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							            PRESS KIT




a documentary by Jim and Tom Isler




              Featuring:
          Allen J. Sheinman
           Collette Stallone




    Running time: 19 min. 41 sec.

         Official website:
 www.gloamingpictures.com/crowd.htm


         Press contact:
            Tom Isler
     tom@gloamingpictures.com


  PRESS KIT LAST UPDATED: July 2, 2011
            Gloaming Pictures
Two’s a Crowd

What people are saying about Two’s a Crowd:

                               
                    “Funny and lovable …
Allen & Collette seemingly walked out of a Woody Allen film onto
     the screen. One of the most enjoyable films I‟ve seen
                          at Hot Docs.”
                          — artdepartMENTAL.com

           “One of my all time favorite short films.”
       “Hilarious look at non-traditional, monogamous love.”
      — Donna G, The More the Merrier Arts Radio, tmtmshow.blogspot.com

     “With Two’s a Crowd, we all can learn a thing or two about
                         relationships.”
                   — Christopher Misch, NextProjection.com

       “Allen & Collette were hysterical … Get those two a TV
                               show!”
           — Moreen Murray, Jazz Goddess, jazzgoddess.blogspot.com

     “Allen and Collette are the epitome of the adage „for every
     shoe there is a mate.‟ It is hard to believe they are real
    people but the fact that they are so strange only proves their
                             authenticity.”
                    — Carmen Albano, Toronto Film Scene
                                  —
                        “Witty, snappy short!”
                           — Mechanical Forest Sound

                    “I highly recommend it…
         An enlightening take on contemporary attitudes of
                            marriage!”
                             — @cinemablographer

                         “Funny & poignant doc!”
                             @deptofhighfives


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Two’s a Crowd

CREDITS
Directed, filmed and edited by Jim and Tom Isler
Featuring: Allen J. Sheinman and Collette Stallone
Sound Mixer: Paul Furedi
Colorist: Troy Thompson (Running Man)
Music: Pump Audio/Getty Images

       ―O terra audio, addio valle di pianti‖
       By Giuseppe Verdi
       Performed by Maria Chiara, Luciano Pavarotti and Orchestra del Teatro alla Scala di Milano
       Courtesy of Decca
       Under license from Universal Music Enterprises
Special Thanks:
       Barbara & Eric Dobkin
       Emily Barth Isler
       Pangolin Pictures
       Mike Stickle
       Running Man

                                    SUMMARIES OF THE FILM

TAGLINE:
A tale of romance and rent control.

LOGLINE:
A New York love story, threatened by economic downtown . . . and cohabitation.

SHORT SUMMARY:
The key to Allen and Collette’s midlife marriage has been keeping separate apartments, twenty
blocks from each other, in New York City. But after four years of living apart together, financial
pressures force the couple to take the plunge and cohabit in Collette's one-bedroom apartment in
Greenwich Village, raising issues of privacy, independence and bathroom usage that question the
viability of relationships in the modern age. A docu-comedy about romance and rent control.

MEDIUM SUMMARY:
What's the key to a successful marriage?

For Allen Sheinman and Collette Stallone, the answer is separate apartments, 20 blocks from
each other in New York City, where the couple has lived happily for the first four years of their
mid-life marriage. But when the economic downturn takes a toll on their finances, Allen and
Collette are forced to cohabit.

To save money, Allen decides to shoehorn himself into Collette's tiny, rent-controlled one-
bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village. But neither is ready to give up independence. So
Allen and Collette turn Collette's apartment into a makeshift two-bedroom, installing sliding
doors for privacy. Allen moves into the living room. Collette keeps the bedroom. On weekends,


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Two’s a Crowd
Allen is allowed to sleep over. The kitchen, which includes the apartment’s only shower, is
neutral territory.

TWO'S A CROWD is a comedic documentary about romance, rent control, and two classic New
York characters who invite audiences to question assumptions about love, marriage,
relationships and how couples are supposed to act.

