Q&A with producer Johnny Woj

Learn more about Johnny Woj, one of the talented producers who helped make Ginger possible!

Q. How did you become involved with Ginger?

A. It was at the first table read. I went to high school with Jimmy Boratyn, one of the co-directors. He needed actors for a reading and I volunteered to help. I brought my roommate, a former actress, and we couldn't stop talking about the script that night. I was newer to film production at the time, but I loved the script and knew I wanted to help. I offered my services as an associate producer, essentially someone to help with production but in a way that respected my newness. In a month, Jimmy realized that I had a lot of on-set experience on indie films and did have some know-how, so I signed on as Ginger's third producer behind Jimmy and Ryan Grundtisch.

Q. A film producer wears many hats. What were some of your primary responsibilities?

A. My main jobs were as one of the film's fundraisers, a co-writer, the casting director, the production designer, the scheduler, and manager of the set, the last two making me sort of the film's unit production manager or UPM. Fundraising involved setting up our Indiegogo page, writing and recording a sample of our work with the team, and e-mailing so many people for money. We threw some events to raise funds, I coordinated with improv troupes for a comedy night, and so much more.

Working as a co-writer/producer meant I helped re-write the script to make things more shootable. As the casting director, I posted character breakdowns, chose scenes for actors to audition with, ran first-round auditions, and coordinated with more than 400 actors who were interested in being in our film! I had an insanely detailed Excel breakdown of everyone and did not sleep during casting.

As the film's production designer, I helped scout locations, bounced ideas off our directors and producers, talked about design, but mostly worked with the budget and ran to Target at least twice a week during production (thank you Target!). I'd dress locations with my wonderful art director, Thirza Pearl, and together we transformed her space into Ginger's apartment.

As the UPM, I scheduled the entire film and managed the day-to-day flow of the set, making sure we had all our props, wardrobe, film gear, and that everyone knew where to go, etc. I wore too many hats, and somehow the Ginger team put up with my mania as I slept less and less and less during production. I remain grateful to Ryan, Jimmy, and Mel for letting me do production design so I had a chance to have a creative outlet during the film's pre-production and production.

Q. Co-director Melissa Boratyn learned of her metastatic breast cancer diagnosis right as the film was set to begin filming. How did that experience affect production?

A. Melissa was diagnosed between our first round of auditions and callbacks. Our script was still in re-writes, our schedule was in flux, and we were beginning to find crew. I remember calling Melissa and Jimmy and asking pointedly, “Do you still want to do this? If you do, I'm 100% in. If you want to wait and do it later, I'll be there." And Mel was so adamant that given the severity of her diagnosis, now was the BEST time to do this. So I pulled some almost all-nighters, finished the scenes that weren't done just so the callbacks had scenes to use, and organized the callback schedule.

Mel's diagnosis for sure put a damper on the whole project and made all of us involved more aware of what living with cancer is like and actually helped ground the film. No longer were we living in happy fantasy land. We HAD to make this film, and we had to make it right. We needed to tell her story and support her changes of the story: her diagnosis for sure made the script a bit darker. During production, Mel never missed a day on set and kept fighting through all the challenges of our schedule and location limitations to make the best movie we could. Jimmy really stepped up as her co-director and husband/emotional support system, and together they really are unstoppable.

Q. What was one of your most memorable moments on set?

A. Ha ha ha, oh man. One early morning, I think on a Sunday, I got a call from Ryan that a location he'd helped us secure had backed out last minute. We were filming THAT DAY at THAT LOCATION and scrambled to find something that might work near where our actress was already driving to. Somehow through a friend of our caterer, we found an option and the whole team worked their butts off to help me dress the space to make it work. It was ridiculous that it worked and of course ended up being just a few clips in the final edit, but I'll never forget the whole Ginger crew banding together to get that set ready to shoot.

Q. Any funny behind-the-scenes Ginger stories to share?

A. Another fun evening on set happened at 2:30 a.m., when we had to move to our bar set. The bar would only allow us to shoot when it was closed. Instead of changing the story so the bar scene took place during the day (which would've been WAY easier), we shot in the early morning. Our directors and director of photography worked to shoot towards the dark windows first, and then our location representative and I covered the bar's big windows with black trash bags as the sun started to rise so we could finish shooting. It was a trick I’d learned prior, but had never used in that much of a dire way. We got all the coverage we needed and wrapped at the start of a beautiful Chicago summer day.

Q. Tell us about some of your current/future projects.

A. 2019 saw me working on four different features. I first assistant-directed my first indie feature in Barrington, IL, called The Grasshopper. It was a great script that involved very expensive locations and a small, hearty Chicago indie crew. Next, I flew out to Cyprus to run the basecamp for a film, Jiu Jitsu, featuring Nicolas Cage in what can only be described as very much a B-movie. I then returned to Chicago and ran the basecamp for Candyman, written by Jordan Peele and produced by his production team. And I just wrapped The Trial of The Chicago 7, a feature starring Eddie Redmayne, Sacha Baren Cohen, Joseph Gordon Levitt, and Frank Langella, directed by Aaron Sorkin, which filmed in both Chicago and New Jersey. I helped run the actors as a first-team production assistant in Chicago and as one of the cast assistants in New Jersey. I'd like to try my hand at making a short, and hopefully 2020 will be the year I finally make that happen!