Photo Credit LJ Exposures LLC.

As Mark Lewis sees himself, he's a one part campfire storyteller and the other bordering-on-but-not-quite pretentious artist. "I love how film lets me combine the two sides of my creative personality," he writes via e-mail. "I've been making films since I was a teenager in the 80s. This was back when the only cameras we had were those huge, shoulder mounted camcorders that you slid a full size VHS tape into. So it's my great drive and my great passion."

Frustrated by current star-driven hype and nostalgic for the early 90s independent wave of filmmakers, the Spike Lee, Richard Linklater, Kevin Smith types who with a little bit of money and the assistance of friends and family made distributable festival darlings, Lewis, a longtime genre filmmaker, launched into production for Baystate Blues with a defiant spirit, hoping to craft a throwback of sorts to a much more indie idyllic time.

Like a bittersweet but beautiful hangover of the Brat Pack era, Baystate Blues opens in small town Massachusetts, early thirtysomethings husband-wife pair Mike (Scott Lewis) and Devon (Allyson Sereboff), having long outlived their romance, barely speaking with one another. In performance, Lewis and Sereboff share a perfect type of chemistry, Sereboff--easily proving herself here an actress to watch--with her quiet emotional heaviness completing Lewis' much more at the surface frustration. Complicated in the mix are Devon's sisters, the seemingly stoic Virgina (Sharon Maguire) and ever affable Alex (Steffi Kammer) as well as Virgina's old beau Jason (Joe Tuttle) and Devon's high school bud, now turned mainstream musician Wojo (McKey Carpenter).

Crafted with a naturalist aesthetic, Baystate Blues invests its attention in tiny moments of both subtle dismissal and connection, and in so doing, binds with its honesty an undeniable attachment between its story and audience. This is the type of film you cheer for and empathize with because it's so simple to see a clear reflection of yourself in it. Storyline with Virgina and Jason, two former lovers for many years on the outs, plays out with grace and heartwarmth, Maguire and Tuttle stepping up to the plate with a skill arsenal of moving nuance. With the slightest look, Maguire is able to conjure regrets too long neglected.

Writing and direction by Lewis also deserves great credit for its ability to linger on the past without falling into the sentimental. In many ways, the film's journey is one of memory, its characters all coming to terms with what there lives were and what they've now become.

Divided into chapters, the film's structure is at times a bit jarring, its delineation of narrative jumps unnecessary, but within each sequence there's a great fluidity of pace, one that ends on a question, Devon looking directly into camera, as if in fact she was looking at herself.

Here Lewis takes time to answer a handful of question about the development and production on what he calls his intimate epic.

SM: As the Director's Statement points out, the film is an exploration of small town America, neither idyllic nor provincial in its nature. Why were you drawn to focusing your lens on this environment and the people within it?

ML: Well, I've spent 90 percent of my life in small towns, and most cinematic depictions of small town life make my teeth grind. It's usually portrayed as either a haven for hick NASCAR fans or a Frank Capra paradise. I really wanted to make a film that replicated my own experience in the most honest way possible.

SM: After conceiving the film, how did you go about structuring and writing it? What were the challenges at that script stage?

ML: In scripting, my main concern was pacing and economy of storytelling. Just because a movie is dialogue driven doesn't mean it should be boring or ponderous or self-indulgent. The challenge was creating scenes that advance the characters, but don't fall into monotony.

SM: The casting, for me, was really dead on. What was that process like, and what drew you to the actors you ultimately worked with?

ML: As I said earlier, I basically live in the middle of nowhere. So what I did with casting was send pages of the script out to potential actors in the New York and Boston areas and have them videotape themselves doing the scenes. From there, it becomes pure instinct about which actor has the best screen presence or stays in your head the most after viewing it. That was the case with Allyson Sereboff, who plays Devon. I found myself constantly re-watching her audition. The only exception is my brother Scott Lewis, who plays Mike. That role I wrote specifically for him.

SM: What was the shoot like itself, particularly with working difficult emotional territories with the actors?

ML: The shoot itself went pretty smooth, and that goes back to casting. I really lucked out in regards to Scott and Allyson who really jumped in with a sense of fearlessness. Especially in dealing with some of the more sexual aspects. I really felt those scenes were important, and in a way, say more about the characters and their situation more than ten pages of dialogue could.

SM: Do you have any standout set stories?

ML: Things went fairly disaster-free. I will say some of my favorite memories are from some of the night shoots, where at around two in the morning everyone would get this feeling that was half exhaustion/half exhilaration. Those were times when defenses and vanity would be lowered and this feeling of creative purity would really flow.

SM: With the YouTube spurred on glorification of the home video, there's a real risk run with an intimate piece like this that it could fall into too much familiarity and along the way lose its story. That's something that strikingly doesn't happen here. Baystate Blues manages at once to feel like family, like an open-hearted welcome and also feel quite purposeful and quite cinematic. How did you balance those two feels that are generally hard to combine?

ML: That balance really came together in editing. I had to be merciless with scenes that were good but drifted from the main focus of the story. I was constantly trying to find the equilibrium with scenes, striving to create drama (which draws the viewer in), but avoid melodrama (which pushes the viewer away). I think many films of this genre get torpedoed by piling on the melodrama.

SM: Structurally, I was a bit thrown by two elements: first the sectioning in title cards and second the music video-esque sequences, particularly the one with "Running Man" playing in the foreground. I was wondering that the purposes of both of these were.

ML: Well, as far as the title cards go, the first half of the movie is very episodic in nature, and I felt the cards were the easiest and most time efficient way of transitioning from one scene to the next. In regards to the music portions, I felt the lyrics in Dave Felipe's songs added certain dimensions to the characters that ran the risk of sounding too corny or precious if it had been spoken out loud in conversation.

SM: What have you taken out of the process of making this film?

ML: I've made a couple other films before this, but they were in more of an action/police genre. In making something like Baystate Blues, you don't have the creative crutch of shootouts or fist-fights to propel the narrative forward. So it's definitely more challenging, but it's also more rewarding.

SM: What's your plan for the future of the film? Then, what new projects are you working on?

ML: Hopefully, to get on the film festival circuit and get some sort of distribution deal. My hope is this film will act as a springboard that will give me the opportunity to work on projects with bigger budgets and different genres. I'd like to have a shot at making all types of movies.

For more information on the film visit www.baystateblues.net.