BILLIE｜THE MAKING OF

In Vincent Bossel’s new short movie a Young Woman gets revenge on her abuser at the poker table. As a close friend of Vincent and a poker player myself, I had the chance to play a small role as an extra, be there for the shoot, and to document the process.

BILLIE｜A Revenge Story (Short Film)

Vincent found the outfit for his lead character Billie when he came to visit me in Zurich one week before the shoot. When he arrived at the home party and opened the door, a woman in a striking purple overall was standing directly in front him.

There’s no chance to find this one in a store, since she bought it second hand in Amsterdam. Two days later, he would stop on his way back from Zurich to his hometown of Lausanne to pick up the costume.

Many similar coincidences go into making a movie like this – actors that get recommended by friends, or that you worked with way back then. An acquaintance who owns a couple of samurai swords and can teach the lead protagonist how to wield the blades. A lead character that flies over from Poland to be the villain in the movie for a modest salary. A friend from the
underground poker scene who can provide the poker table, and so on and so on.

Most of the investors on the film, which was independently funded, are friends and acquaintances from the poker scene as well. They might not be known for their distinct taste in art, but for having access to money – and for being happy to gamble on risky investments.

I have known Vincent for years and have admired his work – be that writing screenplays, shooting and producing short movies, or DJ’ing with me in Zurich and beyond. I can proudly say that I slept through the whole writing process of his successful and critically acclaimed shortmovie «The Cook», during a 5 hour train ride from Montreal to Toronto. I indeed slept through the whole train ride, while Vince actually used this time to write down the entire script in one go. Apart from this trip, Vincent also loves to use his train rides from Lausanne to Zurich (where I live) for his creative work. So, if nothing else, I am contributing to his career by making him take lengthy train rides.

Experiencing the Las Vegas gambling environment.

We would fly to Las Vegas from Toronto a few days later, to take part in the annual World Series of Poker. While I decided to make a career out of playing cards, it was more of a side hustle for Vince, being busy with all his projects in music, film, writing and theatre. How nice to come back to the shrewd world of gambling through filmmaking, and to combine his two passions.

His experiences in the poker world gave him plenty of inspiration for this short movie, witnessing the misogynistic world of gambling first hand, where women are still widely under-represented. Instead, they almost exclusively play the part of the attractive waitresses and massage therapists, functioning as a focal point for the male fantasies of the players, in order to keep them happy and keep them gambling. In the most glamourous and successful casinos like the Wynn in Las Vegas – whose founder had to step down as CEO in 2018 due to severe accusations of sexual assault and harrassment – the prettiest and youngest masseuses and waitresses are hired, while most women that have reached their 40s or 50s are working for worse conditions in the lesser known casinos around town. Billie could be any one of these women.

«Give me strength for this movie, Quentin»

It is the first of two shooting days. We get up at 06:30 and Vince is in a surprisingly good mood, singing, joking, excited to go on set. I am wondering if this is his way to deal with the nervosity or if he really isn’t nervous this time. Before we leave he puts his hand on the big Pulp Fiction Poster on his living room wall and says, giggling : «Give me strength for this movie, Quentin !».
Tarantino and «Kill Bill» are clearly present in this shoot, the strong female character, the revenge story, the flashy overall and of course the name of the lead role – Billie, played by the young swiss actress Luna Demeules.

Demeules face is getting made up after I pick up the make-up artist from the train station.

On set it’s all about the details :candles and furniture get moved around centimeters again and again, to the left, right, front, back, while we are watching the scene through a monitor.

The zipper on Billie’s overall gets adjusted last second. The crew is ready, the lighting is right, smoke fills the hall for dramatic effect, and everyone is excited to shoot the first take.

Whenever there is a free moment the room is surprisingly chatty, everyone is engaged in a conversation with someone, the energy is electric, everyone here seems to know that something great is in the making. It is a unique feeling of a work environment where everyone seems to really want to be there and play their part, be that in front or behind the camera.

I’m surprised by the level of perfectionism when it comes to the shooting of the scenes. Vincent wants to repeat the opening scene six or seven times, giving tiny adjustments to how Demeules is moving her head, but eventually it’s enough. «I promise this will be the last take», he says. «Let’s just shoot the perfect one».

