Kristin Goodman is an award-winning film director and screenwriter honored at numerous festivals including: Berlin Independent Film Festival, Toronto International Women Film Festival, Los Angeles Women Film Awards, The Austin Film Festival, Seattle Film Festival, Chicago Reel Shorts, The Nashville Film Festival, and Cannes Indie Shorts Awards. Kristin wrote for the Emmy Winning web series Dropping The Soap and was the director of the regional and national live comedy touring show The Pump and Dump Show featured on The Today Show and People Magazine. Kristin has written and directed two short films, The Maid and The Other V Word. Her play #UnderTheInfluence premiered December of 2021 at the Santa Fe Playhouse.
Kristin, as a viewer, not only were we taken into our main character's discomfort and uncertainty on her way into the home but we also witnessed her absolute horror when facing the threat itself. What was the writing process like, in order to bring to the screen a story which escalates in tension and still feels natural and believable?
I cleaned houses for a little over a year, so I knew what it felt like to actually be in a stranger's home, feel unsafe, but also feel that I needed to stay and do the job so I could get paid. Being a maid was the hardest job I have had. Not only is it back breaking, but you are constantly going into people's homes who you may not know. And people are strange. When I wrote The Maid, I was envisioning a house I used to clean. I began with pulling the sounds from my memory, the oddities in the house, and the filth that they had left for me to clean, and then I amplified it. Because immigrant women mostly make up the domestic workers in this country I wanted to then focus on the house being a representation of wealthy Americans who covet the cultures of immigrants, but don't respect the people who come from those cultures. Instead, they use those people - chew them up and spit them out - until they are used up and replace them with a new person. This is not just maids, but also nannies, cooks, gardeners, etc. The key to the script for me was playing mostly on the red flags she is ignoring in order to get paid. Those red flags aren't necessarily concrete threats, and so you feel the tension as an audience member because you don't have to stay to get paid - she does. You would leave - and she almost does, but then she realizes her keys and her phone are not with her. Going back into that house, she knows that nothing has actually happened to her. Nothing has threatened her. But in her gut she knows it's not safe and that is what I wanted to convey to the audience - as humans we put ourselves into circumstances, ignoring our intuition or gut, so we can make ends meet. That is the horror. What we have to do to make ends meet. Many women in this country don't get out. Many women disappear and are replaced the very next day.
What were some of the biggest challenges that you faced during production, either creatively or logistically?
The shoot was a two day shoot in Albuquerque at a friend's home. Logistically getting the kids shot and out was a big hurdle, but also covid safety, etc. Shooting during Covid was not fun. So, really the biggest obstacles were time and money. But we had an incredible crew, incredible keys, and incredible actors. It was hard, but it was really fun! Getting the last shot off in the bathroom was probably the hardest shot to get off. It was in the middle of summer and for some reason the heat turned on in the upstairs bathroom. We couldn't locate it! It was sweltering and we had no way of turning it off. As soon as we got the scene shot, the heat turned off. It was very creepy.
