SU alum Chelsie Pennello’s latest film shows her acumen for producing, directing
Courtesy of Donnie Gerald
Chelsie Pennello graduated from Syracuse University in 2018. Now, Pennello lives in Washington, DC and works as a producer and indie film maker.
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Like many new students, filmmaker Chelsie Pennello wasn’t quite sure what she wanted to study or do when she came to Syracuse University in 2014. However, while taking a film directing class during her junior year in the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, Pennello soon realized what she wanted to pursue.
“That was the first time where I got to control the entire creative process, and it was super, super pivotal to me in understanding how much I loved doing this,” Pennello said.
Since then, the SU alumna has written and directed three of her own short films, with her most recent project being “Mandarins,” which she started writing in 2021. Two years later, “Mandarins” has been accepted into the Cinequest Film Festival and will be competing for Best Narrative Short, an Oscar-qualifying award.
The film will have its world premier at the Cinequest Film Festival. The festival is split into two parts — the virtual festival will take place from March 1 to 12, and the in-person festival will take place from August 11 to 20 in San Jose, CA. Tickets are available online to watch the film at the virtual festival.
The fictional short film centers around Olivia Chu, an estranged outcast of her family who decides to crash her mother’s funeral. Chu finds herself struggling to come up with a eulogy to say in front of her family as her obedient siblings rush to try and save the ceremony. Pennello said she wanted this story to illustrate themes surrounding intergenerational trauma.
“I was thinking about how (intergenerational trauma) affects people and how you move on from it, and how you would go about ending the cycle,” Pennello said.
Along with writing and directing independent films, Pennello’s “day job” is working as a producer at a video production agency in Washington D.C. Her work as a producer is much different from the narrative projects she does in her free time, she said, as the work is centered around corporate videos and campaigns.
Pennello said that during her time at SU, she enjoyed exploring the production process. She explained how her and her friends would get together and come up with ideas and invent projects and concepts together. One project Pennello wrote, directed and starred in during her time at SU is called “Kill Green,” which follows a young Chinese girl going through a heartbreak, experiencing it through her culture’s tradition of drinking tea.
Pennello said the production of “Mandarins” kept getting bigger and bigger, especially compared to the production of “Kill Green.” While Pennello could grab some close friends and classmates to work on “Kill Green,” “Mandarins” required much more forethought. This planning and attention to detail is something Corbett Blair, one of the composers on the film, said paid off.
“She’ll have ideas for exactly what she wants scenes to look like early on, and much of the creative process is informed by different shots she knows she wants to accomplish,” Blair said. “A part of the reason her works have a stylized, cohesive vision is this planning.”
Even before the crew started filming “Mandarins,” Pennello, Blair and Nathan Colby, one of the directors of photography and editors on the project, all said they spent a lot of time going through the scripts, storyboards and shot lists. The team spent months before production doing lighting tests, scouting for locations and tested framing and shots.
“I think because we put in the work up front, by the time it came to shooting and eventually editing, we were both on the same page, so there were very little surprises,” Colby said.
A lot of the ideas for Pennello’s shots and writing come from many different forums, she said. Whether it’s through a book she’s reading or a film she’s watching, Pennello said she often pulls inspiration as she goes. One film that came to mind for Pennello’s influence behind “Mandarins” was “The Celebration” by Thomas Vinterberg.
After watching “The Celebration,” Pennello said she started to really focus on her writing of “Mandarins,” partly because it’s a very monologue-driven film. This also called for good actors. Pennello offered an open casting call for the roles of the film, but also personally reached out to a few people through Instagram and Facebook.
One of these actors was Michael Tow. After Pennello met with Tow and pitched the story and script to him, he agreed to join the project.
“(A reliable actor) plays such a vital role in how the story is being told,” Pennello said. “There’s so many of these really long shots on the actors giving these minute-long monologues, so we knew we needed a really strong talent.”
Early on, Pennello wasn’t sure if “Mandarins” would actually come to fruition or not because of all the factors that went into production. But now that it’s done, she said, she’s happy that her creative idea is now a reality. Blair added how rewarding it was to see the script and all of Pennello’s efforts come together over the course of a couple years.
The entire production of “Mandarins” proved to Pennello how much work goes into indie films, and was a big learning opportunity for her. Throughout the journey, she was surprised with how many people were willing to help her create the film, but she’s thankful for it nonetheless, she said.
“I used to have so much fear and embarrassment over asking people, especially professional working people who are always busy…to help (me) on (my) project,” Pennello said. “But I was continually surprised along the way how many people were willing to work on this still with me.”
Published on February 28, 2023 at 10:48 pm
