Jake Paltrow, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Elle Fanning Talk YOUNG ONES

February 4, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Elle Fanning, Interviews, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Sundance, Sundance 2014, Young Ones

In this final installment of talks around 2014’s Sundance, we touch base with the creative brains and cinematic brawn behind Young Ones (full review here) – a dystopian future Western that pits mechs and humans against draughts and standoffs. A bit like slamming The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly in the midst of Tatooine, Jake Paltrow‘s sophomoric effort is a fascinating and engaging experiment in genre that worked wonders for me. Joining him, stars Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Kodi Smit-McPhee and Elle Fanning helped guide us through why they came to the movie, what it was like working under the heat of a South African sun and the use of modern day robotics in Young Ones.

Q: Talk about what inspired the film and what were some of the stylistic influences?

Jake Paltrow: There were two particular news articles. One was about moving the capital of Yemen due to a lack of water, in the next ten years. And another one was about the driest town in the world in Chile. There’s a story about all these people who stayed behind because of these odd personal reasons and needing water to be pumped in. And I’ve always been interested in robotics and I spent time in 2008 with Big Dog at Boston Dynamics. Anyway, I was very interested in trying to do a story with a robotic character that would work and explore its sentience, it had some sort of soul, or it would be a character, a character that would have some sort of sense itself. And those two things came together and it went from there.

Q: Talk about how you sort of fused some of the stylistic elements, the science fiction with the Western bounds?

JP: That sort of just happened. I don’t know if that was such a premeditated thing, it just came together. Giles, who photographed the movie, and I really didn’t look at very few things we talked about. We talked about Silent Night, the only one we ever talked about, the way it was lensed I think. We loved that movie, it looked so great. But we were always trying to do our thing beyond that.

Q: How did you select the instruments, the electronics vs. the harmonica?

Nathan Johnson: A lot of that was working with Jake, we would sit down and we talk out ideas, stylistic references. And we pulled out music boxes and harmoniums, and we were talking a lot about wind actually, and the idea of wind instruments and what it sounds like when wind blows over something, and just that point where it turns into a tone. So we thought that was kind of interesting. The idea of combining traditional orchestral instruments with these wind instruments and also these synthetic elements just piqued our interest and felt maybe part of the world this place was in.

Q: What did it feel like to live through this movie, the people who worked in it.

Michael Shannon: Well, it’s really disturbing to think about what might be heading our way. But at the same time, we are making a movie. Now, in NYC we’re much more afraid of water than not having water. So it’s all relative.

Q: Can you guys talk about what first attracted you to the role?

Elle Fanning: Well, I read the script a really long time ago. I was twelve when I first read it. And I met Jake for the first time and we went out to lunch. And I thought I was something that I’d never read before, and right when I read it, I thought ‘Oh my God, I have to do this’. I knew that for my character specifically, I’m really into details and all the little things and quirks of Mary or any character I do, and I knew with her I could put a lot of those in there. And after talking to Jake, he was so open to those. We spent so long on that hot pink nail polish color. We were picking it out, the right shade, “That’s too salmon, that’s too hot”, that was a big deal. And I love that, I like picking out the details, and I just love Jake and the movie so much. So that’s kind of, the nail polish drew me to it.

Kodi Smit-McPhee: I was also kind of really attracted by the nail polish. No, I was also with the project for a long time, it went through a lot but then it got through again. And I was in LA, just Skyping Jake, reading the script again, did my tape, sent it off, and next thing I was in South Africa melting.

Nicholas Hoult: The script was the most original thing I’d read for ages but also that Flem role was the most interesting, with all the dynamics he had with each other character from the film, and I was fascinated by him, it was really well written. That’s the reason I wanted to do each scene. And I had the same experience that Elle had with nail polish, but I had a fake tan. So I got to wear a lot of that.

MS: It’s kind of like what we were talking about earlier. It was relevant and it was a story that needed to be told. I don’t think a movie’s gonna fix a problem but beyond just reading something from a newspaper, if you put it in a movie, it may have more of an emotional resonance, it may inspire someone to do something. It did occur to me when I read it that that might be one result, yes.

Q: Why did you choose to use chapters versus acts?

