” during the day.
Nevertheless, the film will be shot on Catalina Island, where Turner grew up. Turner was able to gain access to the SSV Tole Mour for shooting as his parents own a marine camp company, Guided Discoveries: Catalina Island Marine Institute. Additionally, Hoekstra said one of the main selling points for the project on Kickstarter has been a sailing trip aboard the 156-foot SSV Tole Mour for a donation of $174.50.
Other large rewards vary with donation amounts and include a private dinner with the filmmakers and a tour of the island with Turner.
Although these rewards have drawn in a large source of donations, the largest funds have come from Turner’s family, friends and UCLA colleagues.
Finding the support so far on Kickstarter a bit overwhelming, Turner said he is grateful, hoping to eventually submit “The Apple Falls” to several festivals after completion.
