Spotmakers made their presence known at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, and one of the ad industry’s talents–director Jeff Feuerzeig, who is represented for spots by Washington Square Films, New York, and counts commercials for Wal Mart, Publix and Fresh Samantha among his credits–walked away with a top honor, winning the best documentary directing prize for his film The Devil and Daniel Johnston.
Read on for interviews with Feuerzeig and other directors as well as editors from the spot world who saw their work screened and celebrated at the prestigious festival.
THE DEVIL AND DANIEL JOHNSTON
A longtime fan of Daniel Johnston, the aforementioned Feuerzeig–whose last documentary was ’93’s Half Japanese: The Band That Would Be King–poured his heart and soul into the making of The Devil and Daniel Johnston, a documentary exploring the life of the manic-depressive underground music and art legend. In addition to giving him an opportunity to pay tribute to an artist whose work “touched me on a molecular level,” Feuerzeig said that he hopes his film, which he labored on for four years, will introduce Johnston to a wider audience.
Quite a character, Johnston, who is in his forties and resides with his parents in Austin, Texas, has lived quite a life, running off to join the carnival at one point and living out a dream when he was discovered by and featured on MTV. As you’ll see in the film, Johnston was famous for going off his medication–and essentially going off the rails–whenever the going got good.
Given his condition, Johnston wasn’t exactly an easy person to make a film about, but he was cooperative, according to Feuerzeig, who noted that Johnston has always been obsessed with becoming famous and was particularly eager to help make a film about himself. “Daniel, in his own mind, has been making this film from day one,” Feuerzeig mused. “As you see in the film, he made lots of films about his own life.”
Feuerzeig makes extensive use of Johnston’s stash of home movies as well as the audiotapes Johnston recorded over the years of everything from his thoughts to arguments with his mother. “Because Daniel did this cassette thing of his whole life, recording every moment of his life, you’re hearing exactly in the moment how Daniel felt,” Feuerzeig pointed out.
The home movies and audiotapes are supplemented with current footage, performance footage from over the years and interviews with Johnston’s family and friends. Among the most startling interviews in the film is one with Johnston’s pilot father who recounts how his son caused a plane crash that nearly killed the both of them.
Johnston himself is not interviewed in the film. “He was very easy to work with if you wanted him to play music–no problem. He would play music for you night and day. And if it was making art–no problem. But interviews were very, very difficult, and therefore we don’t use any in the film. But I think the film is a thousand times better because of it,” Feuerzeig said, adding, “We didn’t want to do a talking head film. We wanted to do an innovative film that blurs the line between documentary and narrative filmmaking.”
HEIGHTS
A veteran of Sundance, Sloane Klevin, an editor at The Blue Rock Editing Company, New York, has had five films that have been official selections at the festival, including Real Women Have Curves and Pumpkin in ’02. This year, it was Heights, shown as part of the Premieres lineup, which brought her to the festival.
Directed by first-time feature film director Chris Terrio and produced by Merchant Ivory Productions, Heights follows five people over the course of one fall day in New York City. The characters include Isabel (Elizabeth Banks), a photographer having second thoughts about her upcoming wedding, and her mother Diana (Glenn Close), who starts re-thinking her decision to be involved in an open marriage when she learns her husband has a new lover.
Of course, Klevin read the script, written by Amy Fox and Terrio, before agreeing to cut the film, and she said it was a page-turner. “It was this fascinating soap opera/train wreck,” Klevin enthused. “I was turning the pages really fast going, ‘How are all of these characters going to come together, and what’s going to happen?’ “
Klevin, who has cut spots for clients including Clinique, Cheerios and Pampers over the course of the last year, spent about six months away from commercials so that she could work on Heights, although she didn’t spend any time away from Blue Rock. In fact, that’s where she cut Heights, taking over two Avid suites. “Honestly, it was probably a big pain in the ass for the company,” she said laughing. “A feature is demanding. You’re getting a couple hours of dailies every day that you’ve got to digitize; we were here until all hours of the night. We had technical problems we needed help with, so it was a bit of a drain on the engineering department. And once we had to go to sound and mixing, we were monopolizing the dub room.”
Despite the hassles, the management at Blue Rock remained supportive throughout the process. “It was a drain on the company, and they didn’t make any money out of it,” Klevin shared. “What they basically got out of it was a credit in the end credits–a special thanks–and a very happy editor.”
HARD CANDY
In Hard Candy, which was picked up for distribution by Lions Gate after screening in the Midnight series at Sundance, a thirtysomething fashion photographer (Patrick Wilson) picks up a 14-year-old girl (Ellen Page) on the Internet and lures her to his house where he finds himself in an unexpectedly nightmarish situation.
Given the dark premise dreamt up by screenwriter Brian Nelson, director David Slade, who directs spots through bicoastal RSA USA, wasn’t so sure his feature film-directing debut would be selected for Sundance. When he got word that it was chosen, the director was amazed and thrilled. “It’s the antithesis of the kind of film that shows here at Sundance,” Slade said, “so to actually get a film such as this into Sundance is fantastic.”
