Inside The Making of Fantasy/Dramedy THE OTHER YOU With Director Shoshana Rosenbaum
What if you could live someone else’s life? What if that person’s “perfect” life — with great kids, a loyal and loving spouse, and a dream career — was yours? What if that “someone else”…was you? In director Shoshana Rosenbaum’s first feature-length endeavor The Other You, a frustrated mom/wife/aspiring author — Annie, played by Beth Hylton — is overwhelmed by a distracted husband (Jack, played by Kris Arnold), three disobedient and demanding children in daughters Sophia (Jules Kanarek), Scarlet (Vivienne Sievers) and son Wyatt (Dennis Courtis), and a chaotic domestic life that she’ll do anything to free herself from.
As Annie tries to write the first draft of her future best-seller in her messy bedroom, a heavenly light bursts from the hinges of a small closet door. With the turn of a knob, Annie crawls into an incredible yet imaginary “alternate universe” where her kids behave, her hubby charms and her literary career soars thanks to encouragement from fellow writer Mimi (Staci Dickerson).
Frequently entering and exiting and re-entering that universe, Annie revels in the too-good-to-be-true thrills of a world that’s been impossible for her to realize in real life, only for that world and the “perfect” doubles of her family and friends to become anything but immaculate. As her genuine husband and kids notice how much her travels affect them as much as they affect the woman of the house, will Annie appreciate the life she has before her fantasy becomes a nightmare?
Scripted by Julie Gold, and with the film’s cast playing both the real and fantasy versions of their characters, The Other You continues Rosenbaum’s fascination with stories where average individuals imagine themselves as the people they wanted to be but never became, living in worlds where their dreams — and dream existences — became their glorious and sometimes horrific realities.
While her short films Goblin Baby and Night Waking looked at, respectively, motherhood and family from a frightening perspective, Rosenbaum’s 2018 drama Hide and Seek explored parenthood and unfulfilled ambitions from the viewpoint of an ex-rocker turned homebound dad (Johnny Alonso) who gets a firsthand look at the life he could have had had he not traded in the guitar for the Gerber bottle.
Rosenbaum’s daily balancing act between her creative and parental duties were as influential to the story and protagonists of The Other You as the mom/filmmaker’s admiration of other tales that show the clash between fantasy and reality — Being John Malkovich, the J.K. Simmons thriller Counterpart — and as Rosenbaum explains in this in-depth conversation about her new movie, the project was also proof of how the limitations of its production encouraged rather than inhibited creativity on the set.
(NOTE: For those living in or traveling to the Washington, D.C. area, The Other You will premiere on February 13th at the D.C. Independent Film Festival, which takes place at The Avalon Theatre [located at 5612 Connecticut Avenue Northwest]. Showtime is for 8 PM Eastern, and you can buy tickets at the festival’s EventBrite and FilmFreeway pages here. Rosenbaum says that a distribution deal for the film is in the works, and its official Substack page will have more details on where audiences can watch The Other You once it ends its festival run.)
Chris Hadley: What family, sci-fi, supernatural and fantasy films inspired you as you prepared to direct The Other You, and what did you do to put your own unique creative imprint on this movie’s storyline?
Shoshana Rosenbaum (director, The Other You): I’ve always loved stories about parallel worlds and doppelgangers. Back in the ’90s I loved Sliding Doors, The Double Life of Veronique (about a Polish woman named Veronika who has a French counterpart named Veronique) and Being John Malkovich. I also love Coraline — I especially love the art in the graphic novel version. During pre-production for our film, I watched the series Counterpart, a spy thriller about two parallel worlds on either side of the Berlin Wall. J.K. Simmons plays two very different versions of the same person, who meet and interact with each other. Watching his performances helped me visualize how our Annie and Closet Annie and Jack and Closet Jack could interact and play off each other.
CH: As both a filmmaker and a real life parent, how did you identify with both this movie’s story and its lead character — Annie, played by Beth Hylton — who’s struggling to pursue her own artistic career while being a mom and wife?
SR: Like Annie, I work at home, trying to balance creative work with parenting three kids, so I could definitely relate to her struggles! I think the film does a good job of raising issues (in a funny, fantastical way) that are familiar to many male/female couples. In many families, the work of keeping a household and family running is taken on unconsciously by the woman, and that work can be invisible to her male partner. As a society, we’ve started to develop a vocabulary around these issues (“mental load”, “emotional labor”, etc.), which helps.
When the woman in question is an artist, it adds another layer. Artists don’t always make a living through their art, and in a capitalist society we tend to value paid work more, so art that doesn’t lead to financial gain is seen as less serious. We also have a lot of historical examples of male “geniuses” who created works of art while someone else did their laundry and raised their kids — and very few examples of women artists who were afforded the same privileges.
