'Stan' Gets Its World Premiere at the Dances with Films Festival

"Stan," a black romantic comedy directed by Evald Johnson, had its world premiere at the 14^th annual Dances With Films festival which was held at the Lamelle Sunset 5 movie theatre in Los Angeles. This particular film festival is dedicated to the spirit of independent movies at their very core; their creativity which helped revolutionize the film industry. They chose "Stan" as one of their official selections and said:

"This is a delightful adult comedy about an average man, a beautiful woman, a nice woman, and herpes." The screening was a successful one with many laughs to be had. Once it concluded, Evald came up to do a Q&A along with the movie's star and co-writer, John Schaffer.

When asked how the story for "Stan" came about, Evald replied that he was probably being "very OCD" about what the title character was going through. Both he and John said it took two years to write the script, and they originally tried to write it with two plots but that it didn't work out. The emcee was correct in calling the script for "Stan" so well written that it doesn't need jokes to be funny.

This world premiere for "Stan" has truly been in the making for a very long time. By that I mean that Evald and John started filming the movie back in August of 2005, and they ended shooting three years later. John said they had to make the movie with what they had, so there couldn't be any helicopter scenes. During filming, John's apartment building where they filmed some of the movie ended up getting sold, and they had to shoot the last couple of months at Evald's place where the crew redressed his guest home. John also remarked that from the time they start making "Stan" to now, Evald has gotten married and become a father.

In terms of what was the toughest to shoot, John said it was when they filmed in the massage parlor where Stan gets a "happy ending." They secured a massage place not long after it had been seized and closed down by the police. All the scenes that take place there were shot in one day, and that one day stretched to 17 hours. John described it as awful because the air conditioning in the building didn't work, and they were filming in the middle of summer. There was also a "horrible smell" that made working there almost impossible.

In naming the lead character Stan, neither Evald nor John could remember why they chose that particular name. They joked that one syllable names like Stan were easier to write as there was less typing involved. This appears to be true when you look at the names of other characters like Ann, Bill, and Nick. Then again, there's also Mary (two syllables), Raul (two syllables), Mr. Frankle (four syllables), and Dr. Roopenian (six syllables) which shows they made some exceptions.

"Stan" represents the journey many independent films end up taking; years of work, submitting it to festivals, finding distribution, all of this is hard, hard work. That it was so well received at the Dances With Films festival shows how all good things come to those who wait. It is indeed a very well written romantic comedy that's more honest than the majority of others in its genre, and here's hoping that it finds the audience it deserves.

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