Director Adam Lawrence, Producer Ramfis Myrthil & Actor Don DiPaolo Discuss Their Short Film ‘Love and the Small Print’

Can you tell me about your short film Love and the Small Print?

Adam Lawrence: Love and the Small Print is the story of three couples that face the challenges (the not so pretty side) of today’s relationships. The story touches upon the facts that sometimes we see things on the outside and assume them to be great but behind closed doors people can sometimes live double lives so to speak.

Ramfis Myrthil: The best way to describe Love and the Small Print is Crash meets Requiem for a Dream. This is a dark, New York, gritty film about the concealed side of relationships and what happens behind closed doors. It was inspired by Adam’s bad break up and a tough break up I went through as well.

Ramfis Myrthil and Adam Lawrence

Who is the target audience and is there a message you’d like them to take away from the film?

Adam: The target audience is anyone in general who can relate to relationships. The great thing about that is anyone in any age range can relate to that. This wasn’t a niche film so it had a very wide span audience. Each person can take something different away from a film because we all simply think differently as humans. I would say if I had to choose one thing I wanted people to see as a message or take away is I find sometimes people defend these terrible relationships they are in because they fear that being alone is the end of the world and they would rather torture themselves in something that doesn’t work for them because alone is scarier than that. Maybe a person will see this and say, “Hey, I am in something like this and maybe it is not healthy,” and it may bring a positive change or a wakeup call for them. Sometimes you have to see things from an outside perspective being told rather than being in so deep that you cannot see it for yourself or you defend it thinking it’s right.

Adam Lawrence giving direction to Don DiPaolo playing Mark during filming for Love and the Small Print

Don, what drew you to play the character Mark?

Don DiPaolo: I like playing characters that are kind of a mess. Mark’s life is definitely spiralling down. How people react in these situations is interesting to me. Exploring how much of this is them causing it and how much of it is just a bad circumstance is really fascinating to me.

Are there similarities between you and Mark, and did that affect your acting in the role?

Don: I’ve been in a situation in my life where I was betrayed by another person and I was in a really bad place. Understanding the thoughts going on in my head during these times really helped me look at Mark in a way that was more than just a guy who was going through a tough time. It gave me more layers to work with.

Did shooting go to plan or did you have any obstacles to overcome?

Ramfis: Nothing ever goes according to plan. One of the most difficult days of shooting was the last day where we had three company moves, meaning we had to shoot at three different locations. Setting up and breaking down for scenes can take hours, and we were fighting daylight since we shot the film during the winter when the sun sets early. On top of that, our third day of shooting was one of the coldest days of the winter. We had to take constant breaks to warm up during the exterior scenes.

Don: Yes, when we shot the scene on the roof it was the coldest day of the year. It was unbearable. Between every take I kept running inside. Although it helped add to my general discomfort with the phone conversation anyway… Use what you got.

Day 3 of filming for Love and the Small Print: rooftop shooting

Love and the Small Print premièred at Cannes Film Festival, how has it been received?

Adam: In the short film corner at Cannes it was received well. People were coming up to us from around the world and saying how much they enjoyed the film and thought it was powerful stuff. It was a great feeling to know people appreciated our work.

Ramfis: As Adam says, Cannes is Disney World for filmmakers. The films we saw, the people we met, the events we were invited to were an experience of a lifetime. Love and the Small Print was screened for multiple distributors and we found our home with Shorts International – our film can be viewed via Satellite TV, iTunes, Verizon and Amazon app.  It was well received and garnered our credibility as filmmakers. We also received tons of press while in Cannes as well as acknowledgement from our fellow peers.

What new projects do you have in the pipeline?

Don: I’m now Bi-Coastal. I’m In LA and NY. I’ve been spending more time in LA now. I’m developing relationships and getting people to know me. So that’s what I’ve been focusing on in the last couple of months.

Ramfis: Beast of the East Productions is in negotiations on fifteen feature films at the moment, though due to non-disclosures we’re unable to share any details about them. We also had two films screening in LA last month.

Adam: Right now we have a ton of different projects in the pipeline. Of course they’re all on different levels at the moment. We have Bridge and Tunnel, which just ran limited theatrical for a week in Beverly Hills (September 26th to October 2nd) at the Laemmle Music Hall.

Love and the Small Print is available to download on iTunes here.

Beast of the East Productions can be found at www.botep.net, and on Twitter and Instagram under BOTEPNYC. They are also on LinkedIn and Facebook under Beast of the East Productions.