1) Can you talk briefly about your background, and how you first got interested in filmmaking?

I grew up in suburban Indiana just outside of Chicago. My family loved movies. We'd go to the theater or rent a movie every weekend. My parents are from India and Bollywood was an integral part of our viewing list. So storytelling and film were a constant part of my life. In middle school, my friends and I started making short films for fun. Some were "horror", inspired by the Blair Witch Project (even though we had never seen it) and others were pulled from our daily lives growing up as a group of Indian kids in the suburbs. In high school, I realized that I could convince my teachers to accept films for projects instead of written reports or PowerPoints. So I started making short films for Spanish, History, and English classes. All the while, never thinking this was going to by something I could do for a career. I thought I was going to be an engineer. It wasn't until my older brother (who made many appearances in my shorts) went to NYU and got into the musical theater program, did I realize filmmaking was something I could pursue.

2) What was the initial idea and how did it evolve from there?

The initial idea was inspired by my time living in LA and not having a car. I had to take the bus everywhere and that was a journey in and of itself. I was inspired to create a short about an outsider trying to fit in and something do with buses. Bryn Silverman, who produced and edited the film, lived in Guatemala and told me to look into the "chicken" buses which are old American school buses that are converted into public transportation there and in many other Latin American countries. The buses are painted with murals and even baptized. So as I was writing initial scripts, I researched videos of some of the chicken buses which led me down a Youtube hole.  Many hours later I unearthed a video out of speedway in southern Indiana where they race school buses in an almost demolition derby style.  It was the perfect marriage of the theme story, and a world I wanted to build. I went to a race, went backstage to the pit spoke with the owner, the drivers, and realized behind the smoke and blaring engines was a magical place.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And generally what part of the creative process do you enjoy the most?

The edit was the biggest challenge. People tell you editing is another stage of writing. They're right. Bryn and I threw out the script and shaped the footage we had and realized something a little more abstract would actually get to the heart of what we were aiming for in the beginning.  And that's what I love most about the creative process. Finding those little moments of discovery throughout the life of a movie with great collaborators. In Pinball, we had so much of that with our cinematographer Daphne Wu, composer Will Epstein, production designer Chad Blevins, costumer designer Tora Eff and our entire Louisville based crew.

4) What’s a film you’ve seen recently, new or old, that you really loved and why?

Mother of George. It was such a simple story of a couple trying to get pregnant, but it slowly added layers with complex undertones. 

5) What’s next for you?

I'm currently in the middle of shooting a hybrid documentary in Louisville delving into similar themes of this short and set in what I call immigrant suburbia.

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http://naveenchaubal.com

@naveensaysyeah