Interview – Page 19 – We Are Movie Geeks

SLIFF Interview: Stace England of Screen Syndicate – A Tribute to Roberta Collins

Screen Syndicate, a side project of Southern Illinois-based Americana band Stace England and the Salt Kings, explores the fascinating history of Roger Corman’s New World Pictures and the exploitation films made by the company in the 1970s. The life of actress Roberta Collins — a Hollywood story of sadly unfulfilled promise — is the vehicle used to navigate the period. Collins lit up the screen in films like THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, WOMEN IN CAGES and DEATH RACE 2000. But Collins was unable to break out of the B-movie grind, playing minor roles in increasingly poor productions before finally exiting the business. She died in obscurity in 2008. Screen Syndicate combines original songs, film clips, trailers, and other material into a unique live-music experience that pays tribute to Collins. The band has performed at numerous film festivals in the U.S. and Europe — appearing twice at SLIFF — with shows about pioneering African-American filmmaker Oscar Micheaux and Cairo, Ill. The concert will include a screening of the 1974 women’s prison opus CAGED HEAT which co-starred Collins.

The event takes place beginning at 8pm Saturday November 22nd on the stage at KDHX (3524 Washington Boulevard‎ St Louis, MO 63103) Ticket information can be found HERE http://cagedheat.bpt.me/

Stace England hails from southern Illinois and found his creative footing in Chicago during the early ’90s with House Afire, one of the first country/roots bands in what was to become a very vibrant alt-country scene. England returned to southern Illinois and recorded a project of aggressive folk material under the name Tecumseh, releasing the well-received “Bearings” in 1995. His next musical adventure was with the alt/slasher/country-rock outfit Jubilee Songbirds, which released the eclectic “Birds of North America” (Western Front) in 1997. England released his first solo record, “Peach Blossom Special” (Relay) in 1999, and a power pop CD in 2003, “Lovey Dovey ALL the Time” (Gnashville Sounds).

England’s concept/historical album “Greetings From Cairo, Illinois” traced Cairo’s history from 1858 to the present through the Civil War, lynchings, the blues years, civil rights struggles and spectacular decline. England was joined on the CD by other top musicians. With 2007’s “Salt Sex Slaves” England, along with his band The Salt Kings tackled another bizarre slice of unknown US history weaving true stories of brutal salt production, slave breeding, kidnapped free blacks and murder in a supposed Free State, and the Land of Lincoln.

With 2010’s “The Amazing Oscar Micheaux” England and the Salt Kings set their sights on the life story of Oscar Micheaux, born in Metropolis, Illinois. Micheaux formed his own film company and wrote, filmed, produced and directed the sprawling epic, THE HOMESTEADER in 1919. It was a sensation in Chicago and other cities. Then, in a direct challenge to D.W. Griffith’s racially charged Birth of a Nation Micheaux released his masterpiece, WITHIN OUR GATES in 1920, a film thought lost for almost 60 years until a copy was finally discovered.

Stace England took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about Roberta Collins, Oscar Micheaux, and his past, current, and future projects.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 3rd 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: I want to talk to you a bit about your show here on the 22^nd. You’ve got this tribute to Roberta Collins. Why her?

Stace England: Basically my interest in that genre was really peaked by a documentary made in 2010 called MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED which is a fantastic production. I’ve watched it six or seven times now and it made me want to go back and watch those movies, so we did that as a band and we kept noticing Roberta in the sea of acting mediocrity and to us she really stood out as somebody having some depth. I’m a huge Pam Grier fan. In those early films she’s a little shaky but she gets better, but Roberta seemed to have some stature and she’s the only actress that we wanted to Google and find out more about. As we did that we sort of got sucked into the whole thing. Hers wasn’t quite a Rainbeaux Smith kind of tragic thing with a death at 47, but she did die a typical Hollywood death of drugs and alcohol. Nobody is sure whether or not it was a suicide. We began watching the films and wondering if anyone else had seen that there was something clearly going on there. We were speculating about that and a bunch of songs just started happening from all that dialogue and debate about that. The whole genre is fascinating. The whole thing with Roger Corman sending crews to shoot in the Philippines and that kind of stuff. The final hook that really got has them was all the writing out that described these films as women empowerment films. That was the final hook that got us. John Landis is great in MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED laughing about that, but there are serious people writing about that, about these strong woman characters annihilating their oppressors. We tend to be attracted through the looking glass about that and this really fit the bill and she really becomes a vehicle for us to navigate that period, something to latch onto and weave through it.

WAMG: Have you done the Roberta Collins performance before?

SE: The show that we’re doing there in St. Louis we’ve done once before at a local event here in Carbondale.

WAMG: Did you show CAGED HEAT?

SE: No we just played our set at an event and it went over very well. People came up to us asking us questions about the genre and Roberta afterwards so we were pleased about that, but we haven’t done the show before with CAGED HEAT.

WAMG: Was CAGED HEAT your choice for the film to show and do you think it’s the best choice to showcase Roberta?

SE: I think Cliff Froelich (Executive Director of Cinema St. Louis) there talked about that and asked about either DEATH RACE 2000 or CAGED HEAT. We really didn’t have a preference. We like both of those films. He really made the call on that.

WAMG: So you’ll be showing images and clips of Roberta Collins while your band is playing, is that how it works?

SE: Yes, we perform first and then CAGED HEAT will show after that. We’re using available materials – trailers and things like that. All of the songs are one of her films we have THE BIG DOLL HOUSE, WOMEN IN CAGES, CAGED HEAT. It tracks right along in order of her work. I think her performance in WOMEN IN CAGES is fantastic. I think it’s riveting on multiple levels but when we finally get to HARDBODIES parts one and two, it’s pretty hard to watch. You’re at a point where you knew what could have been, and especially that first HARDBODIES film. We didn’t fast-forward through them though, we sat through them all to absorb it.

WAMG: Is UNHOLY ROLLERS in there?

SE: Yes, that’s a great movie even though she doesn’t skate much, It’s one of my favorites out of the whole thin,g so yes we have a song called Unholy Rollers.

WAMG: And EATEN ALIVE?

SE: Absolutely, we have a song called eaten alive and we have a Japanese trailer that we’ll incorporate and some other things.

WAMG: What would you say her most famous role was?

SE: Certainly DEATH RACE 2000. That’s a wonderful film on multiple levels. You would think coming out of that with people like Sylvester Stallone and Fred Grandy and others, that she might have gotten some traction out of that and then she went right to EATEN ALIVE. I think CAGED HEAT is a great movie and the director Jonathan Demme did a great job with that, so it’s hard to say I would say either DEATH RACE 2000 or CAGED HEAT.

WAMG: seems like Simone Griffith had the bigger role in DEATH RACE 2000, more the female lead and Roberta was more like a guest villain.

SE: We started watching all of Roberta Collins is stuff. She was in a Kolchak the Night Stalker episode and she comes in and just nails her scene. Then I watched the movie WHISKEY MOUNTAIN which is out there on YouTube. It may be one of the worst films I have ever seen but she’s solid in it. She plays a rape victim and she’s really good. THE BIG DOLL HOUSE for us becomes a euphemism for Hollywood in our songs and how to navigate that and the tens of thousands of stories that broke in the same direction where nothing really transpired.

WAMG: Have you talked to any of Roberta Collins costars or family members?

SE: No, I mostly just followed all the blog material out there. I haven’t really taken it to the next step though I’d like to do that if we keep this show going and reach out. It’s sort of amazing that when she died none of the trade papers really even mentioned her death. I do find the stuff about her and Glenn Ford interesting.

WAMG: Tell me about that.

SE: Toward the end of her life she was a family friend of Glenn Ford. She was a home health aide. She saw herself as a natural healer and spent time with Ford at his house taking care of him. We speculate about that in a song. You’ve got this industry titan sharing a room with someone who was mired in B-movies. There had to have been some interesting conversations.

WAMG: So you guys watch the films and do you write the songs and throw out ideas as the film is unspooling?

SE: Typically the way I do it is to watch the film and sort of absorb it and then the ideas will start to come. It’s rare that we are sitting there taking notes about a particular scene although we do that sometimes. One of the things that we strive for, and we did this with the Oscar Micheaux project, is try to make the songs a little more universal. That way if you don’t know anything about Roberta Collins, you can still sort of latch on to it, maybe with a melody that is compelling. The songs don’t tell the story of the movie scene per scene, it’s more like how it hit us or how it felt to us and how that can translate into some sort of message about what we are going through. We did watch her films in order. That gave us a real sense of her career trajectory and that was pretty jarring as you see how her life unfolded.

WAMG: You’ve incorporated movie figures into your show before with the Oscar Micheaux project. How did you get the idea to incorporate these obscure movie figures into your music?

SE: We’ve gotten labeled, I think rightly so, as music historians. All of our albums are concept records that tell a broad story and we’ve always used multimedia in all those shows from Cairo Illinois to the old Slave House project that we did over here. And we found Oscar Micheaux because he was from Southern Illinois and his story was so fascinating. That was really our entrée into using the film in the show. That went over really well. It took us to a lot of interesting places and we found that we really liked it and we found that film people are really cool! Our idea for Screen Syndicate is to keep this going. We’d like to be to talkies what the Alloy Orchestra is to silent films. We’re big fans of those guys.

WAMG: We’ve got a silent film orchestra here in St. Louis called the Rats and People Orchestra.

SE: I’ve heard of them but I have not seen them perform.

WAMG: Oh I saw them last week at the St. Louis Art Museum accompanying NOSFERATU and they will actually be playing at the St. Louis international film Festival in a couple of weeks accompanying the 1913 version of Ivanhoe starring King Baggot who was from St. Louis.

SE: That sounds great. I may have to attend that.

WAMG: So you’re from Cairo Illinois originally?

SE: I’m from southern Illinois. I’m a farm boy from west of Mount Vernon but I’ve been living in Carbondale for the last 20 years.

WAMG: Did you used to come in to St. Louis for concerts when you were younger?

Absolutely, yes I saw The Stones in St. Louis and The Who. St. Louis was the major market to see all those acts when I was a kid.

WAMG: What is the name Salt Kings a reference to?

SE: I had done a record about Cairo Illinois but I didn’t have a band then. I had put a studio project together about the old Slave House which is one of the most bizarre places you could ever encounter. It was sort of a reverse Underground Railroad in Illinois. The guy who did that was named John Crenshaw, Who was called the Salt King. We needed a band name so we appropriated it for that project. That record did really well so we needed to have continuity for the name so that came from Crenshaw who was running sort of an evil Empire around the 1840s.

WAMG: Was Oscar Micheaux the first movie figure that you guys based your shows on?

SE: Yes he was and we were all riveted by his story. He made approximately 40 films but only about 13 of them are available, not lost. We watched all those and came up with our show. Cliff asked us to score his most famous movie with and our gates. We had never done that. We did it for SLIFF and it went over well there and other places and we found it to be such an enjoyable experience perfroming it at different festivals.

WAMG: Is there another movie figure that you perhaps have in mind for a future movie project?

SE: We’ve been talking about that. I’m fascinated by Joseph Cotten and I’m starting to rewatch all of his Films. Up until about 1953 every film he was in was just like a masterpiece CITIZEN KANE, THE MADNIFICENT AMBERSONS, THE THIRD MAN, so something may gel out of that because he was such a compelling guy that seem to be in these amazing movies.

