By Chris Deacon (DGC Ontario Director Member)
Director Wendy Morgan Pardo makes films that challenge societal expectations of women. “We’re in an era where everything is being questioned,” she says. “It’s a time to be hypercritical of the bullshit we’re either raised to expect or taught to accept and understand.”
That questioning is on full display in her 2020 film, Sugar Daddy, starring Kelly McCormack as a young, broke artist trying to make it as a musician while struggling to pay the rent.
Morgan Pardo also directs music videos for artists like Alicia Keys and Janelle Monáe, and her technique is evident in Sugar Daddy, for which she received the DGC Outstanding Directorial Achievement award in 2021. “When I’m making music videos, I’m always looking for a transcendent moment and something that really connects with the sound and the music—and I tend to chase that in my narrative work,” she says. “I want to jump out of the day-to-day conversations and reach something higher.”
In this DGC series, we give you a rare glimpse into the Director’s mind as they analyze a pivotal scene and share the motivation behind their creative choices.
And now, DGC Ontario Director Wendy Morgan Pardo, in her own words:
There are some scenes in Sugar Daddy that I love to revisit—such as when Kelly McCormack emerges from a smoking car…
It’s a spectacular scene set to “Lacrimosa” from Mozart’s Requiem, but instead, I decided to focus on a few scenes where Kelly McCormack’s powerhouse acting is on full display.
This scene takes place the morning after Kelly’s character, Darren, has spent the night with Colm Feore’s character, Gordon. After a night of drinking, Darren opened up to Gordon and was vulnerable enough to even sing for him. Throughout the film, Darren seeks someone like Gordon to validate her. In this scene, after he offers her a large sum of money for sleeping with him and hopes she will just go away quietly, she asks him what he thought of her singing, and his response is cutting: he says it was “very pretty.” This dismissal is a complete rejection that ultimately sets her on a path of self-discovery and realization, culminating in the film’s final musical scene.
We shot Sugar Daddy on gorgeous Baltar lenses. Our DP, Kristen Fieldhouse, chose them and convinced us by sharing that these were the lenses used on the film The Godfather. I love the look of these lenses; they are milky and soft, giving the film a poetic look. The close-ups of Kelly here show off our square-format “academy” framing. I chose this aspect ratio because I thought it would be beautiful to frame faces like painted portraits and really focus on the face and the emotion in many scenes of Darren alone, or with one other scene partner. When Darren asks this question here, it’s so meaningful for the film because the entire movie is her asking the people around her, “Am I good enough? Can I be an artist?” And ultimately, she realizes she needs to answer the question herself. In this scene, we shot Darren’s side of the conversation clean and let her face occupy the entire frame, while in Gordon’s coverage we shot him in a dirty over-the-shoulder shot to keep the viewer in Darren’s perspective.
The next scene shows Darren sleeping next to her sister Rae, played by Kelly’s real sister, Hilary McCormack. Hilary is an incredible actress, like her sister. It was also so cool to work with two actors who already had such a deep, natural intimacy; it was a gift. I loved the skin tones in this scene; the peachy skin tones with the pink and cream wardrobe worked perfectly. The Wardrobe Stylist Mara Zigler worked closely with Kelly to create Darren’s style, and every outfit, down to the pajamas, was thoughtful. We did many scenes like this in the movie where the camera is rigged to look straight down at Darren as she lies in bed. This style of shot often takes extra time to set up, but is usually worth it. There is something painterly about this style of shot, which was perfect for the film. My inspiration board in the office was 50 percent paintings. I studied art history at university, and art will always remain a huge inspiration to me.
Next, we have Rae getting up to leave. She is heading back to school and questions Darren about why she is acting so strange. Darren refuses to open up, and Rae calls out her sister for pulling away from the family.
But Darren is not ready to open up. Kelly’s look speaks volumes here, and it is exactly this type of powerful, quiet expression that carries the film. Kelly wrote Sugar Daddy, and she really lived and breathed the character; her performances are both striking and natural.
