Ultimately, it was all a little too perfect that it took Sophia Silver finishing the script for “Over/Under” with her longtime friend Sianni Rosenstock to finally find the perfect role for herself. After frustrations had mounted in her acting career from the grind of auditioning, Silver began to think in order to land the juicy parts, she’d just have to write some for herself. However, when inspiration struck in recounting the summers she’d spend with Rosenstock on the coast of New England, a reprieve for both from more hectic home lives back in California during their formative pre-teen years, there was no obvious place for her in it until she realized how strongly suited she was to another position entirely.
“There was not a part for me in it, but it didn’t matter because I was so passionate about this story and I just felt it so deeply in my bones that I could not hand it over to someone else,” said Silver, who assumed the role of director and didn’t look back. “I felt I had to be the one to tell it and to bring my friendship with Sianni to life and now that I’ve made it through my first feature, it feels like my calling now.”
There’s little chance of any disagreement after “Over/Under” premieres this weekend at the San Francisco Film Festival, and Silver finding a way forward with Rosenstock by her side once more in order to make her feature debut is already an ideal capstone to the story they set out to tell of Violet (Emajean Bullock) and Stella (Anastasia Veronica Lee), who are thick as thieves when you first meet them at the age of nine on the beach, starting out their days catching morning moths and jumping out into the ocean to cool off without a care in the world. But come August every year, the two head back home to California with their parents, and though it wouldn’t seem all that far from Los Angeles where Violet lives to San Diego where Stella resides, it feels like a world away as the former contends with intense bullying at school and the latter endures a number of health issues within her family, from her grandmother’s memory loss to her mother’s bout with cancer.
Over the course of four years, “Over/Under” tracks Violet and Stella as they find their own place in the world and come into their own as young women, growing in their consciousness of the world around them and who they are individually, which Silver and Rosenstock impressively understand as a process that can be impeded as much as aided by those closest to them in their lives and chart a friendship that acts as a pillar to both. Having the same actresses withstand the whirlwind of changes both physically and emotionally over such a turbulent time as a constant, the film comes alive as you’re able to experience Violet and Stella’s curiosity and occasional disillusionment through their eyes, with Silver dipping in at choice moments to show how their perspective will be shaped for years to come, even though you leave them at 13. With the film’s Bay Area bow on the horizon, Silver spoke about getting behind the camera for the semi-autobiographical drama and collaborating with one of her closest friends on its script, as well as the delicacy of working with Bullock and Lee at a time when they could be going through the same sense of uncertainty in their lives as they’re depicting on screen.
What was it like collaborating with Sianni on a script for this?
It was absolutely the most profound experience of my life, just being able to tell our friendship story together. It was just so healing, and we had this opportunity to really relive moments that we experienced together and realized there were a lot of unresolved feelings that we actually still carried into adulthood, so to be able to process them together was incredible.
Was it a situation where you were trading drafts with one another?
We worked on Zoom every day, just in a Google Doc capturing memories from our past. We didn’t really know what the form of the story was going to be. Were we just doing this for ourselves? Was it a memoir? I started very clearly seeing things visually and my background is in acting and writing, so I tried to picture it in screenplay format. Sianni had never written a script before, but she was like, “Let’s go for it. Let’s try.” And nine months later, we had a script. The outlining process took us about eight-and-a-half months and originally, we decided to start at [age] nine and outlined Stella and Violet’s friendship – until they’re 18 years old, but it was sort of this epic saga and we’re like, “This is not a miniseries. This should be a film.” And the years that we adored the most were 9 to 13. We just felt really secure in those years and as an exercise, we showed those years to my mom. We just wanted a fresh pair of eyes and she was like, “I think you have your script. I think you can start writing now.” And once we finished [the outline], the script just spilled out of us in 12 days.
It’s ambitious on its own, but the idea of having the same actresses move through these years with one performance seems to be a pretty big challenge in terms of casting unto itself. Was that always in mind?
I was pretty obsessive with casting and I felt if I found the two girls, everything else would fall into place. My wonderful casting director Kerry Rock put out casting calls and normally the casting director weeds through a lot of self-tapes, but I needed to watch every self-tape that was submitted myself, so my husband at midnight would have to take my computer away to make sure that I would sleep. [laughs] I went over a thousand girls for each part and when I saw Anastasia and Emajean’s first audition tape, I felt very viscerally like these are my girls.
