phonereservoir One of the long-time goals of the Long Beach Cinematheque and Mondo Celluloid is to identify our local community of independent filmmakers and find ways for them to share their films with audiences. The problem is that most of us tend to be too busy with our own projects to find time to network and socialize. Good thing Jonathan Chauser is a midnight movie buff.

The local independent filmmaker has become a familiar presence at Mondo Celluloid, the Cinematheque’s midnight series at The Art Theatre. That’s how he heard of my intention, born of a project I did at MOLAA, to concoct film nights that would pair the work of a local filmmaker with a compatible feature film.

At the time, Jonathan was putting the finishing touches on his short film, Phone Monkeys, a semi-autobiographical account of his horrors as a telemarketing mortgage broker, and he was eager to present it to an audience in Long Beach. But he happened to mention that Reservoir Dogs was a source of inspiration—to his filmmaking in general and to Phone Monkeys in particular.

With that, the creative process began churning and on Monday night it will arrive at Yankee Doodles in Belmont Shore for a paired screening of Phone Monkeys and Reservoir Dogs—a full evening of independent cinema, both modern and classic—with Jonathan taking the stage in between and speaking on both.

jonathanchauser Earlier this week, Jonathan and I sat down at Lola’s restaurant, and over her addiction-forming green dip I asked him about his experience as a filmmaker, as a student of Long Beach City College’s struggling film program, and perhaps most surprisingly, as a seasoned former truck driver.

You mentioned when we first met that Phone Monkeys was somewhat autobiographical. Tell me a little bit about your experience as a “phone monkey.”

Yeah, the film is based on a lot of things—my experience as a mortgage broker—but actually, my main character [named Crosby Crump/played by Michael Ruesga] works for an accountant. His boss is an East Indian guy [named Radeep Shah/played by Abhi Trivedi], who’s a great accountant, but an awful manager. He doesn’t understand what it takes to manage sales people or set realistic goals. He’s overly passive-aggressive. He wants success right away, but doesn’t know how to breed success. The leads aren’t good. The whole situation’s a pressure cooker. He doesn’t realize that you have to pay for good leads. You have to set your salesmen up for success before they can succeed.

But it’s a father-and-son story, too. The reason [Radeep] is so hard on his people is his father isn’t happy with him, either. There’s a scene where [Abhi's dad] calls him and kind of shits on him, treats him poorly, asks him why he isn’t doing well like his brothers. So it’s a really human story. The boss is sort of a villain at first, but I show him as a three-dimensional character.

I always appreciate it when a film-maker goes out of the way to take characters that would otherwise be stock caricatures, and make them three dimensional.

I wrote eight or nine drafts before I wrote the screenplay. The first couple drafts were good, but I kept tweaking to add a third dimension and humanity to the characters. From what I understand, that’s not necessarily the norm for a short film. This is a dark comedy, so it’s not laugh-out-loud, but the humor comes in its uncomfortableness. You’ve been in the situation; you know what that’s like to be treated that way by your father or girlfriend. Crosby’s mother is very over-protective; his wife has left him because she considers him a dreamer who is not a good provider. He’s still hanging onto hope that he can get her back, but doesn’t realize that she’s exactly what he doesn’t like.

Sounds like a detailed story for being less than 20 minutes long!

The log line is: “A shy mama’s boy with more creative pursuits languishes at a soul-sucking telemarketing job and gets pushed too far.” The film has an underdog theme: the character’s a nice guy and you want him to succeed, but everyone knows he’s not going to succeed in his dreams.

He’s just not strong enough for the film business. He realizes late in life that he wants to be a screenwriter and work in the film business, but right now he just has dreams. He wants to go to a conference; he has a flier, that’s his initial motivation. He needs an extra $50 or so to pay the entry fee. At this point his wife has left him, and he doesn’t have much going on.

Although it is semi-autobiographical, I’m a lot stronger than the character in this film. He tries to do the right thing even though the prevailing wisdom is: take ‘em for all they’re worth, and don’t worry about it. He dresses appropriately, tries to keep his volume at a reasonable level, even when being yelled at, and his co-worker is the opposite and things seem to work out for him. He gets pushed all day long until finally a coarse bar owner starts grating this guy, calls him a “phone monkey,” which on any other day would be fine, but not on this day.

How close are the characters in the film to people you have worked with in the past?

The boss is based on my East Indian boss, very closely. I wrote this when I was working in an accountant office in Long Beach. I wrote this as a form of catharsis. When the economic downturn hit, I couldn’t really find another job. I wanted to quit every day. Like the character, I had to motivate myself to go to work every day. The characters are really an amalgam of everybody I worked with in telemarketing.