Another gorgeous, soft overhead of Darren in bed after Rae leaves. The combination of the wardrobe, the sheets, and the mattress — I love all these artistic choices. I remember Jessica Jerome talking about finding these sheets; they were vintage, the kind a young person would take from their mom’s closet. All these prints and colors work so perfectly in this frame, achieving the painterly look we were going for.
Darren is spiraling from Gordon’s rejection, and she reaches out to another man in the following scene. Aaron Ashmore played the part of Angus. Aaron had appeared with Kelly on the show The Killjoys. Kelly was instrumental in the film’s casting, as she already had a deep connection in the Canadian acting scene, and people really showed up for her. In this scene, Darren finds Angus at a party and asks him the same question that she asked Gordon. I love the writing in this scene. Darren says, “I’ve been calling you,” and Angus’s response is pretty much “That’s weird…” It’s so cold and confusing. Darren then asks what Angus thought of some vocals she recorded for a track (Angus is a music producer), and Angus tells her they won’t be using them, but not to worry, that “she’s still a babe”—informing her he has only ever been interested in her for her physical appearance, not her music or talent.
We shot this scene on the back steps of a building on the east side of Toronto; we set it up to look like a house party or the back of a small venue. We had just a few extras in the scene, and we lit with this green light to add vibe to a pretty sparse setting. This scene had a flare in the lens that I liked when we shot it, and I still like it because it’s subtle; it reminds me of something your eye would catch. I love this spherical lens flare style because it feels like an imperfection in a good way. I also like this framing and blocking; we shot the whole scene in this two-shot with Darren in the foreground so we stay with her and feel the way Angus is icing her out.
From here, Darren returns to the location of her first date with Gordon, his local spot. This location was a restaurant in the East End that we really liked for its dark colors and textures, including the red leather seats. Throughout the film, in Darren’s spaces, we tended toward dark-coloured walls. This was very much a style chosen by Jessica Jerome, the Production Designer. She painted the tiny room that was Darren’s bedroom a shiny black, which was amazing because it reflected light and created depth and contrast you would never get with a light-colored wall. The only way we could shoot at this restaurant was on our very first day of photography. It was hard, honestly; this scene is towards the end of the movie, and it’s super emotional—not the kind of thing you want to tackle on the first day when everyone is getting their feet wet. But luckily, everything worked out, and Kelly delivered this insane performance that shows how talented she is.
Darren is drinking alone at the bar and finally musters the courage to go to Gordon’s table, where he is sitting with Amanda Brugel’s character, Nancy. Earlier in the film, Nancy also rejects Darren as she works in the music industry and lets Darren know that she’s “not ready”. This moment is especially hard for Darren, but she still musters the courage to go to his table and ask Gordon about his feelings for her. Did it mean anything?
You can see here how Kelly rides from defiant and angry to heartbroken; you can’t tell whether she’s about to laugh or cry. This performance was intense, and I have to give it to Kelly here; this moment was so vulnerable, as it showed everyone, the entire crew, that things were going to go well. Because we had developed the film for a few years before we could shoot it, by the time we got to this first day of shooting, in retrospect, we were ready!
A moment I love in the film is after Darren realizes she will never get what she wants from Gordon and finally walks away. Amanda Brugel’s character, Nancy, who has dismissed Darren at every turn, now sees her for the first time as a woman, as someone going through it but who will find her way. As Darren walks away and lifts her hoodie up, off-camera you can hear Gordon say something about a misunderstanding, and Nancy stands up for Darren, saying, “She clearly understands a lot,” calling out Gordon very subtly that works so well. I’m sure our incredible Editor, Christine Armstrong, made this choice of Nancy’s dialogue over Darren’s exit.
Here, Darren has returned home, and again you see a theme we repeated many times in the film: Kelly’s gorgeous skin against a dark background, with very soft, beautiful, naturalistic lighting. I also love how the tones in her hair match the gold top and the dirty yellow jacket she wears throughout the film. The top is part of an outfit she wore on a sugar daddy date, and here she has paired it with her day-to-day grubby, skater-style clothes. It’s a perfect look to describe where Darren is as a character.
I love the following scene because it says so much about Darren’s character and Kelly’s writing as well. Here, Darren comes home totally drunk, having finally cashed the cheque that Gordon gave her (we don’t see this detail, but understand it as she has a wad of cash in her hand). I think at one point we had a scene at an ATM in the script, but these are the scenes that naturally start to fall off the schedule as you get into the shoot. In the first half of the schedule, we shot locations and exteriors, and in the second half, we shot in a large abandoned warehouse in Toronto where Jessica Jerome built out this apartment for Darren and Peter. This was an amazing choice, as in this building we had room to really set up a wardrobe area, hair and makeup. We even ended up shooting a “black void,” a space we painted matte black, to create some atmospheric musical scenes—a space inside Darren’s head. Having this space and ability to stretch out was so amazing for the crew and the film, as we were comfortable and able to work here for many days in a row. I will credit our wonderful Producers, Lauren Grant and Lori Lozinski, with this idea; it worked so well.
This scene is set to a very cool score by Marie-Hélène L. Delorme. I believe Antonio Sanchez’s score for Birdman inspired us here, as I always love anxious, percussive film scores. Marie-Hélène L. Delorme scored the film and also wrote original tracks for Kelly to sing. Marie-Hélène, Kelly, and I collaborated on the music, and it’s one element of the film I am most proud of. I wanted the songs to sound like a combo of Marie-Hélène’s music as Foxtrott with a touch of Flying Lotus on the production side. Kelly was inspired by Opera greats like Maria Callas; she actually sings a few lines of Italian opera at the beginning of the film. In the final song, we copied some lyrics from an Opera, sung by Maria Callas. That’s where the words Timid, Joyous, Atrocious come from. We were all obsessed with the word Atrocious especially, we wanted to explore the atrocious side of of being a woman and leaning into that feeling. We even considered calling the film Atrocious at one point.
In this scene, Darren hides money all over the apartment. She is drunk and has left the stage of grief and is now delirious. We shot a bunch of shots of Darren all around the apartment set. One decision we made on this film was to always move quickly and not wait much between setups; we also wanted to create and add movement as needed, so we shot almost the entire film on steady cam, easy rig, and handheld. I think it was the best choice for this project, as it gave us a lot of flexibility and allowed us to work in small spaces really fast.
Darren’s roommate Peter hears the noise and walks out of his room, wondering what is going on. Throughout the film, Peter initially presents himself as a good guy, a friend and supporter of Darren, but eventually he shows his true colours. He wants, and almost expects, physical access to Darren just for being nice and sometimes covering the bills. Here we can assume Darren has the cash she owes Peter, and her way of paying him shows how she really feels. This is an excellent example of show, don’t tell. Peter asks what’s happening and then wonders where the money came from. In an insanely genius piece of writing, Darren then takes a bill and wipes herself with it, then pastes it to Peter’s forehead, a bold, necessary choice! We had so much fun shooting this scene; we were deep into the shoot by this point. After so much rejection and pain, a moment of comeuppance like this feels so amazing…
The last thing I will say about the apartment build is that we had this window with a street view of Front St, and it gave us so much depth and light, and at night, this gorgeous bokeh in different colours. I’ve always loved shooting in real locations, and this was one of many little gifts this location gave us. In the final shot of this scene, Darren literally hisses at Peter, like a cat, and then falls out of frame. We used this dynamic action of falling to connect us to the next location, another space in the warehouse building that we used as her artist loft, a space just for her, where she can finally collect herself and compose music and heal. Where the apartment set was a little cramped and darker in tone, this loft apartment was light and bright with gorgeous daylight that we made great use of. In the following shots, we can see how Darren eventually pulls herself out of a hole and finally stops asking for permission to do the thing that will make her happy: make art! This is a solid message for all of us.
It was so great revisiting Sugar Daddy; we made this film with so much love, and then never really got to enjoy the fruits of our labour as all the releases, parties, and awards were on Zoom as the film was released at the height of COVID. But either way, these are wonderful memories of a very creative, rebellious set run by a bunch of women.
