Four young girls decide to make the most of the last pieces of their childhood in Director James Ponsoldt’s drama, Summering.
Ponsoldt’s film tell the story of Daisy, Mari, Lola and Dina, four best friends on the brink of starting middle school who struggle with the harsh truths of growing up as they realize their lives are about to change forever. On the last weekend of summer, they set out to make the most of it and embark on a mysterious adventure.
On July 24, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Ponsoldt discussed the making of Summering during a Q&A moderated by Director Ry Russo Young (Nightlife).
During the conversation, Ponsoldt spoke about the challenges of capturing the nostalgia of childhood on film and utilizing the environment to help tell the story.
“For each scene, I remember that the most important thing was: If there was an anchor image that told the story of that scene what would it be? We knew that because it was four kids we wanted to take advantage of the space. We wanted the environment of where we were shooting to be a sort of externalization of their psychology, but also to be able to handle four people in a frame. We knew we had to go wide and we didn’t want it to look super modern or clean. We really went out of our way to just find old, old lenses. We wanted it to exist now, but if there were or aberrations or things that looked a little messy, that was ok.”
Ponsoldt’s other directorial credits include the feature films The Circle, The End of the Tour, The Spectacular Now, Smashed and Off the Black; the movies for television Thin Ice and The Legend of Master Legend; and episodes of Sorry for Your Loss, Master of None, Shameless and Parenthood. Ponsoldt has been a DGA member since 2013.
You can listen to Ponsoldt's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.