Telemarketing’s full of colorful characters. Everyone’s either a high-stress person or a burn-out. They know this gig doesn’t start ‘til 12 or 1 in the afternoon, it’s four hours a day, you go home, and you get paid better than the average slave labor. At a decent telemarketing place you’re going to make $1,500 or $2,000 dollars a month 20 hours a week before you go crazy or burn out, and that’s pretty good cash. But you could always feel the breeze from the door, no matter where you were in the building. That’s how close you were to being fired. It doesn’t matter how well you did yesterday—if you’re having a rough day today, Craigslist is looming. That’s a very uncomfortable feeling. Those are some of the jokes I have in the movie. The boss makes comments like, “I go on the Internet, and poof: you disappear.”

So I have to ask—did you ever work at Ditech?

No. I applied a couple times, though. I wanted to because that’s where the guys were making money. But it’s such a machine. And you see, that’s where I didn’t do that well in the mortgage business, because I’ve got a really good moral barometer. I worked for a company that was doing second or third mortgages and home improvement loans. And they had this system down—it was such a grind, but it wasn’t hard. Somebody with not-so-great morals would have killed. And even I was killing for a few months; I was making $3,000 or $4,000 a month as a telemarketer working 15 to 20 hours a week.

But I started talking to people who had gotten calls from us in the past and were on our list as easy marks. And they would tell me stories of getting physically thrown out of the office because they wouldn’t sign on the dotted line. And I believed these people after I heard it a few times. Even though they were treated that way, they still would have gone back if I would have set the appointment. I was the one that had to stop and not do it. It was too easy-money, I was selling my soul. That was when I was 19. And then I thought, if I’m the guy that’s writing the loans, the broker, I’d have more say. Well the people who really have the say are the underwriters and your bosses.

I think everything I’ve done, from being a truck driver to selling mortgages to driving a tow truck all over LA and Orange County—and I also drove a tow truck in New Orleans six months before Katrina—all that stuff influences my writing. I look at myself as a writer first and a director second. I’ve always been a good storyteller, but I think my stories ring true because I’ve lived all these things. I’ve lived in New Orleans. I’ve lived all over Texas. I’ve literally visited every state, and lived in quite a few.

Wow—didn’t realize you were a truck driver on top of everything else!

I drove a truck for four or five years. I started out with the big companies, I got my license there, and I quickly realized that it was a hassle and you weren’t going to make any money. So after a while, I bought my own tractor and leased onto these companies that had the loads and had the trailer. I had the tractor portion so I just ran around doing that, and I made better money at it.

But still, trucking isn’t the way it was in the ‘70s. In the ‘70s, you could make a really, really good living. It was a hard job, but you could make a good living. But nowadays, when all is said and done, the fuel prices are high and the maintenance is high. But it’s a hell of a lot of fun. I really did it because I’ve got a rambling spirit. I just looked at it as a paid vacation for a couple of years. But after the vacation was over, that’s when it started becoming a hassle. Sitting around for a couple of days, waiting on loads, being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

I see trucks pulled over all the time with people sleeping in them. Is that legal?

No, the police actually do bug you. Sleeping on the highway is illegal.

As both a film lover and former truck driver, is there a film that you feel captures the truck driver’s life?

Not in the last 20 years. Sam Peckinpah’s Convoy is kind of the seminal flick for that kind of thing. Smokey and the Bandit is actually pretty close, too.

What do truck-driving and filmmaking have in common? What sort of connections can you identify?

Well, from the bare-bones, independent film-making aspect, you have to do everything yourself. There’s a lot of physical labor involved, and a lot of creativity too. My father doesn’t know mechanics and didn’t pass down any mechanical skills to his kid. He went out and got an accounting degree, and whenever he got a flat tire he went out and bought a new car. So driving a truck was a huge transition for me.

I just started doing it as a challenge to go and learn. When you get your license they put you out there, and if you survive, then you’ve figured it out. If not, oh well, I guess they didn’t train you well enough. You do things like backing a 70-foot truck out of a one-way road at 11 o’clock at night in Oklahoma because you have no other choice and you have to get out. It’s a truck and trailer, so it isn’t like backing up a straight vehicle.  If you’re backing up and you want the truck to go left, you have to turn the steering wheel right. And if you over-correct with a truck, you’re screwed.

So I was in Oklahoma and went to gas up my truck. There was a lot of traffic so I went to go down another road, realized I was going the wrong way, turned right into what I thought was a parking lot, hoping to make a U-turn, and drove 500 feet into a locked gated area. And there are no street lights in Oklahoma, so after 40 minutes of bitching and moaning … bottom line, it’s creativity, coming from a guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing and tries to figure it out. I came from a white-collar background in a blue-collar area.

When did you get the film-making bug?

I’ve had that my whole life. I’ve been a film aficionado since I was a little kid. I’ve always watched three or four times more movies than anybody else. I wanted to go to film school out of high school. My father said, “You’re definitely going to college. You can go get a business degree; I’ll pay for that.” So I rebelled, of course.

Does Phone Monkeys take place in Long Beach?

Parts of it were shot here, but it is set in a big metropolis—L.A. or New York, most likely L.A because it’s warmer out here. It’s set in a metropolis where it’s easy for the good guy to get lost in the grind; a guy who still has a conscience.

Where did you find your actors?

