Director films debut on familiar turf

Steve Conrad knows exactly why he wrote and directed the Chicago-set comedy "The Promotion."

"I wanted to do a movie where a person's dreams don't come true, because I think that can also be heroic," he said.

Conrad shot "The Promotion" in the Windy City because the story begged to be set in the Midwest. Plus, the 40-year-old filmmaker didn't have to travel very far to work. He lives in Chicago's Lakeview community. He's been a local resident since attending Northwestern University in Evanston.

"The Promotion," playing at the Century Centre Cinema in Chicago, marks Conrad's first directing job. He's written scripts for such movies as "The Pursuit of Happyness," the Chicago-set "The Weather Man" and "Wrestling Ernest Hemingway." He knew what to expect from directing, but the job still surprised him, especially the exhaustion factor.

"The physical part of it is just the really long day and the rhythm you have to hit for making decisions, which is really rapid," Conrad said. "There's something to decide every 10 minutes. At the end of the day, you really need a drink."

The story involves two chain store employees (Seann William Scott and Chicago's own John C. Reilly) who compete to manage an announced new superstore being built in Chicago. Where conventional Hollywood movies would have one guy be good and the other bad, Conrad wrote two equally sympathetic characters.

"It challenges people for sure," Conrad admitted. "It's hard for me to write a bad person. Part of me bends over to try to understand that person. If it's good vs. bad, you pretty much know who to root for. But when it's good vs. good, and you have two people who deserve to have their hard work rewarded, well, that makes for a more interesting race. I'd much rather see a race between two fast guys rather than a race between a fast guy and a slow guy."

"The Promotion" used a lot of local talent, including Chicago-born actress Lili Taylor. Ironically, Conrad's two key Chicago actors play foreigners: Reilly is a Canadian transplant; Taylor comes from Scotland with her accent intact.

No great surprise: Conrad said he greatly enjoyed working with all the actors, but especially with the Midwestern ones.

"They have a sense of what's going on in the middle of the country," Conrad said. "People around here don't have these weird aspirations to superstardom. I think people around here are just trying to do work they can be proud of and earn enough so they can have some peace and quiet in their lives."

His biggest challenge making "The Promotion"? No surprise, either: money.

"I never had to compromise on the artistic front," he said. "Everything worked creatively. The challenge is money, hitting the budget. We got involved in that after we were in postproduction. We had to pay for the music that I thought supported the film the best. We hired a composer and a real musicians, not a keyboard. Having to make those fights afterward was the challenge. You just try to get through the shoot. But then there's a whole other movie to make after that."

Would he direct again? Sure. He even has another finished script, "Chad Schmidt," he'd like to direct. He's waiting to see if that will happen.

"Directing is more or less the same task as telling a story through writing. Only you have people helping you tell a story instead of just words. I felt like I took to it pretty naturally."