5 Questions with Philip Rabalais ("Earth FM")

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

My background is actually in electronic music, with filmmaking coming much later. I think my interest in filmmaking got serious when my brother Dominic (also a musician) set out to make 40 music videos in a year. I helped him out on a number of them, and watching him make all those videos sparked something. He plays the scientist in the field in Earth FM, and has acted in almost everything I’ve made. 

Coming from electronic music has definitely informed how I think about filmmaking - both in terms of a preoccupation with sound design, as well as a general idea to try and create movies with more abstract narratives.

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

Earth FM was kind of written around the weird blue pool. I’d shot a scene for another project near that spot, and it stayed with me as a great, strange location. I also think Earth FM was an experiment in trying to more explicitly incorporate sound as a major narrative element of a movie. Sound had always been a focus of the movies I’d made, but with Earth FM I wanted to try to have sound fully be the driving force.

3) What was the biggest challenge in making this film? And the easiest part?

I think the biggest challenge was getting the “sound of the earth” right. The movie was actually shot and first edited in 2018, but I didn’t feel like it came together until almost a year later, when I revisited it and added in what is now the final song. My buddy (aka Limit Infrared) had recently released that song, and I was obsessed with it. His piece helped inform the rest of the sound design, and I was able to re-do things to get it to the level of catharsis that I was hoping for. 

The easiest part, or maybe just one of the most fun parts for me, was putting together the “tools” that the scientists use. I made a couple of them, and my partner Hilary Nelson made the big light box one. I love imaginary tools, and making them come to life with the sound in the movie was very satisfying.

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

I recently saw City of Pirates by Raul Ruiz, which I was really struck by. I loved the meandering, surreal structure, and it stoked my desire to someday make an abstract soap opera.

5) What’s next for you?

I recently finished my MFA thesis film, which was something of a follow up on the ideas in Earth FM. I’ve been making more music these days too. And I have plans to make a weird little movie about doing dishes.

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philiprabalais.com | IG: @philip.rabalais