Falling into place Acting role in short film ‘Scrabble’ gains Milbridge native a trip to Sundance Film Festival

It’s a long way from the small Washington County town of Milbridge to the chi-chi heights of Park City, Utah.

Katie Aselton is happy to be making that trip.

Aselton, 25, will be attending this year’s Sundance Film Festival, being held Jan. 15-25 in the skiing enclave nestled in the Wasatch Mountains. She’s one of a handful of people involved in the production of the short film “Scrabble,” which was one of the 80 accepted among 6,000 entries in the shorts category.

“Scrabble,” filmed last May, was a kind of family affair. Aselton and her boyfriend, Mark Duplass, are the actors in the film. Duplass and his brother, Jay, co-wrote the script. Jay was the director, while his girlfriend, Jen Tracy, was the producer. However, those lines often became blurred as each did what was necessary to make the film.

It was a shoestring budget, with the costs being the gas money to get to where the film was shot in Delaware and a couple of videotapes. It was shot on digital video with a Panasonic 24P, and transferred to 35 millimeter, Aselton explained.

The 10-minute film starts innocently enough, with a couple playing a game of Scrabble. But this degenerates into an intense battle of wills, as the two explore some of the divisive issues in their relationship.

Although Aselton and Duplass worked from a rough script, “it was 75 percent improvised,” Aselton recalled in a phone interview during a recent trip home to Milbridge. “We got an idea who the characters were and went with it. It was really, really fun.”

Was it difficult for the two to portray a couple in turmoil?

“It was exhausting,” she said. “The ending that made it was just the two of us getting so tired of fighting. But acting gives us the change to explore different facets of our personalities that we don’t let come out all the time.”

How did Aselton go from Milbridge to such national exposure? Rather circuitously.

She gained the Miss Maine Teen crown at age 15, and finished as first runner-up at the Miss Teen USA pageant in Wichita, Kan., an experience that she said opened her eyes to the possibilities outside of Maine.

Aselton attended Boston University School of Communications for two years, which taught her that “what I really wanted to do was act.”

She headed west to Los Angeles, gaining a handful of roles during her year there (and meeting Mark). Aselton then decided to hone her craft at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York City. She’s now halfway through her second year in a two-year program there.

She also traveled to Sundance last year with the Duplasses, where the brothers’ short film “This is John” earned a distributor. They were also signed as writer-directors by the prestigious William Morris talent agency.

“That only builds your confidence to do something bigger, something better,” Aselton said.

“Scrabble” will have its official debut at Sundance; previously it’s been test-screened for a few friends and industry people that the group knew.

What are the small group’s goals at the industry schmoozefest? Meeting more of the right people, Aselton explained.

“The goal is to make great connections, and hopefully to get to make a feature in the same way we made the short, on a cheap budget with a great script,” she said. “The more people you meet, the further you get.”

Whatever happens at Sundance, Aselton expects the Duplass brothers to keep recording their unique visions on film.

“They get great ideas and can put them down, and they’re courageous enough to make them happen,” she said.

Dale McGarrigle can be reached at 990-8028 or dmcgarrigle@bangordailynews.net.