Sundance Responses
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 Midnight –Egyptian Theatre, Park City]
Us guys from the “horror ghetto” don’t usually get the “A” word attached to our work, but thank you. I’m flattered. When I was younger, I was dazzled by the work of the greats such as Fritz Lang, James Whale and Alfred Hitchcock. Their work taught me that film could be used to travel to the dark reaches of the subconscious. These were places that other mediums such as novels and paintings were just not as effective in my opinion. They have a hard time competing with a huge moving image that includes tools such as cinematography, sound effects, music and great actors. My new film, John Dies At The End exemplifies all of the above. It is a journey into very strange places. Besides, what better way to tell a story which includes talking dogs, a monster made of meat and an illicit hallucinogenic drug that “chooses you?”… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 9:00 pm –Egyptian Theatre]
People want evidence. They want the truth. If it is a dream they want, then they want a dream; if it is a nightmare, then they ask for a nightmare. If it is a face they want, they insist on seeing one. In my opinion; you can only achieve this up to a limited point via other forms of art. Film is real! Film is an evidence! It’s the most terrific, and at the same time the most beautiful, secret that could be offered to someone.
Whilst telling the story of Can, I wanted to show his true face; his fears and dreams. I would have failed in revealing all my characters struggles to hold on to their lives, without using their faces.
I guess, other than film, nothing I used as a medium to express myself has satisfied me. I know that this is such a classic textbook statement given by most of the filmmakers, but ironically its true and I love it. I’m very happy, indeed. I found myself, I found the medium to express myself. I found my self-expression.
… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 2:30 pm –Prospector Square Theatre, Park City]
I decided that I wanted to be a documentary filmmaker on a travel I had to China in 1995. I was there on my own for three month and I had a fantastic time being an observer in a country who was in the beginning of such a life changing development. There was obviously many great stories, interesting contrasts and characters and I had my sketchbook with me and was drawing the people and situations that I met. But the silent portrays didn´t really seem enough to me at that time and that´s how I made up my mind for filming.
I never went back to China to make a film though.… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 11:45 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City]
Grabbers is a monster movie, first and foremost, and so much of the experience is visceral, for your eyes and ears… Whether it’s a monster roar vibrating your innards or the orchestra rising to mark a poignant look from our leading lady. You simply couldn’t have that experience reading a book, or watching a play. It isn’t possible.
There’s something about the combination of pictures, and sound, plus time, that is utterly absorbing and compelling – when it’s done well. I enjoy a story told in a great film more than I enjoy a great book, or a play. Particularly when I see it in the cinema.
For me it’s the leading art form, for stories, and it encompasses so many other disciplines, whether it’s painting or photography, music or literature…
One day I imagine there will be a moment where video games and virtual reality mesh to create a new storytelling art form that supersedes cinema. But it feels to me like it’s a decade or two away, at least, so let’s enjoy this cinematic heyday while it lasts!
We talked a lot about shooting Grabbers in 3D and opted for 2D in the end, for a variety of technical and financial reasons… I wonder whether we’re at the end of the 2D era for cinema, and if 3D will become the norm. My generation grew up dismissing black and white movies as “old fashioned” – we see in colour, after all – and I wonder if there’s a new generation who will dismiss 2D movies as “flat” and “unrealistic” – we see in depth, with two eyes, don’t we?… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 8:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, Park City]
Film is the most powerful art form an artist can work with. It takes the strengths of different mediums and puts them together, resulting in a piece where the whole is far greater than the sum of its parts. It leverages the power of photography, music, sounds, silence, words, portraiture, and most of all, time. When creating a photo book or painting, you never know what the viewer will look at, or for how long. But with film, it’s a medium where the viewer makes a commitment to the art. They go into a theater and commit to spend an hour and a half in their seat. They turn off their phones and completely engage. They’ll suspend disbelief, they’ll see the world, and they’ll be exposed to the truth, all in service to the filmmaker’s vision. The famed editor Walter Murch talks about how the movie theater is the modern-day version of sitting around a campfire. We gather as a community, sit around the flickering light, and listen to a story. And at the end of the day, that’s why film is so powerful. It meets one of humanity’s greatest and deepest needs–to share our stories with others.
… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, Noon – Egyptian Theatre, Park City]
Growing up I had planned on being a comic book artist, but at some point decided it’d be a little lonely spending all day in front of a drawing board by myself while filmmaking seemed like going on an adventure with a crazy group of friends. But years later I found myself working on this film alone in front of the computer for weeks on end, so joke’s on me.
Of course THIS story, about how one film has managed to inspire so much speculation and become so important to people couldn’t really make sense in any other medium; I needed a movie to talk about a movie.
… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 2:30 pm –Prospector Square Theatre, Park City]
Nathan and I have always wanted to study and work in film. To me it’s the ultimate art form, in that it has infinite possibilities and the unique ability to encompass and incorporate all other art forms. Even if all art is derivative, it’s that challenge: attempt to make something new in film that’s exciting to us.
This was made clear to us as teenagers in the late ’80s when we were the personal videographers for Chuck Berry. Although known first and foremost as a rock-and-roll legend, he was also a pioneer of independent cinema and digital photography. Seminal experiences like that taught us about being resourceful, working in the moment and on your own terms.… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 6:30 pm –Egyptian Theatre, Park City]
Because of audiovisual. 
A bicycle
… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23, 5:30 pm –Library Center Theatre, park City]
I’m drawn to be an artist because when I watch successful art- whether it’s stand up comedy or plays or movies- it makes me feel a little bit less alone. And the idea that I could do that for someone else seems worthwhile. Sleepwalk With Me is a based on a true story that actually HAS been expressed in different media: it was a story on This American Life. It was a book, and it was a one-man play of the same name. But the reason I decided to make a film adaptation as well is that it’s a very personal story and film can be the most personal medium. It can bring people into your thoughts, your dreams, and your experiences in a way that I felt could really get across this story. And the truth is, it’s very different from the book and the show- I think because film is wildly collaborative. You get so much from your actors and your cinematographer and your designers and editors- that by the time the film is complete- it’s something that literally could not have existed before it did.
… Read the rest
Monday, January 23rd, 2012
[PREMIERE SCREENING: Monday, January 23 6:00 pm –Temple Theatre, Park City]
Last night, I was at a holiday party and I saw my five year old daughter in a silver-sequined dress through the lens of someone else’s video camera. Christmas lights shone in the center of the frame and my daughter glistened to the right of the frame. For a second, as she danced in front of the camera, I saw her as I knew her most truly to be and had never seen her before. It is for such moments of revelation that I am addicted to documentary film.
Sometimes it fails. A searing experience too often loses its power when the footage is screened and edited. But when life at its most beautiful or most shattering is reflected and even heightened through the art of this medium, it feels like more than witnessing a miracle; it feels like performing one – which is totally hot.
When I spoke with openly gay bishop Gene Robinson about following him through a particularly harrowing period that he was about to enter, I told him that talking to him was like talking to Joan of Arc, in a time when a doc crew could capture the drama of the church/state firestorm he had found himself in. He laughed but said that it was true – he was caught in the crosshairs of cultural change and it was important to record it along the way, so he invited me to follow him for the next four years.
The experience has been packed with revelation, some lost on the camera but many captured. One of these moments was at a London church that had invited Bishop Robinson to preach even though the Archbishop had forbidden churches from doing so. It was at a time when Bishop Robinson was receiving daily death threats, just because he would not step down as a bishop who was openly gay. In the middle of the service, a congregant jumped up yelling “Repent!” in such a violent tone with a motorcycle helmet under his arm, his hand stuck inside … Read the rest