LONG SUMMARY:
When Allen and Collette were married in their fifties, they agreed to live in separate apartments,
about 20 blocks from each other in New York City. Each was getting married for the second time
and dedicated to maintaining a degree of independence they had enjoyed for many years. But
when the economic turmoil of 2009 squeezes their finances and forces Allen to move in with
Collette, the resulting issues of privacy, independence and bathroom usage call into question the
viability of relationships in the modern age.

Collette’s one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village, where she has lived since the late
1970s, certainly has its quirks. There’s no bathroom, per se; there’s a stall shower in the kitchen,
the kitchen sink is the only sink in the apartment, and there’s a closet with a toilet off of
Collette’s bedroom. But the third-floor walk-up is rent controlled, which means the couple can’t
afford to give it up. So, instead of looking for a larger apartment, Allen decides to shoehorn
himself into Collette’s space.

As moving day approaches, Allen and Collette agree on some cohabitation ground rules. They
decide they will maintain separate ―apartments‖ within Collette’s apartment: Allen will move
into the living room, Collette will keep the bedroom, they will install sliding doors for privacy,
and on the weekends, Allen enjoys visitation rights to Collette’s bedroom.

Two’s A Crowd, a comedic, documentary short, is a character study of two classic New
Yorkers: Allen, 56, a witty Coney Island native who works as a magazine editor, and Collette,
55, a brash Italian-American who has retired from teaching English in Harlem and now designs
her own line of jewelry. Together, they form a perfectly offbeat couple that challenges the
audience to reexamine the true meaning of love, marriage and cohabitation.

TWO’S A CROWD TIMELINE:

1978: Collette moves into her rent-controlled, one-bedroom apartment in Greenwich Village in
      New York City – the apartment in which she still lives today.

July 9, 2000: Collette posts an online dating profile on AOL. Allen is the first to respond.

July 9, 2005: Allen and Collette are married in Queens.

Oct. 23, 2009: Allen hosts a ―house-cooling‖ party as he prepares to leave his studio apartment
               on 23rd Street, where he has lived for 17 years.

Oct. 30, 2009: Allen moves in with Collette.



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Two’s a Crowd


ABOUT THE FILMMAKERS

Jim Isler is an editor of film and television in New York City. He has edited programs for PBS,
A&E, VH1, Discovery, and National Geographic, among other networks. Jim has edited two
feature documentaries, and, in 2006, he edited an New York Emmy Award-winning Internet
sitcom, Floaters. In 2008, he was nominated for the Best Editing Award at the Wildscreen
Festival, a wildlife and environmental film festival in the U.K., for his work on a two-hour film
for PBS's NATURE series, ―What Females Want/What Males Will Do.‖

Tom Isler earned a Bachelor of Arts in American Studies from Yale University, where he
studied documentary filmmaking with D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus and for his work in
film and journalism was awarded the George A. Schrader, Jr. Prize for excellence in the
humanities. Tom's writing about the arts has appeared in a number of publications, including The
Boston Phoenix and the International Documentary Association's Documentary magazine. He
has worked as a freelance cameraman for CBS and MSNBC. He is currently pursuing his J.D. at
the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

About Gloaming Pictures
Gloaming Pictures is an independent producer of documentary film and television, formed by
brothers Jim and Tom Isler in 2000. Their first feature documentary, Festival, about a high
school play competition in Maine, premiered at the Maine International Film Festival in 2005.
Their next project, ―Critical Hours,‖ a documentary television pilot about inspiring educational
programs for kids, premiered at the New York Television Festival in 2006, where it was a finalist
for the MSN Artistic Achievement Award, and earned a nomination for Best Documentary at the
KIDS FIRST! Film and Video Festival. Their short documentary Once More to the Cabin, a
personal film about the filmmakers’ grandparents and their log cabin in Maine, had its broadcast
premiere on PBS in Maine and New Hampshire in 2010.

For more about Gloaming Pictures, visit www.gloamingpictures.com.


ABOUT ALLEN & COLLETTE:

ALLEN J. SHEINMAN, 56, was raised on Coney Island and works as a magazine editor. Prior
to moving in with Collette, Allen lived on 23rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenue, for 17 years.
He plays the keyboard and guitar. He is a silent film expert, an amateur historian of New York
City and misses having a bathroom.

