What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? My fear of intimacy. I do everything I can to avoid it in my personal life and here I was making a movie that required intense intimacy. Not just intimacy between characters who fall in love onscreen but between myself and the actors, the crew, the audience and the rest of the world. I was terrified of being that vulnerable and it got messy at times. But the end […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Making a film – especially an independent film – is full of constant fear: the fear that you won’t have all the money you need, the fear that something beyond your control will go wrong, the fear of making wrong decisions. And once you’ve made what you hope is a good film, you then have to wait to see what other people think of it. What will critics say? […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I was waiting with apprehension for the day we were going to climb on top of a 300-foot, high voltage pylon. With the actress, the DP and a stunt specialist, I did not feel very brave when we were approaching the top. From there, I was watching some painters working on a much higher power plant chimney and I thought that I was not tailored for that. But once […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? With Fresh Dressed, I had the opportunity to talk to a wide cross section of folks who are, or have been involved with, hip hop culture in one way or another. We were able to strike a serious balance between talking to the folks who are known by the masses and the lesser known folks who had a heavy hand when it comes to the development of hip hop […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I’m always terrified before making a new film because so much of it’s down to chance…will I find a story? Will I be able to film it? Will I be able to get a beginning, middle and end? It always suddenly feels really daunting. The worst time was before Salma, as most of her story had happened in the past and I wasn’t sure how to make her life […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Preparing the visualization and unfolding of the story and its themes, I had to plan carefully how we could scale our visual ambition with the resources available. In working with designers on the technology and the city buildings, I emphasized our Victorian Futurist aesthetic. It felt fitting for a story inspired by Victorian period novels. I’ve always been intrigued by stories about class mobility, devotion to family, and hidden […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I swore I would never do this again, but we began production of Knock Knock with no money in the bank. The last time I did this was on my first film, Cabin Fever, when an investor backed out 3 days before shooting and we made the first two weeks on credit cards, making phone calls to investors to beg for money between takes. This time, with no commitments, […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Fear is my prime motivator, the force that scares me to make films in the first place. Maybe it’s egotistical but I can’t imagine just leaving behind an ugly corpse and an unpaid university debt. I was scared the entire time making this film, listening to that demonic, self-doubting, nagging Woody Allen voice in my head, telling me no one is going to want to see a film about […]
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? I don’t feel fear, I feel excitement. Beginning a film is like starting an intense relationship that you know is going to take you outside of your comfort zone and into new worlds. The unpredictability of documentary filmmaking is that it can fall apart at any point so you might as well enjoy the ride! [PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday January 26 at 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre] Sundance 2015 Responses
What fear — whether it’s personal, or one related to the development, financing, production or distribution of your film — did you have to confront and conquer in the making of your movie? Ten Thousand Saints is a period film set primarily in New York’s East Village in 1988. Unfortunately for us, that neighborhood today is nearly unrecognizable from the one we sought to dramatize. As New Yorkers, it was important to us that the movie looked authentic, despite our limited, indie film budget. What kept us up at night was figuring out a way to represent a world of tent cities, […]