Quad Cities native Ian Klink will be back in town Friday to premiere his first film at The Village Theatre in Davenport at 7 p.m. A donation of $5 is suggested.
He wrote and directed “Anybody’s Blues” – about a day in the life of Peter and Gena (played by well-known QC actors Justin Marxen and Jessica Taylor), two lovebirds who call it quits, yet cannot quit each other. The synopsis says it’s “full of tense emotions, unending spirit, and plenty of laughs.”
Klink, a 37-year-old North Scott High alum, teaches film and computer technology at a Pennsylvania high school, after living in Delaware for four years. The new movie was mostly filmed in July 2020 in Davenport (during COVID restrictions), and last summer, Klink returned to the QC for some re-shoots.
“It’s been a process in editing and putting the film together with a friend of mine in in California,” he said this week of Derek Lufkin, who edited the 80-minute film.
The movie is unusual since the dialogue was mostly improvised by actors, based on Klink’s outline.
“Because of that improvisation, Derek and I had to spend a lot of time, really kind of going through each scene to really cherry-pick the things that worked, and kind of put things together,” he said. “So it took a little longer for a lot of reasons.”
Klink trusted Marxen and Taylor because of their solid, plentiful acting experience.
“I’ve learned over years, sometimes some of the best moments from films have actually been improvs,” he said, noting the most famous one, in “The Shining” (1980), when Jack Nicholson says his menacing “Here’s Johnny!”
“I had done some theater directing too and I know it has this kind of organic feel when you do some improvisation and also it’s coming straight from them,” Klink said. “If you have a line that’s written out for you, I’ve also found sometimes you might lose that thinking process of it and you can really see in the film, they’re thinking about what they’re about to say.”
“And that created this very natural feel in the movie, which I don’t think we would have gotten if we scripted it out,” he said. “We just kind of went with the improv and it was also faster.”
After graduating in 2003 from North Scott High in Eldridge, Klink earned his bachelor’s in communication from Aurora (Ill.) University and his master’s in film and television from Savannah College of Art and Design in Georgia.
As a filmmaker and artist, he has directed films and theater (many throughout the Q-C area), including his thesis film adaption of Stephen King’s “The Man Who Would Not Shake Hands” (in Savannah) and “No Exit” on stage.
Klink has been longtime friends with Scott Beck and Bryan Woods (screenwriters of 2018’s “A Quiet Place”), who are the same age and graduated from Bettendorf High. In high school, Beck and Woods were production assistants and Klink acted in the independent film, “Iowa Boys.” Klink played the town drunk in Beck and Woods’ “Impulse” (2010).
Klink at first called the new movie “Any Woman’s Blues,” based on a famous song performed by Bessie Smith (1894-1937) on the soundtrack, and the fact the story was told from Jessica Taylor’s character’s perspective.
“We discovered a lot of stuff with Justin’s character and it ended up being kind of both of their movies,” he said of the title change to “Anybody’s Blues.”
The story is about the breakup of a relationship between two actors, and their theater director, and the cast includes Tristan Tapscott as the director, and Luke Oberhaus.
Reflections during filming
“It’s a pretty cool concept for the film, as the film only features an outline and all the dialogue is improvised, which has provided a lot of freedom and challenges,” Tapscott, a Circa veteran, said in a 2020 interview.
“Ian’s film is a really interesting experiment,” he said. “It’s raw and visceral and the reactions are as real as they can get. It’s been wild to work on something and been a very important lesson in active listening.”
“It’s strange but it feels really good to have a creative outlet during this time,” Taylor, a QC Theatre Workshop vet, said. “We planned and had conference calls and video chats before Covid, so this project has been in our brains a very long time.
“I kept thinking it wouldn’t happen. That we couldn’t do it. About a week before we were set to shoot, I expressed my concerns with Ian about trying to distance and wear masks and/or changing scenes to be outside instead of inside and he was very flexible and receptive,” she said. “We’ve moved scenes outside that were supposed to be inside. When I’m not shooting, I go into our green room or somewhere outside or wear my mask.”
They also pared down extras and worked with a cast and crew of less than 10 people. Taylor offered to shoot a few scenes at their house “because I know we’ve been hyper-vigilant about cleanliness and social distancing,” she said. “Plus I asked that masks are worn from anyone not acting in the scene and we open windows for better air flow.”
“That all being said, I was still a little nervous walking in the first day. My thermometer was packed in my bag; I hand sanitize obsessively,” Taylor said.
A number of scenes, Klink filmed in a theater in Davenport’s former Lincoln School, and they moved some indoor scenes outdoors.
Marxen has worked with Taylor on “Sons & Daughters of Thunder,” among other films.
“It has been an honor to work with her and the rest of the actors in Ian’s film,” he said in 2020. “Everyone in the cast is so awesome and putting their heart and souls into the movie. Ian is a great director and a great friend and I have always loved working with him.”
“Ian and I have been making movies for a long time and it has been a blast to work with him and the cast in this project,” Marxen said. “Ian and the rest of the actors and myself were fortunate enough to have the time to rehearse and talk about the characters and the story for a few months before we started filming. And because the film is all improvised, it helped out a lot.”
The Village Theatre is at 2113 E. 11th St., Village of East Davenport.
