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| CineVegas '06 Interview ('Damn Yankee Day' Director Robert Shupe) |
by Erik Childress
The “Damn Yankee Day” Pitch: Think Pretty Woman meets The Exorcist…no, just kidding. Damn Yankee Day is about a foreign exchange student named Kimmo who comes to America and basically has the most nightmarish experience imaginable. It takes place over the course of a day, and in that day you have various individuals and entities looking to use and exploit him. It’s an absurd, dark comedy. I’d like to call it a satire, but I don’t know if the film is sophisticated enough for that title. In actuality, I was going for Kafka meets American Graffiti.
Back when you were a little kid, and you were asked that inevitable question, your answer would always be “When I grow up I want to be…” a what?
ROBERT: For a while there in junior high, I was obsessed with basketball and wished to be a player. It didn’t take long to realize that that wasn’t going to happen, so I thought I’d like to be a sports commentator. The whole basketball thing waned once I hit high school, though, as my film geek nature became full-fledged. Early high school was when I knew I wanted to make films.
Not including your backyard and your Dad’s Handycam, how did you get your real start in filmmaking?
ROBERT: I started writing screenplays when I was in high school, but I was never really the kid with the video camera shooting backyard stuff. I didn’t really shoot anything until I went to film school, where I made a handful of shorts. For me, it was and still is more about writing than shooting or cutting, although I enjoy the latter processes tremendously.
How did you get your film started? How did you go from script to finished product?
ROBERT: Damn Yankee Day actually started out as a short film script I had written in high school. Over the years I kept adding to it and expanding it and re-writing it until it was a feature length. It was always the one I wanted to make first, and I had always seen it as being a really shoestring, low budget no-name affair. After I graduated from film school, I spent the next year working a crappy 9-5 job, completely unrelated to film, while still taking the occasional class here and there. At that point I sort of went over the edge and realized there was no reason why I couldn’t just go out and make Damn Yankee Day. So having saved up enough money, I quit that job and started putting things together. I couldn’t get anyone interested in producing the project with me, mainly because I wanted to shoot on 35mm black and white. This seemed to generate a lot of heavy sighs, eye rolling and skepticism. A lot of people said it just wasn’t possible to do with the amount of money I had, but nobody really broke it down by numbers and showed me WHY it couldn’t. I looked at the price of film stock, processing, telecine/transfer, and it just wasn’t as daunting as people were making it out to be. A huge factor in all this was the deal we got on our camera package, the availability of that really sealed the deal. Due to the lack of producers, I had to handle everything from casting to locations, equipment, crew, scheduling, props, storyboards, etc. I was able to get a lot of great people together that I’d developed relationships with in film school, people whose projects I had helped out on. The cast and crew all worked for free and under very limited conditions. The only way I thought it could be done was to do it fast, fast, fast. We ended up shooting for 10 days straight in 2004, and then another 4 days in 2005. The whole thing ended up costing around $16,000.
When you were in pre-production, did you find yourself watching other great movies in preparation?
ROBERT: There wasn’t anything that I watched specifically in preparation for Damn Yankee Day, but I’m always watching films and during that time I remember being really inspired by two older directors—Jules Dassin and Jean-Pierre Melville. I had recently watched Le Circle Rouge and Un Flic, and reading up on Melville I discovered that he’d shot his first film in a very low budget fashion, adapting from a novel without even getting permission. If nothing else, I think I was inspired by what seemed to be his urgency and/or audacity to get it done. As for Dassin, I think I had watched Rififi (I was really into French heist films at that time) and also Brute Force and was really blown away by how, at the height of his career, he was blacklisted but that he still managed to adapt his sensibilities overseas and continue to make exceptional films. I love both directors and was not only inspired by their films, but by what they went through behind the scenes to get them done.
Name the three directors working today that you most admire.
ROBERT: David Lynch is at the top of my list, he’s pretty much my all-time favorite. He’s got a new one, Inland Empire, coming out sometime soon that I’m definitely looking forward to. There are a lot of great directors working right now, but two younger emerging ones that I really like are Chan-Wook Park and David Gordon Green. I thought Park’s “Revenge Trilogy” was superb, and I’ll be curious to see where he goes next. And David Gordon Green is living the dream as far as I’m concerned. He’s young, and he’s making films on his own terms cheaply. I’d love to be able to do that.
Of all the Muppets, which one do you most relate to?
ROBERT: I couldn’t say, I can’t remember the Muppets well enough to relate to any one of them.
How have things changed for you since your film started playing on the festival circuit? If this is your first acceptance into a film festival, describe what that's like and your thoughts about CineVegas. What are you looking forward to most during your CineVegas experience?
ROBERT: This is only the second festival Damn Yankee Day has screened at. At this point, I’m honored if it gets accepted into any festivals at all. As far as CineVegas, I hope to meet other filmmakers and industry people and see what kind of audience turns out for the screening. It’d be nice if someone thought enough of the film to, you know, buy it and distribute it. I’m not exactly Mr. Businessman, so I’m not counting on that to happen, but I can dream….
During production did you ever find yourself thinking ahead to film festivals, paying customers, good & bad reviews, etc?
ROBERT: Not really. During production the only thing on my mind was getting it done, because there wasn’t even a guarantee that it would, much less screen anywhere.
Have you been turned down by other festivals? If so, which ones and what do you think could be improved with festivals in general.
