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Bryan Wizemann’s You Mean Everything to Me is the first feature film I worked on as an A.C in New York. Before principal photography, production sent me the script and the lookbook, which introduced me to the abusive relationship at the center of the film. Nathan (Ben Rosenfield) comes off affable and attractive enough on the surface, but is dangerously worn inside from lying to others and himself. Perpetuating his particularly gangrenous insecurity, he habitually coerces partners into his ring of control. Cassandra (Morgan Saylor) just happens to meet him while she’s down on her luck,and finds herself spiraling into […]

The post “I Went From $1 Million and a 30-Person Crew on Location in Vegas to Maybe 88 Grand, a 12-Person Crew, and My Producer’s Apartment as a Set”: Bryan Wizemann on You Mean Everything to Me first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

Romance takes a predatory turn in You Mean Everything to Me, a film that explores the pattern by which a DJ named Nathan (Ben Rosenfield) begins to grip a vice around the life of Cassandra (Morgan Saylor), a waitress living out of her car after she’s evicted from her sister’s place. Writer-director Bryan Wizemann was inspired by a toxic relationship that befell a female friend of his—one which would go on to similarly troubling circumstances to those we see in the film, as Cassandra is manipulated into working as an erotic dancer at the club where Nathan DJs and, eventually, into the world of sex work against her will.

Wizemann is quite effective in his portrayal of a relationship where a man methodically removes his prey from any possible support system, alienating her from family, work, and friends. We are placed firmly into Cassandra’s perspective, as...