According to Slade, Nelson was inspired to write Hard Candy after he read a newspaper article about members of girl gangs in Japan meeting businessmen online, then arranging encounters at which the businessmen arrive to find themselves attacked and robbed. Slade was blown away by Nelson’s script, which he said was full of “incredibly sharp shocks,” and set out to make a stylish psychological thriller out of it.
Shot in just about 18 days last year, much of the film takes place in a house, which Slade had built on a stage. The director chose to shoot the film on stage in part because it allowed him more control in terms of lighting and camera angles. “I work in a very stylistic way anyway and have a specific language, which I’ve developed over many years in commercials. So there was going to be a language to this film, which would not have been possible on a real location,” Slade maintained, noting that his intricate set was equipped with sliding walls and trap doors that he could move the camera through.
Tallying up the time he spent on preproduction, production and postproduction, Slade said he spent the better part of last year working on Hard Candy, which meant he wasn’t able to accept any spot jobs in 2004, although he did find time to make “Do Geese See God?” The short film was showcased on Amazon.com as part of the Amazon Films series created by Fallon, Minneapolis.
The management at RSA USA had no problem with Slade devoting himself to his feature debut, according to the director. “They’ve been wonderful with me this year, and they’re very supportive of the film,” Slade said. “They know it’s one of those things that’s going to reap benefits in the future.”
LOVE, LUDLOW
After reading the first 20 pages of the script for Love, Ludlow, editor Eric Pomert, who cuts at Mad.house, New York, knew he wanted to edit the film, which centers on a tough temp from Queens (Alicia Goranson) whose life is devoted to taking care of her unstable brother Ludlow (Brendan Sexton III) until potential romance enters her life in the form of a “suit” from work named Reggie (David Eigenberg).
“The story had heart to it. It was about people,” remarked Pomert, who makes his feature film editing debut with Love, Ludlow, which was showcased in Sundance’s American Spectrum. “If somebody called me up and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got an opportunity for you to do The Matrix 4,’ it would take me a second to pass on it because I’m not interested in special effects. I know there is a huge market for that, and I enjoy going to see The Matrix. But do I want to work on it? No way. What I’m interested in is stories about people. I like stories that inspire people to get the most out of their lives.”
Pomert, whose recent spot credits include Purell, Pepcid and ThermaCare, cut much of the film–which was directed by first-time feature helmer Adrienne Weiss and produced by the in-house indie film division of Washington Square Films–at his New Jersey home using Avid Express Pro. In the final weeks of editing, he worked out of Mad.house. “I got tremendous support from everyone there,” Pomert affirmed.
While he was cutting Love, Ludlow, Pomert was also working on two different spot campaigns as well. “I can honestly say I’ve never worked so hard in my life–getting by on two or three hours sleep. But the cool thing is, I liked it,” Pomert reflected.
Now that he has cut his first feature, would he say it was dramatically different from editing a spot? “I’m into cooking analogies. A spot is like a soufflรฉ. It takes tremendous amount of attention to detail,” Pomert mused. “I just found that working on a film is like putting together a banquet. Every dish has to be great, but you also have think, ‘Well, where is everyone going to sit? And how is this going to be received?’ “
PRETTY PERSUASION
After being attached to Pretty Persuasion for five years, director Marcos Siega was finally able to shoot the film last year, investing some of his own money in the project so that he could get it done.
“It was a tricky film to make,” according to the director, who is repped for commercials by bicoastal/international Hungry Man and has shot ads for clients such as Doritos and Heinekin. “Being a satire, it deals with a lot of taboo issues.” Guns in school, family values and our society’s prejudice toward the Middle East are among the hot topics addressed in the film, which finds a 15-year-old high school girl (Evan Rachel Wood) and two classmates pursuing a sexual harassment lawsuit against a teacher. But rather than offend anyone, Siega is hoping that he delivers the material in such a way that audiences will find themselves “laughing at things and laughing at themselves.”
Desiring a film with a storybook-look to it, Siega shot the whole film, which competed in Sundance’s Dramatic competition, with just one lens. “I wanted the visual story of the movie to contrast with the absurdity in the script, so I wanted the movie to have a very elegant look to it,” the director explained.
Siega employed Terminal, Santa Monica, editor Nicholas Erasmus, whose spot credits range from Cisco to Cadillac, to cut the film. The two have worked together for years on Siega’s commercials and music videos. “We’ve both been fans of Woody Allen’s films over the years, and when we were cutting commercials and music videos, which automatically demand a fast editing pace, we used to sit there and dream about one day working on a project where we didn’t have to cut as fast so we could just let shots hold like in Woody Allen movies,” Erasmus shared.
Pretty Persuasion finally offered them that chance. One of the scenes plays out in a minute and a half without a cut, Erasmus reported, noting, “There is no way anyone will look at this film and say this film came from a collaboration between a director and an editor who came from a music video/commercial background.”
Incidentally, Pretty Persuasion is one of two films Siega helmed last year. The other is a yet-to-be-released teen action comedy titled The Underclassmen produced by Miramax.
JUNEBUG
Speaking to SHOOT via cell phone from outside of a Sundance screening of his film Junebug, director Phil Morrison, who directs spots through bicoastal Epoch Films, whispers, “There are 1,200 people in there watching my film right now. It’s nervewracking–but really cool!”