       STATEMENT / BIO WRITTEN BY ALLEN:
       ―Born on the Island of Coney in Brooklyn in the waning days of the Truman
       Administration, Allen shared a bedroom with his parents until age 8 (something that
       seemed perfectly natural until he mentioned it to his shrink around 1993), and then the
       other bedroom with his sister Betty until age 11, when he attained his own bedroom, a
       life-altering revelation.



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Two’s a Crowd

       (Allen statement continued)

       Trudging through his late adolescence as a self-styled misfit genius poet, Allen found his
       true calling when by chance he took a job as clerk/typist with a small academic
       publishing company and quickly rose through the editorial ranks, going on to enjoy
       colorful tenures with a schizoid variety of magazines including Day Care, High
       Times, Woman's World and Swank; in 2010, he entered his 10th year as managing editor
       of Meetings & Conventions magazine.

       A failed marriage and untold numbers of short, skirmish-like pair-ups marked his love
       life until the ripe age of 47, when he found his ideal mate online in the person of Collette,
       whom he married in 2005 and moved in with in 2009.‖


COLLETTE STALLONE, 55, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., but grew up in Minneapolis, which
she hated. She now is a retired high-school English teacher, living on Grove Street in Greenwich
Village. She likes loud music, is always late, and doesn’t like to cook.

       STATEMENT WRITTEN BY COLLETTE:

       ―An early childhood remembrance was watching my girlfriend's mother of six kids,
       ironing while watching soap operas. I was horrified at the thought of this kind of life and
       remember thinking it was worse than dying. As an adult, I have a different appreciation
       now for homemakers, but I'm still not sorry that I didn't become a housewife.

       Now that we're living together, I see I never realized that being married is so
       intimate...you don't always get to put your best face forward. I always believed that
       absence makes heart grow fonder, but that doesn't apply to my life with Allen.

       One thing I notice about many couples is their need to do everything together — even
       when one partner doesn't want to; for example, always accompanying someone to visit
       in-laws. People are afraid to say they want to be by themselves or go by themselves.
       Many spouses take this personally. We give each other a great deal of freedom and are
       not threatened. I don't feel need to be here when he gets home, sometimes we go our
       separate ways on weekends, and we let each other have our own time with our friends.
       (And let's face it...sometimes we don't need to subject our spouse to our friends.)

       Now I'm retired from teaching high school English in Harlem and beginning to set up my
       own jewelry-design business, Collette Marie Jewelry
       (http://www.etsy.com/shop/collettemariedesigns). I believe that life should be broken up
       into different segments...we need new experiences.‖




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Two’s a Crowd
                             Q&A with filmmaker Tom Isler
How did you find Allen and Collette?
Allen was the managing editor of a business trade magazine I used to write for. I started at the
magazine just a few months before Allen and Collette were married. So I knew Allen for a few
years before we made the film. Although I had heard many stories about Collette, I never
actually met her before we started this film. In fact, the moment we met Collette for the very first
time is actually on tape and in the film: when Allen walks down the hallway to her apartment.
We met her with the camera rolling.

How did you decide to make this film?
Allen is a very funny guy; he’s a real Woody Allen or Larry David-type character, as far as his
sense of humor goes. I always said he missed his true calling; he should have been a comedy
writer. He used to send hilarious internal memos to the magazine staff and had an endless
treasure trove of amazing stories from a lifetime of shenanigans with his two best friends, Lenny
and Lloyd. I knew Allen deserved his own documentary, and for years before we actually made
the film, I used to joke with him that I’d like to make a movie about him someday, but only if he
moved in with his wife. At the time, we never thought that day would come. But when it did, I
began to think about how the film would work. I had never met Collette, but my coworkers who
knew her assured me that she would definitely hold her own on screen. I figured that that this
watershed moment in their lives would be a sufficient hook or excuse to turn the camera on these
two classic New Yorkers. And the story about rent control and tiny apartments struck me as a
classic New York story in its own right. I also knew that people would be fascinated by
Collette’s quirky apartment and this non-traditional living arrangement, and how it challenged
our assumptions about the way relationships are supposed to work. At first, I don’t think even
Allen thought we were completely serious about making the project – he wasn’t convinced
anyone would be interested in the story – but he was happy to go along with it.