CH: A few years ago, you wrote and directed a short film (Hide and Seek) about a musician-turned stay-at-home dad who sees what his life could have looked like if he went in a different direction with it. Given that it’s in the same “alternate reality” vein that The Other You is in, how did that film and your experience working on it help you to craft the approach you took to directing this one?
SR: Yes, that film was also about an artist (in that case, a musician) trying to balance creative work and parenting! When I wrote it, I consciously made the protagonist a man, because we don’t see a lot of examples in the culture of men struggling with work/life balance (or of their female colleagues still living the creative life, like the old bandmate the protagonist runs into in the film). The experience of making that film was very different, since it’s a nine page script that we shot in a weekend, and it didn’t involve doubles, or actors playing multiple roles.
It did lay the groundwork for this film in some ways, as the character makes a decision that puts him into a parallel world, so we thought about how to signal that transition visually — in that case, the alternate world he finds himself in is harsher visually and more drained of color. That made sense because for the character, it’s a tragedy that he’s now in a version of his life in which his daughter never existed.
CH: Since Hide and Seek and the rest of your filmography and screenplays feature character-driven stories mixed with elements of sci-fi, fantasy and horror, what do you feel makes The Other You unique from your previous work?
SR: The Other You is different in that it’s much lighter than my previous work. After all the darkness in the world during the pandemic, I was pleasantly surprised to find a script (by screenwriter Julie Gold) that was very character-driven and had a fantastical high concept, and which was also funny and ultimately optimistic. In some ways it’s similar to my previous films, in that it has a grounded sci-fi/fantasy concept that can be told in a low-budget way.
CH: Since The Other You is both a fantasy film and a family comedy/drama, how did you balance both elements of the story as you worked with Julie and the cast during production?
SR: In addition to the sci-fi/fantasy films mentioned above, I took a look at films that depict families in a warm but realistic way. Sometimes you see movies or TV shows with kids who don’t take up space in the lives of the adult characters in any significant way, which doesn’t ring true for me — I think most parents would tell you that kids take up a lot of space — physically, emotionally and mentally. So I looked at films that acknowledge that — Lisa Cholodenko’s The Kids Are Alright, Tamara Jenkins’ Private Life, Alexander Payne’s The Descendants, and Judd Apatow’s This is 40 — to name a few.
Like me, Julie is a wife and mom of three, and she brings a lot of her own experiences to her writing. Many members of our crew are moms, including our director of photography, Anne Saul, our art director, Alison Bauer, and our producer, Robin Noonan-Price — so many of us on set could relate to a lot of the scenarios in the story, and enjoy the humor of it. At the same time, a lot of us are also fans of sci-fi and fantasy, and we had a lot of fun envisioning and creating the two worlds and the portal between them. It felt pretty natural to balance them, actually.
CH: The Other You is also your full-length directorial debut. Describe the ways that you prepared for this project, and how your previous experiences making shorts helped ready you for the task of directing the movie.
SR: Over the last decade, I’ve made three short films, and in the process developed a “film family” of frequent collaborators who enjoy working together. In the jump to making a feature, I wondered — do we need someone on board who knows what they’re doing? I was in a directing mentorship program during the pandemic, and one of the mentors gave me great advice: instead of looking further afield, grow with the people you already know. As long as everyone involved is excited to tell the story, you just have to keep moving forward, and figure out anything you don’t know along the way.
With a feature, the scheduling is more complicated (and our two worlds and multiple characters per actor made scheduling even more complicated!) You also have to have more endurance because you’re filming for many more days, but in many ways the experience is the same, regardless of the length of the film.
I worked with each department (camera, production design, sound, actors, etc.) to make sure they understood the story we were telling and to talk through what they wanted to bring to the table creatively. As the director, you are responsible for holding the vision and making the final decisions, but for me one of the joys of filmmaking is that it is a collaborative medium, where all these artists combine their talents to make something great.
CH: How did you find the film’s cast, and what qualities were you looking for in the actors and their performances — especially that of Beth’s?
SR: We brought on a great casting director (Kimberly Skyrme, who then came on as a producer), who loved the story and could see how attractive playing these dual roles would be for actors. Kimberly can tap a deep pool of actors she’s known for years, so she curated groups of actors to read for each role. We were looking for actors who could play a character and then an alternate world version of that character — and (in the case of our lead actors) not just separately, but sometimes in two-hander scenes where the same actor is playing both characters with a split screen.
All the actors we cast, but especially Beth and Kris, did a magnificent job with this (material). Our lead actors also had to find the balance to make our main characters, Annie and Jack, people you would root for (and that you would root for staying together as a couple) — while also allowing them to be real people with flaws.
CH: What was the production process like, especially given that each actor was playing multiple versions of themselves and that the story shifts from Annie’s reality to the perfect but imaginary life she enters through a magical ‘portal’ in her bedroom?
