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“PETER AND VANDY” writer-director, Jay DiPietro
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 19, 8:00 pm — Racquet Club, Park City]
“Was your story — its conception, structure and/or execution — shaped by the forces affecting cinema today?” Absolutely! On the first day of shooting I said to everyone, “Guys, I know we were all excited to shoot a slow, self-indulgent, boring movie. But due to the wintery economic climate, we need to change course and try to make an entertaining movie that people might enjoy. I’m sorry, everyone, change of plans.”
And while we were shooting and editing, I often found myself saying, “You know, this looks fantastic…but will it look good on an iPhone?”
Enough sarcasm. In truth, I think “the forces affecting cinema today” probably helped Peter and Vandy. The story is very intimate and didn’t require a huge budget to be done effectively. So we could tell the story the way we wanted to without having to worry about some of those outside factors. In fact we knew that if the movie pandered, it would fail.
But as far as the small-screen format stuff goes…I knew that if we used a bunch of XCUs to accommodate for smaller screens, the movie would suffer. All of those close-ups are a turnoff, I think. So we made sure that it would look good on the big screen as well as on DVD. So for all of you who struggle to watch it on your iPod Mini…sorry.
