WARNING: some of the videos embedded and linked to throughout this interview (specifically The Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary) contain graphic images, language, and subject matter that some of my readers may find offensive. I implore you... if you think there is any chance that you might possibly be one of those offended or put off by these videos... please DO NOT watch them. By all means read the interview, but I would rather not receive any emails or phone calls saying that these videos were inappropriate to post. They are videos indicative of the work of the artist being interviewed, and are therefore completely integral. You have been warned.
Turns out its director, Damon Packard, made thousands of DVD copies and self-distributed them by leaving copies in front of stores and inside mailboxes and by mailing copies to any industry professionals to whom he had access. Henry Rollins is one of the film's most well-known advocates. And yet to this day I have met only two or three other people besides myself who have actually watched the thing. Oh, don't get me wrong, I've met dozens and dozens of people who have heard of the movie. Who somehow stumbled upon copies just like I did. But even these people typically just left the DVD unwatched on their shelf, or used the DVD case for one of their own projects and tossed the disc.
Which is a shame, because Reflections of Evil is one the coolest, weirdest, scariest, funniest underground films I've ever seen, telling the epic three-generation saga of one family and the sugar-addicted, morbidly obese, used-watch-selling main character (played by Packard) on an hallucinatory search for his sister, who went missing at Universal Studios in the 1970s. Along the way we see a young Steven Spielberg on the set of his first film, Something Evil, a nightmarish trip to Six Flags Magic Mountain, and a terrifying sequence in downtown Los Angeles that leaves the viewer unable to ever listen to The Carpenters' "We've Only Just Begun" in the same way ever again.
It's stayed with me since I first watched it, and I've watched it a few times since. I love it so much, in fact, that through the modern miracles that are MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube, I have since become friends with Packard, even going so far as to lend him costumes for - and very nearly work as a puppeteer on - his most recent film, an adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's manga, Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Incorporating live action against backplates of Miyazaki's own animation, as well as puppetry and beautifully choreographed action, it's a terrific experiment that hints at a heretofore untapped reservoir of potential mainstream appeal in my favorite underground filmmaker.
Throughout his oeuvre, from Reflections to the so-insane-you-have-to-see-it -to-believe-it Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary, to SpaceDisco One (a sequel to both Logan's Run AND 1984) all the way through his multitudinous other short films and finally the Nausicaa adaptation Tales of the Valley of the Wind, Packard has established himself not only as an absolutely brilliant editor, but as one of the most important voices in contemporary independent film, whether you've heard of him or not. Even as he struggles to make his films with absolutely no money, losing his car and nearly his apartment in the process, he continues to set an example for all starving artists, all guerrilla filmmakers, all who worshiped cinema in the seventies and eighties and now find themselves distressed at the saturation of filmmaking-by-committee and studio idiocy. This man is our figurehead. And he was awesome enough to take some time out late (or really early) this past Saturday night to answer some of the questions I've been dying to ask.
Did you really just wake up? It's 12:25am.
Yea I fell asleep at 3pm or 4pm. Woke at 11.
That schedule gives me a sense of the hours you keep. Pretty standard for a starving artist, yesno? In bed at 3pm, wake up at 11pm, commence editing.
Yea usually but not always. It tends to change, work its way around the clock.
What are you working on these days?
Well, normally I would say nothing. Just trying to survive and not succeeding very well, and that’s still the case. However there is one film I still hope to make, The Untitled BBC Documentary.
In the same vein as the Untitled Star Wars Mockumentary?
No, that was shaped around wrap-around footage. This would be interviews with British scientists/physicists, etc. in between dramatizations.
A straight doc?
Partially, yes. But actors playing scientists and mostly scripted commentary. Hoping to find actors good at extemporizing but that can be difficult.
What are the actors-playing-scientists going to be saying?
Lets just call them scientists. They'll be talking about life in the dead zone. The period we're in now. A time not meant to exist. And a variety of other subjects including the conflict of perceived realities, etc. It's an end of the world piece as made in the end of the world. We're in it now, it happened. We just don't know it.
Okay, you're gonna have to expound upon the idea of "conflict of perceived realities"... as in, everyone sees things differently, so who's to say what's true?
Yes, more or less exactly. The conflict of realities affects everything.
Awesome.
It's nothing new but it's more about how the manipulated perception of reality has changed. For example, mainstream creative sensibilities in the early 1970's contrasted with now.
So, more of a commentary on how reality is perceived differently as a result of mainstream manipulations in cinema and art? And how it changes over time?
Yea I want to specifically focus on cinema and art. The Dark Knight praised with ratings higher than the Godfather films, that sort of thing. It's the same with everything. What’s wrong with that picture? What the hell reality are other people experiencing? All these awful contemporary films heaped with praise, it boggles the mind.