Billie is taking Revenge «Kill Bill Style»

As time progresses the scenes get more and more ambitious. The actors follow the instructions of the director, sometimes repeating the same lines over and over again. The often envied job of an actor doesn’t seem quite so glamorous in these moments. In a close up scene Billie has to shuffle some poker chips, a trick she had been learning in the breaks between the previous scenes. It is one of the characteristics of these actors that they learn some special skills every
time they play a new role. While they are «only» acting, the skills that they have to learn are real, be it tap dancing, chip shuffling or learning how to wield a samurai sword.

A part of this is too, that Demeules – the 22 year old actress with the impressive deep voice – needs to massage the naked upper body of the villain, before he violently grabs her hand, and some sexual assault is insinuated on camera. It is ironic that in order to convey a story about sexual abuse and misogyny, there has to be a young woman – by far the youngest person on set – who acts like she experiences this abuse. And it is easy to imagine that these scenes don’t
always go down as gentle and caring as they do here, where women are well represented in the staff, everyone is making sure the actress feels comfortable and she and the villain are talking friendly and exchanging ideas whenever Vincent gives them a pause by shouting «cut». And: In this movie the actress gets to act out the revenge fantasy as well, with blood spilled in her face, out of breath, shocked about her own deeds, as she holds the blood stained samurai
sword in front of her face. It is only a dream sequence – since the true revenge is happening at the poker table – but Vincent gives the fans the cathartic pleasure of seeing the assaulter suffer, a trick he has undoubtedly picked up from Quentin Tarantino.

Laser Tag Troubles

Since the budget of these kinds of movies is notoriously low and every shooting day costs a lot of money, the producers try to have as few shooting days as possible. So everyone is rising early for the second day of shooting. In the morning everyone meets up at the Italian restaurant that Vincent managed to secure for shooting. While the owner of the restaurant allowed the team to shoot for free, there was an unforeseen cost: right next to the restaurant is
a laser tag hall, so noisy that it made it impossible to shoot the dialogues. Vincent was therefore forced to rent out the whole place for the day, to make sure nobody would be in there except the film crew. Being ready for these unforeseen challenges and being able to improvise and stay optimistic is necessary to survive as a filmmaker. A good part of the job seems to be
to keep morale high no matter the circumstances, to motivate the workers and make them feel confident.

Before the second day of shooting begins, everyone is sitting around waiting while the set is being finished, drinking coffee and eating the random assortment of snacks on the table. There is no bread around, so I – as a notorious snacker – am left wondering whether I should dip the cheese flutes or the salt sticks into the hummus on the table, already looking forward to the
pizzas that will be delivered at lunch break.

Justice is delivered at the poker table

All the dialogues get shot on the second day, between Billie and the Poker room boss (Antonio Buil) who wants to hire her as a masseuse. After these scenes the big moment has arrived for me and the other poker players: We are being filmed as we are staging a poker game, with the villain Mr. H. slowly accumulating all the chips. One player after the other drops out, as Vincent
is directing us to throw the cards away or push the chips in to the middle, and get up and walk away after we have lost. After this, it is Billie that is challenging her abuser to a one on one match. While killing the guy with a samurai sword is a nice fantasy, it is her playing skills and a little bit of help from the deck of cards that are delivering justice on the poker table.

After the final scene is shot the tension falls and everyone celebrates with some beers. I am left admiring all the workers that might go to the next set tomorrow, to shoot a completely different story, just helping the director to realize some scenes that are as close to his or her vision as possible. It is not an easy career for any of these people, but at the same time their names might flicker over movie screens on several festivals next year, with some of the movie’s
success falling back onto them. For Vincent the work doesn’t stop after the final scene is shot: Now the editing begins. Digging through several hours of shooting material, picking the best shot of every scene, and picking the right music to accompany every single one of them. After the editing is done, the marketing of the movie begins and after that – hopefully – a season of
touring festivals with the final product. In the meantime I am happy to head back to Zurich, sleeping through my train ride – and feeling ready to play some poker.