WAMG: Of course he did schlock near the end of his career. He was in LADY FRANKENSTEINadn BARON BLOOD, you could go into that part of his career as well.

SE: Yes when you look at that arc of a career like Oscar Micheaux or Roberta Collins, that’s part of it, they got to keep working.

WAMG: Are you going to be speaking about Roberta Collins or is all of this just going to be coming out through the songs?

SE: Mostly through the songs we may talk briefly to set the tone and the mention how it came about and things to look for and answer some questions if people want to do that. We’re also going to do a few Oscar Micheaux songs with footage from him to fill out the set because people have never seeing that footage and it’s pretty compelling. Paul Robeson for example, was in BODY AND SOUL and that’s a really dramatic thing to see.

WAMG: Good luck with the show here in St. Louis on the 22nd as well as with all of your future projects.

SE: Thank you.

SLIFF 2014 Interview: Frank Hall Green – Director of WILDLIKE

WILDLIKE will screen at 5:00pm Saturday, November 22nd at the Tivoli Theater as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE. Frank Hall Green will be in attendance to answer questions about his film

In writer-director Frank Hall Green’s WILDLIKE, Mackenzie (Ella Purnell of “Malificent”), a troubled but daring teenage girl, is sent by her desperate and struggling mother to live with her uncle (Bruce Geraghty of “The Hurt Locker”) in Juneau, Alaska. Although her uncle initially seems like a supportive caretaker and friend, the relationship takes an uncomfortably sinister turn, and Mackenzie is forced to run away. Trying to make her way back to Seattle alone to find her absent mother, Mackenzie instead ends up going ever deeper into the Alaskan interior. Lost and with no one else to turn to, she shadows a backpacker, the loner Bartlett (Bruce Greenwood of “Star Trek”), who proves an unlikely father figure with scars of his own. Together, they cross the wilderness and discover sanctuary in the last frontier.

Frank Hall Green took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about WILDLIKE

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 18th 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: Have you been to St. Louis before?

Frank Hall Green: I have but it’s been a long time.

WAMG: Where did you grow up?

FHG: I grew up in Atlanta.I went to college at NYU in Manhattan and graduate film school there, so I’ve been in New York for most of my life now.

WAMG: Was WILDLIKE your first feature is a director?

FHG: Yes it’s my first narrative feature as a director.

WAMG: How did you come up with this particular story?

FHG: It’s really the confluence of a few ideas and desires. The central issue of sexual abuse is something that had come into my mind a long time ago. It’s an important social issue and I knew a couple of people who had had experiences that they had shared with me. When I was developing an idea for my first feature I read an article in the New York Times that talked about the percentage of women who have undergone some sort of sexual assault and how it’s really at epidemic proportions. I thought that would be interesting to tackle perhaps in a way that has not been presented before. At the same time that was going on, I had taken a backpacking trip to Alaska in 2003. I’m something of an avid backpacker and I usually take a trip like that about once a year. I have gone through Denali and some of the places that part goes through in the movie. I recognized Denali as a beautiful location and natural backdrop for a story. For a first feature, I knew I wanted to do something outdoors in nature. I wanted to do something of a journey, something of an adventure, something with the trajectory of a character going out in nature. These things all came together very easily into one story.

WAMG: Was Bartlett based on you or on anyone you know?

FHG: I think all the characters have a little bit of me in them, since I have to write them from scratch. But no, he’s more of a figment of my imagination than anything else. He is the character in the movie that is the least flawed. The great thing about Bartlett is that he has total acceptance of Mackenzie because he has no agenda with her.

WAMG: How much of the journey that McKenzie takes in the movie did you and your crew actually take?

FHG: We pretty much took the entire, exact Journey. In fact, we’ve taken it several times now. I began writing the script back in 2008, have been writing it off and on, and had a completed draft in 2010. I went back to Alaska for about 10 days and I did specifically take Mackenzie’s journey. I took the ferry boat which is a two day run up through Anchorage into Denali National Park and across the state. And then when I had producers, we took the trip again and scouted locations. During the shooting of the journey we covered 3000 miles.

WAMG: Where did you guys stay at night when you were out in the wild?

FHG: It’s wild and it’s very vast but often times we were shooting just hundreds of yards off the road. Off a dirt road sometimes and we would go out in the middle of nowhere and make a journey from point A to point B and stop along the way and shoot at different spots, but we would always be near some sort of lodge or inn or rustic accommodation where we could put the whole crew up. There were some crew members that were up for it and wanted to do some hard-core camping but we had to keep things professional and make sure everyone got plenty of rest.

WAMG: Did you have any weather-related problems?

FHG: Remarkably, we did not. Weather was not a problem for us. We got incredibly lucky in that it actually rained when we wanted it to rain. We had fabulous weather and the people of Alaska were extremely accommodating. The hard thing was just doing the very long days and seeing the script become real day by day over five weeks.

WAMG: Tell me about filming the scene with the bear. Where did that bear from?

FHG: That bear’s name is Joe Boxer. They call him JB for short and this is his second credit. That’s the same bear that was in INTO THE WILD. JB lives in the Anchorage Wildlife Conservation Center which is run by a wonderful guy named Mike Miller who started it. It’s a massive place with huge enclosures for various types of animals. They’re not trained but they have been raised in captivity for whatever reason. Many can’t fend for themselves in the wild. JB was taken in there as a cub. Mike said we could come down and shoot inside the pen. You can see in the movie that it doubles well as Denali as there are mountains all around where the Center is. It’s quite wild. Mike took a tractor with a front loader on it and put actors Bruce Greenwood and Ella Purnell and the director of photography Hillary Spera in it and picked them up and drove them into this massive enclosure that has 15-foot high fences around the perimeter. He then dropped them down inside of it. Mike got out with a pitchfork and a bucket full of hot dogs. He would throw down some hotdogs and JB would wander toward the hotdogs and toward them wanting more more. At this point Mike would throw another hotdog which would send JB back out further away. So JB would sort of do these circles and Hillary and the actors just got out there and did the scene. We did this for about 30 minutes and got some great shots.

WAMG: Tell me about casting Ella Purnell in the role of McKenzie. She’s a Brit, right?

FHG: Yes she is and she did a terrific accent. I tried to find a girl who was age-appropriate and fit the style of the film and had sort of a natural tone. I had a casting director, Stephanie Holbrook, who was fantastic and we were struggling to find the right person. We had met with several agencies out in LA and had held several auditions. After this I was sort of exasperated and went back to my hotel and there was a movie on called NEVER LET ME GO. It’s a British film with Andrew Garfield and Keira Knightley and Carey Mulligan. Keira Knightley’s character has a younger version who was played by Ella Purnell. When Ella came on the screen I watched her for about five minutes and I knew she would be perfect for Mackenzie. I had just happened to meet with Ella’s agent that day so I called the agent at midnight and we talked.

WAMG: Did she have any problems with the physical demands that you asked of her?

FHG: She did not, no. She’s a real go-getter, so not at all. I think the hardest thing was that she joined the production about a year and a half before filming. I went to London a couple of times and met with her and her mother and made sure they were comfortable with the subject matter of the movie and make sure she was willing to go 100% with the production. Ella and I did a lot of talking and skyping. I gave her a lot of material, some of which was hard for her to absorb, but she did some research on her own to get in to the mindset of what some young girls have gone through. Everyone had a blast shooting in Alaska. Day after day of beautiful scenery really kept us going.

WAMG: Was the entire movie shot in Alaska?

FHG: Yes, everything.

WAMG: I noticed when McKenzie is being sexually abused by her uncle the first time she doesn’t put up much of a fight. Was this character supposed to have had a history of being abused?

FHG: Yes, Brian Geraghty who plays the uncle, and Ella and I all talked about there having been an episode earlier where the uncle had crossed the line in a number of ways, probably multiple times, so the Mackenzie character is not surprised when it happens But I have found in my research that it’s very common for young women to become in this sort of frozen state, to not be able to do anything and in a lot of cases it is eerily quiet – nothing is said.

WAMG: Brian Geraghty does a good job as the uncle. I recognized him from FLIGHT.

FHG: Yes, he was in THE HURT LOCKER as well.

WAMG: That’s right, he had a big part in THE HURT LOCKER. Did you consider any other actors for the role of Bartlett?

FHG: We considered a lot of actors. We had a whole pool of people that we were looking at, but we really liked Bruce Greenwood. He’s a Canadian actor and he had gotten his start in films by director Atom Agoyan. I had just seen him in a film by Kelly Reichart called MEEK’S CUTOFF. I got on the phone with him and we talked for about an hour and a half and hit it off. I think it was luck of the draw that we came together, he is just perfect for the role. I think the tone and the mood and the look and feel of the movie was reflected in the script. I worked really hard to put on paper what I wanted it to look like. That way, when the actors read it, they had a real feel for what it was going to be.

WAMG: What filmmakers have inspired you?

FHG: I’m a big fan of Kelly Reichert, and some of the more quiet, neo-realist directors like her.

WAMG: Did you grow up a movie buff?

FHG: I did in a way. I grew up more an artist and sculptor and photographer. My father used to buy movies from the Columbia House Movie Club and he amassed a big collection of films from the 40s and 50s and 60s, art film and foreign film, most of which I had no idea what they were. When I was in high school I got on this kick of coming home every day after school and popping one of these movies in. So by the time I got into college, I was pretty well informed in film. I got the film bug when I was at NYU as an undergraduate even though I was a photography major and that set me on my current trajectory.

WAMG: What are your release plans for WILDLIKE?

FHG: We have a wonderful sales agent Kevin Iwashina who is handling the picture. He’s going to be talking to distributors pretty soon and we hope to get the movie out of there. We’re determined that it’s seen by a lot of people. The audience response so far has been great so we’re just excited to keep showing it more and more.

WAMG: What’s next for Frank Hall Green?

FHG: I’m a producer as well so I’ve got some things coming up. I have a small movie called REMITTANCE shot in Singapore and the Philippines which is coming out in six months and then I’ve got a project that I’m just starting, an adaptation of a book called Boy 21 by Matthew Quick who wrote SILVER LININGS PLAYBOOK. That will be directed by Lasse Hallstrom, so I’m really excited about that.

WAMG: Good luck with WILDLIKE and all of your future projects.

FHG: Thanks and I look forward to my visit to St. Louis.

SLIFF INTERVIEW: Khalil Sullins – Director of LISTENING

LISTENING screens at 9:35 on Friday, November 21st at the Tivoli Theater as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. Ticket information can be found HERE

In the new science fiction film LISTENING, graduate students David (Thomas Stroppel), Ryan (Artie Ahr), and Jordan (Amber Marie Bollinger) are trying to harness the power of the human mind. Broke and struggling to support their families, they spend all of their time in a garage lab full of stolen equipment, hoping to invent a means of human telepathy and thus solve their problems. But when the trio makes a breakthrough, the discovery proves anything but a boon. Instead, their cutting-edge technology quickly opens a Pandora’s box of new dangers. Secrets and betrayals boil to the surface as the technology falls into the wrong hands, and the team soon finds itself working for an underground government agency with treacherous plans. With no one left to trust, David is pitted against his friends in a life-or-death battle — a struggle over the privacy of the human mind and the future of free will.