So... thoughts on the last Indiana Jones film?
Another good example, people are fiercely divided on that.
Where do you stand on it?
Most seem to agree it was a disappointment. But it makes no difference if the majority support it and it makes money, as in everything. And obviously a good film and a successful one have absolutely no relation to each other anymore. I think they used to many years ago. The most worthless garbage is what makes the profit margin.
Watching Reflections of Evil in particular, one gets the sense he’s watching the work of someone who has been let down by a hero, that Spielberg – a man you grew up idolizing – has somehow become everything you hate about Hollywood. Is this a fair assessment?
Well. A little bit, yes, but that’s happened with everyone. It's affected everything.
Elaborate.
Well, I think most artists we grew up idolizing somehow end up disappointing us at some point, especially after the end of the 70's, the firm hold of the 80's/90's and now into the present period where everyone is performing at their worst! If they’re managing to even survive. And that applies to those that started at their peak in the 80's.
Any exceptions? Are there any filmmakers you idolized who haven't let you down?
I'm trying to think. Even KUBRICK let me down.
How so?
Eyes Wide Shut. Though again, people are divided. The conflict of realities.
You didn't like Eyes Wide Shut?
I was horridly disappointed when I first saw it. I still basically feel the same.
It's my least favorite Kubrick film also, but what disappointed you about it?
I guess expectations were too high. I like the subject matter, I just think I feel the film ultimately goes nowhere. maybe that was intentional or there's something I don't get. The film feels like it builds and builds and nothing ever happens. Do you agree?
My problem with Eyes Wide Shut goes beyond that.
Yea I could say more about it.
It's one of the few films where my personal disagreement with its overall thesis keeps me from really loving it. That said, it has some amazing sequences.
It was disappointing.
Let's flashback. When did you start making movies? What was your first movie?
Technically speaking it was around 1979. A minor animation short made for class. But I seriously got into it in 1982.
Do you still have a copy of it?
No, lost long ago. And many of my early super8 films are lost.
What happened in 1982?
1982 was the ultimate year of inspirational cinema.
Yeah?
I HAD to start making films.
Which movies inspired you?
Almost everything that year. Blade Runner, The Thing, Road Warrior, Trek II, Creepshow, Dark Crystal, Conan, you name it… it came out! And that’s only the tip! 1981 was quite a year too. And those are just the MAINSTREAM films. Think of how drastically mainstream films have gone downhill. I could care less about 99.9% of mainstream films nowadays.
What was the last mainstream movie you saw that you really loved?
Was The Wrestler a mainstream film?
Sort of. I think that counts as mainstream.
As for the mainstream films that inspired me then and the ones now, absolutely NOTHING. In fact they have just the opposite effect. I mean the SFX blockbusters and genre films.
What about The Assassination of Jesse James?
Yea that was good, but again a smaller non-mainstream release. You see how dramatically things have changed?
So which of YOUR films do you consider your first "real" movie?
First real movie, maybe Dawn of an Evil Millennium, about a demon who comes to earth, soups up a 1970 Oldsmobile and goes on a road-kill rampage. A cop (Frank Bift, modeled after Blade Runner’s Deckard) goes on the chase. Hard to say, though, they were all no-budget super8 experiments. If I had some money or backing things would have been different.
How DO you subsidize your films?
How do I? I don't. I mean I do, but they are generally made over long periods of time via scraped together pocket money.
Didn't you finance Reflections of Evil through some sort of trust fund?
Reflections was the ONLY time I had some money to make a feature.
What was the budget on Reflections?
About 80-90k. Mainly because it was shot on film.
Whoa, that's a lot more than I thought it was.
Well, remember about 60k were just film, telecine, transfer and conversion costs all accumulated. The production itself probably cost around 20-30k. Maybe less, hard to say.
How long did it take to shoot?
Took about a year to make. Quite a contrast to my other films like SpaceDisco, Nausicaa, StarWars Mock, etc. which cost NOTHING. Couple hundred dollars. However keep in mind... my early super8 films still cost in the thousands… simply because of film costs.
Were you working day jobs to finance them?
The super8 films?
Yeah.
Yes. Day and night jobs. Remember it took many months, years... where as it should've taken a few weeks in some cases. This is always the pitfall of indie filmmaking. What should take a couple months is drawn out to years only because of the MONEY problems. Reflections came together quickly, and I was taking my time. Why? Because the MONEY was there. I didn't have to worry about the rent every month. It makes a difference. And the catch 22 is always, when you’re working full time, you don't have the time or energy, even if you do have a few extra dollars.
Where do you get your gear from?
