Scene from Perfectly Good Moment - David (Stephen Carlile) and Ruby (Amanda Jane Stern)
(NEW YORK, NY) -- On Saturday, October 14th, Westfield High School alumni Julian Seltzer ('10) and Emily Bailey ('12) will walk the red carpet with their fellow cast and crew at the Chelsea Film Festival for the NYC Premiere of the award-winning feature film Perfectly Good Moment. Seltzer co-wrote the story for this twisty revenge drama and produced the feature, while Bailey served as the film's colorist.
Perfectly Good Moment stars Broadway’s Stephen Carlile in his leading feature film debut. Carlile is best known for his critically acclaimed performance as Scar in The Lion King on Broadway since 2017.
In Perfectly Good Moment, Carlile portrays the charming David who is thrilled when his much younger ex-fiancée Ruby decides to give him another chance. But his hope to resume planning their wedding is thwarted by Ruby’s state-of-the-art revenge plot. Starring opposite Carlile, is Amanda Jane Stern (1 Angry Black Man, and Lifetime’s Amish Witches).
(LEFT) Julian Seltzer (RIGHT) Emily Bailey
Bailey and Seltzer met at Westfield High School while working on Blue Devil News. In the TV world, Seltzer has produced documentary films for HBO (DMX: Don't Try to Understand) NBC Sports (Uphill Climb), and Discovery (Rebuilding Hope); and series for Discovery+ (House of Hammer), and Oxygen (New York Homicide).
Bailey graduated with a B.S. in Television/Radio/Film from the Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University. After college, she started a job at NBCUniversal's Cable Entertainment Division, where she discovered her passion for color grading. She currently works as an Assistant Colorist at Company 3 and has worked on projects such as Dexter: New Blood, Netflix’s tick, tick...BOOM!, and Dear Evan Hansen.
“Emily was one of the first people I shared the screenplay with and she was the first crew member to officially come onto the project,” said Seltzer.
Stern also wrote the script for this genre-bending revenge thriller. Stern knew that Bailey was the perfect person for the project because “she had worked on color for one of the films that inspired me when I was writing this project.”
Amanda Jane Stern
“From the first time I read the script, I immediately knew I wanted to be a part of it. I’m a huge thriller fan and the fact that this one is packed with twists and turns got me thinking about all the ways we can use color to drive the story moments,” explained Bailey.
In fact, her creative collaboration was key to the entire project. Through a filmmaker collective, she had come to know Lauren Greenhall (The Miss Quarantine Pageant) and recommended her as a potential director to producers Seltzer and Stern. Greenhall was a 2021 resident at the Jewish Film Institute for her feature-length documentary Zelda, a film proud to be sponsored by the New York Foundation of the Arts.
Although she had not yet directed a narrative feature film before, after only a single meeting, Stern and Seltzer knew that Greenhall was a perfect match for Perfectly Good Moment.
Bailey had previously worked as the colorist on Fading Back In, a dance film directed by Greenhall that screened at the Museum of the Moving Image and played on MARQUEE TV as part of the San Francisco Dance Film Festival. Bailey was also the colorist for The Champ, a Greenhall-directed comedy short starring David Bluvband (of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel).
Unlike many jobs in film, the role and responsibilities of a colorist are not always well-known outside of the filmmaking world. Working in tandem with the director and the cinematographer, a film’s colorist designs the color scheme of a film, making sure that it matches the visual style and mood.
Said Director Lauren Greenhall, “I've worked with Emily Bailey across genre and format and she never ceases to amaze me with her craft and artistic intuition. For Perfectly Good Moment, a psychological thriller that has notable perspective shifts, Emily worked alongside my cinematographer and me to have these perspective shifts coincide seamlessly with subtle yet impactful shifts in color. Bailey has a firm grasp on the hidden meanings and moods of color and through her practice brings the audience even deeper into the world of the film.”
Perfectly Good Moment is produced by Phaedra To Black, LLC. Stern, Greenhall, and Carlile are also Producers on the film.
The screening takes place Saturday, October 14, 2023 at 6:15pm at Regal Union Square (850 Broadway) in New York, NY. Chelsea Film Festival 2023 Passes are available for purchase online.