LISTENING is the first feature from writer-director Khalil Sullins who will attend the screening November 21st and stay for a Q&A after the film. Khalil took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks before his trip to St. Louis

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 18th 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: Have you been to St. Louis before?

Khalil Sullins: No this will be my first time there. I’m really looking forward to it.

WAMG: LISTENING deals with telepathy and neuroscience. Is this something that you knew a lot about or did you do a lot of research?

KS: I first came up with the idea of someone using telepathy, then I did two or three months of research to see how someone would actually go about using that to read someone’s mind. And then I started writing. I call it a ‘hard’ sci-fi, as all the science in the film currently exists or is theoretically possible.

WAMG: So you do consider your film science fiction.

KS: Yes I’d call it a sci-fi thriller.

WAMG: What does mental telepathy mean to you?

KS: Practically, in this film it means being able to read someone’s thoughts – these characters go about it through brain reading interfaces. Throughout the film that technology evolves into more and more efficient hardware and software capable of reading someone’s thoughts.

WAMG: How long did it take you to write this script?

KS: I worked on the script for about a year.

WAMG: And what was the films budget?

KS: It was independently financed – we had to beg borrow and steal to get it made. It’s definitely not a studio picture but we did our best to make it look like one.

WAMG: And you were able to travel to Cambodia to film some scenes.

KS: Yes, that was the interesting thing about this film. A lot of independent films will just shoot on one or two locations. We really tried to put our money up on the screen and we did that by shooting in a variety of locations. We went to Cambodia, we went to Washington DC. All in all we had about 30 locations throughout the globe for this movie. We had a small crew and we traveled all over.

WAMG: Did your two leading actors go to Cambodia as well?

KS: One of them did. Thomas Stroppel plays one of the main characters and the film opens with him going to Cambodia searching through the jungle for something and finding this old Buddhist temple with monks that can control his thoughts.

WAMG: I heard you caught malaria in Cambodia. What was it like being sick in a foreign country?

KS: Most of our crew got sick there for a day or two, but it was when I got back that I got really sick. That was the toughest part about the whole process of making this film. It knocked me out for six weeks. I lost over 25 pounds. It was kind of scary.

WAMG: I’m glad you recovered. How did you go about casting the two leads?

KS: We tested hundreds of people. It was a non-union picture so we were really searching for some undiscovered talent, but when Thomas Stroppel and Artie Ahr auditioned, we knew pretty quickly that they were both perfect for the roles.

WAMG: Is this your first feature-length film?

KS: Yes, my first film as writer and director.

WAMG: What were some of the challenges of being a first-time director.?

KS: One of the hardest part was when I was sick. As the director, you’re the guy calling the shots, and when we got back from Cambodia, our plan was to shoot for two more weeks. We had all of the rest of the movie shot and edited. We were going to put those Cambodia scenes in the beginning and move on. But then I got sick and suddenly everyone was waiting for me, but I was physically incapable of working at all. That was the toughest part, but also some of the locations. When we were in LA we were limited with our schedule and sometimes had to shoot up to four locations in one day.

WAMG: Tell me about the flicker 3-D stereoscopic technique used in your film. Does that require special glasses?

KS: No it does not. I had seen an online a video by a band called Blue Roses that used that effect. I had seen it also in still photography, this way to flicker back and forth between the left eye and the right eye images that creates a sense of depth perception. But no one had ever done it before in a feature film, so we used the effect to signify entry into the psychological state inside the mind. It turns into this flicker 3-D effect but it keeps the hard sci-fi tone since it’s not fantasy images that were seeing. It’s something that’s real but it still feels like you’re entering someone’s psychological state.

WAMG: So you’re saying it actually produces a dimensional effect?

KS: Yes, not everybody experiences the depth perception, but a lot of people do. We switch back-and-forth every three frames. We shot it on to cameras set up on one tripod, about eye distance apart. We tested several different methods, testing how many frames to go back and forth and find where the parallax is for that shot. It sort of tricks your brain into seeing a third dimension.

WAMG: What was your filmmaking background before you tackled LISTENING?

KS: I went to Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and was a film major there. But really I grew up drawing and painting. I did a lot of sculpture and photography too so I really came more from an art background. When you see the film you’ll see a lot of color theory.

WAMG: Where did you grow up?

KS: I grew up in San Diego California.

WAMG: What’s next for Khalil Sullins?

KS: I’m working on a couple of projects. One is a detective story about a woman who is battling cancer while helping to hunt down a serial killer. Another is TO THE MOON which is kind of like Calvin and Hobbs meets APOLLO 13.

WAMG: Good luck with LISTENING and I hope you enjoy your time in St. Louis this weekend.

KS: Thanks, I look forward to showing it at the festival there.

SLIFF Interview: Sarah Paulsen – Director of ELEGY FOR CONNIE

ELEGY TO CONNIE screens Saturday, Nov 15 at 6:30pm at St. Louis University as part of The ST. Louis International Film Festival. It is a FREE event.

ELEGY TO CONNIE is a touching and unique documentary by local artist and filmmaker Sarah Paulsen that employs stop-motion animation to address the events leading up to and following the 2008 Kirkwood City Council shooting. The troubling incident is retold in interviews with a group of unintentional women activists who are bound together by their friendship with slain Councilwoman Connie Karr, and the animation amplifies their voices through striking visuals that sometimes illustrate their comments directly but frequently offer metaphoric counterpoint. Made in collaboration with these women, the film addresses the complicated issues surrounding the shooting – citizen representation, disenfranchisement, white privilege and black alienation, post-tragedy healing – and celebrates Connie’s legacy as a leader.

Sarah Paulsen took the time to talk to We Are Movie Geeks about her film.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman

We Are Movie Geeks: Tell me about your friendship with Connie Karr

Sarah Paulsen: Connie Karr was my mother’s best friend and so she was around our house working on projects with my mom. She was a big fan of my artwork and came out to my first SLFF animated documentary screening. She really believed in me and would constantly encourage me, keep up with my art and animation practice, and provide me with advice on other places to share my work. There was a contagious enthusiasm about her, that I loved, and she just made me feel instantly comfortable and appreciated. I think she had the same effect on my mother and the other women I interviewed.

WAMG: Are you still friends with this group of women who talk about Connie in ELEGY TO CONNIE?

SP: Yes absolutely. Many of the women have been out to several of the screenings and we’ve also had private screenings were we’ve been together as a group. We are all very busy, balancing work, family, and civic life so scheduling things can be difficult, but certainly making this film and becoming closer with these women, who were initially Connie’s friends, has been a benefit of the process.

WAMG: Did you have any concerns about using such a playful approach, in terms of technique, to such a tragic story?

SP: Well certainly I wanted to be sure to be respectful with the content, but I’m a huge fan of artists that use animation to talk about difficult stories like: William Kentridge talking about Apartheid South Africa, Martha Colburn addressing war and terrorism, and John and Faith Hubley tackling several world issues. Recent animated docs like Waltzing with Bashir and Ryan, also left me inspired about the possibility of translating audio stories with visual components that are both illustrative, as well as convey psychological states. I think the bigger issues for me was reviewing the film with the women I interviewed as we made it, they really wanted to be sure to celebrate the life of Connie and not make a film just about Cookie. So there was a balance between their wishes to talk about Connie and my desire to depict some of the underlying issues leading up to the shooting. I think we all learned something making this film.

WAMG: How long did it take you to make your film?

SP: I thought about the film for two years, 2008-2009. I started writing about the film for one year. I got a mini grant through Critical Mass to start the project during the summer of 2010. I worked consistently on the project from about mid 2011 to mid 2014, once I received funding through CALOP, MAAA, and then RAC. So I guess it took me about three years once I had the support to spend more time on the film and less time working my assortment of jobs.

WAMG: Was ELEGY TO CONNIE carefully story-boarded, or did you make things up as you went along?

SP: Both. I had the fortune of having a residency in Paris in 2012, during that residency I completed a 41 page storyboard that illustrated the major scenes of much of the film. I am so thankful for the focus I was able to have during that residency. When I went to animate a scene for the film, I would initially revisit the storyboard and then decide if it was conceptually saying what I wanted it to, then I’d either further storyboard the details of that section and/or create a full list of what I needed to make and/or come up with an entirely different idea. Also when I am animating there is always a joyful element of discovery through the materials, by accident, or just in the flow of animating so I try to keep these parts in the film. For instance in one scene, a claymation woman is at a counselor, and as she is speaking the picture on the wall behind her begins to slide around (by accident initially). So I had the claymation counselor readjust the picture at the end of the scene and it seemed illustrative of her process of trying to heal. An accident that worked in my favor.

WAMG: Were you familiar with Cookie Thornton before the shootings?

SP: The strangest thing was several months before the shooting my mother told me I ought to interview Cookie and make a film with him as he was having several problems with the city. The fact that she said this to me remains in my mind to this day. At the time I was working several jobs and so that was not really a possibility. It does make me wonder though if I would have interviewed him, told his story, would that have shifted anything? Making this film was in a way my trying to tell a part of that story that I didn’t get to make with him.

WAMG: You state in the film that Connie Karr was the one that was most allied with Cookie Thornton, at least in her concern for the residents of Meacham Park, so why do you think Cookie still shot her?

SP: This is a very complicated question, one that the women I interviewed were really asking themselves when we started the film. I think everyone who lost someone that night probably asks themselves, “why this person I loved so much?” I personally believe that by the time Cookie went to council that night, he was in a psychological state of utter despair- feeling dehumanized, unheard, burdened by who knows how much debt, he was without hope. I think he saw the entire body of Kirkwood politics as an enemy, the history the council represented, the whiteness, the embodiment of institutional racism. To do this shooting, he had to detach himself from his own humanity, this is why his brother said, “He went to war.” So I think much of who was shot was collateral damage in the face of his perceived enemy “City hall”.

WAMG: What has been the reaction to ELEGY TO CONNIE?

SP: I have had many great conversations as a result of sharing the film. One thing that continuously comes up, is that people want to know more about Meacham Park. So I am encouraging any residents of color in Meacham Park to tell this story and get it out.

WAMG: How has Connie’s family reacted to the film?

SP: My mother spoke with Connie’s husband about the film when we began it and was supportive but did not want to get involved in making it. For the most part my sense of their family is that they want to put this event behind them and move on with their lives. They’ve left Kirkwood. Since completion of the film, I’ve written a letter to both her husband and her daughter letting them know that I am happy to send the film to them if and when they are ready. Hopefully some day her daughter can see and hear how loved Connie was by her friends and community. I’ve tried to respect their need to mourn and not interfer with that process. Beyond that my mom has really been working at trying to connect with Connie’s old friends and co-workers. That has been a really beautiful process, at one of the screening my mom met one of Connie’s old co-workers and they were able to complete connect about who Connie was from two very different perspectives. They filled in each others stories. In a way this film may actually be more geared towards Connie’s friends, then her family, in that her family knew her in a private way, that we never well know, and so they have a sacred morning that needs to happen for them that is separate then our community healing the loss of this great leader.

WAMG: Have you heard from any of Cookie’s family?

