ugh press notes
Press Notes
UGH! a short film by Jimmy Marble premiering at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival [email protected] // [email protected]
Synopsis Tanya, world’s sexiest inventor, has just finished her newest invention: A future seeing machine. Meanwhile her best friend Sticks is coming over with a Hot Guys magazine so they can make butt collages. But, instead of looking at hot butts, they get stuck in a time loop thanks to Tanya’s invention and the future gets super annoying.
Questions with director Jimmy Marble How did this project originate? My writing partner Doug Sacrison and I have been working with the characters Tanya and Sticks since 2013 when we hatched the idea for a series built around them, also called UGH! We loved the idea of two girls set in 1990s LA who were constantly doing extraordinary things with these wild inventions, but were always super over it with their 90s blasé attitude. After writing them for years, we were really excited to actually get them into the world and see them on the screen ourselves, so we came up with the short UGH!, which is a prologue to the series. The short showcases our favorite parts of the characters: their constant indignation, their casual objectification of men, and the magical realism of the world around them.
What’s your favorite part of the short? My favorite part of UGH! is definitely the unity that Tanya and Sticks share with each other across linear dimensions. The two that share time and space are always a tight-knit unit, even when facing against their selves that exist only 15 seconds in the past, or 15 seconds in the future. I love how instinctive their friendship is. There’s never any hesitation.
Tell us about casting UGH! Tanya and Sticks had been floating in my head for almost five years before I got to see them in real life performed by Nika de Carlo and Carly Foulkes. It was such a pleasure to get to see the on-paper characters come to life during this project. Both characters have such nuanced approaches to life. They’re really stylish and sophisticated, but they’re also kind of dirt-bag, 90s burn outs. We had a lot of talented actresses come in for the auditions, but Nika and Carly both immediately embodied the attitudes of Tanya and Sticks.
Why the 90s? The 90s is a fascinating time to me now because everyone seemed so over it and disillusioned in what by today’s standards seems like such a charming and simple time. That’s a really fun contradiction to work within. Plus I’ve always loved DIY ethos, and I feel like it was really on fire in the 90s. I don’t think a DIY inventor scene ever existed, but it’s fun to imagine, and that’s where the Tanya character comes from. She’s using analog tools to create wild things. It’s also a cool era to watch friendship, because communication was less disposable. Sticks leaves a voicemail that she’s coming over, and then she comes over, trusting that her friend will be there. There’s more unknowns in a world where information isn’t at your finger tips, and that is great for storytelling.
How is UGH! different from your usual work? The world of UGH! is a lot different than my usual work. My previous shorts and my photo work are usually very bright and graphic, in fairly airy settings. UGH! meanwhile is in a darker interior and has a much more muted color palette than what I usually use. I think the reason for this is because I was really trying to build the world around the story, rather than put my personal taste for aesthetics above all else. I wanted Tanya’s apartment to be authentic to Tanya’s slacker vibe, which of course wouldn’t be bright and poppy. But the cinematography by Andrew Wheeler, and the production design by Sean Genrich give UGH! a great sense of design and peculiar-ness. And Shirley Kurata’s costuming adds pops of color while staying true to the era and the characters. All these pieces add up to UGH! more than they add up to what would usually be expected from my work.
UGH! a short film by Jimmy Marble premiering at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival [email protected] // [email protected]
Synopsis Tanya, world’s sexiest inventor, has just finished her newest invention: A future seeing machine. Meanwhile her best friend Sticks is coming over with a Hot Guys magazine so they can make butt collages. But, instead of looking at hot butts, they get stuck in a time loop thanks to Tanya’s invention and the future gets super annoying.
Questions with director Jimmy Marble How did this project originate? My writing partner Doug Sacrison and I have been working with the characters Tanya and Sticks since 2013 when we hatched the idea for a series built around them, also called UGH! We loved the idea of two girls set in 1990s LA who were constantly doing extraordinary things with these wild inventions, but were always super over it with their 90s blasé attitude. After writing them for years, we were really excited to actually get them into the world and see them on the screen ourselves, so we came up with the short UGH!, which is a prologue to the series. The short showcases our favorite parts of the characters: their constant indignation, their casual objectification of men, and the magical realism of the world around them.
What’s your favorite part of the short? My favorite part of UGH! is definitely the unity that Tanya and Sticks share with each other across linear dimensions. The two that share time and space are always a tight-knit unit, even when facing against their selves that exist only 15 seconds in the past, or 15 seconds in the future. I love how instinctive their friendship is. There’s never any hesitation.
Tell us about casting UGH! Tanya and Sticks had been floating in my head for almost five years before I got to see them in real life performed by Nika de Carlo and Carly Foulkes. It was such a pleasure to get to see the on-paper characters come to life during this project. Both characters have such nuanced approaches to life. They’re really stylish and sophisticated, but they’re also kind of dirt-bag, 90s burn outs. We had a lot of talented actresses come in for the auditions, but Nika and Carly both immediately embodied the attitudes of Tanya and Sticks.
Why the 90s? The 90s is a fascinating time to me now because everyone seemed so over it and disillusioned in what by today’s standards seems like such a charming and simple time. That’s a really fun contradiction to work within. Plus I’ve always loved DIY ethos, and I feel like it was really on fire in the 90s. I don’t think a DIY inventor scene ever existed, but it’s fun to imagine, and that’s where the Tanya character comes from. She’s using analog tools to create wild things. It’s also a cool era to watch friendship, because communication was less disposable. Sticks leaves a voicemail that she’s coming over, and then she comes over, trusting that her friend will be there. There’s more unknowns in a world where information isn’t at your finger tips, and that is great for storytelling.
How is UGH! different from your usual work? The world of UGH! is a lot different than my usual work. My previous shorts and my photo work are usually very bright and graphic, in fairly airy settings. UGH! meanwhile is in a darker interior and has a much more muted color palette than what I usually use. I think the reason for this is because I was really trying to build the world around the story, rather than put my personal taste for aesthetics above all else. I wanted Tanya’s apartment to be authentic to Tanya’s slacker vibe, which of course wouldn’t be bright and poppy. But the cinematography by Andrew Wheeler, and the production design by Sean Genrich give UGH! a great sense of design and peculiar-ness. And Shirley Kurata’s costuming adds pops of color while staying true to the era and the characters. All these pieces add up to UGH! more than they add up to what would usually be expected from my work.