SR: It involved a lot of careful planning in terms of the order we shot things in; wardrobe, hair and makeup; and production design. We also aimed to shoot outdoor scenes early in the day to avoid the July/August heat and frequent afternoon thunderstorms. Our original plan was that we would shoot the “regular” world first, then have a day off to switch the house over to the “closet” world, and then shoot all those scenes. Then we had a stomach flu that rippled through the cast and crew, so there were days we had to reshuffle the schedule due to absences.
We also had two tornado warnings (which sent us and our equipment into the basement), one of which led to losing power on set the next day, so we pivoted that day to shoot only outdoors. Our actors and crew were incredibly patient and flexible (as you have to be when making a low-budget indie film!) Even when things went as planned, we often had to remind each other which “world” we were in and which versions of the characters we were dealing with (and what had happened so far, since we were shooting out of order.)
CH: What guidance did you give each actor as they worked through Julie’s script, the alternating personalities of their characters and the shifts in the story’s setting?
SR: We talked about the different versions of the worlds and what had likely taken place in each world leading up to the story. In the Regular World, Annie and Jack are together, but they’re disconnected and frustrated with each other, the kids constantly fight, and Annie is having trouble making progress with her writing. In the Closet World, Annie is already a successful author, and the kids get along well, but Annie has left Jack.
I talked to the actors about what they thought the back story was for each version of the character, and what they thought had led up to their current situation. Before we shot a scene, we’d remind ourselves which version of the world we were in, and discuss what was going on and where each of their characters was coming from. The actors in this film are pros, so it was a really collaborative process.
CH: The film effectively uses its resources — six actors, one house — in both versions of the worlds that Annie enters and exits through the portal. In terms of production design and visual effects, how did you and your team accomplish the different visual appearances of those worlds and the portal itself?
SR: The portal itself was a masterpiece built by Kurt Reitz, who is married to our art director, Alison Bauer. Kurt and Alison figured out how to build a false wall over an existing opening in the closet, and paint it to match, so it looks like it’s always been there. That alone was huge and made the whole movie work! Our gaffer, Max Stempniewicz, installed a light inside the portal that he controlled remotely — because sometimes in the film the magic is working and the portal is “open” — and other times it just leads to a crawl space with HVAC (heating, ventilating and air conditioning) ducts. This light was enhanced in post-production by our visual effects designer, Christina Perez. Christina was also on set as a grip, which was invaluable, because she could advise us how to set things up — especially the split screen scenes — so that she could make them work in post.
Our DP, Anne Saul, and first assistant camera, Kat Vivaldi, worked together to differentiate the worlds visually: the regular world has a cooler color temperature, so it looks bluer, and the “closet” world has a warmer tone. The regular world is more chaotic, so the camera is often handheld — and thanks to our art department, it’s messier. The closet world is serene, so the camera movements are smoother, with the camera often on rails. Finally, Annie’s daydreams were shot with vintage lenses to give them a more “fantasy” look.
CH: In what ways do you think audiences will identify not just with Annie and her family situation but also her dreams of an ideal life and the lessons she learns in her alternating between the “perfect” fantasy world in the portal and the average reality she lives in at the beginning of the film?
SR: As one of our test screening viewers said, everyone has “what if” moments where they want to change things about their spouses and children, so it’s fun to play that out and see where it might go. There are lots of existing “be careful what you wish for” stories, and lots of portal fantasy stories, but one thing I love about Julie’s script is that the characters on each side of this portal are completely full people with agency, and they don’t always behave the way you might expect. I’m glad our story allows Annie to learn from her experiences in the Closet World and also to figure out how to reconnect with who and what she values most.
CH: What similar movies would you compare The Other You to, if any, and how does this one stand out from other ensemble family dramas/surreal fantasy films?
SR: There are lots of parallel world movies and ensemble family dramas out there, in addition to the ones mentioned above, but I really haven’t seen the two genres successfully combined very much, so I think ours stands out in that it takes both genres seriously.
CH: What do you hope audiences take away from seeing The Other You, and what have you taken away from the experience of making it?
SR: I hope our film is a conversation starter — about gender roles in families, the mental load…and where a portal in your closet might lead. For me, the experience of making it has further confirmed that I absolutely love being a director — and I can’t wait until I can direct another film.
CH: What else are you working on right now?
SR: I am working on getting another feature film off the ground — a sci-fi drama about a single mom/tech CEO who designs an AI (artificial intelligence) co-parent, and how that changes the dynamics within her own family. I am also writing an interactive novel, and learning a lot about how to write a narrative where the reader/player can make choices about who they are as the protagonist, and where they want to go in the story.
To purchase tickets for The Other You’s premiere on February 13th at 8 PM (Eastern) at the DC Independent Film Festival, visit the following links:
https://filmfreeway.com/DCIndependentFilmFestival/tickets
Check out the trailer for The Other You here:
Find out more about The Other You at the following links:
On Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/TheOtherYouFilm
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheOtherYouFilm
Check out the The Other You’s Substack page for news on future screenings:
Find out more about Shoshana Rosenbaum and her work on her official web page:
