Director Sean Baker Talks 'Tangerine'

Now that the SCOTUS has granted marriage equality, many are looking at transgender rights as the next LGBTQ civil rights issue. With celebrities Caitlyn Jenner and Laverne Cox and shows like the multi-Emmy nominated "Transparent" making transgender topics part of the national conversation, it is on the fast-track of public awareness.

It is perhaps with great timing that "Tangerine," a low-budget movie about one Christmas Eve in the life of two transgender prostitutes in Los Angeles, has easily picked up distribution after it's debut at Sundance last January. Since then it has made a splash on the film festival circuit. What has surprised many is that the movie was shot on an iPhone 5, further demonstrating how the proliferation of filmmaking tools has given creative filmmakers another affordable avenue to tell a story. In the case of "Tangerine," it's a gritty Los Angeles tale with a heart.

After being released from a month-long jail stay, Sin-Dee (Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) meets up with fellow prostitute and best friend Alexandra (Mya Taylor) at the doughnut shop around the block on Santa Monica Boulevard where transgender hookers ply their trade. It was here that the friendship between the two women was shown through the sharing of a favorite snack. Sin-Dee learns that her pimp boyfriend has been cheating on her while she was locked up and proceeds to hunt him down. Alexandra refuses to partake in this drama, instead chooses to focus on making some money on Christmas Eve, extra cash she needs for her stage show. James Ransone plays the pimp and Karren Karagulian plays the Armenian married man who secretly seeks transgender hookers to satisfy his sexual desires.

The film initially feels and looks unpolished, but Director Sean Baker ("Starlet") has a way of making these marginal characters relatable through their aspirations and pain; so much so that it is hard to pretend not to care what happens to them beyond Christmas Day. Much credit must be given to these two transgender actors, both with little on their acting resumes, in the leads.

"Mr. Baker has justifiably received a lot of attention for shooting 'Tangerine' with a few tricked out iPhones and some special lenses," wrote Manohla Dargis in reviewing the film for the New York Times. "His low-budget triumphalism and mother-of-invention ingenuity hews to a familiar heroic indie-film arc, though more remarkable still is Mr. Baker's casting of Ms. Rodriquez and Ms. Taylor, both fluid, forceful screen presences. He met Ms. Taylor at the Los Angeles L.G.B.T. Center, the 21st-century version of Lana Turner's apocryphal discovery at Schwab's; Ms. Taylor introduced him to Ms. Rodriguez. Like Turner, an old-fashioned Hollywood invention, the women embody an on-screen ideal of sexualized, glamorized femininity that means radically different things depending on the bodies expressing it. For Turner, femininity could look like a bad performance, like tawdry drag, even prison. Here, it looks like liberation."

Eric Kohn of Indiewire notes the film successfully captures the spirit of this L.A. tale, "The effect at once creates a sort of documentary realism and comments on the raggedy nature of the story by getting intimate with its subjects." The timeliness of "Tangerine" getting a theatrical distribution by Magnolia Pictures cannot be overstated. Justin Chang of Variety claims, "Baker manages to suggest that all this clashing noise might be a necessary hurdle to a greater level of understanding. It's this bigger-picture compassion, born of an impulse to place the unique struggles of sexual and ethnic minorities in conversation with each other, that elevates "Tangerine" from a raggedy little group portrait to a generous and surprisingly hopeful vision of humanity."

EDGE caught up with Director Sean Baker when he was presenting "Tangerine" at the San Francisco International Film Festival ahead of the film's opening.

The iPhone factor

EDGE: How did the technology help to tell this story?

Sean Baker: First off, it started off as a budgetary thing. It allowed us to make the movie, but then it actually complemented the way that I normally make films, which is, I make these smaller films with small crews, usually combining professional seasoned actors with first-timers. In the case, I had two first-timers as my leads: Mya Taylor and Kitana Kiki Rodriguez. They both were aspiring actors but they haven't been in front of the camera before. What this allowed me to do was to begin production without that hump that you normally would have to go over when you're dealing with first-time actors, which means the elimination of intimidation. That always take a little while for first-time actors to get used to having camera in front of their faces, but in this case, because everybody owns their own smart phones, these girls are used to taking selfies with their phone all the time, so there was no intimidation or getting used to a movie camera because all I was doing was sticking this (phone) in their faces. So that allowed them to be on a level of ease and confidence that our seasoned actors like Karren Karagulian and James Ransone already brought to the table.

EDGE: They hardly feel that the camera was there, that it wasn't intrusive.

Sean Baker: We were a real production. We had insurance and permits, but we were still shooting on city streets where we couldn't control people, extras. We didn't draw crowds. If we were shooting there with cameras, we would have drawn crowds just because that area is very popular with people hanging around in the streets. Across the street, you couldn't tell that we were shooting a film. It looked like we were fooling around.

EDGE: You rely mostly on natural lighting?

