5 Questions with Henry MacLean
1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?
I grew up in Massachusetts, went to film school at Emerson College and graduated in 2017. I moved to LA the same year. I had a history teacher in 8th grade who would screen movies for us and that definitely fostered my love for filmmaking in a big way. Also I used iMovie on my dads 2006 MacBook Pro every chance I could get.
2) What’s the backstory here - what was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?
I got the chance to make some music with my brilliant friend Devon Corey. We made the four songs in Henryland in five days and the first visual idea I got came during the creation of the first song...I remember telling him about having a tiny Henry pop out of me.
The rest of the songs after that first idea were sort of created with the filming in mind, and exploring different characters and POVs. And that led to the creation of Repressed Henry, Happy Henry and Angry Henry, as I call them. A lot of making this came from trusting my initial impulses and just diving into ideas once the songs were done.
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?
As soon as I sat down with the DP (Matt Planer) And Producer (Liza Wagner) we realized how logistically difficult it was going to be to schedule everything due to my changing appearance. We filmed this in three days, and of course filmed all my long hair stuff first. Then I quickly cut my hair and shaved to film the other half of the living room conversation late that first night. And obviously the shotgun stuff was difficult because we were stitching together the very first shots we filmed with the very last ones. I was so lucky to have an amazing crew and co-director (Jordan Gustafson) to make it happen.
4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?
Vox Lux was one of my favorite movies of last year. It has some brutal commentary on the nature of celebrity and violence and the scary spectacle media has become. And I love Natalie Portman and Jude Law!!
5) What’s next for you?
Two more music videos for my other music project Maryanne Bold will be coming soon! And a larger project similar to this is in its opening stages...
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http://vimeo.com/prettyhouse
IG: @hnryvs