When did you begin shooting?
We started filming in the summer of 2009, a few months before the move. We filmed
periodically throughout the fall, and then returned for a follow-up visit after they had been living
together for a few months to see how things were going. We edited most of the film during the
summer of 2010.

What were the biggest challenges making the film?
Editing was by far the biggest challenge. We practically had enough footage to make a feature
film; there is so much funny footage, so many great stories and great jokes, so many character-
building details that we filmed but ultimately had to cut. We thought that, in the end, the best
way to tell the story was as concisely as possible. Although we loved watching the footage we
had, we realized that the audience would get the point very quickly and the one thing we didn’t
want to do was bore the audience. Our greatest fear during the editing process was that the
footage we were leaving out was better than the footage we were using. Being ruthless about
cutting the film down to the bare essentials necessary for character development and telling the
story was the toughest part. Thank goodness for DVDs. We’ll have plenty of ―deleted scenes.‖




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Two’s a Crowd
How do you and your brother divide the filmmaking duties?
We’ve been making films together for most of our lives (since I was six and he was nine), and
have developed our aesthetic sensibilities together. So it makes working together very easy, and
we both feel comfortable handling all aspects of production and post-production. The way we
split things up varies from project to project. On this film, Jim did the majority of the shooting,
and we shared editing duties evenly. Because we live in different cities now, we both loaded the
footage onto our computers and e-mailed sequences and project files back and forth. I’m more
eager to organize the footage into manageable and logical sequences. Jim is much more talented
at building scenes, refining and polishing. But it was a collaborative effort throughout.

What are your favorite behind-the-scenes stories from production?
We made the film for, essentially, no money at all. A few hundred dollars, not counting music
rights. We borrowed equipment from friends and shot and edited the film ourselves. As such, we
had to be creative at times to get everything we needed. Collette’s interview was actually shot in
Jim’s small apartment in New York; we hung the backdrop in front of the fridge in the kitchen,
sat her down on a little bench and then shot the interview from inside the bedroom, shooting
through the doorframe. Allen’s interview was shot in a slightly more spacious apartment of a
relative.

What do you hope viewers will get out of the film?
I view the plot of the film almost as an excuse to watch these characters for a few minutes. I
think they both light up the screen. So the first purpose of the film is entertainment. Secondly,
the film illustrates the quirks of New York real estate, which, no doubt, millions of people can
relate to. But, most importantly, the film does challenge largely unquestioned assumptions our
society holds about what love is, what marriage is, how relationships are supposed to develop
and how couples are supposed to act. Allen and Collette don’t buy into all of those assumptions
and, thus, have something to teach all of us about relationships, even if we wouldn’t want to live
the way they’ve chosen to live.

MARCH 2011




                                                                                                  8
Two’s a Crowd

         Marriage, Cohabitation and the Economy
                       in the news

Couples together apart: We're close...just not that close
The Independent (Oct. 19, 2010)
“...[M]ost LATs [Living Apart but Together] do it because they like it, because it suits both
of them to be independent of each other at the same time as having the security of knowing
there's always someone „there‟ for them long-term.”


Couples that live apart . . . stay together
By Rosemary Bennett, The Times (May 12, 2007)
“...New research estimates that there are now as many as two million couples who, despite
being in a committed relationship, live separately. The number of couples who live apart
together (LATs) is now roughly the same as those who live under the same roof.”

Author explores the agitation of cohabitation
By Benjamin Gedan, Boston Globe (via SFgate.com) (Nov. 12, 2003)
“...Recent interviews with newly cohabiting couples revealed experiences ranging from
domestic disaster to fairy-tale bliss.” (discussing Unmarried to Each Other: The Essential
Guide to Living Together as an Unmarried Couple by Dorian Solot and Marshall Miller)


So far, and yet so near
By Ros Anderson, The Guardian (Apr. 12, 2008)
“...Research suggests that long-term couples who choose not to share a house are a
growing phenomenon. ...[But] if more people than ever are doing it, is it accepted as a
cultural norm? Not quite.”


