Jay Silverman Talks Five Year ‘Yale’ Journey, Dances With Films, and “Master Puzzle” Of Indie Filmmaking

In his official website, director/producer Jay Silverman talks about his passion for crafting “impactful true stories.” That aesthetic fits his latest movie Yale like a glove, since it is based on screenwriter Van Billet’s improbable story about his charming, philandering grandfather. Yale makes its world premiere tonight at Dances With Films, and Silverman talked to Deepest Dream about his five year journey into making the movie.

Mackenzie Mitchell (Caitlin McGee) is forced to reunited with her estranged father Yale Parker (Kevin Dunn) after her 12-year-old son needs an emergecy kidney transplant. Although Yale has the right blood type for the transplant, he is not healthy enough for the procedure. Yale and Mackenzie immediately go on a troad trip to find Yale’s other kids and hopefully one of them will be a donor.

Yale left Mackenzie as a child, and the wounds of separation continues to haunt her as an adult. Though she is a somewhat successful horror writer, Mackenzie is an alcoholic and though she loves her son, she is not exactly as responsible as her Ryan’s dad and stepmother. Yale, the owner of a strip club, is a charming jokester who just wants to make people laugh. With all that laughter, however, comes the reality that Yale has been a deadbeat dad.

On her instagram feed, McGee said that indie filmmaking is not for the “weak,” and I asked Silverman about this insight. “The business of making independent movies (exists) at many levels,” said Silverman. “You’ve got the ones that are celebrity based, meaning big shot celebrities want to be directors, and they bring their buddies in, and the next thing you know it’s showing at Sundance.”

“Then you’ve got people like me that grab investors, and I go out and take my vision and a screenplay that i acquired and go out and make a movie based on the confinements of what I consider to be a super exciting but at the same time challenging endeavor,” said Silverman. “But the less distractions you have, the more fulfilling it is.”

Describing indie filmmaking as akin to working on a “master puzzle” due to its unpredictable nature. “We spent five years developing Yale, and within that process it became, for lack of a better word, incomplete. We (instead) made another movie called Camera, which was my last movie. And as you begin to make films, and this is my fifth, there’s just no way you’re goig to go into pre-production unless you’re ready.”

Yale makes its world premiere at Dances With Films June 18, and Silverman is ready for the big event. “Unequivocally, tomorrow night when we have our world premiere will be the fulfilling moment of it all,” said Silverman. “All this hard work for five years and seeing it in front of an audience. I’ve only screen the movie twice, and both times were for friends and family. For me, the moment is really knowing that athe picture resonated and all that effort paid off.”

Check out our full interview with Jay Silverman:

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