VARIETY: “Ritesh Rajan and Sydney Park Join Selina Ringel in Indie ‘You, Me & Her,’ Directed by Dan Levy Dagerman”

MOVIEMAKER MAGAZINE: How a Husband and Wife Team Captured a Real Pregnancy on Film During a Pandemic

BY MARGEAUX SIPPELL MOVIEMAKER JUNE 2, 2022

Selina Ringel and Dan Levy Dagerman, the husband and wife team behind HBO Max’s Single Mother By Choice found themselves in a bit of a predicament in March 2020: Scrap the movie they were already a third of the way through filming, or rewrite the script to accommodate for the pandemic. Because the premise of the movie revolved around Ringel’s real-life pregnancy, there was no time to wait.

“We had a ticking time bomb,” Ringel told MovieMaker. “So we’re like, well, we either make this movie the way we intended, which includes my pregnancy, or it’s a different movie.”

They ended up rewriting a large portion of the script in order to pivot the storyline away from a single pregnant woman preparing for a baby with her best friend and roommate and morph it into the story of a single pregnant woman preparing for a baby while living alone in the middle of a global pandemic.

They also had to get creative with their camerawork, considering they no longer had a cameraman. Dagerman, the director, and Ringel, the star, let go of their entire crew and decided to just make the movie themselves.

To do it, Dagerman learned from their cinematography team about how to use a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K on the fly. And just like that, they began rewriting the script and shooting sections of the movie as they went along, documenting Ringel’s pregnancy every step of the way.

“I always trusted my key collaborators as they’re the experts, and I will always continue to do that, because working in one field and specializing is the beauty of film. Networking with all those crews to make the best thing you can makes it better. But at the same time, the ease of use of the camera really like allowed me to break through those layers of intimidation and get my hands really dirty,” Dagerman said. “That’s how we were able to make this movie. I had a wireless follow focus and I was operating handheld, and at the beginning it felt very dyslexic, pulling focus and stuff. It was such an interesting experience as a filmmaker.”Another way they adapted the movie to pandemic times was by incorporating Zoom and FaceTime calls.

“We’ve always loved experimenting with like mixing media to make it feel more real,” Dagerman said.

“That moment in time felt like a lot of FaceTime calls and zoom calls,” Selina Ringel added. “There was a point where we’re like, ‘Oh, no, is this going to be the Zoom movie?’…But then, on the other hand, we were like, actually, this is what it feels like to be alive right now. I haven’t had a human interaction in a really long time.”

Single Mother by Choice is a rare example of a genre called docu-fiction — it combines reality or documentary-style filmmaking with fictional elements. Yes, those were real ultrasound appointments Ringel was attending in the film — but they hired an actress to re-record the lines that the technician spoke after the fact. That was real footage of Black Lives Matter protests happening in Hollywood after the death of George Floyd in 2020. That was also real footage of Ringel in the hospital preparing to give birth. But, in real life, she’s not a single mother like her character — her husband was just behind the camera.

Because Dan Levy Dagerman shot the movie in Blackmagic RAW at 6K resolution, editing and color grading the film became much easier in post-production. Colorist Loren White, who graded the project in DaVinci Resolve Studio, said it gave him more flexibility with lighting.

“Since a lot of the film was shot using available light in front of laptops or against white walls, we did what we could to add shape to the images,” White said. “We used offsetting colors in the shadows and highlights, along with vignettes, gradients, and some film grain. I feel like we were able to elevate the look above what we had naturally.”

Single Mother by Choice is now streaming on HBO Max. 

THE WRAP: Pregnancy During COVID Is Documented in HBO Max’s ‘Single Mother by Choice’ Trailer

COVID brought its own unique challenges to each and every person, and the new HBO Max film “Single Mother by Choice” aims to confront a specific difficulty felt by a not-insignificant number of people: being pregnant during the pandemic.

Described as a fictional film about a real pregnancy, “Single Mother by Choice” is based on star, writer and producer Selina Ringel’s real-life pregnancy in the midst of the pandemic in 2020. She captures and infuses her own personal struggles into the story of an overachieving Latinx woman determined to have a baby on her own terms.