JP: We talked about that a lot, we talked about approach, acts or chapters. The third thing that really inspired the movie, besides those articles and interests in robotics, were the SE Hinton books that I revisited. I reread those books when I was writing, I hadn’t read them in such a long time and I loved them so much and I loved them again as a kid. And I loved the way a science fiction book version of those books could feel like. So I was really leaning towards that. And those books were always sort of short and I thought how could I make this movie feel like one of those short books. And so the chapters thing, I thought it was a way to keep the entertainment relevant, that you would know that you were moving into the next thing. You close this story, move into Flem’s chapter, you could get more energy back as an audience. I think to try and entertain, certainly the chapters had to do with books, but we do play with parts and acts at other points to. And the important thing at the end, in a way it is to sort of, the movie, even though the performance is sort of naturalistic, has this sort of storybook element to it, and I liked the idea of sort of ending it. I mean, I look at the movie and I feel like it’s a tragedy, and I like revisiting these characters and seeing them all as a little bit removed from the movie.

Q: The science fiction elements felt really organic when they came into the story. I thought it was a really bold choice to create classic western meets futuristic science fiction and I wonder were there things about it that you were worried wouldn’t work?

JP: Everything. The way we did the simulation, we had two puppeteers and that was one of those things, the movie, I’d prepped once before and it didn’t happen, and so we got down to South Africa we started doing it this way, but we never had a complete proof that this would work. We’d done it once before, in Spain, and it seemed like it would work perfect, so we kept moving that way. But we hadn’t really tested it, doing a whole movie, so we just kept going, thinking it would work. But sometimes it felt like every single thing just wouldn’t work. It was 115 degrees the first few days of shooting, it felt impossible to get through the day, literally just taking it one step at a time. We felt like we’d never get through the shots. Sequences like that were very worked out, so we knew we had to get that amount of shots to make the scene work, so we somehow adjust. I really credit Mike. But truly we felt like we couldn’t even finish it. It was a very difficult movie to make and we were so far away. I’d never been in a situation where you couldn’t shoot because the lights would go. And then the lights would go, and you’d be standing there saying ‘Well that’s it’. And they’d go and drive seven hours to Cape Town to get new lights and come through the next day. We didn’t have a schedule where we could get things picked up, certain people get dropped along the way. Thinking, what do we have, what do we have? Trying to fit everything together, and somehow we got lucky, or at least seemed to.

Q: What was the idea behind the plane in the film.

JP: That was just the idea that there was a world going on around the movie, this sort of supersonic passenger jet is back, the new Concord is back and they’re flying from LA to New York in 45 minutes or whatever it is, and there’s this whole world where in fact, you know our world has this sort of regressive nature to it, and the rest of the world is great. You know, a world where Google Glass, or the next, all those sort of things are happening, all those utopian urban things, people migrating from urban areas from rural areas, all that is going on, just not where these people live. So that was the idea, that there’s a big world out there.

Q: From a production standpoint, the robot you used, was that on loan from the military?

JP: No, it’s totally fake. The torso is made of fiberglass tubing.

Q: Did you try and get the actual robot?

JP: Oh yes, I tried. They were great, but there was no way to do it. They’re developing. Now they’re on to Cheetah, and all these things. I mean it was a fascinating experience to spend time with them to do this test, but in the end they’re not a movie tool. They have much bigger fish to fry.

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David Wnendt Talks Stunning WETLANDS

January 30, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Interviews, Uncategorized Tagged David Wnendt, Germany, Interviews, Sundance, Sundance 2014, Talking, Wetlands 1 Comment

The biggest surprise out of Sundance came in the form of a German sexplotation film so aptly named Wetlands. It’s a film that surged with raunch, comedy and genuine drama that had me wincing, bursting out laughing and deeply feeling for all at once. Simply put, it’s a stunner. So all the better that director David Wnendt came out and had a chance to briefly speak with us about his divisively awesome film. Talking about how he skirted around censorship, being a man making a feminist film, German cinema and Quentin Tarantino, Wnendt goes into up the skirt on the making of Wetlands.

Q: So how did you come up with the story? What were you thinking?

David Wnendt: There’s a novel which this film is based upon. A German novel, it’s very popular in Germany, this film is an adaptation of that novel.

Q: What decided you to direct such an intensely feminine story as a man?

DW: That’s not the first time I heard that question. But I do believe that a guy or man could direct a female lead role and vice versa. So I think it would be very strange for men to only direct men’s stories about other men basically. So I think it’s pretty possible to do it. You work with the actors who brings their own view into the whole thing. It’s a collaboration with her of course.

