Interview with: Jeffrey Cohen, Director The Ballad of Isabel Winslow
By Franca Lafosse for Film In Revolt
Set in the vibrant yet perilous world of the 18th century England, The Ballad of Isabel Winslow is a thrilling comedy blending sharp wit, romance, and high-stakes deception. At the heart of the story are two charming yet penniless con artists: Isabel Winslow and her partner-in-crime, John Banterbury. Disguised in finery, they infiltrate the luxurious halls of Lord Benedict’s mansion with a cunning plan to hustle the aristocracy out of a fortune.
Franca: Congratulations on The Ballad of Isabel Winslow getting its World Premiere at LA Shorts!. The festival is on from the 16-28th July, have you had your first screening yet?
Jeffery: Thank you, not yet. The premiere will be on Friday, and this is the first screening where anyone other than the producers is seeing it.
Oh wow, so not even friends or family have watched it yet?
Not really, we haven’t even shown it to the cast, which is crazy if you’re a first-time filmmaker.
That’s going to be exciting! You also wrote, directed, produced and acted in this film, was that always the plan? Had you worked on a project of this scale before?
This was my first time directing a movie, I have written and acted in films before, but this was my first professional scale production which is really exciting. And we did a period piece, which is a lot for your first project, but it was very fun.
How did the decision to do a period piece come about?
That was actually the most fun part! With a lot of proof of concept or shorts, they often take place in rooms and are relationship based due to the budget constraints involved and there are typical tropes you often see, so with my first project I wanted to go as far away from that as possible. I wanted it to have big scale, and I’d never seen a short film that was set in a castle, or shot in period piece format, so that was exciting to me. And also exciting from a story perspective too, setting it in the 18th century and taking a woman’s point of view, which I hadn’t seen done. Those were the initial things that drew me in.
Speaking of locations, this location where you shot the film is Insane! Did you already know you would be shooting there or did the script come first and then the location scout?
I wrote the feature script first and to tell this story correctly we needed to find a castle. For a period of time, we were set on shooting it in England. At one point that was the plan, and then the plan was to go to New England to shoot it where I’m from, and then a lot of the crew were LA-based so we finally went ‘can we find a castle in California?’. And we did! We toured like 20 of them and finally at the 11th hour we found the castle that David Fincher used for Mank. It’s the most beautiful thing and that’s now the poster for The Ballad of Isabel Winslow, so we got the permits and shot the film there.
Is it a tough process getting permits in the US?
It is, especially because we had a horse and carriage, so we had to get the equestrian rights for the horses and then that adds a layer of insurance too – so there were times when we found beautiful castles that wouldn’t work because of insurance, but in the end we made it work.
It seems like a massive project to jump onto as a first-time director, how did you navigate that?
I had an incredible producer, Teferi Dejene, who had experience on feature films and making professional productions, so without him it would have been extremely difficult. But for me, it was still jumping in head-first. Like, getting a horse and carriage to show up and dealing with the union and all these different things at once on your first day of directing.
The horse was on the first day?
Yes, so we did exteriors on the first day and on a separate second day we shot the interiors of the castle.
How do you direct a horse?
I spent years in horse directing.! Haha, it is actually a funny story because we found this horse company near Malibu and – it’s expensive to get a horse, and some of them are too small and it costs a lot more to get a really high quality horse – so, to get a great horse, you have to have the trainer on set with SAG laws. So we put the trainer in the movie as an actor, costume fittings and all. She was originally going to have lines and then we eventually just had her ride in, but she’s the one who trained the horse.
I did see her – she looked very professional! That’s amazing, and it’s also great to see things like this in short films because it elevates it to the next level.
Exactly, we were thinking if we get a horse and carriage, that’s exciting to see right off the bat in a first movie, it’s a big thing.
It is, and it’s not only exciting but also shows your level of preparation because of all the permits and the safety aspects that you had to consider back in pre-production. Speaking of, I hear there is an adaptation in the works to turn this short into a feature?
Yes, I originally wrote The Ballad of Isabel Winslow in feature form, and when we were getting financing for that we had the idea of making a short version proof-of-concept. So that was this project, and it was an interesting exercise transitioning from feature to short, choosing the best bits and then having to rework the narrative. I had to re-do all the dialogue to fit a short format that still had an arc to it, not just disjointed scenes. So, this film would probably have been closer to the third act of the feature, when Isabel rides in.
