Humpday director Lynn Shelton

Remember the double-dog dare from A Christmas Story? It’s not a money issue like a bet; we’re talking personal pride at stake. A drunken challenge gets jacked up to even higher levels in the movie Humpday.
Two former college buddies, one now married and the other a self-professed drifter, dare each other to participate in a porn film. Only because it’s an art project they will fuck each other in celebration of their irrepressible machismo. Naturally complications ensue.
“Someone said casting the right actors is 90-percent of the movie,” Humpday writer-director Lynn Shelton tells Free Press Houston in a phone interview. “Try 99-percent.” Shelton speaks from experience, having worked both in front and behind the camera as an actress, an editor, and a director. Her approach to helming she describes as “a natural style, a method that is organic.”
Shelton shot Humpday over the period of a dozen days. “Actually we had the actors for a 12 day window but shot with the leads for ten days and used a couple days to rest. We did a few pick-ups later on.” Shelton works out situations with the actors before shooting and talks about character but doesn’t actually rehearse. “I want the electric dynamic of the actors going through the scenes for the first time.”
Using two digital cameras Shelton lensed master shots of sequences that lasted “20 to 30 minutes” in some cases. Her expertise as an editor allowed her to compose with attention to detail and continuity in the editing bay. “I always got what I needed in three or four takes,” Shelton added.
Playing the two friends are Puffy Chair and Baghead director Mark Duplass as Ben and Joshua Leonard (The Blair Witch Project) as Andrew. Ben believes there’s still a six-pack under his rapidly expanding gut and Andrew thinks he’s cool because he’s been to Machu Picchu. Both characters are flawed. Ben in particular has the inability to tell the truth to his wife (a strong debut performance by Alycia Delmore) while Andrew’s not nearly as boho as he thinks.
Humpday has a clever structure that leads to the two men’s verbal dissection of their desires and friendship in the finale in a hotel room that lasts an entire reel. There’s plenty of hilarity but also a dose of biting realism especially from Delmore’s Anna.
Even though Shelton used a small crew, sometimes as little as six people, she would ask extra members to leave the set while shooting leaving only herself, the camera and sound crew and thesps. “The actors have the most difficult job on the set,” remarks Shelton. Something about her method must have validity because Humpday pays off both as an indie comedy and a compelling drama.