Kelly Burkhardt finds the Spark in Her First Film

Kelly Burkhardt is no stranger to the film industry. She works for TLA Releasing, an independent film distribution company, and she’s a head programmer for the Philadelphia International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival (PIGLFF). But working with other people’s films, as rewarding as it is, didn't quite satisfy her creative desires. So, she formed Pepperbox Pictures production company, scraped up the financing, gathered the talent and made her own film, Tremble & Spark.

The short will premier at the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (March 25 -April 8). “This festival is one of the premiere LGBT film festivals around the world, so I am extremely excited to be screening it there,” Burkhardt says.

Tremble & Spark is a sexy, detective drama set on the streets of Philadelphia. The film stars Cathy DeBuono (Out at the Wedding and SheWired contributor) and Jessica Graham (And Then Came Lola). Burkhardt wrote, directed and produced the film.

The journey to her first completed film was both interesting and challenging for the Philly-based filmmaker. “I have a story in development about a woman who lives her life as a man during the gold rush... but  I wanted to do something less aggressive and not so large, so I decided to start small … work on a short ... I really sunk my teeth into the idea of the lesbian noir film.”

Burkhardt, a Penn State grad, began her career in the TLA video division and then moved on to distribution. “We acquire lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual films, primarily, and we put them out either theatrically or on DVD…I am director of production so we facilitate and design the box art ... we design all the DVDs … we cut the theatrical trailers and put all of the marketing and actual materials together to release a film.”

Tremble & Spark was shot over five days during August 2008. “Five very aggressive days,” Burkhardt adds.

She originally planned to complete the film in time to submit to the Sundance Film Festival. “I realized I would be a fool to rush it through just for a deadline, so I pulled back a little bit ...  Post production is where my experience lies so I knew there is no way I could ask an editor to get it cut in a week, have it be good and have the timing right. There were a lot of challenges on set ... like with the audio. I picked this beautiful hotel and they couldn't turn off the hotel music because the person who had the key went home for the day, so I had to re-record everyone’s sound for that day...”

The 20-minute short is part of a trilogy. “It will be episodic  … and two main characters will be going on to the second and third story with a different crime,” Burkhardt explains.

While she has known Graham for several years, Burkhardt met DeBuono during the PIGLFF premier of Wedding and quickly realized that DeBuono was a perfect Charlie Forrest, one of the characters in the short.

DeBuono was intrigued by the film despite the fact that Burkhardt was an untested filmmaker. “Kelly pitched her film to me and was very excited about the genre (film noir) and told me a bit about her vision for Tremble & Spark. I was aware she was a first time director/filmmaker but I didn't allow that to stop me from accepting. We all start at zero. I was curious about what she was trying to accomplish, the genre she had chosen and the character she had described to me.”

DeBuono took the time to get to know her character, a detective and recovering alcoholic.  “First day back on the job out of rehab, she's faced with a murder case that leads her directly to the woman that is her Achilles heel. The back story of a character is very important to me,” DeBuono adds.

Both Burkhardt and DeBuono are sensitive to the film’s portrayal of lesbians. “I am very conscious about that,” Burkhardtsays. “I have seen countless coming out stories and  they were very important  but it's time to move on ... creating characters that evolve around my principles ... about how I feel society should see queer people ...”

“I’d done a lot of research but I had never written or directed a film,” she says. “You have the story in your head … when you shoot the film it's completely different because things happen on set. You don't have enough takes or you are running late and you have to cut scenes or an actor comes up with something on the fly...

 “It really was the hardest thing that I have ever done in my entire life and I'm even talking about coming out to my parents on Thanksgiving night…. You have to get everything set up and then you have to wait … shoot for 10 minutes and then go set up lights for the next scene. I ran overtime a lot ... we went over budget... all the things that generally happen on film shoots especially with a first-time director,” she says.

DeBuono agrees that the filming experience had ups and downs. “Kelly secured some phenomenal locations. She surrounded herself with talented hair, makeup and wardrobe people. Visually it was obvious to me that Kelly knew how she wanted this film to look - the colors, the mood, the feel of the sets - lovely…And then there were the snags of a first-time director. I could see the learning curve happening in front of me. At times, I just pushed Kelly to do things she hadn't planned on, to get shots she wanted to forego because I knew she would not be able to cut this story together without certain things, let alone capture any of the undertones of the characters or layers to their stories,”  DeBuono adds.  “I have no doubt that she will take this experience and grow from it.”

Despite the problems, Burkhardt says making the film was the best experience of her life... “It was the hardest and the best... I learned so much....” And working with DeBuono was one of the high points. “It was absolutely great... she's such a professional ...”