SP: I met Cookie’s Aunt at the Filmmaker’s Showcase screening and we started crying as we met and hugged. She had no idea the amount of debt he might have been in, and was curious how I had found that out (via St. Louis Post Dispatch). She was in the process of writing her own memoirs and I look forward to hearing more about that. I would love to sit with any members of Cookie’s family that would like to see the film and my mother, that sounds like a space of true restorative justice. I also understand that a person of color’s initially reaction to hearing that I made this film may be fear and trepidation that I will stigmatize or villanize Cookie.

WAMG: Have you shown the film at other festivals?

SP: The film will be playing at the St. Louis International Film Festival this weekend. Other than that I am in the beginning steps of submitting it to other festivals around the U.S. and world. So we will see.

WAMG: Would you ever like to make a more conventional documentary?

SP: Probably not. I think my main strength is being a visual artist and animator that makes films. If I was to make a film I’d want to make it like Wes Anderson or David Lynch and have total control over sets, costumes, backgrounds, that doesn’t seem very fitting for a documentary film. I did like the surreal quality of the sets and re-enactments in The Act of Killing and the use of still images and montage in older Errol Morris films like (Thin Blue Line and Tabloid). Plus Werner Herzog and Les Blank are also just great image makers so these guys would be my inspiration. I never thought I’d be making movies so never say never right.

WAMG: What are your plans for future films?

SP: Right now I want to work on some paintings about white privilege and loss of cultural identity as a part of becoming “White” as a result of what I learned about myself making this film. Probably if I am to make a film it will be a loosely narrative animated film where I am not using an audio story to guide the film. We will see as I never know when I find an amazing story.

SLIFF 2014 Interview: Josh Rolens – Director of BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE

BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE tells the story of one of St. Louis’ finest storytellers — not only through his songs, but photographs and interviews as well as testimonials from those who knew him. The result is a vivid and intimate portrait of the late Bob Reuter, an iconic St. Louis underground artist. Through a series of confessions recorded before his untimely death, Reuter examines his personal successes and failures alongside his artistic achievements. In this collage-like film from director Josh Rolens, Bob explores the complexity of his life, moving between memory and narrative, and journeying into the darker and more difficult times. Reuter shares the losses he experienced as a child and adult, the immense health issues that burdened him, and his decision to let go of his worries and focus on expressing himself as an artist. Spanning more than 40 years of artistic creation — including songwriting, photography, and stream-of-consciousness monologues from “Bob’s Scratchy Records” on KDHX — BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE is an homage to a gifted and much-missed St. Louisan.

BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE screens as part of The St. Louis International Film Festival Sun, Nov 16 at 7:30pm on the stage at KDHX (3524 Washington Ave
St. Louis, MO 63103). The screening will be followed by a concert by Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost. Tickets can be purchased HERE

http://bobreuterslasttape.bpt.me/

For a look at all of the films playing at this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival, visit Cinema St. Louis’ site HERE

http://www.cinemastlouis.org/films

BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE is an expansion of Josh Rolens’ 2010 short film about Reuter by titled Broken and Wonderful. Josh, a St. Louis native currently working as an editor in New York, took the time to talk about his film and about his friendship with Bob Reuter with We Are Movie Geeks.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman

We Are Movie Geeks: Tell me about your film, BOB REUTER’S LAST TAPE

Josh Rolens: The documentary is a portrait of Bob Reuter. I wanted to show what moved Bob as an artist. He was a magnificent story-teller, with a unique gift of weaving together wonderful narratives. It was magical to watch his process unfold, whether he told a story through music, a photograph, or ranting on the radio; he just had a way of channeling that energy to his audience. The documentary has a series of intimate moments, what I began to refer to as, confessions. They are the main threads to his story, giving insight into what inspired and influenced much of his art and storytelling. I wanted to show stark contrast between his public persona and his private thoughts, but in a very compact way. Bob described himself at the beginning during a confession as being both broken and wonderful. The statement is a rare and intimate reflection which sums up what the story of Bob is about; how a man who feels so broken manages to find the wonderfulness in life.

WAMG: I watched the trailer – who are these people being interviewed?

JR: In order; Chris Baricevic is a founding member of Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost and owner of Big Muddy Records, the label Alley Ghost is under. Eve Dyson was Bob’s former partner from the 1980’s to early 90’s. Lew Prince is co-founder and owner of Vintage Vinyl on the Delmar Loop, St. Louis – Bob worked at the store for a time too. Tom Huck is a print artist and friend in St. Louis. He founded and owns Evil Prints.

WAMG: Were you good friends with Bob Reuter? How did you meet him?

JR: I wouldn’t say we were close friends, rather we appreciated or bonded on an artistic level. He became a kind of mentor to me, much like many of the younger generation he was surrounded by. What made our relationship unique was the documentary. Fortunately, I got to know Bob in a way most people didn’t. Something I am most grateful for. Bob and I met around 2000 at Forest Park Community College in St. Louis. I started taking photography classes and Bob was a darkroom lab monitor. He was also enrolled as a perpetual student, mainly so he could work in the lab, to gain access to the darkroom for printing. Many of us ended up doing just that! I was drawn to Bob, especially as a newbie to the darkroom, because of his amazingly raw, grainy black and white prints. Many other students were amazed by his prints, and we would attempt to emulate his style. He was a huge influence on so many young photographers. Bob became notorious for scaring people in the darkroom. He would slowly sneak up behind someone, in the dimly lit darkroom space, and wait till that person was in deep concentration and let out a monstrous yell. Mind you, he would only be inches from the back of your head. He got me on a couple of occasions!

WAMG: In the trailer you referred to him as Grumpy Bob. What made him so special and what was he like?

JR: Yes, Lew Prince referred to him as Grumpy Bob; I thought it was quite endearing actually. Bob was a complex, bittersweet character. He enjoyed making people laugh and uncomfortable at the same time. His stories were generally long, winding tales that would trail off into strange and fascinating places. What made him so special was the delivery of his stories. Sure, anyone can pick up a camera and photograph people, or write some chords on a guitar, or talk on a radio show. It’s not in the tools he used necessarily, but the way he synthesized his life experiences and projected them through a given medium. The lyrics to his songs were probably a more blatant portrayal of how he interpreted the world. His photos, seemed to me, to be character studies of the “other” or “outsider.” Snapshots documenting the underbelly of St. Louis, particularly the South Side. If you were to hang his entire life’s work of photography on a wall, which would have to be a really big wall, you would no doubt see a giant portrait of how Bob viewed the world. This brings up another interesting point about how he lived, which was mainly in his head, creating the world that he wanted or wished was real. That unique authenticity that Bob possessed was unlike any that I have ever personally known.

WAMG: What were Bob’s health issues?

JR: Bob had a few health issues. The first was deep vein thrombosis, a condition where he had several blood clots that formed up and down his legs. This occurred sometime in the late 90’s. It was serious enough for him to be hospitalized for a short time. This was a moment for him which he described as “a new beginning”, a wake up call. Bob became very focused at that time with his creativity. Fast forwarding a few years, Bob had to undergo quadruple bypass heart surgery. This had a massive impact on him emotionally and psychologically. It knocked the wind out of his sails for a time. This was also another turning point for him. It’s at that point Alley Ghost was formed, or shortly thereafter.

WAMG: How did you hear about his death and how did that affect you?

JR: Bob’s passing was relayed to me through a close friend. I was with my wife on vacation. We had just arrived and checked into our accommodations. My phone rang and the caller I.D. read out “Bob”, which was actually another friend with the same name. I thought it was Reuter though, which makes it all the more strange looking back. He told me the news and I didn’t really believe it. I actually had to look it up to confirm it. At that point there was posts all over Facebook with the news. I probably couldn’t have been in a better spot for such sad and heart-breaking news. The trip was in Utah and we were heading off the next day to go camping and hiking in the mountains. I’d say that being surrounded by nature and serene beauty got me through the initial shock. It was an ideal way to reflect on what and how I was feeling.

WAMG: Were there people you wanted to interview but were unable to track down?

JR: Actually, I was able to track down all the people I wanted to interview. My main focus was to tell this story mostly from Bob’s perspective. I wanted to feature people other than Bob for descriptions and context to his life’s work and personality. Bob put me in contact with most of the people I interviewed. These people were able to give me the information that I wanted. They were all still in St. Louis at that time, which was a big help.

WAMG: Tell me about Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost?

JR: Bob Reuter’s Alley Ghost was formed in 2008 after Bob’s heart surgery. Co-founding members Mat Wilson and Chris Baricevic approached Bob with the idea of bringing his music, or songs he had previously released, to a younger audience. They described it as the song book of Bob Reuter. They selected songs throughout his musical career and re-recorded them, with a different approach than the originals. Alley Ghost was hugely important to Bob. It helped give him the well deserved recognition as a musician in St. Louis.

WAMG: What does ‘Alley Ghost’ refer to?

JR: I believe it refers to graffiti he saw on a dumpster in a south-side alley.

WAMG: Do you plan on speaking about Bob before the film?

JR: Yes, as of now the plan is for me to introduce the film and give a Q&A session afterwards.

WAMG: Tell me about your filmmaking background

JR: I began my journey into filmmaking through still photography. With photography I was interested in capturing random moments as they happened. Eventually that lead into wanting to tell a story so I started with experimental silent shorts shot on 8mm film. When i began my undergraduate degree in film at Webster University I experimented with the narrative form. This developed into my first narrative called Black Thorn; a five minute dark comedy. Bob was actually in that for the final scene. In the spring of 2009 I was taking a documentary course and needed a project. Bob was it. My final project wound up being a 5-minute short called It Don’t Matter. This story focused on Bob’s art. It evolved into my graduating project; a 15-minute short on Bob, Broken and Wonderful. It showed in the 2010 St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase and the St. Louis Film Festival that year. In the spring of 2013 I decided to make a feature length edition. By August Bob unfortunately passed away.

WAMG: What do you think Bob would have thought about your film?

JR: After Bob first viewed the fifteen minute short, he was floored. He absolutely loved it, but mind you I was a nervous wreck while he sat quiet for the film, not making a single sound. I was like, “oh god he hates it.” I think he wanted me to sweat a bit. When the credits finished he lunged at me, bear hugged me off of my feet, yelling over and over, “I knew you could do it!” With the feature length, I wish he was here to see it.

WAMG: As a filmmaker, what other subjects would you like to tackle and what are your future plans?

JR: I grew up in St. Louis, so i am really interested in tackling stories from my hometown. St. Louis has an extremely rich and vibrant past, and I have always been fascinated with the social structures and culture of the community. I grew up in Ferguson, a town that has recently become the centerpiece of nation wide debate. I plan to explore these issues, both from a personal and historical perspective, over the coming years. I continue to be fascinated with random happenings, and live in New York City, a perfect place of everyday bizarre and wonderful events.

