Paula González-Nasser and Ryan Martin Brown
Paula González-Nasser and Ryan Martin Brown
Alumni of Florida State University’s College of Motion Picture Arts Ryan Martin Brown and Paula González-Nasser thrive in collaborative environments, and their respective decisions to study film stem from a natural knack for working with others. For Brown, this meant recruiting middle school friends for playful weekend film shoots. (“We were shot-for-shot remaking the early Lonely Island digital shorts.”) Once a torn ACL thwarted González-Nasser’s professional soccer aspirations, she found that FSU’s innately team-focused program “filled that hole.” (“I gravitated toward producing because it felt like being like a team captain.”)
This instinct continues to fuel 5th Floor Pictures, a ragtag production collective they co-founded (and have remained the most “consistent” members of) after moving to New York City in 2016. In part a way of “trying to hold tight onto that film school idea,” they were joined by several fellow FSU graduates with the goal of getting each other’s projects off the ground. They modeled their practice after their alma mater’s approach, where everyone takes turns crewing each other’s films.
For the first two years, they made several shorts they could pull off shooting on a weekend. Among these were Brown’s film Tired Eyes, about catty Bushwick bandmates getting their gear to a gig, and Justin Zuckerman’s A Future of Success, a droll comedy about a high school senior’s Harvard prospects. Around 2018, they began toying with the idea of making a feature, but González-Nasser says they “just weren’t quite there yet.”
Zuckerman, however, was, and though initially skeptical, Brown boarded as producer of Yelling Fire in an Empty Theater. Filmed on MiniDV in the director’s apartment during the tail end of 2019 and made for less than $3,000, the film follows a bright-eyed young woman named Lisa (Isadora Leiva), as she moves from Florida to NYC. The tagline says it best: “Lisa wants to experience everything New York has to offer. Unfortunately for her, she will.” At just the right time, Zuckerman proved that making a low-budget feature was entirely feasible. “We were shoving different permutations of this 5th Floor idea into place over this whole period,” Brown remembers, citing dead-end ideas for a writers room and commercial ventures. “Honestly, it was probably about to run right into the ground when Justin shed light on the idea of, ‘What if we just did something really small only once in a while?’”
Brown was instantly motivated. On the heels of Yelling Fire’s edit, he began writing the script for Free Time, which he would direct and edit. Elegantly and economically lensed by longtime collaborator Victor Ingles, the plot concerns an office drone (Colin Burgess) who quits in pursuit of the titular luxury but finds himself pathetically (and hilariously) adrift. Co-produced in part by González-Nasser and Zuckerman, the film was shot over 10 days during the fall of 2021. It was acquired by Cartilage Films and met with praise upon its limited theatrical release in March 2024. “It was like making movies as a kid,” Ryan says of the shoot. “The vibe of having your friends come over, picking up the camera and just doing the scene.”
Emblematic of 5th Floor’s cyclical process, González-Nasser was then “inspired” to embark on her feature debut. (“Up until that point, I was never confident that I could do that.”) Written over two years, The Scout loosely reflects on her six-year stint as a location scout on NYC productions like Search Party and High Maintenance. Imbued with photographic naturalism by DP Nicola Newton, who typically shoots documentaries, the story centers on Sofia (Mimi Davila) as she traverses the city in search of ideal interiors for a TV pilot. Produced and edited by Brown, the film recently debuted at the Tribeca Festival, where it generated substantial buzz. “The attention that the film has garnered does put a little bit more pressure on how we’re going to keep evolving,” says González-Nasser.
5th Floor’s next project is already in the works, Brown’s single-location sophomore feature about “a well-to-do guy hosting three different sets of friends who are in much lower moments in their personal lives.” Brown shot in Los Angeles over the summer, partially because Ingles and other collaborators have since relocated. (“It’s harder than you’d think to do a movie in a different city.”) Cast members include Jury Duty’s David Brown, his former co-star Edy Modica (a 25 New Face from 2022) and Burgess.
Though facing an uncertain future, their creative ethos remains entrenched. “A 5th Floor film won’t be made without our touch,” elaborates Brown. “It’s the idea of prioritizing simplicity while still being vision-forward.” Aside from aesthetics, mutual appreciation rules above all else. “We need to respect what each person is doing,” González-Nasser emphasizes. “The minute that ceases to exist, it all falls apart.”—Natalia Keogan/Image: Emma Rempel
