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| SXSW '08 Interview: "Bootleg Wisconsin" Director Brandon Linden |
by Erik Childress
The “Bootleg Wisconsin" Pitch: Katherine, a married Chicago Public School Teacher, spends part of her summer vacation visiting different outlet malls across the midwest. At her penultimate stop, in Pleasant Prairie Wisconsin she meets and starts a relationship with a boy, Billy, who works in one of the mall shops that is about to go out of business. Billy is a born again christian who still lives with his mother, who works at the local power plant, his brother, who is a police officer, and the brother's fiancee, who also works at the power plant. He also still has a relationship with his ex-girlfriend, Heather, who he also works with. The film contrasts this extended social network with Katherine's growing sense of isolation and Billy's feeling's of displacement within his family and community.As their time together draws to a close Billy takes Katherine for a walk in the woods where their relationship reaches a crisis point neither imagained. They must decide wether to go forward to the next stage of their lives or resist it.
How did this film get rolling at the beginning? Give us a brief history from writing to production to post to just last night.
BRANDON: I went with my wife to an outlet mall on the Wisconsin/Illinois border and very quickly became extremely bored. I noticed that there was a large brand new hotel next to the mall and couldn't understand who would be staying there. I went in and struck up a conversation with some of the staff, who told me how people would stay at the hotel just to shop at the mall. I was intrigued and started a script about it.
After writing a detailed 35 page script/outline, I tried to cast from a wide net of people, some having years of experience, some having none. We rehearsed for two weeks prior to filming and shot over a series of weekends, coming back months later to shoot the scenes for the epilogue.
I edited the film myself and then relied on Experimental Sound Studios in Chicago to polish the audio.
In the middle of all of this my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer and I put the film aside to concentrate on helping her through her care. I sent the film to SXSW as almost a dare to myself, never imagining they would select it.
We had just gotten back from her second to last treatment and were feeling depressed and tired when the phone rang and the caller ID said "SXSW". My assumption was that there was something wrong with the screener I sent them or they were angry at me for wasting their time! Everything since that has been a continuation of that moment when I picked up the phone.
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?
BRANDON: A filmmaker. In first grade I was obsessed with W.C. Fields, it went from there.
How did you get your real “start” in filmmaking?
BRANDON: This is, in many ways, my real start. I have taught film history classes at Facets Multimedia in Chicago for ten years now though (I am currently teaching "Arrows of Desire: The WWII films of Michael Powell")
As they say you should be out on the West Coast to make your break in films, can you give us a little taste of what its like growing up in the Midwest and what you used as local influences (if any?)
BRANDON: Place is an integral way to how I see the world. If you make the same script in Nashville it will be different then if you film in Chicago, for instance. What the Midwest offers is a rich sense of place. The air is different, the light is different. When I saw the mall in Pleasant Prairie, I knew I had to film there.
When we watch films now, there are points where we cannot believe our eyes, because there is nothing there, it is all on a computer. There is no weight to the image. I wanted to make a film about looking at a specific place and giving it it's due.
Is this your first trip to SXSW? Got any other film festival experience? If you’re a festival veteran, let us know your favorite and least-favorite parts of the ride.
BRANDON: First trip to any film fest. No expectations, but a lot of butterflies.
Do you feel any differently about your film now that you know it’s on “the festival circuit?”
BRANDON: When you are stuck editing your film over a long period of time, you no longer know if it is good or bad, or anything. After editing for so long, and the year we had with my wife going through chemo, to find out that someone watched it, and liked it was tremendously gratifying.
During production did you ever find yourself thinking ahead to film festivals, paying customers, good & bad reviews, etc?
BRANDON: No. I was too concerned with getting the shot and "making the day", if I also had to think about an audience I would have crawled in the trunk of my car and shut the lid.
What I told the actors was that I was the audience and I wanted to be surprised, and I was. We would have to stop takes because I found myself getting too involved in what they were doing.
Of all the Muppets, which one do you most relate to?
BRANDON: We just rented the first season actually. When I was a kid I loved the raging id that was Animal and how it was balanced by the corrosive superego of Waldorf and Statler (the two old guys). Now I just think that Janice (from the band) is a kind of hot hippy chick.
