6/20/2023 0 Comments Mark webber actor 20 years oldHe mixed the movie in the final hour and did the color. He also did all of our post-production supervising. Same goes for my additional camera operator Dustin Hughes, who also produced the film. He knows what I’m trying to do so we don’t even have to say anything, he just knows where to go and knows not to stop rolling because something interesting might happen even when I think we’re done. MW: My DP Patrice Cochet is phenomenal and every film I’ve made as a director we’ve done together, so our relationship has reached the pinnacle of that shorthand with each other. What I love about this movie is it feels like a documentary so what kind of preparation work you did with your DP beforehand? What was it like working with him on set knowing you would be watching dailies and to trust what he is getting? MM: What fascinates me about actor-turned-directors is how much trust you have to put into your Director of Photography. It was great because I could see how his experience as an actor was making me more comfortable and I thought I could do that. When I worked with Ethan Hawke, that was my first experience with the actor/writer/director thing. I’ve also been lucky to enough to work with filmmakers, someone like Jim Jarmusch is a perfect example, who is like “I’m going to bring on the people I want and we are going to make it the way we want to do it and then I’m going to edit it and no one is going to take away my rights.” I’ve always been enchanted by writer/directors. Every director I’ve worked with knows what their voice is, and has a real clear vision and intense passion to tell a story the way they want to tell it. MW: The biggest common denominator among everyone I’ve worked for is a sense of integrity-really having a clear point of view and understanding of what you are trying to do. As an actor, what have you learned about working with these talented directors that you bring onto set as the director or does any of that come through? MM: You’ve worked with a lot of my favorite directors. I can be an anchor and guide and just sort of go with it. We don’t have anyone saying we will be shooting in five minutes. So part of how I do that is by having not a lot of lights. You go, and the doctor’s been doing it all day and you don’t even realize you got the shot you’ve been afraid to do. MW: Yeah, I liken it a bit to when you have to give a shot. MM: As a performer turned director, do you have a method to bring them down a bit when they are being too “on?” I think it is because my mom is so accustomed to having so many big things happening to her all the time that she is just like “oh by the way I’m running for Vice President.” With big events something you think you would be sat down something really important to tell and no. We kind of talked about it a little bit because that moment at screenings always gets a pretty big laugh which makes me happy because I laugh at that all the time with my mom. MW: No, I think my mom if anything would welcome that aspect was there. She wasn’t nervous about having that aspect of her life put on film with all the news coverage? MM: One of my favorite lines in the movie is how nonchalantly your mom says “I’m running for Vice President,” because I didn’t know anything about the movie when I first walked in and I thought everything with Jill Stein was superimposed or something. Then my brother’s life I wanted to show a similar through line that is playing out with him fifteen years later also having a father that is a junkie. I wanted to show the complexity of our family dynamic and why. My mom knew I wasn’t interesting in making a vanity piece and not a film that shows her as the best mom in the entire world.
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