Craigslist for one, and then ads on Mandy.com. It’s a great site for filmmakers and actors. A really good resource, and free. I found the casting process really easy. Easier than I thought.

Where in Long Beach was it shot?

Puka Bar on Willow.

Have you identified a film community in Long Beach?

Definitely. Not actors, per se, but definitely production people. My entire crew is all Long Beach natives. Primarily from Long Beach City College, and a couple guys from Cal State Long Beach. I got my start at Long Beach City College and have met many great filmmakers there.

Unfortunately, the program is suffering right now—the school doesn’t put a premium on the film side of it. But when I was there we had some great film instructors who were really passionate about film and teaching film. The school has pretty decent amount of equipment, and you have access to it.

Which aspect of film-making do you find the most frustrating? Personally, I had a terrible time with lighting. Others hated sound.

I was a disc jockey for five years, so sound design is actually my forte. The lighting aspect is my weakest, so finding a good DP [Director of Production] was really hard

When I was at LBCC we were shooting on 8mm and 16mm. Now you’re taught on digital, right?

Right, and digital really closes that divide, with sound and lighting. And lighting is  basically what separates amateur work and a good piece of work.

Bad sound can make an otherwise good film feel clunky, too.

Definitely. My sound designer is a gentleman I met at LBCC, which is why I like going to community colleges so much—you really do meet such a wide array of people. I started going to City College when I was 36, and this gentlemen is in his early 60s. I meet a lot of people coming back for their second or third educations, exploring their passions, which is what he’s doing. He was a musician and a music director for a lot of years in theatre. He did the sound design on my film, and the sound design is one of the film’s strengths. There’s sound perspective. Characters who are three or four feet away in the film sound like they’re three or four feet away from the audience.

But what I find hardest about filmmaking—independent, zero-budget, negative-budget filmmaking, as I call it—is the producing aspect. Because everyone’s excited about the idea, everyone’s on board, but when you say, “Ok, I need you there at 6 a.m. on Saturday, for the next two weeks…” That’s when it comes down.

You mentioned that the film department at LBCC has suffered. Do you have any ideas from your perspective as to why that might be?

Yeah, I have a lot of ideas, actually. I think that half of it is old-fashioned in-fighting amongst creative types, because Long Beach City has been known for their cultural schools for awhile–they’ve really got great theatre, writing, photography, dance and art departments. Film is a new addition, and became a part of the theatre department, not set up autonomously.

What is the priority of the person who runs the hybrid theatre/dance/film department?

Theatre. It’s a theatre school.

 So is there a backlash against film? Are there people in higher positions who don’t recognize what a truly relevant and multifaceted art form it is? Or is there a misconception that the film department exists simply as an avenue where people sit around all day watching movies?

Right. Definitely. There are true filmmakers of the future there. The production classes are where you actually learn to produce films. There are only a few of those classes left. And all the teachers are gone—there’s only one guy left, he’s teaching everything, and when I took it last semester, I noticed he was forced to combine everything into one class, which doesn’t work.

The emphasis is on doing the work of Film 20, which you need to move on and get the degree. So it doesn’t allow other filmmakers to work on self-written passion projects. You can’t do it with one person; you need four or five full-time professors.

The equipment is a problem, because you have really nice equipment that gets thrown around because there’s no one there to take the time to teach the students how to respect the equipment. The $10,000 worth of equipment we received last summer, in two or three months, was broken and had parts missing. We were the first crew to rent the really good stuff on Phone Monkeys, but even then we rented lights that ended up not having bulbs—nobody was there to check them in.

What could people do to help strengthen the film department at Long Beach City College? There are individuals in this city who truly care about film, and who probably have no idea that the department at LBCC is in this condition. I took film at LBCC, and the time I spent there, and the people I met there who are friends and collaborators to this day, are invaluable. It’s important to me that incoming students continue to have that outlet, where they can learn to be filmmakers. Especially people like us who pretty much had our minds made up about cinema from a very early age.

What people can do is take a film class. The film class attendance is skyrocketing. Then again, you would think that would send a message, but the truth is that the high film enrollment ends up paying for all the other art departments, and yet the department still gets short shrift.

That’s so infuriating! Is there any way to donate directly to the film department?

No, because there’s no film department. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. There’s just not a lot of support, but there are a couple people still holding on. One guy in particular, a screenwriter named Jim Engelhardt, is a super-passionate guy who really cares about the film department. He spends a lot of time talking to the Dean. If you want to support the film program at Long Beach City College, maybe do the same thing and write to the Dean.

Editor’s Note: To contact the Dean of the School of Creative Arts and Applied Sciences at Long Beach City College  write to Dr. Gary Scott at gscott@lbcc.edu. For more information about the premiere of Phone Monkeys on Monday, April 11, visit http://lbcinema.org/phonemonkeys/.

PHONE MONKEYS AND RESERVOIR DOGS  YANKEE DOODLES • 4100 E OCEAN BLVD • LONG BEACH 90803 • 562.439.9777 • LBCINEMA.ORG • MONDAY 8PM • $8