Q: What kind of conversation did you have to have along the way, in terms of getting the movie to how explicit it was? Were there any memorable battles you had to fight, in terms of showing things or not showing things?

DW: Well, we were in a very lucky situation. The author who sold the rights…usually a best seller like that is auctioned off to the company with the most money and that’s in Germany…one or two production companies, if they would had done it, they would have done it very old fashioned, it would have turned very differently. But she decided to give it to not to the producer with the most money, but the one whose films she admired. So it was kind of like, for Germany, an independent producer. And that decision alone made it possible to create a completely different kind of film. But of course along the road, there were like many challenges because of course even if people hadn’t read the book, they knew of the book. And we had all kinds of problems, for example, even finding some locations, like finding the location of this one small church scene was nearly impossible because people were really scared with the title of the movie.

Q: Why do you think the character was so comfortable with bodily fluids?

DW: There’s no real easy answer to that. Y see her background, you see her trauma of her childhood, but the good thing is you can’t reduce her to that, so it’s not such an easy explanation, like that something happened to her in her childhood and that’s why she’s like that. That’s just one small part of her. But in the end, she finds herself. She also enjoys sex, she enjoys her body and she’s interested in everything that has to do with her body, and she doesn’t understand why this should be so taboo.

Q: I was wondering how much Charlotte Roche, the author of the book, was involved in the movie or the post production?

DW: She decided she didn’t want to be involved at all but she was really just wanted to see the final product in the cinema, and that was fine. But what she did was she took that decision I told you about, she chose that producer. There she set us on a path, which allows us to create the film in the way it is right now so that was really a very important decision she made. But other than that she was not involved in writing the script, so she really only saw the final product at the end.

Q: Where did you find the actress who played the main character, Helen?

DW: Well we had the regular, normal casting process. We had also a casting director, who made suggestions, and we looked all around. And she’s actually from Switzerland, so we didn’t just look in Germany but in other German-speaking countries. And we had them come to Berlin and we did regular casting sessions. And in these sessions I tried to find out if they were able to play all the different aspects of that character. For example, one aspect was the language, because the language of the novel and the dialects was a very special kind of language, and it was not a natural language in a way, so the actor had to be able to bring it across in a natural fashion. That was one thing. She also had to have the courage to play this role. She had to have the courage to be nude in front of the camera of course. And she had to be able to act with the other actors of course. So we set up casting sessions to find out exactly that. And so, in the end, Carla Juri, the main actress, she was the one who convinced me in these sessions.

Q: Is Quentin Tarantino a popular director in Germany?

DW: Yeah, very much so.

Q: Member: I’m not familiar with German cinema, but this film strikes the same nerve that Tarantino does.

DW: That’s a very big compliment so thank you very much. And we have many American films in our cinemas.

Q: I really like the animation sequence towards the beginning, that was really nice. Two questions, can you describe what metaphors you were trying to describe in there, and, also, how was that done?

DW: Well, one part of her quest, for her freedom to express everything about her own body, but of also she’s against too much hygiene basically. So to show this, in a bit of an exaggerated and kind of ironic fashion, we came up with this animation short in the beginning. And it was just a very good animation artist who could bring this to life, so we just delivered the shot of the toilet and with that he did all the rest basically.

Q: How long ago did you read the novel and then actually want to develop it into the film? Then how long was that process?

DW: Um, the novel itself is I think six years old, it was published six years ago and I read it four years ago. And at that time, I would never have thought of doing this film. I was still in film school at that time, and actually, the rights were with the producer, and then he chose a director for this film. He liked my first movie, my graduation film from film school, and that’s how we got together. But I really liked the book long before I was about doing it, turning it into a film.

Q: Is this your first feature?

DW: It’s my second feature, my first feature was my graduation one.

Q: I’m just curious, what were some movies that you drew inspiration from?

DW: Well, the producer has the vision when he talked about the film, but that it should be a mixture of Nine Songs and Trainspotting. That was the goal.

Q: Was the author happy with your interpretation?

DW: Lucky for me, she was. So I was really, extremely nervous when she was finally there, in the cinema. I was really, very, very scared. Because she’s very much known to my generation. She was a TV presenter on MTV basically. As a teenager, I grew up with her on TV. I really admired her. So it would have been really terrible if I were to have disappointed her in a way. But luckily she saw the film and was very, very happy. Even the things we added on, we invented some scenes, some scenes are in the book, they’re really just one line, very, very short, we turned into an actual scene, let it play out, she was really happy with that. She, in the end, wasn’t sure what was actually in the book and what we invent. That was a really great compliment.