SLIFF 2014 Interview – King Baggot III, Grandson of the Silent Film Star From St. Louis

The King Baggot Tribute is this Friday, November 14th at 7pm at Webster University’s Winifred Moore Auditorium. A 35mm print of IVANHOE (1913) starring King Baggot will screen with live music by The Rats and People Motion Picture Orchestra. The screening will be followed by an illustrated lecture on the life and career of King Baggot, which will be followed by the screening of TUMBLEWEEDS (digital source 1925), directed by King Baggot with piano accompaniment by Matt Pace. Ticket information for the event can be found HERE.

http://tributetokingbaggot.bpt.me/

Hollywood Cinematographer Stephen King Baggot, also known as King Baggot III, is a retired cinematographer and news cameraman born in 1943. Like his father and grandfather before him, he was always billed onscreen as simply ‘King Baggot’. The first King Baggot (1879-1948) was at one time Hollywood’s most popular star, known in his heyday as ‘King of the Movies’ ,’The Most Photographed Man in the World’ and “More Famous Than the Man in the Moon”. Baggot appeared in at least 300 silent motion pictures between 1909 and 1921, ruling the international box-office during much of that period. His son, Robert King Baggot, was a cameraman who worked for decades in Hollywood. His name can be seen in the credits of such films as THE PHILADELPHIA STORY and TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON. While filming offshore background footage in 1965 for the Disney movie LT. ROBINSON CRUSOE U.S.N. in Hawaii, his 16-foot outboard boat was hit by a huge wave, throwing him into heavy surf. He was rescued from the water, but died of his injuries. He left behind his wife and two sons.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Stephen King Baggot worked as a field cameraman at KABC-TV in Los Angeles. He found himself in the middle of the Charles Manson trial in December of 1969. The Los Angeles Times printed a confession by Manson “family” member Susan Atkins detailing, among other things, how they changed into clean clothes during their getaway drive after the Tate murders and then dumped the bloody clothes into a roadside ravine. The L.A. Police Department ignored this part of the confession while Baggot and two members of his news team did not. The three of them decided to recreate the getaway drive the day after the Times printed the confession. They drove from the murder scene and parked at a spot on the shoulder that matched the description Atkins gave and at the bottom of the ravine, they found the bloody clothes. At the trial, Baggot testified for the news team. Since Atkin’s L.A. Times confession was suppressed, no mention of it was made during Baggot’s testimony. This made it sound as if he’d found the clothes out of sheer luck. During his self-defense testimony, Charles Manson used this to try to implicate Baggot in the murder. All of this is documented in Vincent Bugliosi’s book on the case “Helter Skelter.”

After his news career, King Baggot III became a motion picture cinematographer and had a successful career in Hollywood beginning in 1980 as a cameraman on AMERICAN GIGOLO. Noted for his Steadicam specialty, and his ability to direct the action, he was hired as Director of Photography for such films as Oliver Stone’s THE HAND, CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE. THE LAST STARFIGHTER, and REVENGE OF THE NERDS. He is a member of the American Society of Cinematographers (ASC). King Baggot III, now retired, has been married to his wife Marilyn since 1968 and they have raised two sons, Joseph and Michael.

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman September 2nd, 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: You were five years old when your grandfather died in 1948. Do you have any memory of him at all?

King Baggot III: I remember meeting him just one time. I went to Culver City in California to spend some time with him. My dad dropped me off to spend some time with him there he asked me what I wanted, and since I was just a little boy I told him I wanted some food like cowboys eat and that I wanted some cowboy boots. So he took me to the store and bought some cowboy boots for me and we had lunch together. He passed away shortly after that.

WAMG: What do you remember about him physically?

KB: I recall that he was a very striking looking man. He was tall man, especially for his age. Over 6 feet tall, just a striking looking gentleman.

WAMG: Have you been in touch with any of your St. Louis family members?

KB: Yes when I was young I spent a weekend on summer in St. Louis with my grandfather’s sister Mariam. She was the secretary to August Busch for over 30 years, you know down at the Budweiser brewery. Mr. Busch treated her very well.

WAMG: Oh yes, August Busch was another famous St. Louisan. Do you recall if you went and visited your grandfather’s boyhood home when you were here?

KB: I do not recall but I don’t think we did. I was just there in St. Louis a few days. I know my uncle Bob was there as well and he and Marion took me on a tour of the city.

WAMG: When your Grandfather was growing up here, he lived in a nice part of North St. Louis, but that area has become pretty run down now.

KB: A lot can happen in a hundred years.

King Baggot III’s Grandmother Ruth Baggot and his father Robert King Baggot in a photo take in 1926

WAMG: Your father King Baggot II worked in Hollywood as well. What was his job in the movie industry?

KB: He was a camera loader and assistant camera operator. He was killed on the set of a movie for Walt Disney, LT. ROBINSON CRUSOE USN, in 1965.

WAMG: What famous films did your father work on?

KB: He was at MGM for years he worked on TEAHOUSE OF THE AUGUST MOON and HELEN OF TROY. These were tremendous movies of the day. Also GREEN MANSIONS and THE PHILADELPHIA STORY.

WAMG: How was he credited in those films?

KB: Assistant cameraman or camera operator.

Robert King Baggot on the set of GIVE A GIRL A BREAK with Debbie Reynolds in 1953

WAMG: And your mother’s name was Mimi. When did she pass away?

KB: My mother passed away just six years ago. She lived to be 92.

WAMG: Good for her. Did she have any memory of your grandfather? She must have known him.

KB: Yes Sally Dumaux interviewed her for the book (King Baggot – A Biography and Filmography of the First King of the Movies). My father and my grandfather weren’t very close for whatever reason – but they were reasons that were never discussed with me. If my mom had anything she would have given it to Sally.

WAMG: I’ve approached Cinema St. Louis with the idea of throwing a King Baggot tribute tonight as part of the St. Louis international film Festival and it looks like that will indeed be happening in mid-November but of course there are very few King Baggot films in existence. It looks like IVANHOE and DR JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (both from 1913) are the only complete films that your grandfather started in that are extant. I believe there are fragments of a few others. Have you seen IVANHOE?

KB: Yes I have seen it. UCLA did a tremendous restoration of that film and they gave a big exhibit probably about 10 years ago. They recognized him as one of the giants of the film industry. The students there were taught about him. But yes I remember IVANHOE and when I was young we had a photo in our living room of my grandfather in his Ivanhoe costume and I would look at that a lot as a child. I don’t know what happened to that photo. You know, when he came back to New York from Europe after filming IVANHOE, there were thousands and thousands of people waiting to greet him when he got off of that steamship. They carried signs that read “Our King is Back”. I have seen photos of that event and it’s the most impressive thing I have ever seen. Just thousands and thousands of people.

WAMG: There was a similar event at Union Station in St. Louis in 1910 where there were massive crowds lined up to greet your grandfather when he got off the train at there. In fact, President Taft had made a stop there a couple of weeks earlier and the crowd for the President was half the size of the one for your Grandfather.

KB: Yes, he was very popular in his day

WAMG: Did you attend the UCLA event?

KB: I did not.

WAMG: Have you ever spoken about your famous grandfather?

KB: No I have not. Sally DuMaux had some of the other of my grandfather’s films on video tape. One night she had my brother and I over to her house and we watched them. I do believe they may have just been fragments of some of his films.

WAMG: There doesn’t seem to be any photos of your grandfather as a young man. In fact, the earliest photo I can find of him is from one of his films from 1909 when he would have been almost 30.

KB: No, there’s not. I’ve never seen a photo of him as a young man either.

WAMG: The high school your grandfather attended burned down in 1916 so though so there are no archives there and even Sally could only find one photo of your grandmother Ruth Baggot.

KB: Yes my grandmother Ruth died before my grandfather did so I never met her, but my father and his mother were very close.

WAMG: Sally theorized in her book that Ruth may have destroyed all of the family photographs during the divorce. Have you heard that?

King Baggot biographer Sally Dumaux

KB: I had heard that. The divorce at that time was very bitter. I have heard there were two photo albums and they seem to have disappeared right around that time so that is probably what happened to them. I would have to say that Sally in her book didn’t really personalize my grandfather much or at least not to a great extent. I really don’t think she got into his personality much but I think that type of information would have been very hard to find. It was so long ago. I met Mary Pickford one day when I was a young man. She heard someone say my name and she came up to me and she asked if I was related to King Baggot. I said yes, that he was my grandfather, and she said that he was the most wonderful man she had ever worked with. Rumor had it that they had a long affair. Cary Grant was another actor who approached me and asked about my grandfather. He had met him and thought he was a most terrific man as well. Everyone I met when I was younger from that era just told me how well respected my grandfather was.

WAMG: Though he seems now to be somewhat forgotten.

KB: Well, they all are. He started in films so long ago. I’ll tell you a great story. I was filming a movie with George Burns in 1984 called OH GOD YOU DEVIL. I had a director’s chair and my name was on it. After about a month of the filming he approached me and asked me if I was related to King Baggot. I told him that yes, I was his grandson. Then he told me that when he was five years old he would save his pennies becasue all he wanted to do was go to the Nickelodeon and see my grandfather’s movies. He said that my grandfather was one of the reasons that he became an actor.

WAMG: That is a great story. Even here in his hometown of St. Louis I will approach my movie buff friends and very few have heard of him.

KB: You have to remember, that was over a century ago. His career started in 1909. Those were all Nickelodeon’s he was in, they were one reelers. In 1913 he was at the top of his career. Charlie Chaplin didn’t even start until 1915. He was a pioneer of the industry. One thing that is well-documented is his directing career, he directed TUMBLEWEEDS. That film went down as a landmark on how westerns will be made. It was my grandfather’s greatest triumph as a director, the picture he’ll be remembered for.

WAMG: Oh yes clearly more of the films he directed have survived in the films he acted in. Of course that was over a decade later.

KB: Right, of course film acetate in those days just destroyed itself. They didn’t know that you had to keep the films in vaults at certain temperatures. And even if you did keep them in vaults, they still decomposed.

WAMG: Then of course after his directing career ended he went back to acting. but had these tiny cameos in films up until his death.

KB: The industry kept him going. But this was later in his life. He had a huge drinking problem but there were people that wanted to keep him going until the day he died. He was a tremendous gambler and a tremendous drinker, but the women loved him. He lived quite a life, so you have to put that into perspective.

WAMG: He did have a few speaking roles in the very early 30s there’s a comedy short on YouTube that he has several lines him.

KB: Yes, he spoke very well. He came from Broadway, He was a stage actor. It wasn’t like a lot of silent stars who had terrible voices – Valentino could barely speak. But my grandfather was no kid by them. That was 1929 when the talkies came to be, and he was around 50.

WAMG: Why do you think he didn’t get more roles in talkies?

KB: It’s just that he wasn’t a leading man. Back then actors were just gone by the time they got to a certain age. It’s more in today’s market that actors careers just continue on and on. How many movies did Roy Rogers make when he got old? Not many.

WAMG: It’s fun to look for him in these cameos. In A NIGHT A THE OPERA you can barely spot him but there’s a great on-set photo of him that I have where he’s sitting with the Marx brothers.

KB: Yes and of course in those days those stars knew who he was, they would have remembered him. Many old actors that I met were in awe of him, Cary Grant, Spencer Tracy. He was a forerunner of what actors are doing today and that’s how he kept living, those cameos. They didn’t pay a lot of money, but they paid enough to pay the rent.

WAMG: And he did a lot of them.

KB: Yes he worked a long time at MGM.

WAMG: Let’s talk about your career. What did you do before you were a cinematographer?

KB: I was a news crew cameraman for ABC.

WAMG: Right and there’s a famous story in the book “Helter Skelter” about you.