Couples who live apart
By Allison Tait, The Sydney Morning Herald (Sept. 18, 2005)
“Committed, in love and ... happily living apart. While it might not work for everyone, for
others it's the ideal arrangement.”

Many couples choosing ‘commuter marriages’ to maintain
good jobs
By Laurie Higgins, SouthCoastToday.com (Oct. 24, 2010)
“According to 2006 U.S. Census data, the most recent available, about 3.6 million married
individuals lived apart then, not including people who were separated. And anecdotal
evidence and word of mouth indicate this has been a rising trend since the recession
began.”

Married Couples Who Live Apart: Separate But Awesome
By Anna North, Jezebel.com (June 24, 2010)
“[T]o me, a living situation where each person can retreat to a private space whenever
necessary, to get a little privacy or recharge the flame of love with a tiny bit of scarcity,
sounds pretty cool.”




                                                                                                9
Two’s a Crowd

     Marriage, Cohabitation and the Economy
                 in the news (2)
Husbands, Wives and Hard Times
Room For Debate, NYTimes.com (Apr. 8, 2009)
“...In hard times, marital relationships are subject to a lot of stress. Are they likely to be
threatened? Or possibly strengthened? What are the factors that might determine how a
marriage will fare?”


To cohabit or not to cohabit?
By Rebecca Goldin, Ph.D., and Cindy Merrick, Stats.org (Oct. 22, 2010)
“...[D]oes premarital cohabitation increase the chance of the marriage breaking up? A
recent report from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has provoked an assortment of
conflicting interpretations. ”


Married, but Sleeping Alone
By Bruce Feiler, New York Times (July 23, 2010)
“...Nearly one in four American couples sleep in separate bedrooms or beds, the National
Sleep Foundation reported in a 2005 survey. Recent studies in England and Japan have
found similar results. And the National Association of Home Builders says it expects 60
percent of custom homes to have dual master bedrooms by 2015.”


New Vow: I Don't Take Thee
By Conor Dougherty, WSJ.com (Sept. 29, 2010)
“...[D]ata released Tuesday by the Census Bureau show that for the first time the
proportion of people between the ages of 25 and 34 who have never been married exceeded
those who were married in 2009—46.3% versus 44.9% ...”


Living Together
By Tony Schwartz, Newsweek (Aug. 2, 1977)
“At the moment, the overwhelming majority of Americans still strongly disapprove of living
together „without benefit of clergy,‟ and even the people involved in those relationships find
them not wholly comfortable. If the divorce rate continues to climb, widespread cohabitation
may one day peacefully coexist with marriage, either as an interim option or as a practical
alternative. But if it is to be the trend of the future, couples will discover that it is no magic
solution: the problems of living together take as much time and effort to work out as the
problems of modern marriage.”




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Two’s a Crowd



SCREENINGS:

       • 2011 Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival (Toronto)
       World Premiere: May 3, 2011 — Innis Town Hall
                        May 4, 2011 — TIFF Bell Lightbox 4

       • CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival (Toronto)
       June 4, 2011 — Royal Ontario Museum

       • Palm Springs International ShortFest (Calif.)
       US Premiere: June 25 2011 — Camelot Theatres

       • Long Island International Film Expo (Bellmore, N.Y.)
       July 12, 2011

       • Indianapolis International Film Festival
       July 15, 2011 — DeBoest Lecture Hall, Indianapolis Museum of Art
       July 23, 2011 — DeBoest Lecture Hall, Indianapolis Museum of Art

       • Rooftop Film Summer Series 2011 (New York City)
       NYC Premiere: July 21, 2011

       • Rhode Island International Film Festival (Providence, R.I.)
       Aug. 9-14, 2011

       • New York City International Film Festival
       Aug. 18-25, 2011

       • D.C. Shorts Film Festival
       Sept. 8-15, 2011




More screenings are planned but not yet announced. For an updated screening list, please visit
www.gloamingpictures.com/crowd_screenings.htm.




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