Q: Was there any point when you thought we can’t actually go that far or show this in a movie?

DW: Yeah. Obviously that wasn’t the biggest concern. From the start it was clear that I didn’t want to make the most provocative of the movie, it’s not what the movie’s about, for the only point to be shocking. And actually during the shooting, I was busy with all other problems there was, work with the actors, all kind of problems that just come up, I wasn’t constantly thinking about that aspect. So there was a little more in the editing, where we just found a way to do it in the best sense of the shooting. I was occupied with other stuff.

Q: On that same note, the film with all the in your face movement , in the scenes you happened to do it, did you do it several different ways, then edit it and figure out what you wanted to go with?

DW: It’s really different from the scenes. Some scenes which we storyboarded, especially if it had an effect or so, were very much planned. Other scenes where we had an emotion or it was about feeling the chemistry between two actors we tried to find something to give them freedom. So complete freedom to move around on set, we had the camera on the shoulder, most of the lighting was done on the windows, so they could move everywhere and the camera could see everything. And with this kind of shooting you have more material, you develop the rhythm and the scene itself in the editing room. But other things, they were really much planned ahead.

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Adam Wingard and Crew Talk THE GUEST

January 27, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Adam Wingard, Dan Stevens, Interviews, Simon Barrett, Sundance, Sundance 2014, The Guest

I’ve added another of my favorite films from Sundance, The Guest, to this delightful series of Q&As that’ll give you a peek into the process of how these great works are pieced together as well as what you can expect when these films eventually hit theaters. If you appreciated Adam Wingard‘s early work (You’re Next, V/H/S) be sure to slot The Guest high on your anticipated movies list, as it’s easily his best yet and a snarky splatterfest thrill ride from start to finish. Listen to Wingard and his cast, including Downton Abbey‘s Dan Stevens, talk about writing the piece, inspiration from 80’s movies and getting pierced by exploding shrapnel.

Adam Wingard: We actually explored doing an action film in South Korea, and we went down the road of that a little ways, and it didn’t really work out because the whole film is just one nonstop action scene, we thought that would be kind of the experiment of that movie. Ultimately, it just never came together because, you know, when you’re doing a nonstop action scene there’s not really character development, things like that.

Simon Barrett: I said I’d wasn’t able to make it.

AW: So this one night I was just sitting around, I had a stack of Blu-Rays at this new office, and I just happened to watch Terminator and Halloween, the original, and I was watching it and I called Simon up the next day, I mentioned I’d seen those two, and I told him I wanted to do a Sci-Fi, action kind of thing, with an android and stuff like that. And Simon’s like, I have an idea that could fit into that. Maybe you can pick up from there…

SB: This is actually unique to our process, because usually Adam comes up with the type of movie he wants to make and I come up with the story. I’d started an old script that was going to be a really depressing drama, with kind of the same premise as this film, but it was a PTSD drama. Ultimately, we’re pretty big believers in the idea that art, unless the point of it is not to be entertaining, that art should be entertaining. So I stopped at around page 35 because I was like, literally no one in the world wants to see this film. (Laughter) I’m not enjoying writing it, and it’s not good. It was about this guy who comes back from the war and kills his friends and family. Ok, cool. And so Adam called me up and I was like “You know, if for some reason he was kind of bit of a malfunctioning robot, suddenly that script is actually awesome.” Not only awesome, but it’s funny, if we’re playing it for the laughs of it, and it’s not just like punishing. And then I just completely started at page 1.

AW: Well, no, it was literally like, we had that discussion, I mentioned that stuff to Simon, Simon said all that stuff, he’s like and then we’ll call it “The Guest”. I said, “Ok do you want to write that?”, and he said “Sure.” And he just went off and did it. It was like suddenly after all this time we spent on this other idea, when we really sat back and said what kind of story do we want to tell, not just saying we want a bunch of cool crazy shit, you know, it was like, you know, it was just took like a little moment, to kind of rest, and there it was.

Q: How long did it take you guys to film it?

AW: It was a thirty one day shoot, I think.

SB: And we did a 2 day reshoot in Los Angeles. Because of corporate stuff.

