Production Notes

Winterlude is the story of young amateur filmmaker, Jonathan, and his cinematic struggles to bring a vision (or is it version?) of love to the screen. In his attempt to accurately portray love, he interviews several young couples and casts the real-life couple of Bob and Marianne. Shot almost entirely on location in Baltimore, MD, Winterlude is a portrait of young love and misguided cinematic agendas that blurs the lines between fantasy, reality, and memory.

Winterlude is Chlorofilm’s first feature production. The film was completed in the fall of 2004, bringing an end to the four-year process. It was started as student project while the filmmakers were still attending the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Its earliest screened form was a 35-minute short shot on 16mm black and white negative and color negative film. After an extremely intense two months that brought the original version to life, Winterlude was set aside for some time. In mid 2001, the film was dusted off and reexamined. It was only at that point that it was decided by the members of Chlorofilm that in order to fully flesh out all of the themes and ideas that the film would have be significantly longer. Marianne Hayden was brought back on board to finish her role as she continued to attend university. With Chlorofilm members playing double roles both in front of and behind the camera, most scenes were shot in a guerrilla style, utilizing small crews consisting of friends and other local filmmakers. This unorthodox style of shooting enabled the filmmakers to realize their vision of what Winterlude should become. The film was shot without a script and was built entirely from improvisation during on-set rehearsals. These techniques were used by the filmmakers in an effort to ground the performances more in the reality of the situations both in front of and behind the camera rather than in a traditional scripted structure.

The remainder of the production phase was completed between mid-2002 and late 2003. Due to a shooting schedule that relied heavily on the cast and crew's availability, numerous scenes were filmed at night, continuing into the early morning hours, and stopping only so that cast/crew members could go to their day jobs. With an estimated total cost of $36,000 being paid entirely out of pocket by the filmmakers, there were sometimes breaks in production. These breaks gave Chlorofilm the chance to enlarge their stock of equipment and keep much of their specifically designed production package on a routine maintenance schedule.

The final scenes with lead actress Marianne Hayden were completed in August 2003, just before her relocation to California. Pick-up shots and time lapse photography were completed in early 2004. With the added ability via digital editing to edit the film during production, Winterlude itself took many forms until finally reaching its finished state in the fall of 2004. Winterlude's long and sometimes grueling production process might have killed the desire to make films in some, but it has only whet the appetite of the filmmakers for the possibilities that lay ahead. It has now been submitted to many film festivals, with local Maryland premieres on the horizon.