If you could share one massive lesson that you learned while making this movie, what would it be?
BRANDON: Movie lesson: Sound is very, very important. Life Lesson: Watching people is very, very interesting
What films and filmmakers have acted as your inspirations, be they a lifelong love or a very specific scene composition?
BRANDON: I see all film as a type of science fiction because it makes me look at the world around me with new eyes. I like filmmakers who do this. Whether it is the hushed studio poetics of Jacques Tourneur or the neo-realism of Billy Woodbury, they offer almost instruction manuals for different ways of looking at the world.
Oh, and three moments out of time: The two children housekeeping for their fighting parents in Billy Woodbury's Bless Their Little Hearts, Ben Stiller tells his father in The Royal Tanenbaums, "I've had kind of a bad year", and, finally, an LSD crazed Alice literally walking into the fridge in A Very Brady Sequel.
Did you watch any movies in pre-production and yell “This! I want something JUST like this …only different.”?
BRANDON: I have never seen a film being made, outside of my own.
What actor would you cast as your favorite cartoon character?
BRANDON: Steve Buscemi as Screwy Squirrel or Winona Ryder as Vincent Gallo. Same effect, really.
Say you landed a big studio contract tomorrow, and they offered you a semi-huge budget to remake, adapt, or sequelize something. What projects would you tackle?
BRANDON: Satantango: The Musical! I actually have fantasized about a remake of Hitchcock's Strangers on a Train with Bill Murray as Bruno.
Name an actor in your film that's absolutely destined for the big-time. And why, of course.
BRANDON: Lepolion Henderson, who is the lead in my film, is an extremely talented young man, He also has that something that makes you want to watch and empathize with him.
Finish this sentence: If I weren’t a filmmaker, I’d almost definitely be...
BRANDON: An educator. I have owned daycares in the Chicago area before I made this film and one of my dreams is to participate in filmmaking boot camps for disadvantaged youths as a way for them to relate to there world and reflect it to people who otherwise would never see it.
Who’s an actor you’d kill to work with?
BRANDON: George Sanders. Anyone who claimed in a suicide note that they killed themselves out of boredom is someone I want to meet. But seeing how he is already dead, perhaps John Goodman (who is terrifically underrated), Elaine Stritch (I like brassy old broads), or the phenomenal Chicago actor Michael Shannon.
Have you “made it” yet? If not, what would have to happen for you to be able to say “Yes, wow. I have totally made it!”
BRANDON: Able to support myself through doing what I want to do, or making niche porn, whichever comes first.
Honestly, how important are film critics nowadays?
BRANDON: Extremely. There are more choices, more channels, more venues. More noise. To have someone who you respect and trust say "this is good" and tell you why is invaluable.
What would mean more to you? A full-on rave from an anonymous junketeer or an average, but critically constructive review from a respected print or online journalist?
BRANDON: Without a doubt, the latter. One of my dreams was to have a film I made reviewed by Jonathan Rosenabum of the Chicago Reader. Even if he hated it.
You’re told that your next movie must have one “product placement” on board, but you can pick the product. What would it be?
BRANDON: Aeropress CoffeeMaker, no question.
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?
BRANDON: The way the MPAA is run now, I would just substitute the sex scene with a scene of the woman being tortured and beheaded, instant "R".
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?
BRANDON: My film ends with the "A film by" credit and then lists everyone who participated. The way I work is, each member of the cast and crew get a gross percentage of the profits, if there are any. So, it truly is a film by all of us.
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?
BRANDON: A quiet film about people who live and work on the Illinois/Wisconsin border, who could resist that?
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Brandon Linden's Bootleg Wisconsin will have its world premiere at the 2008 South By Southwest Film Festival on Saturday, March 8 at the Dobie Theater in Austin at 4:30 PM. It will screen again at the Dobie on Tuesday, March 11 (4:30 PM) and Thursday, March 13 (1:30 PM).
link directly to this feature at http://hollywoodbitchslap.com/feature.php?feature=2401
originally posted: 02/21/08 13:12:47
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