Jill Andresevic is the director and producer of the film “Love Etc.” The film will premier on Oprah Winfrey’s Own Network February 2nd at 8pm EST. The film will also replay as part of the networks Super Soul Sunday line up on February 12th at 11am EST.. Media Mikes had a chance to talk with Jill recently about the film and the idea behind it.
Adam Lawton: Can you tell us about the documentary, “Love Etc.”?
Jill Andresevic: The film is five stories based in one city and told over 365 days. The film is a real life love story told from people age 18-89. The film examines love in all different stages. The stages of love I think cross time and weather you lived in the 18th century or are living now the themes of love are the same. Love is very universal and part of our being so I found it very interesting to explore. I had no idea where we were going to end up on this journey. It has been an interesting ride.
AL: What was the initial thought behind the film?
JA: The concept was Jonathan Tisch’s who also funded the film. He was at City Hall waiting to get a marriage license and noticed that all the people waiting in this one small room were there for the transaction of love. That room was really a snapshot of the world. Jonathan was inspired to do something about love in New York from that experience.
AL: How did you go about selecting the couples in the film?
JA: It was a very intensive process that always started with research. We wanted to get an interesting cross section of people that reflected different lifestyles and socio-economical conditions. We examined people across all 5 boroughs of New York City. We were able to get representation from just about every section of the city. We did a really massive casting outreach that was based on categories such as types of people and ages. We thought it would be really interesting to find young love from a couple still in high school all the way to a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. There is an interesting story arc related to love in high school that the film will show. We did quite a bit of casting through networks of people as I didn’t really have any success using things like Craigslist or other postings. We were able to pretty much hand pick the people wanted.
AL: What do you feel was the hardest part about putting the project together?
JA: I had to take 600 hrs. of footage and edit it down to 90 minutes. I thought I was going to injure someone during that process. (Laughs) The prep days and all the shooting were nothing compared to the process of taking all that footage down to just 90 minutes. I found it quite fascinating though because people have accused us of scripting the film. If I could script this type of stuff I would be a genius. The reality of it is we just shot a lot and got lucky when we cut it down.
AL: Do you have any other projects we can be watching for?
JA: I have some different television projects that I am working on currently. I also am working on my next film which will be a scripted feature.