Sundance Film Festival

“THE EXTRA MAN” | co-writers-directors, Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:30 pm — Eccles Theatre, Park City] Long before the cameras rolled on The Extra Man, we faced a decision of Sophie’s Choice proportions: whether or not to sign off on an impossible production schedule or pull out of the movie completely. We had expected to make the film on an incredibly challenging 30-day shoot. However when everything was budgeted out, we were left with only 27 shoot days, a rather extreme difference. When our a.d. nervously handed us this document, there were many days that were literally unmakeable. No matter how quickly we moved, […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“FREEDOM RIDERS” | director, Stanley Nelson

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Temple Theatre, Park City] I think the hardest decision for us among many hard ones was to make this film without narration. This had an impact on every aspect of the filmmaking and upped the “degree of difficulty” by a factor of 10. But it finally was a great decision because the story is now told largely by those who participated in the Freedom Rides. It became their story and not a story about them.
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“FIX ME” | director, Raed Andoni

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Holiday Village Cinema IV, Park City] Fix ME… The hardest decisions during the making of this film were all connected to the recording of my personal therapy sessions. From the beginning I wanted those sessions to be honest and real. I wanted the doctor to do his job and to treat me during the sessions as if the camera does not exist. But on the other hand, as filmmaker I also wanted to be sure that I have enough interesting material coming out of the filming material of those sessions. I had […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“BILAL’S STAND” | writer-director, Sultan Sharrief

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 9:00 pm — Yarrow Hotel Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I had to make while shooting my film Bilal’s Stand was to do reshoots in a different format. The film was originally shot on 16mm film. I love the process of film from loading the camera to seeing dailies for the first time. I love the stubborn, sometimes unforgiving nature of the medium and the care required to get the beauty you want. I often joke and say that film and I have a “Ross and Rachel” type relationship. You know you have strong […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“SKATELAND” | co-writer-director, Anthony Burns

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 5:15 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] Making a movie is never easy. In fact much of the entire process is just continuous problem solving. With the right amount of preparation however, many unforeseen issues or setbacks can be avoided. In our case, Skateland was written and completely shot out in eight months. We went from a blank page in April to a wrap party at some colorful bar in Shreveport, La., by December with about a hundred new friends and co-workers. My point is we stacked the odds against us. The shot list was […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“SON OF BABYLON” | writer-director, Mohamed Al Daradji

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, Jan. 25, 6:00 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The hardest decision I made on my film was with the casting. My style of working and telling the story often means working with non-professional actors. The main character of the film is a mother who goes across Iraq with her grandson, searching for her son who has been missing for 12 years. My aim was to search for people who had this experience; I searched for six months in villages and cities in Iraq. Eventually I came to a small village of about 300 homes, and each […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 25, 2010
“FROZEN” | writer-director, Adam Green

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 24, 11:59 pm — Egyptian Theatre, Park City] The most difficult choice I was faced with in making Frozen was the decision between shooting the film entirely practically or shooting it while incorporating such luxuries as a sound stage or green screen for certain scenes. Given the extremely challenging nature of the story and that it all takes place 50 feet in the air and in treacherous weather conditions, the pressure was on me to try and plan the shoot in as safely and as financially secure a way as possible. However I felt that my […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 24, 2010
“HIGH SCHOOL” | co-writer-director, John Stalberg Jr.

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 24, 11:30 pm — Library Center Theatre, Park City] Cutting three scenes that I loved was a particularly difficult decision. One was a wonderfully awkward scene with Michael Chiklis and Erica Phillips, another was a deranged scene with Adrien Brody and Mykelti Williamson in Psycho Ed’s grow room, and then there was a classic with Andrew Wilson, discussing his freakish Moroccan childhood. These were some of the best scenes in the movie. I was so pleased with them, but ultimately they didn’t push the story along. I was trying to balance audience bladder pressure with laughs […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 24, 2010
“3 BACKYARDS” | writer-director, Eric Mendelsohn

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 24, 8:00 pm — Racquet Club, Park City] For the last eight years I’ve taught directing at Columbia University’s Film Program — in my opinion, the best, most comprehensive film school anywhere. More than 25 of my students, past and present, were all working on 3 Backyards in a variety of positions ranging from production designer, co-producer, editor and script supervisor to key p.a. and craft services. One student in particular, Russ Harbaugh, decided he wanted to be part of the entire process, and so he signed on as my assistant. One day during preproduction I […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 24, 2010
“THE TEMPTATION OF ST. TONY” | writer-director, Veiko Õunpuu

[PREMIERE SCREENING: Sunday, Jan. 24, 8:30 pm — Prospector Square Theatre, Park City] In the editing I cut out some scenes to make the film run smoother. The first version was more than three hours long. Sometimes I think I cut out too much but then again, when your film is canned, labeled and shipped off to another continent you might want to come to terms with its possible shortcomings so you don’t have to get acquainted with the symptoms of a mild psychosis later in life. Therefore I’ll just say that everything was all smooth and suave, no hard […]
by Jason Guerrasio on Jan 24, 2010

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