FilmInFocus has nabbed an exclusive excerpt of The Room Before and After, a Wholphin Original Short that appears in its entirety on the new Wholphin #8, which has just been released. The concept: the same room is trashed three times by three different actors, each of whom bring their own destructive style and inner backstory to the process. Part One, excerpted here, stars James Franco, recently seen in Milk and Pineapple Express. There’s also an interview between Dave Eggers and Franco, in which Franco discusses some of his performance’s art-world inspirations. An excerpt:

Wholphin: No, that was great, that was exactly what I meant. There were a lot of really serendipitous moments when you would find an object, like the shirt that said “Jerk” on it, or whatever. How often would you see something and then decide on how to interact with it?

James Franco: Yeah. I think I was thinking of, not consciously thinking of it when I was doing it, but going in to the performance I was thinking about…I just watched like, every Paul McCarthy video that I could find. I hope it wasn’t too close to him, but I love him, he’s amazing. And then, I think I told you, I just met this artist- Jonathon Meese — who does these extended performances, where he tries to go in and not impose anything on the performance. So I think I took something of that idea and went in here, and then when I’d come across something, just try and react to it. Or, see how it played on me. And like I said, you know, a childhood bedroom has, or I guess this isn’t a kid’s bedroom, but a bedroom has so many things that can, you know, inspire reactions, that there was no shortage I guess.

Also on Wholphin #8: the 2009 Sundance Grand Prize-winning short Short Term 12, Sam Taylor-Woods’ short punk rock coming-of-age drama Love You More, Lauren Greenfield’s Kids + Money, and the surrealist My Friends Told Me About You, directed by Interpol bassist Carlos D. To subscribe to Wholphin click here.