Q: I’ve noticed that music is pretty essential in a lot of your movies and it seems like with “You’re Next”, you have a little bit of a sort of Carpenter-ish driving electronic music, and with this it was just like a totally different kind of grittiness. I was just wondering, do you curate that or do you work with someone who does the music?

AW: Well, “You’re Next” was a totally different group of composers. It was a little bit more hodgepodge. One guy did the synth stuff really well, and one guy did atmospheric stuff. This film, for me, just spoke to me that it was like an 80’s Cannon action film, as a matter fact we wanted to actually just put the Cannon logo at the beginning of the film, you know, that’s why we do the Snoot logo kind of in that style. So, it tried to process the way to go about that. I feel like after Grindhouse there’s a lot of really good imitations of 80’s films and 70’s films. I really like Grindhouse but the post effect of that is that it’s become a sort of parody almos.? And that’s exactly the opposite of what I wanted from the music out of this. Actually going back to my very first film I did, called Homesick back in 2003, I worked with a band called Zombie. And we had a really good experience working together, they’re very prog rock, very Goblins inspired, John Carpenter stuff. Since then, one of the members of Zombie, Steve Moore, he started a solo project, and the solo project is still kind of him doing that old school thing, because Steve uses all vintage synthesizers and all that stuff. The interesting thing is that he’s just making his version of whatever music he wants to make. It’s a very modern kind of thing, but since he’s using vintage synths, then it has that quality to it. But it’s still something new and it’s not pretending to be it. From the beginning I called Steve up and we had a lot of conversations. A lot of the soundtrack, the starting point was basing it on Halloween 3 and the original Terminator soundtrack, both really great, incredible 80’s synth scores. And it kind of just went from there.

Q: In a couple of scenes, it seems that the camera angle is just really focused on David’s stare. Did you intend to make the audience feel like he was trying to break through the fourth wall in a way?

AW: Um…no, not really, I mean, I felt like those are just key moments that stood out to me. To me, I just wanted to be able to watch David process, because we never really know what goes on in his head. And I felt like I liked the idea of picking these moments where the movie’s not telling you what he’s thinking ever, but I wanted to give the audience that moment to be able to kind of put that on there. I think Dan has such brilliant physical acting that he can hold on screen just a bit longer than necessary, or would normally be done. That just kind of came out of that.

Q: Actors of course have to have physical training. Was there any other physical training, like martial arts, involved?

Dan Stevens: Yeah, there was actually, training for well over a month. Doing like weights and stuff in the morning and martial arts in the afternoon. It was a big old transformation for me actually.

SB: Our action choreographer, Clayton Barber, who worked on “You’re Next”, worked out with Dan. They like hit you a lot. We don’t really know what happened.

DS: I don’t want to talk about it.

Q: Dan, did you have a favorite action sequence to shoot in the film?

DS: Yeah I had my ear pierced by a door.

SB: Yeah, when Dan is running by things that are exploding, that’s not a stunt double sometimes.

AW: Yeah, early on, we did some shots were Dan is running by some splintering wood being shot to pieces. For some reason, I felt like that was important that you be in that shot. And that was the last time, because a piece went through Dan’s ear. It basically made a perfect little piercing in your ear.

Q: Where did you find this guy (Dan)?

AW: On this little known show, Downton Abbey. When going through the casting of the film, I knew I wanted someone who had a very calm, cool aesthetic to them, but who was naturally likeable. I talked to a lot of actors going through the casting. And Dan was actually one of the first people I talked to. He was just so nice. I could just see the character in him. From the very get-go he was my top choice.

Q: How long did it take to write?

AW: Probably two months.

Q: There’s a lot of scenes that you guys got laughs for, that, if done a different way, could have been straight up creepy. How do you find the balance between those two?

AW: Yeah man, it’s hard to say. I don’t know, it was weird. Going into it, I wasn’t sure. The first few days of shooting, how much I did want to play into the creepy side or more the humor of it? Because when I first read the script I was laughing my ass off the whole time, especially when it got to the bar scene the first time. I just really enjoyed going through that. It was just one of those things, as soon as I saw Dan on set and everybody interacting. Because the very first scene that we shot was, you know, the sequence where he gets the guns from the guy and ends up shooting a long distance, impossible missile shot. But it just instantly kind of clicked that it was a funny movie to me, and that’s the direction that we took. And the movie kind of plays homage, by the end of the film, to our roots, coming from horror and stuff, there’s even a jump scare but it’s a manufactured way. It wasn’t se-f referential but more, yes, this is where we come from but now this is a different context. Instead of playing out a horror film throughout, now suddenly we put you in this ridiculous haunted house at the end.