I bought everything in the past. About 10k of the budget on Reflections was equipment. I sold it all.
There have been so many other interviews out there where you've gone into detail about the process of making Reflections. I'd like to focus instead on the project you just recently completed. Can you tell me about your adaptation of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind?
It was an exercise in futility.
Okay, you're going to have to elaborate on that.
I'm kidding, ehh, lets see. Well, I wanted to create a visual love letter to Miyazaki as SpaceDisco was a love letter to the spacedisco era in some capacity. Nausicaa was more or less another recent no-budget experiment. In many ways I really feel I shouldn't have even bothered without some money--as with ANY film.
Why do you feel it was not a success?
Because the final result is basically disappointing in lieu of severe limitations. It could have been something, with just a little money. You can't shoot much of a story with a few actors on location and $100.
Creativity can never triumph without budget?
No, I think it thrives better with LESS money but there's less and then there's NOTHING, and it's a huge difference. If you have nothing, don't even bother.
You once said of the Lord of the Rings films: “I don't know why people cannot grasp the basic concept of books are books, movies are movies, they work in different ways, and not all books translate well into movies.” Couldn’t one extend this question of medium transcendence to different filmmaking forms as well? Is there ever a time when an anime is an anime, and a live action film is a live action film? Seeing as Miyazaki chose animation as his medium, what prompted or inspired you to translate it to live action?
Well, Miyazaki is only the template, it's not even much of an adaptation. I was more interesting in making an original piece. And for the most part it is, it only incorporates the character. It would be impossible to adapt that story anyway. Again we're talking a no budget experiment/extended trailer promo. If I had some money to work with you think I'd be fooling around with these things?
When making your films, is distribution in your mind? It seems you truly do make films purely out of the love of the art. How important to you is some form of mainstream success?
Well, yes but distribution possibly in another timeline or dimension. Perhaps my films were more suited to early 70's mainstream distribution? Hard to say. I don't WANT to necessarily make them purely for the love of art, I would hope there is mainstream success, but these days? Compromising a vision is not the answer either. And this is obviously a big problem with mainstream films, they are all microcosms of compromise diluted through focus groups, producers, and group mentality. Not just mainstream but indie films too. Even the smallest of productions, once you have backers and producers, forget it. Unless you find a supportive millionaire willing to let the artist free and then you still won't have much of a chance getting distribution.
Are you an artist reliant on happy accidents? How much planning do you do before a shoot?
Oh yea, I sometimes design whole films around accidents. I plan as much as possible, but on a zero budget sometimes it's better to go with the flow. Sometimes not. But yes, I should be fair in saying, I like the improv / accidents approach.
Describe your process. Do you use a script? Storyboards?
Usually a treatment, sometimes a shot list but these days rarely even that. I used to be more about storyboarding and such. Certainly a detailed treatment for the actors, but it's all about the execution. Very important to keep in mind, this is mainly because of working in the zero budget realm. It's very important for me to stress the issue about working in a zero budget realm and how this dictates the subject, story and style.
Robert Rodriguez said when you have no budget you should write around what you have access to. Is that how you do it? If you have access to a school bus, write a school bus into your script.
Pretty much yes. Exactly.
Are your films scripted? Or are they mostly just outlined?
Mostly outlined, but only because I'm not Paddy Chayefsky and I couldn't find actors good enough to interpret a dialogue-driven story with no money anyway. You see the predicament?
I know the predicament firsthand, man.
If I could hook up with a Tennessee Williams or Truman Capote I’d rather be making films like The Hospital or Night of the Iguana.
And when shooting, do you anticipate how you will edit it? Or is that a separate process for you?
The editing is something I never worry about, get enough coverage and you’re fine. Even if you don't (and that’s often the case) there are always ways around it.
Take the Carpenters scene in Reflections of Evil. Did you shoot that sequence knowing you were going to use The Carpenters?
Yes, absolutely. That whole montage was planned.
Alright, man. I unfortunately don't have the luxury of the schedule of a starving artist, so I'd better go. Thanks so much for doing this. I could talk to you all night.
Alright. I still have your costumes.
There you have it! I've already got a few more interviews lined up with some musicians I love, so stay tuned for those in the coming weeks and months. And now, as a little bonus, here is SkateBang, my wife Kelly's personal favorite piece by Damon Packard:
2 comments:
EWS is your least favorite Kubrick film? This is news to me. Great interview btw - Packard seemed to be dodging some of the questions but maybe that's just cuz I'm reading it, and I wasn't there to hear it.
Enjoyed reading the interview, Dan. You asked some very good, insightful questions; methinks you may be in the wrong business. Anyway, thanks for the post and the clips. Your blog is always great fun to read.
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