And so, since this was your first time directing your own writing, did you find that the end product was different to what you imagined?
Yes, it actually got a lot better! Because of the actors, Nathan (Vicenti) and Shelley (Q) are so funny, Rob (Robert Hadlock) too… and there is something that’s just funny about people dressing up in wigs and acting – like you see in The Favourite or Barry Lyndon, even if you try to make a straight-edged drama, it is going to be funny. So I wasn’t afraid of that, and in rehearsals I thought ‘this is too funny, I think we should lean into this instead of running away from it’.
It’s true, and it is hilarious because of the level of theatricality in how they look that is just… ridiculous! And you act in the film too, I was very surprised by your role.
Yes, I was a servant, and then my brother is the other one. Yes, we were very good servants that day, I was very proud of that – I was directing in the servant’s outfit for the second part of the day after lunch, it was excellent.
Did you have someone stepping in to direct while you were acting?
Well, this was an incredible realisation for me of all the people who star in large movies and direct them, thinking about something like A Star is Born, I mean you have to be in costume and then your AD is yelling ‘Action’ when you’re in the scene, so it’s a crazy amount of preparation. It gave me a lot of respect for people who direct in a leading role, it’s impressive.
Did keep switching between directing and acting to watch your scenes back?
I would do the scene, then go look back, then keep directing, and then go back in the scene… but I think next time you just shot-list it and basically direct it before you show up on set, so then you can be more of an actor.
Was it hard to switch creative hats?
It’s interesting because as an actor a key component is being a bit like a child, the skill is that you’re fun and relaxed, but as director you are the boss of 50 people. So it’s difficult but you get used to it, and I think when you work with the same people it also gets easier.
Good point, had you worked with any of the crew or cast before, or did you have a standard audition process?
Rob who plays Lord Benedict I knew from high school – he’s an excellent actor and he’s really funny in this – and then my producer recommended Shelley. We did a big audition process with hundreds of people – we had like a thousand eight hundred submissions, which is crazy – and then Shelley killed it, she was fantastic and exactly what we were looking for. And then Nathan, he had the funniest tape I’ve ever seen, he basically looked like Charlie Chaplin and we just said ‘we need this guy’. There’s a leg kick he does when he’s walking in… we saw that and that was it!
And they make a great cast together, how did you navigate setting the rules of the world? The line between period acting accuracy and modern comedy?
Great question, films like The Favourite or Little Women were good references, where it’s period but not so period that the actors are restricted. Because when you say ‘period piece’ actors start to talk a certain way that we wanted to avoid, so we prepared beforehand and encouraged them to lean into their personalities and into making it fun, as opposed to very uptight.
Were there any improvised moments that came up on set?
Plenty. Nathan – he’s the improv King, his physical movements are all improvised but the lines stayed the same.
He’s hilarious, and in those costumes too! I was also very impressed by the giant dinner table – was all the food real?
Oh, it was real. We ordered all the food, and we did research into what the cutlery would look like at that time and put that together. We had a great production and costume designer, Renée Candler, she did the table, all the costumes, she designed the carriage, which was a huge mission because when you ask for a normal horse and carriage it’s a wooden one, so we had to do all this design work to make it fit the period, and she was great with all that.
She did a brilliant job, and one of your cast members is actually from Western Australia right? Is there a potential Australian festival run for the film?
Yes, so Shelley is Australian, and I think I’m going to work with her again soon. She was great, but when she did her tape she spoke only in a British accent, so I actually had no idea she was Australian! And with Australian festivals, that could be great, we’ve been focusing on American ones so far.
Well, we’d love to see it! Is there anything about the film that you want people to know that I haven’t asked you yet?
It’s the most beautiful castle, we have horses and a carriage, we have a lot that you don’t typically see in shorts and I think it looks even bigger than we hoped for, so I’m excited for everyone to see it.
Amazing, thank you so much for chatting with us and all the best with the World Premiere, we’ll stay tuned for any Australian screenings in the future!
For more info on The Ballad of Isabel Winslow and the team behind it head to: https://ripleyhillpictures.com/