SB: I’d also say that everyone, and definitely our producers, we all have a sarcastic sense of humor. Finding jokes that aren’t really winking at the audience, just kind of assuming you’re smart enough to get it.

Q: For the ladies, or for all the actors really, what was it about Adam that said ‘Yes I want to work with this guy’?

Sheila Kelley: Just so much about him. I was offered the part and I got on the phone with him. He’s not a simple director. He has a lot of layers for the way he wanted the character played and how he wanted the film to unfold. And that was really exciting for me, personally.

Maika Monroe: I went through the auditioning process and I remember the first time meeting Adam. I think Jess was in the room, one of the producers and, just how he would work on the scenes with me, how he would direct me and change things I would never have even thought. There was just something so special, I was like I have to work with this guy.

Brendan Meyer: I was huge fan of Adam and Simon for a long time, so working on this was a huge dream for me, it was really surreal. It was so much fun, I had the best time. Adam’s the best what can I say.

Leland Orser: I can’t add much more than that, Adam was really really good. He really knew what he wanted and the direction was really specific and great but not in the way that he was giving you a ‘No’ or you felt like you were doing it wrong. But in a real collaborative way and you could tell he had a vision. It was really exciting and cool. You could tell he could see the movie in his head.

Lance Reddick: The funny thing for me is that I don’t remember exactly what it was about, because I was also offered the role. I was in New York at the time so Adam and I met on the phone and I told him one of my hesitations was, I don’t want to be the same Top Cop in a suit because I’ve done that for so long. I didn’t want to be the guy just doing exposition and on the page I wasn’t sure if it was going to play like that. I remember we talked a lot about film. I can’t remember exactly what it was that he said, all I remember is we ended the conversation and I said “Let me sleep on it, I’ll get back to you.” As soon as we got off the phone, I called my agent and said, “I’m going to do this film.”

AW: I just told Lance you’re going to wear a really cool trench coat and he said “Alright man, that sounds good.”

DS: Adam just cast a spell on me man. It was one of the funniest scripts I ever read, I was laughing my ass off. As soon as I read it, I made phone calls, some to people who mattered, some just phone calls. And within days we were talking, and I saw You’re Next and watching You’re Next blew me away. I was like I wanted to work with that guy. And I realized it wasn’t that guy, it was these guys. All these guys, the whole Snoot team is unbelievable. Really special bunch to work with. Obviously I didn’t know that at the beginning but I know now.

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Richard Linklater and Cast Talk BOYHOOD

January 24, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Boyhood, Ellar Salmon, Ethan Hawke, Interviews, Lorlei Linklater, Patricia Arquette, Richard Linklater, Sundance, Sundance 2014

Even if you won’t be able to see Richard Linklater’s stunning Boyhood for another five months or so, the epicly elongated process that went into making this film is undeniably amazing and certainly worth a read. Shot over 12 years as a young boy grows from age six to eighteen, Linklater’s ambitious project is truly one of a kind and the product reflects his thoughtful dedication. Alongside his cast, including Ethan Hawke, Patricia Arquette, daughter Lorlei Linklater and debut star Ellar Salmon at his side, Linklater took to the stage at Sundance’s Eccles Theater to answer a host of questions after the world premiere of his sensational film.

Richard Linklater: We couldn’t imagine any place else to show this film to its first audience so it’s really special for us. We started this film 4,208 days ago. So thanks for coming along with us. I’m just so proud of these guys! We’re here to answer any questions you might have.

Q: Was it all your idea and script Richard, or do you collaborate with what’s going on in their lives?

RL: Very collaborative. It’s kind of outlined. But every year we would work out the scenes. The great thing of having that gestation period, roughly a year between shoots, so I could think about it, you know, fourth grade, fifrth grade, and then we would get together and just work on it, sometimes really quickly. It was very intense, like three or four day shoots every time, about a year in between to think about it. That’s the way I always work. At some point, the ideas merge, as the kids got older, at some point Ellar was writing with me much of it.

Q: How did you approach casting?

RL: Casting. Well, you know that’s the key. That was the lucky thing. I mean, I talked to Ethan first. We’d worked together and we’re friends, we run ideas by each other. So he jumped in. Do you guys wanna talk about how you came aboard?

