5 Questions with Clay Tatum
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I grew up skateboarding and I was always the one filming. I skated with Whitmer Thomas and we were both obsessed with making skate videos. When we were 16, we both had injuries that took us out of skating for half a year or more but we still wanted to film, so we started making a bunch of dumb sketches. I didn't really wanna be a director until I saw the documentary American Movie. That movie is so damn funny but also incredibly sincere. It was the sincerity in that movie that made me realize how crucial the role the director plays in sculpting the tone of a film. I still think it's one of the funniest films ever made.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
I've always wanted to make a short about me finding a stranger jacking off in my house and then finding out that stranger is dating a close friend. I liked that idea but never felt the need to write it. I felt like it was almost there but something was missing from the story. It wasn't until me and Whit finished directing and editing The Golden One for me to get serious about making another short. His comedy special was half documentary and half stand up special. We had about 3 weeks to comb through and edit down hours of doc footage into an hour-long special and have it all make sense while also editing the actual live performance. It whooped our asses. Documentaries are incredibly difficult especially if you only have a small window of time to shape the story. Me and Whit kept cringing every time a camera was pointed at the floor during a crucial moment or an interview didn't go the way we wanted it to and were forced to chop it up in a way for it to make sense in the special. When we finished, I desperately wanted to make a narrative. Something I had more control over. I remember saying to myself, "I really got to get serious about this jacking off movie". So after The Golden One, I made it a point to figure this short out and it wasn't until I added the "haunted house" aspect of the short for me to finally feel the need to write and make it.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most and the least?
The biggest challenge came on the last day of filming. Anna let me film the dinner scene at her place and I remember telling her and everyone on set, "we should be done here by midnight". Once midnight came and we still had about 9 more pages to do, I started getting worried and felt incredibly guilty for making everyone participate in my little short film. We ended up shooting till 5 in the morning and not because of the setup time or the number of takes we were doing, it was just bad planning on my part. That guilty feeling I get while making something is always the worst part of the process for me. But, by far the best part of the process is always right when I finish writing the script. That's when I feel the most inspired.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Last night me and my fiance Whitney Weir (watch her short The Mirror to the Heart, it's here on NoBudge) watched the film A Taxing Woman by Juzo Itami. It's great. We've already seen and loved Tampopo and The Funeral and are both huge fans of Juzo's film. His films are so fun to watch and Nobuko Miyamoto is sooooo damn good in all of his movies. Also, Toshiyuki Honda's music in the movie is incredible.
5) What’s next for you?
For the past 3 years, me and Whit have been trying to get this one feature off the ground. Each year we get a little closer to finally getting to make this sucker. So hopefully that's next, who knows?
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