I felt that yes, there are physical changes that girls experience from 9 to 13, but sometimes they’re not too dramatic, and I felt confident partnering with talented hair/makeup/wardrobe and thought we’d be okay. But more than that because my background is in acting, rehearsing was such an essential part of my process and I rehearsed with the two actresses for five months, so that they knew these characters in their bones. They understood who they are at nine, who they are at 10, who they are at 12 and 13 and could effortlessly go scene to scene. Every day we jumped around shooting nine, we shot 13 in the same day and they knew how to do that.
Once you get Emajean and Anastasia in a room together and you see their dynamic, does anything change about your ideas about what this could be?
Certainly, especially because these characters are based on my younger self and Sianni’s younger self, I never wanted the girls to feel like they had to identically replicate our experience. What was important to me is their understanding [of the characters]. I wanted to hear who do they think these girls are and for them to really build the love story that they have between the two of them. But they made those girls their own. They brought to life certain moments or emotions that I couldn’t have even dreamed up with Sianni and it was so amazing to watch them make the characters their own.
Since you’re working with actresses in this sensitive time they’re experiencing in their lives and capturing it at the same time on screen, did it require delicacy on your part to work with them?
Yeah, what I communicated to everyone on set was creating a safe environment for them and to make sure we were all sensitive to what they were experiencing, both in the film, but also literally in their life because they’re going through the exact same years that these girls are going through. Myself, Emajean and Anastasia built a trust and I made it very clear to them that at any moment, if this feels like it’s hitting too close to home, if it’s too painful, if it’s too uncomfortable, you just tell me and we’ll pivot or we find a way to work through it that’s comfortable for you. But even though they were experiencing it, they were so open and eager to digging into what they were, going into their actual lives and infusing those things into these characters.
They had a lot to draw on given the attention to detail in the production design and these locations that tell so much about the characters’ family lives. What were they like to find?
It was a dream because we found locations that were so reminiscent of our actual homes from childhood, so that was surreal. But my wonderful production designer Priscilla Elliott and I started working together months in advance because prep was essential for me since I had never directed before. We would be exchanging through all hours of the day and night — I would [make] stream of consciousness notes, like very specific details about decor or Pinterest boards and she got it. She just knew what I was trying to communicate and worked so tirelessly. For the morning moths, she drove her sprinter van across the country and went to a farm in the middle of America to pick them up, so her dedication to the creating this incredible set was a dream to collaborate with someone like that.
With the morning moths, it flows quite naturally in the film, but they’re fickle insects. Did that require a lot of takes to get them into the jar?
Yes, it certainly did. It was like balancing trying to get those honest moments emotionally, but also the technicality of the morning moths, so it was definitely challenging, but we had some moments where the moths cooperated with us and some where they didn’t, but for the most part, we were very lucky with how those moths cooperated.
As an actor who moves behind the camera and then to the editing room, is it interesting going through the whole process of seeing a film come together?
I love that about this aspect of filmmaking because I think that it’s been hard for me in the past as an actor when I give myself over to the process so entirely that when it’s over, it takes time not to be the character anymore. You’ve been so closely living someone else’s experience for so long, to elongate that experience as a director and to know once we finish shooting, even though it was sad to say goodbye to everyone, that I was about to encounter this whole new part of the process was like a dream because it felt there wasn’t a clear end date. Honestly, I would say [getting to the premiere] is the hardest part of the process for me now that it’s over, sort of surrendering and letting go and letting it have a life of its own. It’s very vulnerable and of course, so exciting because that’s why we want to make art. We want to share it with people, but it’s a little bittersweet to say goodbye.
I imagine Sianni might’ve been on set for some of this, but have you shared the film with her yet?
Yes, we’ve watched the movie together many, many times. She would be there for a lot of different versions – my director’s cut, rough cuts, final cut, getting her thoughts and feedback, but Sianni was on set every single day and we actually slept in a bed together as we did as children every single night. [laughs] Our husbands visited set a few times, so we had a few nights apart, but it was crazy. It was like we were Stella and Violet ourselves all day long, driving to set together, playing our music and telling our story together. She was with me the whole time.
“Over/Under” will screen at the San Francisco Film Festival on April 30th at 2 pm at the Roxie Theater.
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