KB: Yes. I found the Tate murder clothes.

WAMG: What was it like being involved in the Manson trial in the late 60s?

KB: It was very exciting. I was very young, but it’s just like it’s documented in “Helter Skelter”. It was a very exciting time in my life. After the trial we toured the country talking to people. You have to realize that the Manson trial was what everybody was talking about in those days and I worked on the murder case for a year. That’s all I did. It was the biggest story of its time. I was a very successful news crew cameraman. I started at a very young age and was very lucky to have had that career. I did that at KABC-TV from 1964 two 1977 at that station.

WAMG: Was it easy then to transfer to Hollywood is a cinematographer?

KB: Yes. I was probably the best known news cameraman in the country and well-known from what I had accomplished and the awards that had won. I knew I didn’t want to be doing that at age 50. I wanted to do film. I wanted to be challenged. I wanted to be a movie camera man so I just quit the news industry.

WAMG: What was it like to work with Cheech and Chong on CHEECH AND CHONG’S NEXT MOVIE?

KB: They were absolutely great. That was kind of a lucky thing for me. I was a camera operator on the movie UP IN SMOKE and Cheech Marin came up to me and asked if I remembered him. It turns out we had gone to high school together. In those days his name was Richard Marin. We became friendly and I was director of photography on their next film.

WAMG: Where did you two go to high school?

KB: We went to Granada Hills High which is out in San Fernando Valley.

WAMG: Another film that you were director of photography on was THE HAND. Just a few years later that film’s director, Oliver Stone, would become a Hollywood powerhouse.

KB: Yes, that was his first movie.

WAMG: Did you see some qualities in him that made you unsurprised when he went on to such success?

KB: Yes, he was a very interesting man. Very talented. At that time he did not possess the skills that he has now achieved but he certainly was a genius. He had already written wonderful screenplays and I knew that anyone with talent like that would be able to fulfill his life dreams.

WAMG: Yet Stone, in interviews describes THE HAND is a negative experience.

KB: Yes, he had problems. The film went way behind schedule and the studio was on him a lot. But he was the first time director, you have to understand that.

WAMG: Then you retired in 1992?

KB: Yes, WHERE THE DAY TAKES YOU and BOILING POINT were my last two films.

Some films featuring King Baggot III’s Director of Photography credits

WAMG: Are any of your children in the motion picture business?

KB: No they are not, neither one. They just had no interest? When I was working they worked for me but then when I retired, they went in other directions.

WAMG: We have the St. Louis Walk of Fame here and I believe your grandfather is the only star from St. Louis to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame but not our local one.

KB: Yes, his star is right at Hollywood and Vine. He was certainly proud to be from St. Louis. The whole family was. I was close with his brother and his sister Marion. She loved St. Louis and working for Budweiser. She had quite a life and a lot of stories about St. Louis. There’s not too many actors who started over 300 movies and directed 100 more in our business. He was the first movie star. Do you know how he became that movie star?

WAMG: Tell me.

KB: He had jet black hair with a white streak down it. He had the bluest eyes in the world and was very well-built. and all the women loved that. They all wrote to the studios and asked who he was. He was the first act her to get credit. He and Florence Lawrence were the first movie stars. My grandfather was really just the prototype movie star. And yes, it would be nice if people from St. Louis were proud that someone from their neck of the woods made it so big.

WAMG: And I think it’s important to keep the memory of someone like him alive. 25 or 30 years from now he may be completely forgotten so thank goodness for Sally Dumaux’s book.

KB: Absolutely she was determined, for whatever reason. That book was really her life’s goal.

WAMG: She says in the forward to her book that she was inspired when she was approached by a distant family member of your grandfather.

KB: It wasn’t me.

WAMG: Thanks for taking the time to talk with me and I’ll get this interview posted soon before our event here honoring your grandfather.

KB: Thank you. I wish you great success.

WAMG Interview: Actress Grace Zabriskie – Star of Twin Peaks and THE MAKINGS OF YOU

Actress Grace Zabriskie has worked with such powerhouse directors as David Lynch, Gus Van Sant, and William Friedkin. Now she has come to St. Louis to co-star in THE MAKINGS OF YOU, the feature debut of Matt Amato, acclaimed director of a variety of music videos. THE MAKINGS OF YOU tells the story of Judy (Sheryl Lee) and Wallis (Jay R. Ferguson), who share dissatisfaction with their own lives and an irresistible attraction to each other. Caught between the freedoms offered by Wallis and the demands of her troubled family, Judy struggles to reconcile the two. Deftly avoiding romantic clichés, THE MAKINGS OF YOU is a classic love story rich in atmosphere — palpable summertime heat, lush music, and beautifully decaying surroundings. Grace Zabriskie plays Sheryl Lee’s mother, a role she has played before in the TV series Twin Peaks. Grace, along with costar Jay R. Ferguso

Grace Zabriskie took the time to talk about her life, her career, and THE MAKINGS OF YOU

Interview conducted by Tom Stockman November 6th 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: I’m so glad of that you’ll be here next week for the big premiere of MAKINGS OF YOU.

Grace Zabriskie: Yes, I cannot wait.

WAMG: Have you seen the finished film yet?

GZ: Yes, I’ve seen it through many incarnations.

WAMG: Had you spent much time in St. Louis before you filmed that here?

GZ: No I had not, but every Christmas for the past 20 years Matt (Amato, the film’s director) goes back to St. Louis and he always calls me and I talk to his whole family, who I have met many times when they visited him in L.A., and they always say I should come to St. Louis and visit but I never have been able to tear myself away and get there. But as soon as I got there to film MAKINGS OF YOU, I felt like I had been there many times. It was amazing.

WAMG: How did you know Matt?

GZ: I’ve known him for 20 years. I knew him because we had a mutual friend and Matt has been trying to get a script to me for a long time. I think they were early drafts of the film that we finally did.

WAMG: MAKINGS OF YOU was his first feature film as a director. You’ve worked with a lot of directors. What kind of job do you think he did?

GZ: I have worked with a lot of directors, and what Matt did was work with his own instincts and that, above anything else, is what I have come to prize most in a director. Someone who isn’t doing things according to some, usually rather imperfectly understood way to do things. It’s amazing how often you find that, working with someone who want you to do things a certain way and then you realize that they don’t really have a good reason for that. They don’t even understand the reason, they just know that’s how it’s done. Matt had to been working in film and directing and writing and editing for many, many years, mostly on music videos, so he had begun to see the world in terms of music on a really profound level.

WAMG: Was he open to ideas from you and Sheryl and Jay about your characters or did he stick to the script?

GZ: He was completely open to ideas, almost to a fault. Some of the other actors would suggest alterations before they had even tried what Matt had written. I am a huge advocate of starting with the page until there is a reason not to, until your understanding of what is trying to be done tells you that there is a way to do it even better, not second-guessing what a character might say. To me, that’s my job, to make his lines work.

WAMG: In the MAKINGS OF YOU, there is a scene where you are listening to an old LP. I believe that is your character as a younger woman.

GZ: That’s right.

WAMG: Was that your voice?

GZ: No, But there are moments in the film where you hear her speak to her grandsons in a way that makes it very clear that she’s savvy about music and that it’s always been her thing, But it’s easy to miss.

WAMG: I know that in addition to acting you like to paint and sculpt and write poetry. Have you ever performed music before?

GZ: I have had to get up and perform a song to be for a role before and I said to Matt that I was willing to perform a song but I didn’t want him to just spring it on me. I wanted to work on it. I have to get up in it. He tried to get me to do it the way I was afraid he was going to make me do it, and I dug my heels in so he found something, he found the perfect music for the scene. There’s no music that he doesn’t know or can’t find. I sent MAKINGS OF YOU to a friend of mine who I met doing another film called ONLY CHILD. She said that she had been able to fall into the pace of the film and practically had a beatific experience. The way she described it, she realized that the film made her appreciate Memphis, where she had spent a lot of time. I’ve talk to people who, if they’re in the wrong the mood, the film is just too slow for them. But if they’re in the right mood with the expectation of slowing down a little bit, they were able to return to that place in their lives that was slow, not rushed.

WAMG: It made St. Louis look like a sleepy, small town in some ways.

GZ: Yes, in some ways it’s a St. Louis that exist only in the imagination and somewhat in the past. It seems to exist in an interesting time, doesn’t it? It doesn’t seem today yet it doesn’t seem relentlessly period.

WAMG: Yes, he was clearly going for a timelessness quality and succeeded. You played Sheryl Lee’s mother two decades ago on Twin Peaks. Was playing her mother again in this film a coincidence?

GZ: It was, though we have played mother and daughter at least one other time between these projects. It was something that neither she nor I can remember the name of.

WAMG: It would be easy to look up.

GZ: Well it’s not something she or I deliberately leave on our resumes.

WAMG: We’ll leave it at that then. What inspired you to enter a career in the arts when you were growing up?

GZ: I grew up in New Orleans, in the French Quarter, but I don’t think I have had that moment, that moment that some people describe when they knew they wanted to be an actor, or they realized they wanted to write, or whatever. From the time I was three years old, I knew I was going to be a teacher. All four of my grandparents and many of my aunts and uncles were teachers and that’s just what I knew I was going to be. But I read widely and inappropriately at a young age and at some point I decided I would write and do visual arts and act as an amateur. Now it’s turned out that I do all those things as a profession and I teach as an amateur.

WAMG: What other type of art that you do brings you pleasure?

GZ: I’m a woodworker. That’s the direction my visual arts has taken me now. It seems that every 10 years or so it takes some new form. I’m making furniture and sculpting with wood now.

WAMG: Do you find that relaxing?

GZ: No. I don’t look at it as a hobby. It’s something I need to do when I do it.

WAMG: What is your next project?

GZ: There are several films I’m in that are still to come out. When I finished the last one in the March or April, I told my agent that I wanted to do no more films for the rest of the year so I can just stay in my woodshop. I was just in THE JUDGE with Robert Downey Jr. and Robert Duvall and there’s a couple of others.

WAMG: Will you be involved in the Twin Peaks reboot that they are talking about?

GZ: Yes, apparently so, but I’m not sure exactly in what capacity. I know so many people who never watched television until Twin Peaks premiered.

WAMG: I’ve always enjoyed you in films. My favorite Grace Zabriskie part was when you played Matt Dillon’s mother in DRUGSTORE COWBOY. He comes over and you hide your purse. You played that so perfectly.

GZ: Thanks

WAMG: Good luck with MAKINGS OF YOU and I’ll see you at the premiere next week.

GZ: Thank you, I’m so looking forward to it.

SLIFF 2014 Interview: Jay R. Ferguson – Star of THE MAKINGS OF YOU

Well it’s that time of year again, when the leaves begin to fall and St. Louis becomes the mecca of movie lovers everywhere with the return of the 23^rd Annual St. Louis International Film Festival. Kicking off the Festival this year is St. Louis native Matt Amato’s tale of Love in River City as THE MAKINGS OF YOU plays out deep in the heart of the nostalgic areas of St. Louis, and the mighty riverbanks of the Mississippi. To bring Matt’s story to life, he secured Mad Men‘s own Jay R. Ferguson to play his leading man Wallis, and what a leading man he truly is, in every way, as you will soon come to find out.

