Grate Expectations

Nashville actress and screenwriter Emily Steele was required to include three elements in her upcoming script: a blender, a gym teacher named Fritz or Frida Sinclair, and the line “we need to get going.” For the 48 Hour Film Project in Nashville, the 51 competing teams had to include each of those in their final film. 

Earlier in the process, Steele’s team had drawn the upcoming short film’s genre out of a hat. Their pick: a coming-of-age story. All of these factors seemed easy enough to incorporate into a narrative, but there was also one more very important and much more intimidating rule they had to abide by: They had to have their finished film ready to screen in two days.

The annual contest, which requires all entrants to write, shoot, edit and score a film within the competition’s titular timeframe, proved to be an arduous but ultimately surmountable process. By the end of the competition, they had completed Just Grate, a lighthearted comedic short film that stood on its own in terms of quality and positive reception. 

In fact, the movie garnered Steele, a Liverpool High School graduate, and her filmmaking collective six contest awards, including Best Child Actress for Manon Guy, who starred in the film as Hannah, the Best Screenplay award and first runner-up for Best Film. “In the end, I think we knew we had a good product,” said Steele. “We thought we were pretty sure we’d win a couple of awards, but even we were like, ‘Wow, we didn’t know we were gonna do that well!’”

Remarkably, it seems as if the film’s good fortunes are just beginning: Just Grate will soon screen outside of Nashville for the first time on Thursday, Dec. 6, as an official selection in the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival in Hollywood, Calif.

Just Grate is a comedy that revolves around the jaded, blasé young teenager Hannah. Begrudgingly stuck at a family pool party, she is pleasantly surprised when a boy named Frankie arrives, and the two begin to bond over shadily procured alcoholic drinks. However, their fraternization comes to a screeching halt following a revelation divulged to them by their parents.

The plot developed from an amalgamation of two somewhat different but universal teenage rites of passage. “It was a combination of an idea that I had for a storyline and one of the other people on the writing team,” said Steele of her team’s screenwriting process. “We were trying to think of experiences that are milestones that everybody has. I was thinking a first kiss, so that’s what I wanted to go with, and someone else was thinking, ‘What about the first time you got drunk?’”

Steele’s student observations as a theater arts teacher in a Nashville-area high school helped inform the realistic dialogue of the jaded Hannah. “I was really able to use a lot of the way my kids talk,” explained Steele. “I think Hannah has a better vocabulary than a lot of 14-year-olds, but just that attitude, aloofness and being annoyed at her family, that’s how they all feel.”

High school didn’t only influence the dialogue in her script. In fact, Steele’s own experiences as a student at Liverpool High School led her to fall in love with acting and show business. She credits teacher Tom Minardi for helping her develop acting chops and a work ethic that still benefit her to this day. “For as many film and theater productions as I have done, I have never worked harder or learned more than during my high school productions with him,” said Steele. “He was just an amazing teacher.”

Just Grate producer and co-director Wendy Keeling, whom Steele met and became familiar with through casting calls in the Nashville area, assembled the team for the 48 Hour Film Project. “I always stayed in touch with her through Facebook and stuff, and when she said she was putting a team together, I said I could help write for it and get some production experience, and she brought me on,” Steele said. “That’s a cool thing, because she didn’t know me very well, and she knows everybody. She can get the best of the best. So, for her to have that kind of faith in me is really cool.”

Keeling felt that Steele’s wit and comedic instinct would be integral to the screenwriting process of whatever film they would end up making. “I knew she was writing, I knew she had her comedy skit show Common Sense For Dummys {sic} and I always thought she was funny,” said Keeling. “When I was thinking of screenwriters, she popped into my head.”

Encouraged by the success of Just Grate, Keeling and Steele have submitted the film to 38 different film festivals nationwide and around the world, with some submissions even going out as far as Berlin and Sydney, Australia. Keeling hopes that the Hollywood Reel Independent Film Festival is just the first of many upcoming festival appearances for the short film. 

“I’m kind of hoping that we make at least 10 of the 38,” said Keeling. “That would be fantastic. I know of films that don’t even make one.”

Keeling and the rest of the filmmakers have spearheaded a grass-roots fundraising effort by creating videos on YouTube, using public-funding websites such as indiegogo.com and adding a PayPal donation link to the film’s official website. All money collected continues to go toward travel fees, marketing and other ancillary funds necessary when making the festival rounds. 

“The indiegogo page did very well. It got us all of the festival submissions, which is fantastic,” said Keeling. “The travel expenses and the promotional materials, they kind of add up. Right now it’s kind of coming out of my pocket, and that’s fine, but it would be nice to have a little assistance with that.”

Already, Steele and Keeling are starting to think about what their next project could be. “I don’t know if that will happen until the spring because there’s so much on our plates right now,” said Keeling. “I think we want to do something a little different with the next one. We’ve discussed staying with the dark comedy, but maybe something with more tooth to it, maybe not quite so light.”

For now, Steele is enjoying one of the most exciting moments of her life, although she admits that Just Grate’s reception has yet to supplant her previous all-time favorite life experience. “It’s the coolest thing that’s ever happened to me since I sang onstage with Meat Loaf at the Landmark Theatre,” Steele said with a laugh. “That was the highlight of my life. This definitely comes in second, and, of course, marrying my husband comes in third.”

For more information, visit justgratefilm.com.