Sean Baker: Most of it. Some of the interiors in the club and a little bit of enhanced lighting at the motel room. Radium Cheung (the cinematographer) is wonderful using natural lighting.

Exploring sex

EDGE: It allowed you to tell this very small scale and intimate story. What attracted you to this story?

Sean Baker: I was exploring the world of sex work in my last film 'Starlet,' but in a very different environment. This is just a progression from 'Starlet.' There's an area near where I live in Los Angeles, the corner of Santa Monica and Highland, which for years, has been an unofficial red light district. It was frequented by transgender prostitutes. I notice that there's always a lot of activity, drama and a little bit of chaos. It makes for great cinema. So I wanted to explore the world, just for the fact that it was yet another aspect of sex work.

What I do with all my films is that I got through a very extensive research period where I spend time with whoever the subjects are to collaborate with them and to find a story. I don't go into in there knowing the story. Chris Bergoch and I, the co-screenwriters, we did not go in there knowing that it was going to be a film about one woman seeking justice. To tell you the truth, I remember when I was talking to Mya, I found Mya first who then brought Kiki to the table. When I found Mya, I said to her, all I know is that I would like all the characters to converge at Donut Time at the end of the film. I think this movie might be about two people trying to find each other. Maybe it's a love story; maybe it's a vengeance story. I don't know but let's go with that. Then Mya and Kiki and Chris and I, we just rolled with that and spitballed ideas for a couple of months until Kiki one day, came out with this idea that was based on a semi-true story about this 'fish' (slang referring to biological women). That's when it clicked for us and that's when we saw that it was a very complete and layered aced story that we could then build upon.

EDGE: How do you relate to this story?

Sean Baker: Even though I'm not from that world in any shape or form, we tried to find stories or at least themes that are universal, so in this case, friendship and infidelity; two things that most of the world's population have dealt with at one time or another. We all have friends, and we all maybe have been in a situation which we or our partners have been unfaithful and the jealousy that stems from that. We're just wrote from the experience that we had.

Transgender stars

EDGE: Were there a lot of ad-libbing with your main two actors?

Sean Baker: What I do with all of my actors is always to say to them, here's the dialogue, if you don't like this or if you think that it's unrealistic, please give us your suggestions or throw this out the window, but we have to get from point A to point B. So we give them suggestions. There's dialogue in the script. Sometimes that dialogue, they love it; sometimes they hate it. I've been always very lucky in finding actors that have very strong improvisational skills as you can see. Some of my favorite lines in the film are lines that they wrote themselves on the spot, in the moment. I always allow them. We do one take, which is very tight to the script, and another take in which they improvise. The only stuff that was scripted to the word was the Armenian dialogue because I don't know Armenian. That had to be written in advance and locked, because I'm editing, I also need to understand what I'm editing. My Armenian cast was so helpful and wonderful. They are big stars over in Armenia. Karren Karagulian who plays Razmik, is a very good friend of mine. He helped me construct this dialogue and made it true to the Armenian way of life

EDGE: How was it like working with two first-time actors as your leads?

Sean Baker: They were smooth and professional. I just hope that the industry accepts them. They are first-time actors, but they are professional actors. This is what they want in their lives. This is where they want to go and they deserve it. I really hope that right now, with the transgender culture so much in the zeitgeist, I hope that this is just the perfect time for them in their careers. I just hope that this is a launching pad for them because they were just incredible. They just didn't have the opportunities before but now there are more roles. My hope is to see Mya and Kiki playing any role they want. It doesn't have to be just a transgender role. It can be a non-transgender role because they are very talented. I'm sure they can do anything.

EDGE: How much are they playing themselves in 'Tangerine?'

Sean Baker: There are, of course, aspects of it, and if you met them, you would see that. Mya, even in their regular life and interaction, she's very much the 'straight man.' She's often reacting to Kiki's wild side, but of course Kiki is nothing like Sin-Dee. Sin-Dee is a character who is completely out of control. Kiki, although she has this wild side of hers, she's not. She's in no way like Sin-Dee.

Better understanding

EDGE: What do you hope the audience to experience through the film?

Sean Baker: I have to answer that question by first going back and telling you what Mya told me when we first started working together. She said, 'If you make this film, I will make this film with you if you promise two things. One, that you truly capture reality in a very honest way, even if it's brutal sometimes, and show it for what it is, but at the same time, I want you to be making a film for the girls out here. I want you to make an entertaining film and it has to be funny.' So, it's quite a tall order because I realize that we're going to have this balancing act where we're tackling a serious subject but at the same time, we're trying to make this an entertaining film which is primarily a comedy. You can call it a dramedy. My hope also comes down to those two things. I would like the audience to walk away with an empathy for these characters and maybe an understanding of what the sex workers go through in this particular area, experience the chaos in their world, but at the same time, be entertained and see the humor that these girls use to get through their day-to-day life.

Watch the trailer to Tangerine: