Washington on big screen at Tacoma Film Festival

Tacoma Film Festival’s closing night will feature a home-grown independent film made just a few miles from Tacoma.

Megan Griffiths’ “The Off Hours” is a moody exploration of night-shift workers at a 24-hour diner. Griffiths co-wrote and directed the drama that was filmed in and around Burien, Georgetown and other points between Seattle and Tacoma.

The film is set in a small, unnamed Washington town. It follows the stunted lives of the people who work and dine at a struggling restaurant that caters to truck drivers and aimless locals.

Griffiths, an Ohio native, has been working in Seattle’s small but active film industry for 11 years. She used that time to gain perspective on the different aspects of filmmaking. Now she’s where she wants to be: directing.

“There’s nothing that fulfills me as much as being in the director’s seat,” Griffiths said in an interview shortly after wrapping filming on her latest movie.

“The Off Hours” was written in 2003, but Griffiths, 36, spent a few years after that revising the script. Originally scheduled to be made with big-name Hollywood talent, the production was put into a tailspin with the economic downturn. The film was finally shot in spring 2010.

“We basically spent four years trying to make the film,” Griffiths said. She declined to say how much the film cost, but called it a “micro-budget.”

Gone are the days when a couple of million dollars would be spent on an independent film in hopes of a distribution sale at the Sundance Film Festival, she said. “It felt less responsible to make a film for that much.”

“The fact that we didn’t have much money didn’t stop us from creating the world we wanted,” Griffiths said. Part of that was being scrappy, she said. The production bought four box trucks of props from Goodwill, and the nonprofit later allowed the crew to return all of it. Friends made through years of local filmmaking contributed their time, she said.

Though the actors aren’t household names, it’s hard to tell that “The Off Hours” is anything but big-budget.

“I put a huge value on making a film look good and creating a tone,” she said.

Her ethos shows. The film has a realistic style with contemplative cinematography, moody lighting and spot-on set design. Griffiths said the production crew paid close attention to the look of the film, even creating a color palette and visual references.

“There are a lot of through lines that make it feel cohesive,” she said.

Performances are restrained and considered. The whole effect pulls the viewer into the film – though it’s a world many might not want to linger in.

Griffiths calls herself a “character-centric writer” and it shows. “The Off Hours” is much more about the people than the plot. Still, she says, it’s the acting that makes the characters who they are.

“They really don’t come alive until you have people to play them,” she said.

Griffiths cast her film by watching a lot of independent films. She found female lead Amy Seimetz while at a film festival. Rising star Scoot McNairy plays Seimetz’s character’s brother. He was in the 2010 alien invasion film “Monsters” and just finished filming Ben Affleck’s “Argo.”

The idea for the film came from Griffiths’ experience working the night shift. She saw a segment of society that inhabited a parallel world.

“Everybody else is going the other direction,” Griffiths said of the night-shift workers. “You just don’t see as many human beings to interact with. When you get in that pattern, it’s hard to break out. Each night goes by slowly.”

Griffiths and Seattle actor Tony Doupe, who plays the diner’s owner, will attend Thursday’s screening.

Griffiths’ next feature, “Eden,” about human trafficking, will be released in 2012.

Craig Sailor: 253-597-8541 craig.sailor@thenewstribune.com

Tacoma Film Festival closing night

Films: Feature length “The Off Hours” and short “Something Special”

When: 6:30 p.m. Thursday

Where: Grand Cinema, 606 S. Fawcett Ave., Tacoma

Tickets: $18