Movies

J.D. Disalvatore Tells It Like It Is

According to out producer and director J.D. Disalvatore, film is the kind of business you’re simply born to be in. “I was always a lover of film and wanted to go into it from about the time I learned to talk,” she recently told AfterEllen.com. My first words, as my mother tells me, were ‘I want a director’s cut in my contract.'” 

Disalvatore made waves in 2002 with her short film Gay Propaganda, which took iconic scenes from popular films and gave them a gay spin. “I took all those films I watched as a kid … Casablanca, The Graduate, On Golden Pond, From Here to Eternity and so on, and made them gay. Gay, gay, gay!”

She went on to produce more short films as well as Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds, a gay male film billed as “the first gay sequel.” Her latest movie, Shelter, premiered at Frameline in San Francisco earlier this month and will also be featured at Outfest in Los Angeles this July.

The self-described “Cecil B. DeMille of 84th Court” has a dry sense of humor and is quick to share war stories and offer advice to the next generation of aspiring lesbian auteurs. And if anyone knows the filmmaking process in and out, it’s Disalvatore, who has worked as a producer, director, editor, visual effects coordinator, script reader and even actor in productions of all shapes and sizes – from a stint doing special effects in commercials and blockbusters to jobs producing independent films on shoestring budgets.

Disalvatore explained her ever-winding career path with characteristic humor. “I went into producing because one of my first professional gigs out here was supervising graduate film production at the American Film Institute, and who knew,” she said with a laugh, “I had administrative and management skills!”

She continued: “I went into visual effects and commercials because producing skills are producing skills: If you can manage a mad house, you can do it in any field. I cut my teeth on indie film. Once you can do that, making the jump anywhere else is easy.”

And though she’s worked on a wide range of films, she prefers working on the smaller productions. She cited the lack of creative control in larger undertakings as a real selling point for the indies. “Making smaller films, you have more of an opportunity to make stories you really care about,” she said. “Take risks. Be creative.”

It seems that she followed her own advice with Gay Propaganda. “The inspiration for Gay Propaganda was the whole concept of ‘What would it have been like when we were growing up if we could have seen images of ourselves in film?'” she explained. “When I was a kid, the only gay person I ever saw was Paul Lynde in the center square [of Hollywood Squares]. And that’s pretty sad when you consider the hundreds of movies I saw before I came across my first lesbian [in] The Hunger. I was 19.”

Luckily, things have changed since then. Gay films, if not ubiquitous, are now much easier to find, and Disalvatore is one of the filmmakers creating them. “Shelter was a huge undertaking,” she said of her most recent film. “Paul Colichman, CEO of here!, came to me after he saw Eating Out 2 and said, ‘If you can make movies for that little money, I want to hire you to produce something for me.'” 

But there was a catch. “Of course,” she said, “Shelter also had 20 locations, a kid, a dog and surfing. Plus, they wanted to shoot it before the end of the year, which was in a month! Oh, and then remember the part where I was the producer that could make movies for, like, no money? So we had very little money.”

Thankfully, all the hard work appears to be paying off. Shelter debuted to a sold-out house at Frameline and is topping ticket pre-sales at Outfest.

But, we had to ask, what about lesbian films? “As I’m finding out, it’s a hell of a lot easier to raise money to make gay male films,” Disalvatore admitted. She continued with a plea to the movie-going lesbians of the world: “Please, you people out there, buy lesbian DVDs and let investors know it’s worth making them! I have a whole crop of lesbian films I want to make; I just need the investors!”

She isn’t kidding. Disalvatore has a slew of lesbian projects in development right now. “I have two incredible films I have been developing for years — Two Old Lesbians and The Drama Queen,” she said. “Both character-driven, both universal stories revolving around issues everyone understands, that cross the gay/straight boundaries into just being human stories.”

Additionally, she’s working on the upcoming comedy feature The Road to Dinah and a TV series she sold to the here! network, The Becky Snow Show, which goes behind the (fictional) scenes of America’s No. 1 talk show. The hostess, Becky Snow, may be America’s sweetheart to the public but “is actually a lesbian skirt chasing, pill popping, alcoholic … ‘handful’ for the staff and producers,” according to IMDb.

Disalvatore is clearly fighting the good fight, but she admitted that the disparity could be frustrating. After all, the lesbian community hasn’t had the mainstream success the gay male community enjoyed with Brokeback Mountain. Will we ever have a similar film? “I f—ing hope so,” she said ruefully. 

“I don’t get it, since I pitch [films] as universal. … I mean, if you think about it, straight men will watch lesbian fare — note The L Word — whereas straight men never rent gay boy DVDs. Also, chick flicks are easier to sell overseas. So you think the money options would be a bit wider these days. But it just takes a studio or investors who can see that and are willing to take a risk. Believe me, I think I have a hit lesbian script right now, and yet it looks like I’ll be doing another gay boy movie next yet again since the money is there.”

It all sounds very discouraging, but Disalvatore is quick to point out that there is hope in cheaper, newer means of production for diversifying the market. And she encouraged new filmmakers to take advantage of that fact.

“The LGBT market is expanding, slowly but surely, so just do it,” she advised. “You can make a short on video, edit it at home, then just get online and start submitting.”

But her first piece of advice for emerging filmmakers was even more basic: “Work with great people. Film making is a collaborative process, so work with the best.” The rest comes down to gumption and promotional skill — the ability to get the film noticed at festivals.

When it comes to the ever-evolving technology behind promoting and distributing movies, Disalvatore is backing the new possibilities opening up online. “It’s really thrilling!” she said of YouTube and other content-sharing sites. “Anything you want, there it is. It really opens up the ability to reach out and share with people.”

But although the internet is great for sharing and promoting material, nothing beats the actual atmosphere of a film festival. Disalvatore encouraged everyone in the community to participate, not just the filmmakers themselves. “For the audiences, I can’t recommend attending strongly enough,” she said. “I mean, how many gay films come to your local theaters?” she pointed out.

She also urged viewers to not be turned off by selections that may be less than stellar. “I realize that most lesbians think the girl films can be a tad … bad, but once again … hey, this is indie film.” She laughed. “So you go with your partner or girlfriends to a bad lesbian film — so what? You went, you got to be around your ‘sisters,’ you went out for cocktails afterwards and complained — didn’t you still have fun?” 

As for the question of whether queer films will ever truly break into the mainstream, Disalvatore offered a stoic response. “Niche is not the end of the world,” she said. “There is a need for what we do, so why not fill it? If you try to go mainstream at this point, you might have to compromise your material to appeal to a wider audience. I don’t mind making gay films for gay audiences.”

It is this audience and this community that drives her work, and Disalvatore always makes a point to attend screenings and gauge reactions personally. “It really informs the kinds of projects I want to do,” she said. “It also gives me an opportunity to see if the work I am doing is successful. Do they laugh? Do they cry? Did they enjoy the film? My job is to create entertainment for LGBT audiences, so what they like and think are very important to me.”

Watch video clips of Disalvatore’s films here, or visit her MySpace page.

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