Ethan Hawke: It all started with me. (Laughter) No, sometimes I think that Rick either has a lucky star or sold his soul to the Devil, because this movie couldn’t have worked without Lorelei and Ellar. And you couldn’t really know that they would be able to contribute the way they did. Except for the fact, for your writing question, one of the ways that Rick likes to write a movie is to invite his performers to be a part of the filmmaking process with him. It’s very clear the way he wants to make it and he lets it be incredibly open to us. So Lorelai, what’s going on in her life could inform what is happening in Samantha’s life and vice versa. For all of us, a lot of it was talking about it for us, what it was like in fourth grade, but now a lot of us are parents of fourth graders or have been. So we could benefit from having both points of view. I mean, Lorelai signed up for something…what age were you when you agreed to do it?

Lorelei Linklater: Eight.

EH: Eight. He held you to that promise for twelve years? What was the year you decided you no longer wanted to be involved in it?

LL: Maybe around the fourth year. I asked my Dad (director Richard Linklater) if my character could die. (Laughter) He said it would be too dramatic.

Patricia Arquette: Another thing that Rick did during the process, in regard to the writing thing, sometimes I think Ellar would be a little more advanced than Mason would be, because Ellar’s parents are really cool experimental artists and musicians, incredible people. Rick would say, “So here’s where Ellar’s at, but Mason’s a couple of years behind, so we’ve got to cut his hair, make him look not so cool.” So we had to uncool Ellar. Yeah, the coolest seventh grader on Earth happened to be working on our movie. But when Rick called, we met at Ethan’s hotel at a little party for ten minutes–

EH: In 1994.

PA: So he called me and said, “What are you going to be doing for the next twelve years?” I don’t know, hustling, trying to get a job, unemployed, what I’m doing now. “Ok, wanna do this movie?” Absolutely, coolest opportunity on Earth.

Q: Ellar, do you remember being cast?

Ellar Salmon: Very vaguely, I remember being a variable in an audition process. And, I remember having a distinct feeling that a large part of why I was cast was because of how cool my parents are. He knew he wouldn’t have to deal with those kind of parents. But I don’t remember it. It goes in and out. There are things early on that I watch and remember really clearly and then there are other things that I just have absolutely no memory of.

EH: It was fascinating to see Ellar develop as an actor. Because when he was a little boy, it was like playing with a kid and trying to capture moments. And when I came in, I would miss two years at a time sometimes. We had a camping trip scene, and that was the first time you had agency in the writing, bring in where he thought the character would be. You really wanted to talk about this Star Wars thing and talk about girls. So watching you learn how to act and how to collaborate as a filmmaker as a participant in this film. You learned how to improvise and how to be in character. And that just started growing. And the process of making it felt differently because Ellar was becoming a young man.

Q: With a three hour film, I’m curious if there was something that was a little difficult to cut that the audience would be interested in hearing about?

RL: All of my scenes. There was quite a bit on the floor.

Q: What was your favorite scene that you cut?

RL: Well it would be in the movie if it was my favorite. It was an interesting editing process. You got to spend all those years. Two months ago I trimmed something from Year 2. I had ten years to think about what I wasn’t totally happy about. Everything about this movie was odd. But there’s nothing. The movie’s long but it had to be. I never made a movie over two hours but this one had to be for a reason.

Q: As far as it how it was shot, seamlessly, it looks so beautiful and has incredible the production value but I was just curious about the technology involved. Did you keep using the same camera or was it changed in post?

RL: That’s a good question about technology. That was a big issue upfront. So we shot it on 35mm, negative, I wanted it to look the same way. I knew it’d look a lot different if we jumped into the digital, hi-def formats. So I don’t know how many 35mm films are at Sundance this year, but we’re one of them. Can I give a big shout out? There’s a hero in this film. It’s the crazy guy who took a leap of faith. Obviously, this whole thing, we all took leaps of faith. It was a lot of belief in the future to commit for something for so long. But it’s the strangest proposition to ask someone to help finance something for twelve years, in our industry. So I want to really thank Johnathan Sirak, at IFC. He doesn’t make a lot of films, and as years went on, I’d run into him and he’d say “Well, we have one film in production.” (Laughs) Every year, I just had a board meeting. Everyone asks what the hell this is on the books. He had to lie, every year. But we have to thank him so much for his support.