The film, which will be released on HBO Max on Nov. 2, was put together by Ringel and her husband Dan Levy Dagerman, both of whom wrote, produced and edited segments of the film through the lockdown during each month of Ringel’s real-life pregnancy. They produced through their Two Hands Productions banner.

“Single Mother by Choice” also stars Brittany S. Hall, Vanessa Angel, Christy Carlson Romano, Arap Bethke, Anna Campbell, George Tsai, Anna Evelyn and Marimar Vega.

The film was produced by Selina Ringel, Dan Levy Dagerman and Anna Campbell. Ringel, Dagerman and the film are represented by Doug Warner and Alex Flores at Mojo Global Arts.

THE WRAP

Adam Chitwood

MERE PLAYERS - Now Available Online!

MERE PLAYERS tells the story of an actor who prepares for his roles, one date at a time.  Coming off a successful crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo, Dan Levy Dagerman was hired to direct the short film.  Together with Savannah Kopp and the producer team, we managed to stretch its modest budget to the limit utilizing the Two Hands GH4 package and a small G&E package that was generously donated.  

The film went on to screen at the 2017 Hollywood Comedy Shorts Film Festival, 2017 California Women's Film Festival, 2017 Sacramento International Film Festival, 2017 DRAFT Film Festival, 2016 Somewhat North of Boston (SNOB) Film Festival, 2016 International Family Film Festival.

Below hear from Savannah Kopp (Writer/Producer) and Dan Levy Dagerman (Director) on their experience making the film.

DAN LEVY DAGERMAN (Director):

One of the most interesting challenges as a director on MERE PLAYERS was to figure out how to use the camera and locations to create different looks for each of the dates that take place in the film that would help augment the story.  We shot all of the dates in the same tiny restaurant and wanted them to look different in a way that corresponded with the types of characters Jerome was using the dates to prepare for.  

For the homeless character we thought it would be interesting to experience the date gone wrong from the POV of Maya (actress, Candice Ramirez), for the high flying business man we chose a more neutral POV to observe Jerome (actor, Lionel Sam) taking on a completely different character for the first time, and lastly for the obsessive compulsive character we thought it would be interesting to play with symmetry.

It was certainly a challenge but turned out to be a quite effective style that informed how we shot the final party scene as well.  Shot over two weekends, MERE PLAYERS was a joy to work on and I had such a great time working with the entire team!

SAVANNAH KOPP (Writer/Producer):

A few years ago, after a lackluster interview for an internship, I thought about how much more interesting it would have been if I’d interviewed not as the most professional, charming version of myself, but as a wholly different character. For an actor preparing for an audition or a performance, an interview could be a creative endeavor, a test of one’s acting skills and mastery of a role, with personal stakes outside of being hired or not.

There is a performative nature to life, in that we present ourselves differently, whether consciously or not, depending on our environment. Interviews and first dates are interactions when this self-presentation is especially purposeful: I am the job candidate of your dreams, the person you want to date, the coolest kid in L.A. The idea of an actor taking advantage of first impressions to master his characters took hold in my mind, and it became a way to give people the benefit of the doubt. I’d meet someone, get a strange first impression, and tell myself: the most logical explanation is that this weirdo is just engaged in an acting exercise for the role of “weirdo.” This idea eventually found its comedic outlet when I wrote MERE PLAYERS. The short film follows Jerome, an actor who prepares for auditions by practicing his characters on blind dates. 

Filming MERE PLAYERS was a rush and a thrill. It was an ideal situation where the cast and crew were at once incredibly talented and passionate about bringing this L.A.-centric story to life. As a writer, working with Dan and Two Hands was an absolute gift. Dan’s ideas were always inspired and collaborative, and he’d run things past me to make sure our visions were aligned. As we filmed one scene, he said I looked a little nervous and asked if I had any concerns about how we were shooting it. “Oh, no, no,” I said. The scene was coming out perfectly. I was just fully immersed in the role of “writer nervously watching a dream come true.” 

MONDAY MOVIES

Following their festival runs Two Hands is making their short films available for the first time online.  Join us every Monday for the next month for the release of a new short!

AND MORE TO COME!

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