I wish I had ten percent more of less worrying about time. Time is every filmmaker’s enemy, and of course you have to worry about getting everything you want. But worry too much, and that’s time you’re not thinking about whether you’re actually getting (or got) it. It’s wasted mental energy. Here’s what I did to help myself: For months before we began shooting I wrote down in a big book everything I wanted from every moment in the film. In between setups I’d force myself to stop worrying about everything else (time included) and reexamine those notes. Keep the […]
Well seeing as making a film can feel like living a lifetime this is the kind of question I imagine being asked by St. Peter when reaching the gates of heaven (although what with the nature of getting a film off the ground perhaps my chances of making it that far have now rapidly declined). However much like life, what I wanted 10 percent more or less of seemed to change every day. We shot in prison cells where we could certainly have done with 10 percent less heat from the lamps and in the sewers and water tanks we […]
This film is an exploration into why people use steroids, but we live in a time where steroids are an extremely taboo subject. As we were making the documentary, we were frustrated because we kept hitting roadblocks with people not wanting to talk honestly about their relationship with steroids. Even one of my best friends lied to me on camera. While we were shooting interviews for the film we would have liked 10 percent more honesty from many of the people involved in the steroid issue. However as we were editing the film, we realized that the fact that people […]
Ten percent more? The first thing I think of is time. We had 24 days to shoot a really intense ensemble piece with huge emotional and psychological scenes that had major effects and stunts, a hardcore sex scene involving five characters — and did I mention half the shoot was on a boat… at night? So sure, another 2.4 days would have been great but then… the energy and the fear of having to accomplish our schedule — that drove me through a lot of things. Another 10 percent and I suspect it would have just stretched to fill the […]
We were always running out of something: film stock, extras, sani-wipes, dessert at lunch, daylight, bodily strength, common sense, gum. But in the end it was usually enough. So what was lacking? Lately my therapist has been encouraging me to enjoy the creative process more. This one really should have been fun: a) It’s something I’ve wanted to make for many years. b) I got to work with awesome actors. c) The crew is composed of my cool friends. d) We got to shoot in Albuquerque, N.M., which is truly the Paris of the Southwest. So if I could get […]
My father is a businessman. An entrepreneur, really, and he’s spent the majority of his working life consulting other companies — advising them how to improve their bottom line, become more efficient, more profitable. In short, how to produce less “waste” — the unnecessary, the unneeded — in their work worlds. I guess I’ve always been my father’s son, so if I could’ve had 10 percent more of anything during the making of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, it wouldn’t have been 10 percent more of anything, it would’ve been 10 percent less of something. Ten percent less waste: less wasted […]
Visualizing secrecy might seem about as promising as singing in outer space. Film what? From the start, we’ve constantly been on the lookout for 10 percent more things to make visual. How to imagine information that has been withdrawn, conversations stifled, photographs blocked, or words censored? In fact, the very absence of obvious things to film about secrecy became, over the course of making this film, our single greatest preoccupation. Some things ended up working pretty well — we found ways of animating the redaction — and de-redaction, the all-too familiar blacked-out texts. In fact, prodded by all the things […]
I would have liked 10 percent more roads. Without good access there are no good documentaries and there will always be those stories that are lost because it was almost impossible to get to where they lived. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 21, 9:15 pm — Holiday Village Cinema III, Park City]
I wish I had more time, more energy, a lot more guts, a few less words, a lifetime more wisdom, clearer hindsight sooner, 10 percent more of Fassbinders’s DNA, 10 percent more of P.T. Anderson’s DNA, and 80 percent less craft service. [PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 20, 6:15 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City]
Seith Mann’s short film five deep breaths is one of the best we’ve seen in recent years, and it got the New York filmmaker selected to our 25 New Faces list — in 2003. And now that Mann has made a name for himself directing episodes of HBO’s hit The Wire, his short has surfaced again, this time via Bilge Ebiri at New York Magazine. Click here to both read about and see the film. Here’s Ebiri on Mann and his work: The tale of two friends who get in too deep when they decide to help out a battered […]