All language subtitles for 16 - Shooting Low Budget Films

I felt that I had to learn how to make a picture faster

cheaper um and still have um

still have the energy in the film

in fact go further with a certain kind of camera move

and cutting in this sort of thing

and when I first met Michael Ballhouse in

Abby had gone through

having gone through a series of films up about 1981

came up to king of comedy

and sort of

the bottom fell out of everything after that

but I did meet Michael

when we were preparing last mutation of Christ in 1983

and I'd seen his vast Bender films that he

that he had shot

and I wanted the

a sense of um

freedom with the camera again

and freedom with light um

in a sense I was

I felt that with the bigger productions from uh

as as as that's not the camera

that's not the directors of photographies issue

this had to do with the how a film is made

the amount of people

the amount of equipment

I wanted to get something trimmer and faster you know

and so I felt I should go back to

independent style film making

and I saw the Fastbender pictures

and then followed up on that

meeting Michael

and we're gonna make last Temptation

um but by the end of the year the film fell through

and we were out in the diaspora

so to speak

out of Hollywood everywhere

and can get a picture made

but um finally

it was time to start all over again I felt

and we stumbled upon

I think was Amy Robinson

and Griffin Dunn gave me the script of after hours

and so um um

I thought this was a good opportunity to

try to learn how to make a picture again

and also a project

of course that I really responded to

because of the nature of the

of the story

in the character being out of his element

and being in a place

where he couldn't believe anyone or anything

and he sort of trapped um

and I thought this was

that's way I felt myself at the time

um and so uh

I called on Michael again there

and that's the first time we really had

the ability to work together

we shot it in 40 nights

averaging about 25 to 26 set UPS a night

and so Michael um

would be on the set

and it was you know

downtown somewhere and the old Soho

which at that time was really isolated at night

there's nobody there uh

and I'd get there and I'd be kind of grumpy um

concerned about getting everything done

proving to myself

I can get something shot in a more efficient manner

that still had everything I wanted

not quite sure this particular scene

and he would look at me and says ah

but tonight

tonight we do the shot that begins on the chair

tracks up goes around

the face comes over to the telephone

goes to the jukebox as whole

you're right

you're right

yeah yeah that's something

so we don't do it first

no no of course not

we're gonna do it a little later

because I have certain lighting issues okay okay

but he gave me something to look forward to

and brought back the excitement

and the love of the process

you know he said look this

we're gonna have some fun tonight

I mean and fun

I use that word fun for many different things

won't get have fun at say well

we're gonna have some fun

and ironic tone of course

but it really was bringing back to me um

the energy and the excitement of film making

that he reinstilled in me

and I remind you

I had designed all these shots

and drawings and diagrams

smaller storyboards in a way

on the edge of the script

rather than in bigger drawings

but Ballhouse studied them and made his own versions

um trans transferred them to his script and made as any

studied the shot

study the understanding

tried to understand how the camera would move

the use of the lens

which lens size lens

all sorts of things

nest then transferred over to Last Temptation of Christ

when we were shooting in Morocco

um a very very

very low budget film

the whole picture was designed on paper

mainly because uh

that's the way I always design a

a film as much as possible

but even more so in that case

because I knew that

if I had the chance to make the picture

it was going to be very

um a very low budget

and I had to shoot very quickly

so I can know exactly what I wanted

in terms of the framing

camera movements

editing and that sort of thing

the first day of shooting we knew it

we understood that it was going to be an arduous shoot

and after the second setup

where just trying to set up a tripod

and the ground and things falling

and he looked at us and said well

this is the way this film is gonna be

every movement we make

everything we set up

is going to be hard to do

so just accept it now

which which we did

which we did

and we worked as furiously as possible

and later on

to one point

things were so difficult

and I was so

in despair about losing time

and not getting the right amount of extras

and this sort of thing I

and I was just sitting there one point

I think about eight weeks into shooting saying

well I said I

maybe I should have waited

maybe I should have waited

to have more money in the budget

maybe I should have waited not knowing

I waited six years

seven years you know

you know to take the opportunity to make the film

then at a very

very low budget

and he said to me

no no he said

this film has to be made this way

um the um arduousness

um the physicality

um and the if one could term it

suffering that had to be done

that's the nature of this work

of this particular film

not that any film is luxurious in that way but um

this really um

became more than making a film

it became a life experience

and he was the one to point that out to me

we had one company move from Marrakesh to

um Marrakesh

we shot outside Marrakesh

a little village called umran

about 25 minutes outside of Marrakesh

then we had one company moved to a city called Mac Ness

which gave a flavor of an urban center

suggesting Jerusalem

we thought um

and so that was one big company move in

that meant it was

we couldn't afford a third

we wanted to go to another place once as that

but we couldn't do it

and so um the only thing was that we found a quarry uh

for the crucifixion that um

was really very

very good we thought

and um we wanted to keep the crucifixion

for the end of the film

the shooting

but we had to shoot it in the middle

and in order to take advantage of this

this location

and I had designed

and I remember very clearly 75 shots

whether they were notes

or whether they were drawings didn't matter

that they would design that figure

25 shots a day

right now it's a very hard scene to stage

um but we were under such uh

uh pressure

particularly because we've gone days over schedule

and running out of money um

that we had to make that move at that time

and remember him and my ad and my producer

sitting in a small room um

five days before shooting

or four days before shooting the crucifixion scene

and going through all the shots

and saying okay

instead of three days for these 75 shots

we have two

so

what could we lose

and it became 50 shots

25 and 25 and we got them all

and how he did that was

referring back to something to do with Fastpend

in particular

film called beware the Holy Whore

where I think

a few days into shooting

Fastbender fired the lead actor

and then took the role himself

and so they had to reshoot everything

that they had shot for those three days

in one day and night

and how they worked it out was timing it so that

for example

in the crucifixion scene

if the first shot we would give 10 minutes

the fourth shot was a little more complicated

15 if it goes to 17 we have to move on

accept what we have and move on

um there was one shot uh

where Willem Dafoe cries out

you know Father Father

why be forsaken

me I think in the camera twists and turns said that's

that's 45 minutes

and that's how we did it

that's how we did it

when just literally within that 10 minutes

I used to call it quality time

we be intent on getting what we need to get

or if not shooting extra two takes

squeezing it in to

to figure out later

certain elements of the different takes

which one of go with in the editing

that was a very

logical and a very

also passionate way of going about it

saying we're going to get it

but we'll have to combine these 75 shots into fifty

and we'll have 25 setups a day or 26

we can do it

and the thing was like a commando group

we got there in the dark and the moment light broke

we started shooting immediately

and it was like being in

a battle of some kind very very physical

he always made it clear to me about the

the value of what we were doing in that particular shot

of that particular day you know

and so what to go for

what to emphasize

what I mean is what to go for what to

when I say go for

means where to put the energy

um and what to look forward to

he was very clear about um

in a case like that

he didn't really say

this is the way this film has to be made

but he kept saying

we will make it

I kept I kept knowing that

where everything was being taken away

or the script was being changed

and there were lots of production problems

but he looked at me and say

we're going to finish it

we're going to make it

and whether we did or not

ultimately doesn't matter

but it's how we got through each day

of the skirmishes and the battles to make the picture