AFF ‘24 - Getting Hyperreal with Mermaid, Bitch’s Writer and Director, Victoria Negri

A friendship is one of the most beautiful things a person can have. It can also be the most heartbreaking thing to lose. Brooklyn-based writer and director, Victoria Negri, has the joys and pains of friendship on the brain with her short, Mermaid, Bitch. When Lily (former 10k Olympic runner-turned-actor, Alexi Pappas) wakes up with a mermaid tail, she gets her friend Ruby (Ruby McCollister) to help her figure out what to do next. Leave it to a magical, slippery fish tail to open up the pair’s friendship in ways they didn’t think possible. 

Coming off its premiere at the Austin Film Festival on October 27th, Victoria sat down with Hyperreal Interviewer, Justin Norris, to talk about her short, collaborating with Alexi on the script, and her favorite on-screen friendships.

First, congratulations on getting your short into the Austin Film Festival! Let’s dive right in—pun intended. Where did the inspiration come from for this short? 

Alexi Pappas and I met up in New York one day over lunch. It was our first time meeting in person, [but] we immediately clicked, like sisters or going-way-back best friends. I was spitballing other ideas I had. I was like, “I have this other feature film I'm writing. It's like a body-horror mermaid movie,” and she just jumped on that. She's like, “Oh my god, a mermaid, I'd love to do something like that with you!” 

Her voice is much more comedic, though, so it was fun to kind of take this concept and combine our voices into something interesting and unique. That was the genesis with her; we really vibed. Once we bought the mermaid tail that was fitted to her, that was the huge commitment. Like, “Oh my god, we're making this, we have the tail! It's happening!” [Laughs].

Who has the tail now?

[Alexi] does. It's fitted to her. It weighs 40 pounds, though. It's one of those fully operational mermaid tails that has the heavy fin. There are a lot of performers that perform underwater that have these tails made, dancing in aquariums and stuff like that. We had an artist who makes those, make it for Alexi. The tail is normal [and] scuba-like inside - it’s very heavy. It was a huge physical feat for Alexi to perform with that tail on.

What was the process of finding the perfect tail?

It was really fun because I'm such a connector kind of person—that’s the producer side of my brain. I love talking to my friends about my ideas, and my friend Jacob Kemp, who is thanked in the special credits of the film, he's like, “Oh my god, I follow a ton of mermaid accounts. I am obsessed with this kind of stuff!” He sent me a whole bunch of links to people who make these mermaid tails. From there, I just started diving in and did a ton of research and interviewed a bunch of these people to see who could turn it around and ship it to Alexi.

Tracy Falukozi was our pick to create the tail, and thinking of the color was a huge decision between me and Alexi, because Tracy presented us with a lot of choices that were very bright, almost looking like tropical fish. We were like, “No, this is like a rock-and-roll mermaid. It should be dark purple sparkles and not this kind of rainbow, neon pink thing that felt too bright and friendly because Alexi is a little rough around the edges in the film.

Let’s talk about Alexi. She’s the centerpiece on camera, but she’s also a big component behind the camera as a co-writer and co-creator as you mentioned. What was it like working with her to create the story?

It was really fun! I've actually never co-written something so it was definitely a challenge, because my process is I'll come up with an idea instinctually and not really know why until a little bit later. Once the project is further along, I’ll realize, “Oh, that's why that's there. Okay, now I know how to further refine it.” Working with someone forced me to immediately justify any artistic or story choice during conversations with her. 

We worked on it in a variety of ways. Alexi is based in Los Angeles, I'm in Brooklyn, so we’d have phone calls, and she'd be back and forth and all over the place, running races all the time. Whenever she would be in New York, we would sit down over matchas and pastries and just write together and talk about the focus of the movie, which is this central friendship. We wanted to explore what it’s like to have a friend that you've known for your entire life, but you both kind of take each other for granted and move apart. A lot of our collaboration was these long conversations in-person or on the phone, and then bouncing drafts back and forth.

Was there ever a discussion on filming in either LA or NYC? I feel like a Brooklyn mermaid is going to look different from an LA mermaid…

Yeah, we definitely talked about that. I thought of the finale occurring at Coney Island, but we were going to be filming the weekend before Thanksgiving, so the weather and temperature of the water was a huge factor in that decision. You can see in the film, even in LA, the water was freezing and [Alexi] was shivering. By the end, we got two takes of her having that final conversation with Ruby. She was freezing cold, we had to get her out there! [Laughs].

