Sundance Responses
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“My Collaborators Are Geniuses”: Editor Christopher Makoto Yogi on I Was a Simple Man
Set in the countryside of O’Ahu, Hawai’i, Director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s second feature film I Was a Simple Man is a surreal portrait of an elderly man’s final days. Told in chapters, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) as he’s visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife Grace (Constance Wu). Acting as the editor for his film, Yogi discusses staying true to his initial emotion in writing the film, as well as the value of brutal honesty in your team. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and […]
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“It Was Supposed to be Confusing and Nonsensical”: Editor Lance Edmands on Cryptozoo
Dash Shaw’s adult animated feature Cryptozoo is a surreal romp into the world of cryptids, mythic creatures whose existence are debated. After stumbling on the titular Cryptozoo, an eclectic team of individuals set out to capture a dream-eating creature called a Baku. Editor Lance Edmands tells us of the unique struggle of balancing dream logic and streamlined editing that went into the development of Cryptozoo. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the editor of your film? What were the factors and attributes that led to your being hired for this job? Edmands: I became friends with Dash Shaw […]
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“I Wanted to Romanticize a Bit and Be Nostalgic”: DP Eunsoo Cho on I Was a Simple Man
Set in the countryside of O’Ahu, Hawai’i, Director Christopher Makoto Yogi’s second feature film I Was a Simple Man is a surreal portrait of an elderly man’s final days. Told in chapters, the film follows Masao (Steve Iwamoto) as he’s visited by ghosts of his past, including his wife Grace (Constance Wu). DP Eunsoo Cho clues us in on how to capture the majesty of Hawai’i’s landscape, as well as how to portray a movie that eschews time and space. Filmmaker: How and why did you wind up being the cinematographer of your film? What were the factors and attributes that […]
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“Strange to Accomplish Your Dreams in Such Times”: Director Pascual Sisto | John and the Hole
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? The events of 2020 clearly had a major impact on all of us, from the pandemic to the racial unrest protests and all the way to one of the most divided US elections I have ever seen. If I have to filter it within the context of my film, it’s been quite an emotional rollercoaster with a very contrasting set of emotions. On one hand it was one of the darkest years in recent […]
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“The Natural World and Our Interconnectedness”: Director Sally Aitken | Playing With Sharks
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Playing With Sharks is the story of a one-of-a-kind, passionate woman, Valerie Taylor, and her remarkable life’s relationship with the ocean’s most notorious predators, sharks. As both a contemporary and archival film, with gob-smacking real scenes of this fearless and glamorous, maverick conservationist, the events of 2020 had the potential to completely derail our production—but—fortunately, probably, ended up defining the movie, certainly, defining the way I feel now in thinking about the natural world […]
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“People Will Watch Films Differently Today Than They Did a Year Ago”: Director Ronny Trocker | Human Factors
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Even though many other things happened in 2020, the pandemic was without doubt the most significant event. However, at the moment it is difficult for me to say if it has changed my view on the film in some way. Like most films coming out now, it was written and shot before the pandemic. The post-production was affected by the restrictions, causing some notable delays, but I don’t think it changed the result of […]
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“Art Is Never Finished, Only Abandoned”: Director Mariem Pérez Riera | Rita Moreno: Just a Girl Who Decided Go For It
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? I finished the final cut of the documentary on Friday, March 13th, 2020. That was the deadline to lock the film in order to move on to color correction and sound mix. That night, I had watched the film one last time before leaving the editing room and as I was driving home, an enormous sadness seized me. At first I couldn’t explain what it was, but then I realized I wasn’t satisfied with […]
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“It Was as if the Film Had Given Us Permission to Connect”: Director Christopher Makoto Yogi | I Was a Simple Man
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? I Was a Simple Man is a film that is inspired by my personal experiences with death in the family, and the making of the film was a way for me to confront and process these experiences. But one of the most unanticipated aspects of developing our film was that whenever someone would read the script or listen to me speak about the film, folks would immediately tell me a story about someone dear […]
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“It’s Reflecting the Times but Arriving Warped”: Director Dash Shaw | Cryptozoo
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? Animation takes a long time. Cryptozoo was written and storyboarded when Obama was president. The first voice recordings were done in the early months of the Trump presidency. The final pick-up voice recordings were recorded remotely due to the pandemic. Now it premieres under Biden. During all of those years, we worked on this every day. The plan never changed, but of course everything (from painting a background, or recording a voice) happens in […]
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“I Became More Interested Than Ever in Trying to Understand My Daughter’s Story”: Director Peter Nicks | Homeroom
How did events of 2020—any of them—change your film, either in the way you approached it, produced it, post-produced it, or are now thinking about it? The filmmaker often begins with a vision: maybe the inspiration of a song, a book, or a hot social issue. Or perhaps it is simply an extraordinary person whose story must be told. This process begins with inspiration and often yields to obsession as we go deeper into turning our inspiration into reality. And along this path it is not uncommon to meet up with that sly artist rigidity, a doppelgänger of our most […]