Jay R. Ferguson, along with costar Grace Zabriskie, will be in St. Louis this Thursday night (November 13th) for the premiere of THE MAKINGS OF YOU, the opening night film of this year’s St. Louis International Film Festival. The event will be at The Tivoli and the screening will be preceded by a cocktail party that begins at 6pm. Ticket information can be found HERE

Before his trip back to St. Louis, Jay Ferguson took the time to talk about his career and THE MAKINGS OF YOU

Interview conducted by Kathy Kaiser November 4th, 2014

We Are Movie Geeks: Would you mind sharing with WAMG how you got into acting?

Jay Ferguson: My mother and I moved from Dallas TX when I was a boy to Los Angeles so she could pursue her own dreams in the entertainment business. She secured acting gigs almost immediately to support us, and then when I was about 13, an agent stopped by our table in a restaurant to ask my mother if I had ever acted – which I hadn’t – but I was definitely game to try it out. I ended up doing a few pilots but nothing really launched for me until I made it onto EVENING SHADE. Being on that show with all those iconic actors gave me a crash course on what acting was all about, and I was hooked. I’ve been truly blessed to be acting for the last 26 years, but life in acting truly became surreal for me when I became a part of the ensemble cast of MAD MEN.

WAMG: How did you become involved with the St. Louis film – THE MAKINGS OF YOU?

JF: A couple of years ago, the Director and Writer of the film, St. Louis Native Matt Amato, reached out to me and asked me to read his script, as he thought I would be the perfect Lead for his film. Suffice to say that part of me was in shock with this whole concept, as playing the lead in anything hadn’t been a part of my repertoire thus far. The storyline read for me like a Terrance Malik film, and I love his film making, so count me in! You could tell that Matt worked out the actual imagery he wanted to convey in each and every scene of the film – it was more than just words on a page for me. So I called Matt, told him I was in, and then it took about a year and half to get everything in place after I signed on before we started filming.

WAMG: What was it like filming in St. Louis as opposed to LA?

JF: Once you get out of LA and go anywhere else – St. Louis included – it is so refreshing working with individuals who aren’t part of the business – you know real people. It was awesome to be surrounded by individuals who genuinely wanted to be a part of making this film – they didn’t have to be there per se – they WANTED to be there. It was also invigorating filming in such vintage areas of St. Louis. It was as if you were transported in time. Who knew that so much nostalgia still exists? Places like Sam Coffey’s Fortune Teller Bar, places along Cherokee Street, the incredible ice cream parlor we frequented throughout the hot summer we filmed the movie. And where else can you film that you get the opportunity to see the CARDINALS play after a day of shooting, or enjoy Busch Beer the whole time your there…my experiences in St. Louis were endless. It’s always fantastic to be able to kick back on location, put your toes in the sand, and wiggle them for a while as they say. I was also really impressed with how Matt and Jack and their entire crew had secured people who knew this city inside and out. Matt’s vision that I felt when reading the script initially just materialized before me. He had such great people making it all happen, it was kind of exciting just watching it all play out – you know, things like Matt’s buddy Henry Goldkamp’s typewriters being placed throughout the film, that kind of stuff was just genius.

WAMG: Would you mind sharing what where some of your most memorable experiences on set?

JF: Memorable experiences or memorable people? There were actually too many to keep track. I guess one of the most memorable that I can actually share with you, and one of the most memorable people I met along the way was Sam Coffey. Sam decided that filming in the heat of the summer of 2013 was just becoming unbearable. So what do you do in St. Louis when you are filming for days, and days and days in over 100 degree heat with no air conditioning at the locations you are shooting at? You have a dumpster delivered and place it in the street outside your bar – you know 30 foot long, 10 ft. high, a BIG ONE – you line it with a tarp and just fill her up with water and create your very own POOL for your patrons and the film crew to cool off in. I mean where else in this great nation of ours can you get a city to approve this and end up having off duty fireman come out to help get everything in place – they even put a filtration system in to keep the water cool. I kept thinking, “Is this for real?”. It was great watching everyone enjoy themselves, even though I just couldn’t bring myself to get in,

WAMG: What was it like sharing scenes with such iconic TV and Film stars as Sheryl Lee and Grace Zabriskie?

JF: You always gain so much insight about your craft when you play opposite anyone who has been in the business for as long as both of these ladies have. Playing opposite Sheryl was awesome, as she does have a more serious side than I do. This totally worked for her character in the film – but I had so much fun making her laugh between scenes. Matt would keep us from getting too out of control and ready to go – Thanks Matt for that! Sheryl and I would also go over each scene before we shot it, so we were comfortable with what we were about to do. This allowed us to maybe tweak something a little that maybe we weren’t feeling, then share it with Matt, who was usually on board with our game plan. I think it may have also helped playing opposite her as her love interest that I grew up as a big TWIN PEAKS fan back in the day, come on, who didn’t have a crush on Laura Palmer…Sadly, I only had two scenes to shoot with Grace, and I would have loved to have had more of an opportunity to work extensively with her, as she is such a respected and revered actress.

WAMG: Okay, so I have to ask at this point in the interview, as the many MAD MEN fans are wondering out there…. are you sad about the series ending or are you excited to have this opportunity to take on more feature film roles like what you played in THE MAKINGS OF YOU?

JF: The word sad is actually an understatement of how I feel. I think I have been in a bought of depression since July when we finished. My best point of reference for you is it feels like when you are so totally in love with someone, and when it’s over, you still have that incredible heartache inside that you feel like you will never love again, that’s how this feels…seriously! I mean, I only came on to be a part of the cast half way through the series, but it was such a family atmosphere – I mean we all hang out socially on weekends, we would delay leaving the set when we were through shooting because we were all so happy to be there. Since it’s over, its like there is a whole inside, I miss my fellow actors, because they weren’t just fellow actors, they were truly my friends. I miss all my friends since we’ve parted ways…. especially St. Louis native Jon Hamm… which is where we got those fantastic tickets to see the Cardinals play while shooting the film. …they were his!

WAMG: Is there anything new on the horizon for you professionally yet?

JF: I was approached by ABC Studios to develop my own show. They apparently got this wacky idea from what I did on MAD MEN that I am a funny guy – which was kind of a surprise to me – I do love to make people laugh, who doesn’t, but I actually think that Elizabeth Moss helped me raise my game so much on that series that it made me stand out from the true comedian of the cast, John Slattery, but I am excited to take on this project and lets see where it takes me.

WAMG: Is there anything else that you would like to share with WAMG or the movie goers at the St. Louis International Film Festival?

JF: Yes, just a couple things. I have to give a big SHOUT OUT to Al and Bea Amato for their hospitality the entire time I was in St. Louis. Bea’s cooking is AMAZING – everyone should invite themselves over to their home just to enjoy one of her meals! I am also flattered and so appreciative that SLIFF has embraced Matt’s film and that they are graciously kicking off the festival with it this time around. It’s just so special being an integral part of this film, and having the opportunity to experience St. Louis like I did – It is a phenomenal city, filled with phenomenal people, what else can I say…

Interview: THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING Composer Jóhann Jóhannsson Discusses His Emotional Score

From Focus Features comes the inspirational drama THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING. Starring Eddie Redmayne & Felicity Jones, the opens in select cities this Friday, November 7th.

Starring Eddie Redmayne (“Les Misérables”) and Felicity Jones (“The Amazing Spider-Man 2”), this is the extraordinary story of one of the world’s greatest living minds, the renowned astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who falls deeply in love with fellow Cambridge student Jane Wilde.

Once a healthy, active young man, Hawking received an earth-shattering diagnosis at 21 years of age. With Jane fighting tirelessly by his side, Stephen embarks on his most ambitious scientific work, studying the very thing he now has precious little of – time. Together, they defy impossible odds, breaking new ground in medicine and science, and achieving more than they could ever have dreamed.

Based on the memoir Travelling to Infinity: My Life with Stephen, director James Marsh went with Icelandic composer and musician Jóhann Jóhannsson for the movie’s score. Prior to the film’s release, Mr. Jóhannsson spoke with me over the phone about capturing the emotional themes for the moving and unusual love story that is THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

Mr. Jóhannsson started studying piano and trombone when he was 11 years old. In high school, he ceased formal music studies. At age 18, he started performing in rock bands in Reykjavik, and continued to for 10 years after studying literature and languages at university; he concentrated on feedback-saturated compositions, using layers of guitar to sculpt soundscapes. Setting the latter instrument aside, he started writing music for strings, woodwinds, and chamber ensembles – and combining acoustic and digital electronic sounds for a unique, seamless blend.

Among Mr. Jóhannsson’s notable compositions is “IBM 1401 – A User’s Manual,” incorporating sounds that his father, one of Iceland’s first computer programmers, created. He has recently done two ambitious multimedia projects with filmmaker Bill Morrison, including an expanded Calder Quartet interpretation of the latter composition; and “The Miners’ Hymns,” which pays tribute to the coal-mining culture of Durham, England, and which he performed with the American Contemporary Music Ensemble and brass bands at venues in the U.S. last winter.

His varied discography also includes Virthulegu Forsetar, a fanfare for pipe organ and brass; Fordlandia, a cinematic ode to the city that Henry Ford tried to build in the Amazon jungle; and “Copenhagen Dreams,” a visual and musical reflection on the city and its people.

In 1999, Mr. Jóhannsson was a founding member of Kitchen Motors, an art collective that encouraged collaboration among practitioners of jazz, classical, punk, metal, and electronic music. His first solo album, Englabörn, was a suite based on music written for the troupe’s theater piece of the same name. Writing music for plays, and for dance and theatrical performances, led to film.

He has since scored a number of movies, including Eva Mulvad’s documentary feature The Good Life; Marc Craste’s animated short Varmints; So Yong Kim’s For Ellen, starring Paul Dano; Lou Ye’s Mystery; Josh C. Waller’s McCanick, starring David Morse and Cory Monteith; János Szász’s Le grand cahier (a.k.a. The Notebook); Phie Ambo’s documentary Free the Mind; and Denis Villeneuve’s hit PRISONERS, starring Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal, on which Mr. Jóhannsson cultivated large string and woodwind presences as well as the distinctive Cristal Baschet and Ondes Martenot instruments.

WAMG: I was listening to the soundtrack again last night – it’s absolutely lovely. It has an old world classical charm about it, as if it was from a film in the 1960’s.

Jóhann Jóhannsson: Oh thank you.

WAMG: The film’s warm, romantic look about a scientist was further enhanced by your score – what made you choose the piano to convey the story?

JJ: We went with the piano as the lead instrument because it’s a film about an astrophysicist, a cosmologist, but it’s also very much a love story. The story about the relationship between Stephen and Jane – it’s this odd love story at heart. We needed to emphasize the emotion and humanity of the story.

Of course, the science of the physics is also a part of the story and a part of Hawking’s life and character, but the relationships are really the heart of the film. I didn’t formulate the piano – it kind of suggested itself naturally. When I tried to analyze it, I found it to be very expressive and precise instrument. It has this mathematical and mechanical kind of quality to it which unites the emotions and human aspects with the cerebral, scientific parts.

WAMG: You can hear a four-note piano ostinato throughout the film’s score – it’s so simple but it’s a lovely theme.

