Independent filmmaker and Governors State University adjunct professor Daniel Nearing says he tells his students selling a commercial screenplay is “like selling a car to someone and watching them drive it off a cliff. Once you’ve sold it, there’s nothing you can do about it.”
Nearing, the first person to serve as Chicago’s Filmmaker in Residence — a post he still holds — expects his third independent film, “Sister Carrie,” to be finished by the end of the year. But unlike “Chicago Heights,” shot in 2008 for $1,000, and his second film, “Hogtown,” which cost $10,000, Nearing’s 9/23 Films production company has budgeted “Sister Carrie” at $200,000.
“We’re going larger this time,” Nearing said in a phone interview.
“Sister Carrie” takes its name from Theodore Dreiser’s groundbreaking novel about a young country girl in the big city. The book scandalized readers when it was published and since has influenced other authors, Nearing said.
The film version also draws from other authors’ works as it examines mistreatment of women, Nearing said, adding the film remains true to Dreiser’s Chicago and Paris locations. But he expects most of the project to be shot in and around Chicago — with an Illinois wheat field standing in for its French counterpart in the closing scene, he said. If no wheat fields are available, he joked, they might use a cornfield.
As with “Chicago Heights” and “Hogtown,” the biracial, bilingual “Sister Carrie” is being shot digitally in black & white. That approach, he said, makes a big difference.
“A lot of films are out now in black and white,” Nearing said. “They’re shot in color and desaturated. We shoot in authentic black and white. It looks like the kind of thing you would see from Orson Welles or in a John Ford film.”
At the same time, Nearing is trying to cultivate a relationship with a Chicago-based independent and foreign film distributor. If all goes well, “Sister Carrie” would release in Fall 2018 or Spring 2019.
Creating award-winning Chicago-based movies and teaching college-level independent filmmaking at GSU for 15 years helped Nearing beat competitors from around the country to become the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events’ first choice for the one-year Filmmaker in Residence gig, which comes with a $10,000 grant.
“Chicago Heights” was screened at national and international festivals, landed on film critic Roger Ebert’s list of Best Art Films in 2010 and eventually appeared on Netflix under the name, “The Last Soul on a Summer Night.” “Hogtown” won Best Film in a Fine Arts Discipline at the 30th Black International Cinema Berlin, Best Picture at the 2015 Los Angeles Black Film Festival and was declared the winner of the 2015 Independent Film Playoff in Los Angeles.
Pretty heady stuff for Nearing, 55, who was born the fourth of five children approximately 500 miles north of Billings, Mont. in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. His dad worked as superintendent of schools and his mom took care of the family full time.
“I knew I wanted to be a writer from the very beginning,” recalled Nearing, now a U.S. citizen.
To that end, he pursued a master of arts degree in English language and literature/letters at the University of Toronto before realizing “working as a writer might not be realistic.”
So, Nearing earned a master of fine arts degree in film/cinema/video studies from York University, an alternate choice he now acknowledges “was not any more realistic.”
After spending the following year at the Canadian Film Centre as producer resident, Nearing embraced documentary-making as a genre that allowed him to blend his training in the two areas. “I liked it,” he said.
During the next 10 years, Nearing chronicled “a really eclectic” array of topics, including juvenile homicide, bomb techs defusing terrorists’ explosive devices and Russians playing in the National Hockey League.
That period was “almost like an apprenticeship” in filmmaking, but it was also limited, Nearing said, because a documentarian’s emphasis on fact may obscure a larger reality.
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“You can be much more real in fiction,” he said, crediting filmmaking with giving him the latitude “to be more intimate (in his portrayals of persons) than I could in documentaries.”
Nearing, who originally intended to become a screenwriter, said he eventually wants “to tell the story of the film industry in Chicago.” That would mean focusing on the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company, best known for its Charlie Chaplin movies of 1915 and which closed three years later.
“It’s a hard script to write,” he said.
In coordinating the MFA program in Independent Filmmaking at GSU, Nearing finds “a lot of crossover” between being a working filmmaker and a teacher. “As someone who’s done the actual work of filmmaking, I feel better equipped to guide my students.”
Making an independent flick, “takes the dedication and talent of so many people,” said Nearing, adding the financial aspect can’t be overlooked.
For example, “Chicago Heights” was possible thanks to cast members donating their time and the GSU administration allowing free use of school equipment, Nearing said.
In the case of “Sister Carrie,” Guggenheim Foundation and MacDowell Colony fellowships supported development of the screenplay and Nearing has added his $10,000 Filmmaker in Residence grant to the monetary mix. He’s also seeking at least one philanthropist. “We’re reaching out to the film community in Chicago, looking for people who can support the project.”
Nearing said he designed the MFA path at Governors State University “ideally, to create a space where a student could become the next Spielberg or Spike Lee.” However, the program also credentials students “to teach in higher ed.”
Nearing’s most important advice to students? “Just be yourself, compete with yourself” and “keep an open mind.”
Dennis Sullivan is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.