Q: You guys wanna let me know about any other films?

EH: You’re gonna be in the next episode. This is part of the movie now.

RL: We started a reality show actually. (laughs)

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Jeans Creaming Trailer for GAME OF THRONES Season 4

January 13, 2014 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Game of Thrones, HBO, Season 4, Trailers

Let’s be honest, if you haven’t yet seen Game of Thrones, you’re so far out of the pop-nerd zeitgesit that you might as well have never even heard of Breaking Bad. So I’ll be approaching this article assuming that you know what’s up on HBO’s most popular show. That means spoilers. After the character-killing events of season three, GoT’s fourth season is tasked with tracking the fallout of last season while moving the show into new territory. But even with Ned, Catelyn, and King of the North Robb Stark dead, as Jaime remarks, the war is not yet won.

This first look at the next season heavily features the Lannisters and those of us who’ve read the books know why. There’s some big waves headed towards that sneaky, debt-paying family, a fact made clear seeing series favorite Tyrion in handcuffs. Let’s just say there’s some massive events coming this season, a fact that may make season four even more shocking than the ol’ Red Wedding.

With book three, “A Storm of Swords”, cut in half, this fourth season will play out the events of the second half of George R.R. Martin‘s 1512-page novel. So before you start fretting about which characters will meet their end in this highly anticipated next segment of the Song of Ice and Fire franchise, take a peek at this chillingly epic trailer.

April 6 just can’t come soon enough.

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Drew Goddard Confirms Involvement in DAREDEVIL Netflix Series

December 7, 2013 by Jill Landon Posted in Uncategorized Tagged Batman Vs. Superman, Daredevil, Goddard, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones, Luke Cage, Netflix, Original Content, The Defenders, The Justice League, TV

Daredevil, as a franchise, has nowhere to go but up, after that Ben Affleck travesty. Drew Goddard (Cabin in the Woods, Lost) confirmed that he has joined the new Netflix Daredevil series that continues Netflix’s foray into original content, while band-wagoning on the massive trend of superhero everything.

It was wholly cool when Marvel first decided to build all of their films towards a great Avengers film but, as that was a fantastic idea, every superhero-owning studio and their mother now plan on beating that concept into the ground. Look no further than DC’s gearing towards a Justice League film, with Gal Gadot just cast as Wonder Woman for the yet untitled Superman vs. Batman and the X-Men series, which just announced an eighth film in X-Men: Apocalypse and has stirrings of a third Wolverine solo flick, who plan on teaming up with other Fox property The Fantastic Four (another project in the midst of a reboot) to do their own world building.

Netflix’s Daredevil series will build to a crossover miniseries called The Defenders, along with Jessica Jones, Iron Fist, and Luke Cage. There will be at least four thirteen-episode superhero shows set to build to The Defenders.

Netflix has really been stepping up their game in the original content department and are becoming serious contenders to premium channels like HBO, FX, and AMC. A few intertwined superhero shows might push them over the top to become the ratings champion of television, ushering in a whole new era of digital entertainment. Getting a fan favorite like Goddard to head up this first leg of a long process is definitely a step in the right direction. If superheroes are still in fashion by 2015, this could do very well.

THE KILLING Is Saved…Again!

November 19, 2013 by Matt Oakes Posted in Uncategorized Tagged AMC, Joel Kinnaman, Mireille Enos, Netflix, The Killing

Talk about being dragged through the wringer. The Killing has now undergone two cancellations and, thanks to Netflix, two revivals. The first season was received rather well by critics and audiences for its dark, dark look at the murder of a young girl in Seattle. But when the first season finale didn’t wrap up the murder in question, the majority of audiences were unforgiving and failed to return for the second season. With such low numbers on the board, AMC pulled the plug for a third season.

With the demand of a few strongly-willed fans, Netflix stepped in to help finance a third season with AMC in exchange for a deal that included early broadcast rights. But no matter how much critical love this third season – which saw Peter Sarsgaard join the cast as an inmate on death row – received, the viewers still weren’t there. AMC yanked funding once more.

In an unprecedented move of television shifts, Netflix has now scooped up The Killing to air exclusively on their On Demand station for a six episode fourth season. Fans can rejoice in the fact that they will see the conclusion to the huge cliffhanger the third season walked away on as Mireille Enos and Joel Kinnaman are already set to return.

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