5 Questions with M.Fig
The story of two NYC skate kids and the magical slingshot they discover is “{Sling},” a playfully expanded skate video by director M.Fig. We asked Fig for some skate video/movie recommendations, and about how his project came together, and achieving the special effects…
1) What is your favorite skateboard movie(s)?
Since I started skating close to 20 years ago, skateboard movies and skate videos had mostly been in separate categories. Recently, there’s been more overlap between the two ‘genres’. There’s always this quest for authenticity…some attempt to do justice to skateboarding, in skateboard movies. If you look at recent 2018 movies involving skateboarding, you’ll notice they all have montages of the cast actually skating within their structure. On one hand that’s pretty unique and valuable, but on the other hand, the inclusion will likely never live up to the expectations of a ‘core’ skater. That said, I don’t personally care if a dramatized version of skateboarding exists in a movie - the more skateboarding is used as a vehicle for adventure, decent storytelling or social change, the better. I’m all for it. Anyway, back to your original question. A few of my skateboard movie favorites are "Machotaildrop” by Corey Adams and Alex Craig, a feast of weirdo skateboard adventure, “SOLOS” by Colin Read, a fascinating conceptual skateboard short and “Minding the Gap” by Bing Lu, a beautiful documentary with skateboarding as a means for exploring trauma in young people.
2) How did this project get started?
{SLING} came out of a selfish desire to combine two of the things I love - skateboarding and filmmaking. I’m one of many filmmakers, producers, cinematographers, gaffers, ACs, art dept. people who came to filmmaking by way of the skateboard. It’s not a very unique trajectory, but it’s a fun one. Every year my partner in life / producer Jess Lee and I set out to make one project together, to exercise some creative urges we don’t get to explore within our day to day. The story came out of the notion (one that has been ingrained within skateboarding) that everything that’s not a skateboard is unacceptably lame, and what if there was some magical ‘device’ that could turn those foes into skateboarders? I like to think of {SLING} as a fable told through skateboarding about how stigmatizing people for what they like to do is ultimately what’s unacceptably lame.
3) How did you find your cast? And what was your process working with them?
We got super lucky. We had a very short casting window, within a few days before shooting, but managed to put together a wonderful cast of non-actor skateboarders through our network of friends and friends of friends. Our two leads, Yasmeen Wilkerson and Daniel Sweeney, brought their own ideas to the story and pumped a ton of positive energy into the project. While I don’t think full improv is always the best cure for weak dialogue, it certainly helped us get through some of the cringey stuff I’d written in the script. We shot for a few days and after we had all the film back, we discovered an entire 400ft mag of film had been loaded backwards. That was a slight bummer, but luckily we lost the least important roll. It forced us to be more creative - we even incorporated the red-scale (what you see in the intro) that was shot through the non-emulsion side of the film. In the end, we only needed to grab a couple of additional pickup shots and wild lines to help clarify elements of the story.
4) Any quick tips on how you accomplished the special effects?
The effects were just another phase of experimenting - we didn’t know what the ‘color poofs’ were going to look like when we were shooting and none of us had much experience with compositing or rotoscoping in after effects. Initially, I wanted to accomplish the effects practically so I went to a magic shop and asked if they had any ‘magic vanishing smoke poofs’ to which the shop owner curtly replied, “do you know how many people come in asking for that everyday? It’s just not something that exists.” I’m a VFX novice so I don’t have too much advice but the one thing that definitely helped was shooting the effects plates a little wider and with higher resolution in order to reframe and do cameras moves in post.
5) What’s next for you?
My day to day is working as a cinematographer but this project has really inspired me to experiment more with directing. It’s a fascinating way of communicating that I’m excited to lean into, and a skill I find valuable within every department on a film. Jess and I are in very early stages of a new short form documentary project, but aside from that, we’re just excited to be releasing {SLING}. I’ll probably go skateboarding.
Contact Info:
http://www.mattfigler.com/
mattfigler@gmail.com