 Bennett recalls just how intimate: "The other unusual decision Victor made was to shoot Cynthia and Marc's apartment (the primary location) in an actual Village apartment instead of building it on a stage. He really wanted the authenticity of that experience." Mignatti adds: "It was crazy in a way, but everyone on the project was very used to shooting in tight quarters in the city. There was something incredibly vibrant about being in one of those tiny apartments where you know so many lives had already passed through. I think it added a great deal of atmosphere to the shoot and that ultimately translates to the film." Production Designer Dina Goldman agrees: "Having grown up in New York I totally understood what he was going for. Something about those plaster walls that are never quite straight, the old windows... even the smell of those buildings."
Mignatti had seen Goldman's book at her agent's office and had been impressed with her work on "MANNY & LO" and "I SHOT ANDY WARHOL." "I'd grown up with people like Marc, Robert and Cynthia. I saw them everyday on the streets of my neighborhood. There's an excitement about your first apartment. Victor gave me a great deal of freedom to put together an eclectic mix of styles, because he felt that's just what they would do... try different things out. Particularly Cynthia with her developed sense of style. To feature this, we were always moving set pieces around from scene to scene so it appeared they were always rearranging the apartment in subtle ways."
The on-camera musical performances are by actors Panaro and Williams. Panaro recalls, "Victor had fallen in love with Gabriel Zenone's recording of his song "Promise of Another Day" and wanted to use that version for the soundtrack, which meant I would have to lip sync. I think he was a little nervous about asking me." "Hugh is a tremendous singer himself and it amazed me when he agreed to lip-sync another singer's voice, but I think he looked at it as another acting challenge, which it really is," explains Mignatti. "Aaron Williams presented a different situation in that he wasn't a trained singer, but that's the sound I was going for. He also had to play the piano on camera so Aaron worked with a vocal and piano coach for a month prior to the recording session." Song writer Cindy Soltoff explains, "Aaron's performance is moving exactly because he isn't a singer and he really acted the song in this spare elegant way."
The soundtrack was designed and mixed at Sync Sound in New York with supervising sound editor Ray Palagy and re-recording mixer Rick Dior who won the Academy Award for Ron Howard's "APOLLO 13." "BROADWAY DAMAGE " includes many upscale and cultural references. The producers were extremely lucky to have the cooperation of (among many others) Agnes b, Bergdorf Goodman, Barneys New York, Chanel, the Barefoot Contessa of East Hampton, Vogue Magazine, New York University, numerous Broadway shows as well as Bloomingdale's and the legendary Khiel's Pharmacy both which served as locations. |
Although "BROADWAY DAMAGE" is not a musical, it does contain two songs that are performed on camera. Early in the writing process, Mignatti found two original songs that would become the musical foundation for the film: Gabriel Zenone's "Promise of Another Day" and Cindy Soltoff's "Men/Someone." "It was critical that the songs were an integral part of the story and that the music and lyrics were all in harmony with the emotional through-line of the movie," explains Mignatti. "Once I found the music, I was able to construct the structure of the film around the songs." Zenone's "Window Pane of Love" (co-written with Ken Dahl) is also featured in the film.
The film was edited by Mignatti on an AVID in Los Angeles. "Conventional wisdom says you shouldn't edit your own work, but I was an editor long before I was a director. I learned about directing by fixing other director's mistakes. Objectivity usually is not a problem for me in that I've figured out this way to psyche myself out. Basically, I pretended that some other guy directed the movie, so I won't take it personally when I restructure something or cut something out. Somehow it works," explains Mignatti.