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Groner has played a role in a movie.
Asked if he plans on pursuing a
Screen Actors Guild (SAG) card,
Rabbi Groner said he doesn't think
he's ready to give up his rabbinic
career.
"I can't help but be amused by the
number of roles I am asked to play as
• rabbi," he said, chuckling. "This was
my first time acting, and it may be
my last."
But perhaps most important of all,
All of It is the first full-scale produc-
tion by the pair of 27-year-olds who
met as students during their years at
Cranbrook-Kingswood Upper School.
The script, written by Podolsky,
follows the travails of 25-year-old
Amy Holbeck (played by Alanna
Ubach), a young Jewish woman liv-
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4-
Above: A technician adjusts the lighting.
Right: The crew sets up lights for the shoot.
ing in New York as she pursues a
career in editing.
Returning home for the High
. Holidays, Amy finds she hasn't exact-
ly met the more traditional expecta-
tions of her mother, Glenda (played
by veteran actress Lesley Ann
Warren), who wishes marriage and
childbearing were more in the works
for her youngest daughter. Glenda
also works through issues surround-
ing a friend's diagnosis and treatment
for breast cancer.
Podolsky finished writing the
script six months ago. Gold became
involved about a year ago when
Podolsky was embarking on the cre-
ation of the script. As she finished
portions of it, she sent proofs to
Gold to review.
"I would read it and grow more
interested," he said. "I made some
suggestions; some she incorporated
and others she ignored.
"This has really been her baby,"
Gold said.
Fearing a director might take liber-
ties with her carefully crafted script,
Podolsky decided to produce the film
herself —even though she had never
undertaken an endeavor of that mag-
nitude.
"If you work for it, you get it
done," she said. "When a writer sells
a script, he or she loses that control."
She began by returning to the
Detroit area to round up the
$500,000 necessary to produce the
film. Podolsky mostly petitioned suc-
cessful businesspeople and friends of
the family for financial sup-
port, a process that taught
her the business end of film
production.
"Every step was a new
experience," she said, adding
that she had to develop a
business plan and learn lingo
like "pro forma" to sell the
idea to investors. "It really
takes an act of faith," she
noted.
Scripts were also sent to
agents and actors. Alanna
Ubach (The Brady Bunch
Movie and Renaissance Man),
22, said she became interest-
ed in the film as soon as she
finished reading the script.
"I said, 'I have to meet the
writer right away,"' she
recalled. "It is a wonderful
film."
James Rebhorn, an actor
who has appeared in
Independence Day and The
Game, said he liked the
script's "heartfelt exploration
into the mid-American quest.
"There were no simple answers to
the problems in the characters' lives,
no typical Hollywood formulaic solu-
tions," he said. "It is extremely
refreshing that a movie doesn't have
to rely on those elements."
Gold and Podolsky then gathered
a select crew and slated sites for film-
ing. Shooting began Oct. 12.
Since that time, the cast and crew
have been spotted in Birmingham in
front of the Elizabeth Stone Gallery,
at the Long Lake Market, in front of
the Franklin Cider Mill, in the
Townsend Hotel and in a few resi-
dences in the area.
Meryl Podolsky, Jody's mom, said
she's happy about the shooting wrap-
ping up because her stylishly modern
kitchen cupboards have been covered
in a less-than-attractive wood-grain
contact paper in an attempt to make
her kitchen appear to be more tradi-
tionally colonial.
"Don't get me wrong. I am happy
to help out my daughter like this.
But every inch of my kitchen is cov-
ered in this stuff. It just makes me
cringe every time I see it," she said.
Shooting in their hometown has
had unexpected bonuses as well.
Betsy Gold McDowall, Gold's moth-
er, said she delivered a coat, hat and
gloves to her son on the set one day
when the crew was besieged by freez-
ing rain. She also surprised him with
a birthday cake last week when he
turned 27.
"Isn't it nice when you can have
your mother on the set?" she asked as
she straightened his kippah.
The cast and crew celebrated the
last day of filming in Michigan last
•
Friday and had only one more day of
shooting in New York scheduled for
this past week. Post-production of
the film,. including editing and
sound, begins next week and is
expected to stretch to the final days
of 1997.
Gold said the film will then be
entered into several film festivals,
including Sundance, the Hamptons
and Toronto. The producers are also
looking into potential agreements
with national companies for distribu-
tion of the film.
"We aren't sure exactly when it will
be released, but we are shooting for
sometime in 1998," Gold said. ❑
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