JJ: Yes, the first track on the soundtrack, “1963,” which is the music for the intro of the film, was a theme that came early on in the process. It’s a theme that needed a kinetic, driving quality that suggested a young Hawking in the full vigor of his youth as a young doctoral student at Cambridge. We had to capture that energy and the first theme shows him cycling at full speed through the cobblestone streets. That four-note motif needed a lot of power and the way that I harmonized that motif became the building blocks for many of the subsequent cues.

The four-note motif is deconstructed, played in a minor mode to break it up and used throughout the score. Regarding the harmony, I used it from the first to the last cues. It’s this lecture theme at the end of the film where Hawking is being acclaimed as this great scientific mind and he delivers this lecture where he’s demonstrating his ideas about life and God and the Universe.

The intro appears there again in a very thoughtful and philosophical mode for a much more serene kind of version.

WAMG: A few of the tracks like “The Spacetime Singularity” and “The Theory of Everything” mix in orchestral instruments along with synthesized sounds. With those themes, did the director James Marsh tell you what he was looking for beforehand and were you going for a lofty tonality?

JJ: A lot of the score is very orchestral, but there are cues like “The Spacetime Singularity” that are more ethereal and studio creations.

WAMG: I like the blend of the music with the mechanized sounds.

JJ: I love doing that. It’s my signature sound in many ways. For example, the score I did for PRISONERS is much more in that vein where I do a lot of blending of orchestral instruments with electronic sounds. They’re not really electronic, they’re more of an acoustic recording which I treat and process and create these soundscapes out of.

I love these homogeneous textures that work well with a live orchestra, so it almost becomes one sound. It’s something I really enjoy doing.

WAMG: Who are your favorite film score composers?

JJ: There are so many but one of the first I got obsessive about, way back, was Bernard Herrmann. He’s remained one of my favorites. I really love his writing. His relentlessness and beauty the of his harmonies – Also his simplicity. He’s a very minimalist composer, even though he predates minimalism.

I love Ennio Morricone. I’m a huge fan. I love his 60’s and 70’s scores. Amazing experimentation he went through and creating his amazing sounds in the studio. Of course, his melodies and orchestrations are remarkable.

I’m a huge fan of some of the European composers like Nino Rota and Georges Delerue.

WAMG: What other projects do you have coming up?

JJ: I’m in the middle of a film score right now with Denis Villeneuve from PRISONERS. He’s doing a new film called SICARIO (2015) starring Benicio del Toro, Emily Blunt, and Josh Brolin and that’s very exciting.

WAMG: My thanks to Mr. Jóhannsson for taking the time to discuss his score for THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING.

Check out his score on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/theory-everything-original/id930744739 and on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Everything-Johann-Johannsson/dp/B00NOWAM7C/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1415375434&sr=8-1&keywords=the+theory+of+everything+soundtrack

Fantastic Fest 2014: Interview with NIGHTCRAWLER Director Dan Gilroy

While I was covering Fantastic Fest in Austin, I was able to sit down with the writer and director of NIGHTCRAWLER, Dan Gilroy. Even though he worked on films like REAL STEEL, THE FALL, and THE BOURNE LEGACY, this is his directorial debut. You can read my full review of the film HERE. Below you can find my interview with Dan Gilroy where he goes into how he views LA, what some of the important themes in the movie are, and what he thinks of sex in movies.

The idea of entrepreneurship and “bad business” is a central theme in NIGHTCRAWLER. Do you see the film as a movie with a message and if so did the message change or evolve as you developed the script?

I wrote the film to be engaging and entertaining but it does have a theme and it does have messages. I think, in a meta sense, the largest theme is that it could be seen as an indictment of capitalism but I say that knowing that there isn’t another system that I’m aware of that works better than capitalism. But I believe no systems work in a vacuum and capitalism has transformed like all systems. I think we have reached a place where it’s become “dream capitalism.” I think Lou (Jake Gyllenhaal) is a young man who has been abandoned into a world built upon transactions, where everything is dependant on the bottom line. Apart from the fact that he exceeds at what he does. The fact that he does succeed proves the horror of the world that he lives in. The world has created this character and rewards this character, and when the world is reduced to just transactions than there really isn’t much of a place for the human spirit anymore. Respect for people has gone. Some of that hopefully comes through when you have a film that has a lot of darkness and kinetic violent energy to it. That was one of the largest themes.

The character of Lou sprung from me thinking about 10 of millions young people around the world who are faced with very bleak career prospects because of the global economy. I come from a different generation. When I grew up, steady work and health insurance was commonplace. I’m very aware that people now are faced with job situations that feel very insecure. I took the initial concept of the character as someone looking for work and was desperate for a job. So again, it goes back to the economics of the world. In fact, structurally, every scene in the film is a transaction. Something is being negotiated in every scene of the film.

It feels at times like he’s hosting an infomercial because he’s selling himself as a product.

He’s selling himself as a product and he’s driven like a shark to succeed. He’s an uber-capitalist. Again, I don’t necessarily see this as an indictment of capitalism. We were trying in every way to present something that was objectively true. Whether it was the larger landscape that Lou is moving through or even the landscape of the local television news, you can also look at that as an indictment. But we did a tremendous amount of research and we never tried cinematically to present something with any moral judgment. We just wanted to objectively present it. Jake and I and the rest of the crew never wanted to give answers, we just wanted to raise questions. By the end of the film I think you are asking even more questions about the character of Lou than when the film began. We don’t really give answers like you typically see in films: this is the character’s backstory, this is what he is thinking, and in the end this is how you should be feeling about the character. I think we broke a lot of narrative rules in that way.

I was curious because early on in the film, you setup the scene between Lou and a security guard where he steals the guard’s watch. The image of the watch is shown several times throughout the movie. It becomes a symbol for where Lou got started. The other thing that is shown a lot is Lou’s sunglasses. He especially wears them a lot during the day. I didn’t know if the sunglasses were meant to be the same sort of object as the watch, where he might have stole them from someone before the film starts – especially since they are nicer sunglasses.

The watch is interesting because the character just acquires things. Sort of like a bird. Crows go around and take shiny objects and when you go into their nests there’s this collection of shiny little things. We looked at the watch as just a shiny object that caught his eye like he was a child. So we saw the watch as something very particular. The glasses were Jake’s idea. Just like losing the weight and the longer hair, one day he came to me and said, “I’m thinking about wearing sunglasses.” I liked the idea because we always looked at him like a nocturnal animal. He doesn’t like daylight. Like he’s Dracula. We liked it for that reason, but if someone read into that differently that’s great.

There has been several films that have spotlighted LA at night that the list can go on and on. Was there something in particular that you wanted to do with NIGHTCRAWLER to distinguish it from those other films?

Very much so. I moved to LA from New York and I find LA to be a physically beautiful place. You have the desert air. You have the mountains with snow on them. The ocean is a really bright blue. You come up to LA from the valley and you can see for miles. I don’t often feel it is represented as beautiful. Cinematically it is often shown as cement, freeways, and downtown. Robert Elswit, our DP, also lives in LA. Robert and I both wanted to show Los Angeles as a physical beauty. I say that even though we often show it at night where it’s dark, and I know that it often doesn’t look like we are presenting LA at night. But I feel like the LA at night we showed you can see far. We had a lot of deep focus and wide angles. We tried to present the landscape like a wildlife documentary. These wildlife documentaries are always so beautiful. So we wanted to present LA in a beautiful while adding an element to Lou’s hunting spirit. I see Los Angeles as a place of survival. You’re on your own in a lot of ways. It’s a little bit like a wilderness.

I’ve been to LA a few times and it always feels so spread out in person. In the film, you never see Lou drive for hours. You always show Lou drive around in small neighborhoods or side streets. The world of LA doesn’t seem as massive. It feels rather compact.

We avoided freeways for the most part. We never shot downtown. We were always looking for streets that had bends or curves. Robert and I talked about how if we were in the car on a straightway you would see what’s in front of you and it wouldn’t be as suspenseful. If you were going around a curve we thought you would be curious what was around the corner. We shot a lot around Mulholland Dr. We shot around curves. Going down Laurel Canyon. Always giving you the sense of what’s around the next curve. That was a conscience choice cinematically. We also looked for locations that made you go up or down. In movies you’re always on a freeway. We wanted to avoid that.

The film feels like a two-part story. The first half is Lou learning about this world and then the film has an almost second act change when he enters the house of the crime-scene. Did you imagine it as a two-part story?

I didn’t write as a two-part story but I do see it as a success story. A lot of success stories have a moment where the character has a transformative moment where the man or woman suddenly realizes something, and then they suddenly take off and fly. The transformation moment in NIGHTCRAWLER is a very dark moment where in most films that moment is light and is a celebration of the human spirit. We’re the opposite. I never wrote it as a two-part structure but I did know that the character was going to find his dark wings and fly.

One of the story elements that you were very careful to show on screen is the relationship between Jake Gyllenhaal’s character and Rene Russo’s. Rene Russo is so good in the film and the scenes between the two of them are all fantastic. It’s interesting that you allude to a sexual side to their relationship but you don’t explicitly show it. Can you talk about the restraint of not showing that fully?

It’s an unusual relationship because obviously there’s a large age difference. It’s not uncommon to see the reverse where the man is older and the woman is younger. When I wrote the script we had early financiers that insisted I shoot a sex scene between them. And I said “no.” I insisted that there was nothing that I can show you that is more interesting than what you are imagining. Because it’s such an unusual relationship and Lou is so aggressive and she is aggressive in her own way and yet still passive that whatever you can imagine is far more interesting than anything we could show. Plus, to be honest, I find watching sex scenes in films boring. It’s interesting in real life. But I find it boring. I was not inclined to show anything.

I think also showing them in the softness of the bedroom it would make these two dynamic individuals appear weaker.

I think audiences are much more savvy than studios give them credit for. Studios want to show too much and explain everything. I think audiences are dying. Engage them and let their own imaginations kick in. Like for instance, we don’t tell where Lou is from. We don’t give any backstory. We imply he’s abused and abandoned, but at the end of the day I think audiences need to come up with their own story. The film should engage them to have a dialogue with the movie.

You learn about Lou through his actions. Not through a huge narrative dump.

Exactly. Don’t explain everything. Unfortunately when you work in the studio system you don’t have that opportunity. They want you to explain everything. They insist that you do. So for me, this is like a break from the factory.

Everyone is struggling to survive in this film. Gyllenhaal, Russo, Bill Paxton, Riz Ahmed as Rick.

That’s the way I see the world right now. This is a personal film for me. I see the world as a very limited opportunity, limited resource place. Maybe people don’t see it as so bleak or hard as I see it as. It just feels that way to me. I feel the people that are younger are bearing the brunt of it rather than people that are older. The thing is that when you are younger you are trying to make a mark and there’s an added imperative to push yourself. To justify your existence and so that people think of you a certain way. There’s an added pressure so you may not see the moral line that you might have otherwise seen under different circumstances. That’s why I wrote the film.

I want to thank Dan Gilroy for sitting down and talking with me about his exciting new film, and also for the cool poster (that was exclusive to Fantastic Fest) that he signed for me that you can see below.

NIGHTCRAWLER is out in theaters this Friday, October 31.

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