Alexi brought a lot to the table. She's listed as a producer; she helped connect us to the incredible cinematographers, Brendan Clarke and Victor Grössling, who she's worked with a lot before. I really trusted her as a creative partner on this project. She knew who could come help make this project amazing.

Exploring the visual side of things, working with your cinematographers, what work went into that? Did you have any sort of films in mind visually while you were working on this?

I've never pushed art direction so hard in a movie before, and I credit our production designer, Charles Tylinski, with that. We spoke a lot before the shoot, and I kept saying to him, “I don't want to see the color blue before they get outside,” because [Lily] doesn't yet know that she wants to try and go to the ocean to embrace this new mermaid identity. That led me to this 60s kind of flower-child interior of browns and oranges and yellows. My producer, Iris Torres, who's incredible, found that location for the interior scenes.

In terms of inspirations, there was an initial Edgar Wright kind of style there, but this was a challenge in the edit. There were a lot more whip pans and transitions between scenes, and zooms that I wanted to try and do to make the cinematography and movement feel very punk rock like the characters and tone. However, a lot of it got cut in the edit because the moments that it led out of and into caused the edit to run almost 20-minutes long. 

Staying on the visual side of things, talk about the location scouting for your short.

I definitely wanted texture and some kind of graffiti on the wall—the Silver Lake ramen place for example. We have that scene out in front of that place, and it has those eyeballs looking at them. I wanted the feeling of them being surrounded, of Alexi being watched and feeling different.

Iris and I checked out different neighborhoods. Iris is LA-based, so it made it much easier, especially when it came to which beach we shot at. I think we shot there with a permit, but honestly, we should’ve just stolen it because no one came up and bothered us. I really wanted that blue sky, so the shot of Ruby looking up and away from the beach, I didn't want to see anything. I just wanted to show the character and the sky to really bring those colors out at the end. 

The staircase was another thing I wanted. We connected that staircase that they exit the apartment from to those Music Box steps to show the beginning of this crazy journey. It’s funny because I peeked into Letterboxd and someone made a comment saying, “The funniest thing in this movie is the fact that they get from East LA to the ocean,” and I’m thinking, “Okay, that’s a really specific qualm to have!” [Laughs]. You just have to suspend disbelief a little bit. She transforms into a mermaid. Like, let’s calm down, we don’t need to be serious and literal about this.

You work in Brooklyn and obviously this short was made in LA. Each of these places are known for their respective film scenes. Based on your experience, what similarities and differences did you notice in these two spaces?

I'm not a “New York versus LA” kind of person. I love both cities for how they're different. I grew up on the East Coast, so anytime I would see a palm tree, I’d feel like I'm on vacation, so it would be a little jarring for me being there in LA. In New York, I walk or bike everywhere, and I see and interact with the most diverse people if you're out and about.

If you're shooting a film [in NY],you can easily just plant a camera. You don’t need permits unless you have tons of equipment. You can shoot in NY and have so much production value. LA feels more challenging because it's a city that is an “industry city,” and everyone knows when they see a camera, they know the questions to ask. They know how to kick you out of a location. They know how to get more money out of you. You have to be really smart about it in LA if you're a low budget filmmaker to get away with some stuff.

Both cities offer different things, and I'm really lucky that I have so many friends in LA that I could just call up and be like, “I'm coming, let's hang out.” It was a great experience to learn how to get stuff done there.

Who's another Olympian you would like to make a film with?

The first person I thought [of] was Sha’Carri Richardson. She’s a personality. She shows up to the track looking like it's a fashion show with her nails and her awesome hair. There’s a psychology of being a 100-meter sprinter that fascinates me. You have years of build up and so much training for a race that's less than 10 seconds. That's an immense amount of pressure. I'm very curious about her and her personality and how we’d collaborate.

There's been tons of movies in the history of cinema that focus on friendships. Mermaid, Bitch is now another one of those entries. Are there any movies about friendship or any movie friendships that you're a fan of?

The first one that pops into my head is Harold and Maude actually. It’s very different from my film, but it's incredible. It's an “opposites attract” kind of thing that I was blown away by the first time I saw it. The dark comedy element in that film is really my kind of thing. There's not enough movies featuring old people in a role that's interesting and about more than them having a stroke or dying.

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