This isn’t the first time that Morrison has had his work showcased at Sundance: In ’92, Tater Tomater, a film Morrison directed while a student at New York University, was shown at the festival. The short was based on a story written by a lifelong friend of Morrison’s named Angus MacLachlan, who also wrote Junebug, which competed in Sundance’s Dramatic competition.
Junebug finds a sophisticated gallery owner from Chicago (Embeth Davidtz) venturing to North Carolina to meet her new husband’s (Alessandro Nivola) dysfunctional family. “It’s a drama,” Morrison said, “but there are a few spots where people will laugh.”
Morrison shot the film on Super 16mm over the course of 20 days back in his hometown of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, working with a crew familiar to him from his spotmaking endeavors, including DP Peter Donahue and production designer David Doernberg. “It was like being surrounded by family,” Morrison said.
Meanwhile, Epoch Films executive producer Mindy Goldberg served as one of the producers on Junebug. According to Morrison, she jumped onboard the project the second he told her about it.
Plus, “Mindy basically committed herself to me being away from commercials for nine months. I’m so grateful to her for that,” Morrison shared. Morrison, who helmed a Verizon campaign before shooting Junebug last year, said he has missed making commercials. “We edited the film in the Epoch offices, so I was watching the other directors running around making spots, and I was deep into cutting Junebug, and I loved it. But I couldn’t help but think they looked like they were having fun.”
REEL PARADISE
A documentarian known for films such as Hoop Dreams and Stevie, director Steve James had his latest documentary, Reel Paradise, shown as one of Sundance’s Special Screenings. The project took him to the Fiji Islands to follow independent film maven John Pierson (author of the book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes, and co-creator and host of the IFC series Split Screen) and his family as they neared the end of a year-long stay on a remote island where Pierson took over a local theater and showed films for free.
Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it? Well, the last month of the family’s stay on the island was anything but. As we see in the film, “Their house was robbed during this last month,” James revealed, “and that precipitated a lot of drama within the family and the community.”
Even without the drama, Pierson himself makes for a compelling character. “He really is a larger than life guy, literally and figuratively,” according to James, who is repped for spots through bicoastal Nonfiction Spots. “He stands about six-foot-four, six-foot-five, and he has always been a very outspoken guy, a very opinionated guy, very funny, very entertaining, very smart.”
James first met Pierson more than 10 years ago, around the time that Hoop Dreams was shown at Sundance. While Pierson, who has represented and distributed films by Spike Lee, Kevin Smith and others, didn’t officially handle Hoop Dreams, “he became a huge champion of the film and talked it up to the press,” James shared. “That’s when I first got to know John, and we’ve maintained a friendship ever since.” Little did James know that Pierson would one day become the subject of one of his films.
James shot Reel Paradise, which counts the aforementioned Smith of Clerks fame as one of its producers, two summers ago on Digibeta with a small crew. “It looks terrific,” James said of the film. “It’s been blown up in HD, and a lot of people probably think it was shot on HD because it looks so good.”
It doesn’t just look good. It also tells a compelling tale, according to Chicago Sun-Times movie critic Roger Ebert, who went out of his way to praise the film, writing “This is what reality TV could be like if it had a brain and a soul.”
THE GIRL FROM MONDAY
Steve Hamilton, who cuts spots and does sound design through his company Mad Mad Judy, New York, for clients such as Volvo and PricewaterhouseCoopers, is also known as director Hal Hartley’s longtime editor, cutting Hartley films such as Simple Men, Flirt and No Such Thing, which was released in ’01. “After No Such Thing, we were kind of sitting around, and it was difficult for [Hartley] to get the next project off the ground,” Hamilton said, noting that “while people who have seen [No Such Thing] feel it is a strong piece of work, it was Hal’s first film produced and distributed by a studio, and they just buried it, and you’re only as good as your last movie.”
So Hamilton decided it was time for the two to take matters into their own hands, and he suggested that he and Hartley partner to make Hartley’s next film independent of a studio, with Hamilton producing. A few months after Hamilton presented the idea, Hartley came back to him with the script for The Girl from Monday. Hartley’s fourth film to be shown at Sundance, The Girl from Monday was part of the Premieres lineup.
A farcical sci-fi thriller, the film starring Bill Sage, Sabrina Lloyd and Tatiana Abracos, finds a creature dropping to Earth from space and taking over the body of a stunningly beautiful girl so she can find a friend in trouble. “The script really appealed to me right off the bat. I thought it had really good energy and was aggressive and topical and was going to make an impact,” Hamilton said. “Hal describes it as a science-fiction movie about the way we live now.”
The Girl from Monday was shot on digital video mostly in New York City–in fact, Mad Mad Judy was the setting for several interior scenes–over the course of three weeks.
Hamilton then cut the film on the Avid at Mad Mad Judy, and as a first-time producer took command of the post process.
Hamilton enjoyed his initial foray into producing. “I found it very empowering and exciting, and it seemed like a real progression,” Hamilton reflected. “I learned a lot as I was forced to be a lot more aware of the budgeting process and the scheduling process.”