God of Vengeance (film)

Filmed on Zoom during the 2020-21 Covid-19 pandemic. An adaptation of the 1906 Yiddish play written by Sholem Asch, presented by Yiddish Theatre Ensemble. Adapted for film and directed by Bruce Bierman, Assistant Director Karen Sellinger, music by David Rosenberg (along with a few purchased short pieces), translation by Caraid O?Brien. Produced by Laura Sheppard. I served as Technical Director, Production Designer, Sound Designer, and Editor.

Originally planned for live performance in September, 2020, the pandemic turned this into a film project. The ten principal actors were sent inexpensive lighting kits and greenscreens, and the seven ensemble actors just greenscreens. Backgrounds were inserted behind the actors during post production.

Bierman's adaptation relocates the action from early 20th century Poland to Manhattan's Lower East Side during the Great Depression. Before filming, the cast was sent inexpensive lighting kits and green screens. Filming was done with up to four computers recording actors from their respective homes. Additionally, Gallery and Speaker Views of the session were recorded by Zoom. The Gallery View recording was used to produce "dailies" viewed and edited by the production team. Post-production included three solid months of editing, captioning and sound design. When editing was nearly complete the final backgrounds were installed. Background images were created using a program that analyzes images to create a painting in various styles from the extracted information. With this, I was able to use photographs of existing environments with picture elements from multiple sources to create artificial settings. The Tenement Museum provided some appropriate interior and exterior photographs; others were obtained from public domain sources. More details can be found in the video God of Vengeance Production Design Process at the bottom of this page.

God of Vengeance trailer by Mark Faulkner

Stills from the film