5 Questions with Dan Arnés ("Please Enjoy Your Stay")
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I started getting interested in film in high school and intended to go to film school before making a last minute beeline to the only music program I applied to, only to end up working back in video /film as an editor after college. After graduating I started doing music stuff, putting out records and touring occasionally while working in video as an assistant editor at Blue Man Group, occasionally doing my own little film things. My first shorts were made around then as promotional videos for records I put out; man on the street style shorts with 3 person crews that had literally nothing to do with the records they were promoting. After zig-zagging around different areas of video/ audio production, music and some performing I started to gravitate towards filmmaking more and more as a way I can utilize all the things I like to do in one medium. So it's been a pretty organic process of coming back around to it and getting more involved and comfortable in various different capacities.
2) What was the initial idea for this project and how did it evolve from there?
I wanted to do something that had to do with creative anxiety and was abstractly about making/ releasing a record. Initially it was a larger piece in scope, with the hotel being the spine of a bunch of other vignette segments elsewhere but we quickly realized that required way more resources then we had. From there it was focused down to just the hotel and narrowed in on my character and the narrative arc as things were gradually sculpted to what you see now.
3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?
Schedule as always. We shot really quickly out of necessity so the shoot was pretty athletic for all involved. And shooting in a single hotel suite presented challenges, not a lot of room for gear or crew which required some creative solutions.
Easiest and best part was working with the incredible cast and crew. Everyone was really on-board, fun to work with but super focused and truly added a lot. Lucky to have gotten a lot of my favorite people involved. Tynan and I worked really closely on it from the start for a while and I think both learned a lot from each other's way of working. We were both pretty in sync with what we wanted to do which was a great experience. It was really incredible to slowly see the film change from what I initially pictured to something better as all the cast and crew contributed their thing to it. A really satisfying collaboration with all involved.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Saw a lot of stuff I really liked this year but Soul really stuck with me. I'm such a sucker for mixing different tones and I was really impressed by their ability to tell such an existential story while still making this bubbly Disney product. I would have done anything for a smart, weird POC-centered animated film as a kid so it's cool to see that being made on this massive level. It really gutted me in that genetically engineered Pixar way. Also on a completely different tip rewatched You Were Never Really Here which I forgot how much I loved. Another varied tone favorite: viscerally intense and yet strangely funny at points. A great reminder to me of how pared down dialogue and exposition can be while allowing other aspects like sound, more experimental editing, score and most importantly quietly great performances to communicate a narrative. It felt somewhat out of time to me. Everything feels so expressionistic and fluid in a way that makes me wonder why more people don't take advantage of the medium in that way anymore. Lynne is one of my faves I can't wait for what she does next. Come to think of it, I hope our film is Soul meets You Were Never Really Here.
5) What’s next for you?
It was a long road with this thing for me so truthfully a nice hot second of nothing. I like being involved in other people's things, and learn a lot by doing so, so hopefully some more of that after being so thoroughly involved in this. I've begun work on writing a feature that's very different from Please Enjoy Your Stay that'll be more of a looooong term project. Been really enjoying writing a longform thing after the tightness of a short. Short term I've been cooking up another short film that's also pretty different from this thing I want to direct in the meantime that's been fun to write and I think will be really fun to make. But first, nothing.
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danarnes.com | IG: @dan_arnes