ROBERT: I’ve been turned down by a lot of festivals, I don’t even know where to start. I guess the thing that can be the most tricky about submitting is that it’s hard to tell which festivals are more into screening lesser-known indie films like Damn Yankee Day, and which ones only court big-time, big-budget films with A-list stars, trying to be the next Sundance. And you just don’t know if you need to know somebody, or if your film just plain sucks too much to play in their festival. I’ve been rejected by both, but I need to learn to tell the difference, as I would prefer to submit more to the former where my chances are better.
Have you seen any independent films recently on the festival circuit, in theaters or on video that influenced you? Or anything that you would just like to give a shout-out to that audiences should be seeing (or given a chance to see?)
ROBERT: Well, as I mentioned, CineVegas will only be my second festival. The first one I went to, I didn’t get much of a chance to see anything. I’m also living in Montana right now, where newly released indie films are scarce. Currently I’ve been on a Film Noir tear, so I’ve been dying to see Brick. I don’t think it’s gonna make it’s way up here any time soon, unfortunately. I just watched an awesome old noir/thriller called The Narrow Margin with Charles McGraw. It’s on DVD and is definitely worth seeking out.
If you could share one massive lesson that you learned while making this movie, what would it be?
ROBERT: I don’t consider myself to be that much more of an authority on filmmaking than any other aspiring writer/director, but for this film, I was able to make the movie that I wanted to make. I was able to do it on my own terms, without having to answer to anyone but myself (which may have been, in its own way, just as frightening as answering to a studio). It’s probably not as unrealistic as you think to make the movie YOU want to make, and refuse to listen to people that tell you otherwise.
If a studio said “we love this, we love you, you can remake anything in our back catalogue for $40m“ what film, if any, would you want to remake?
ROBERT: Being that I hate remakes, I would have to politely decline, glad hand and exit, but not without asking for $10 million, $5 million, or even $1 million dollars to make something original. Hopefully this wouldn’t brand me as “difficult.”
Two parter - name an actor you'd KILL to work with, and then name an actor in your own film that you really think is destined for great things.
ROBERT: There are too many. Benicio Del Toro’s a big one. Robert Duvall, although I would be really intimidated. I wouldn’t feel worthy enough to work with him. Jeff Bridges is my all-time fav, another one that would make me go all blubbery.
I’m really happy with all of the performances in Damn Yankee Day, but if I had to single out one individual, I would have to go with the main actor, Doug Ecks. He’s really talented and he did such a good job, I kind of took what he did for granted when we were shooting. He’s very much into long form improvisational comedy, having gone through the different class levels of the Second City branch in Las Vegas. I think big things are in his future and I was lucky to have him in my film.
At what point will you be able to say, "Yes! I've made it!"
ROBERT: I guess when a script of mine sells and that I can also direct. A legitimate production, where people are actually getting paid.
Honestly, how important are film critics nowadays?
I think critics are important, but not all-knowing. It’s good to have established personalities with established film tastes and know-how putting their opinions out there, something for people to gauge their own opinions off of. But I think critics have a tendency to collectively gang up on certain films or personalities and either attack or praise them unjustly. It would’ve been nice to hear someone genuinely pipe up and say “You know what, I LIKED The Postman. It wasn’t bad.” That’s the example that always comes to my mind, because I didn’t think it was bad. It came out on the same day as Titanic, which won Best Picture that year. I saw The Postman instead that day and I don’t regret the decision.
If a studio bought your film and then decided not to show it to critics, what would your reaction be?
ROBERT: I would want to know why. Hopefully they’d have a good reason and explain it to me. Then console me.
You’re contractually obligated to deliver an R-rated film to your producers. The MPAA says you have to delete a sex scene that’s absolutely integral to the film or you’re getting an NC-17. How do you handle it?
ROBERT: I think that question is a little too hypothetical. I don’t see myself making films with sex scenes, at least not to the NC-17 extreme.
What’s your take on the whole “a film by DIRECTOR” issue? Do you feel it’s tacky, because hundreds (or at least dozens) of people collaborate to make a film - or do you think it’s cool, because ultimately the director is the final word on pretty much everything?
ROBERT: I’ve heard a lot of debate about this, and to me it’s hardly worth getting impassioned about, it’s just a credit. I think the average moviegoer understands that filmmaking is a collaborative process, and that the “a film by” person didn’t do everything himself. I do think that in the end it is the director’s film, whether his or her fingerprints are on every frame or if they just sat back and let everyone do their job.
In closing, we ask you to convince the average movie-watcher to choose your film instead of the trillion other options they have. How do you do it?
ROBERT: That’s tough. I like films that can be viewed as entertainment on one level, with the ability to lend a bit of depth, subtext or some socially redeeming value (without being pretentious) on another level. I also like crazy stories, those in which you truly don’t know what’s going to happen next. I attempted to infuse Damn Yankee Day with these two qualities. Going into a high percentage of those trillion other film options, more often than not you know exactly where it’s going, what’s going to happen next. I think there are audiences out there with sensibilities similar to mine, sensibilities that aren’t being represented in most films. It would be great if audiences came away with any of that “socially redeeming value” or “American introspection” that I’ve tried to put in there and may very well have failed at, but above all I would hope they dig the story and deem it less-predictable than the norm.
Damn Yankee Day, directed by Robert Shupe, will premiere at the 2006 CineVegas Film Festival on Thursday, June 15 at 4:00 PM. Click HERE for film & festival information.
link directly to this feature at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=1841
originally posted: 06/02/06 14:06:08
last updated: 06/11/06 21:12:46
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