The card from Calendar: Shoeshine (1987)

📅 The card from Calendar:

In 1987, Ben Stiller and Jerry Stiller starred in the short film Shoeshine (10 min.) by Tom Abrams, nominated for an Oscar. The film won the grand prize for best short film at the prestigious Montreal International Film Festival.

It is humorous story about an old shoeshine man in New York City and the encounter he has with a young Wall Street trader on the Staten Island Ferry.

Film poster Shoeshine (1987). Starring Ben Siller and Jerry Stiller.

Photo from Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume CXII, Number 105, 11 April 1988.

Page from Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume CXII, Number 105, 11 April 1988.

Shoeshine: Columbia's Oscar Hopeful

By Lori Levy

There are few filmmakers who wouldn't love to be standing in Tom Abrams' shoes right now. That's right, his shoes. On this very night, Tom Abrams and his shoes will be shining at the Academy Awards ceremony, where this talented Columbia film student may just walk away with that glistening statue of Oscar himself. A student film which Abrams both wrote and directed was nominated in the category of Best Short Film - Live Action and is called—what else? —Shoeshine. The project began in fall of 1986 when Home Box Office announced the institution of the HBO Cinema Workshop, a program geared toward young film directors. HBO sponsored a contest of sorts —film students could submit scripts for short films, and HBO would choose four of these to license and fund at least partially. Needless to say, one of the scripts chosen was Abrams' Shoeshine, and the rest is history.

Shoeshine is about a young Wall Street broker (Ben Stiller) who encounters an older shoeshine man (Jerry Stiller) on his way home from work on the Staten Island Ferry. While having his shoes shined, the broker engages in friendly banter and down-to-earth, advice-for-living philosophizing with the shoeshine man, who, we find out -at the end, is the young broker's father. The film has already won the grand prize for Best Short at the prestigious Montreal International Film Festival, an honor that made the short eligible for the Academy Awards. But Abrams insists that he had no expectations of grandeur when he set out to make Shoeshine.

"I had no anticipation [of this kind of reaction] whatsoever. Obviously, I'm very excited." But Abrams seemed rather reserved when Spectacle spoke to him just a week ago. His explanation? "You don't want to set yourself up fora fall." The film's stars, Ben and jerry Stiller, are father and son in real life, jerry Stiller is well-known for the popular Stiller and Meara comedy team, which includes his wife, Anne Meara. It may seem odd for a student film to include such a "big name," but Abrams explained that Annette Insdorf, a professor of film at the Columbia Film Division and executive producer of Shoeshine, was instrumental in the acquisition of Stiller as the lead. "Annette knew Jerry, and Ben was working on Broadway at the time. So she [Annette] made the connection. Also, I think one of the reasons he [Stiller] chose the project was that he had the opportunity to work with his son. They were both great to work with." The film was shot on location on the Staten Island Ferry in only two days. Obviously, a location shoot, though effective, could have been an obstacle to the film's production, but Abrams maintained that the city was highly supportive of the project.

"They were great. They let us have the entire ferry boat for two days on a weekend." Other Columbia students and faculty that were involved in the project include Producer Robert Katz, also a student at the Film School; Jim Jones, a cinematographer who works at the Film Division; and, of course, Insdorf. "It's all a matter of who you're working with," said Abrams. "This film had extremely high production values because we were working with very, very competent people." As writer and director, Abrams was the "creative mind" behind the project. He chose to work with Katz because "he's a very good organizer and I had worked with him on his thesis film at Columbia, How High the Moon." Insdorf, as executive producer, was mainly in charge of financing the film, Abrams said. The film cost approximately $9,000 to make, and was partially funded by HBO, which contributed $5,000 to the project. Abrams said, "The rest of the funding was mainly up to us. It became a sort of community project, so we found a lot of local sponsors.

And, of course, all the camera equipment was supplied by the school, which was important because the camera rental alone would have cost thousands." Abrams came to the Columbia Film Division in 1984 after receiving his M.A. in Theatre at Northwestern University. Originally an aspiring actor, Abrams came to New York to perform on the stage but wound up waiting on tables. Since he had always been interested in filmmaking, he decided to attend Columbia instead. "The reason I came to film school was to find a structured environment," Abrams said. "I'm the type of person who needs structure to excel." The Columbia Film Division has had the reputation as a film school that focuses its students on screenwriting and directing rather than film production. Abrams agreed with that assessment, and added that he believes it is a positive focus. "I think the concentration on screenwriting and directing is the right concentration. If you know how to write and direct, you can always find someone to pull the trigger on the camera."

Archive Columbia Daily Spectator, Volume CXII, Number 105, 11 April 1988