Frank Prinzi ASC, is an Award winning filmmaker, who has been an active member of the New York Filmmaking Community for many years. He earned his Master Of Fine Arts degree in Film and Television from New York University, working early on with Spike Lee, Jim Jarmusch, Ang Lee, Tom Dicillo, John Woo and Ed Burns among others. His eclectic cinematography credits range from feature films, television movies to episodic series, documentaries and commercials. Writing and directing “It’s a Mess” was a chance for him to make his own personal statement and to take more creative control as a storyteller.
IT’S A MESS is a fantasy but its themes are all too real: lonely, damaged, and defeated people, searching for any morsel of compassion and meaning. Finding purpose is rarely easy. If we’re lucky, we find someone to help open our eyes to it. A friendship, no matter how strange or unlikely, is still a treasured oasis for a lonely soul.
We’re all troubled by the state of our world: the glorification of greed and selfishness and the loneliness and alienation that result. Anyone who observes the world can see that it’s a mess… but it’s our mess, tragic and beautiful – something we all need to face in order to survive and change.
The technique in IT’S A MESS mirrors the story: dark, still, and quiet, with camera movement kept to a minimum. These choices seemed the ideal approach to reveal the themes of this strange little tale. IT’S A MESS is simple and classic in it’s style. No need for fireworks and overindulgent technique, just pure Cinema. The goal was to get to the heart and soul of the story with focus on the character performances and atmosphere, keeping it clear from lots of todays excessive visual and aural distractions. As Robert Bresson said,”Empty the pond to get to the fish”. I really hope you like our Film.
“There is some soul of goodness in things evil,
Would men knowing distill it out” -Henry V, Shakespeare
