“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.”
Read More“I didn’t really even understand my stance until the very end. I have the kind of OCD where you obsess about being a bad person. I began this project to understand my obsessions about morality better. Through this film, that original idea translated into a metaphor about environmental destruction.”
Read More“The story is also so personal and really required me as a director to see myself as a character and be able to have an objective perspective. It was very cathartic in a lot of ways to be able to see yourself and your actions and without judgement be able to ask well ‘why was she really motivated to do this.’”
“One summer, back in high school, I spent the entire ten weeks riding my bike back and forth to the local library renting about five to ten movies at a time. I bought a journal and started writing reviews, cataloging writers, directors, actors, the year the film was released. When I went to college and found out they offered a degree in Cinema Studies, I instantly changed my major.”
Read More“the hardest part in making these is that i hate the computer and want nothing to do with it. my boyfriend was like "i have this program dragon frame that makes stop motion so easy!!" i tried it for 2 minutes and was like, I actually think i'd rather balance a swiffer wet jet in my dresser and tape my phone to it.”
Read More“I was 28 and had never smoked a full cigarette before. I'm extremely sensitive to all drugs and chemicals and basically anything you put in your body that isn't food. Like even an 8oz lunchbox sized can of Coke has too much caffeine for me and I feel like I'm gonna pass on. So I originally just wanted to document myself smoking a full cigarette on camera like a generic Youtube vlog.”
Read More“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.”
Read More“We recently watched Adaptation together. It really is such a truly brilliant and insane film that tackles the agony of being an artist in such a visceral, hilarious and relatable way. We don't necessarily want to make art about making art but we are interested in storytelling with a meta nod or frame that continues to peel back layers of identity.”
Read More“I had a dream where I watched Buffalo 66. I haven’t actually seen the film yet, but this is what I imagined Buffalo 66 to be like. But in my dream. There were other circumstances that contributed to this very audacious, vulnerable, and bold piece. We just wanted to make something, raw, real-- just a very punishing sort of piece, very true to life”.
Read More“After shooting a separate piece on virtue signaling I began researching BLM signs on Amazon and was blown away by the range and number of signs they offered. I immediately began writing off signs as ugly or too expensive before pausing and realizing the absurdity of what I was doing and how quickly and how far I’d strayed away from the actual purpose and messaging of these signs.”
Read More“An ongoing theme of my work around is the human pursuit of an unnecessary and unrealistic view of perfection and the pressure we place upon ourselves to achieve this. When Samantha approached me with the idea of Birthday Smash, I knew instantly that the concept was something I would love directing as it aligns so well with these themes.”
Read More“I still wear the filmmaker label warily. It’s a new hat! But I’m attached to it. More so than in the acting work I’ve done, I’m starting to see myself and my worldview reflected back to me through my film projects. Having that kind of agency in my pursuits is thrilling and comforting. I think it’s made me a better actor, too.”
Read More“I’m a lucid dreamer. There are some periods of time where I lucid dream every night. So that really interested me, playing with the viewer’s perception of reality. As we got into production, I started to realize that these moments were not really a dream, but more of a highly romanticized perspective of a naive girl.”
Read More“I was looking for inspiration and David Hockney's Alphabet came to mind—I used [the] book as a jumping off point and figured I'd do a different shot for each letter using what was around me. I wanted it to feel like a calling card or self-portrait, so I tried to pick ideas and objects that might coalesce into something that felt personal.”
Read More“The idea for the line about “keep doing that and you’ll get your dinner” had been in my head for a while – I was excited about the line, and then it seemed to naturally progress to this conversation roles about gender and sexual identity and internalized misogyny that all relate to this lack of dinner.”
Read More“The biggest challenge was creating the visual tones between the four worlds. We wanted to make each section feel different, while simultaneously having them flow into each other. Scott Siracusano, the cinematographer, put a lot of work into finding the right look for each reality. It was important that the aesthetics weren't too dynamic, but instead subtle.”
Read More“It was December and I was sitting in my apartment feeling sorry for myself and blaming Covid for being unable to create. I had this idea floating around in my head about “faking it” and wanted to explore that concept, through a character stuck in the loop. Realizing I had only a couple of weeks before the end of the year, I decided to throw out my self inflicted rules and write the film that night.”
Read More“A few years ago I got scammed trying to buy some stuff online, which was more of a blow to my ego than anything because it made me feel like a doofus and a sucker. I realized that I was operating at a semi-manic level of anxiety that day and that for a scammer, that’s a pretty ideal state of mind for a potential mark.”
Read More“Everyone always thinks of it as the artist looking at the subject, but forgets that the subject is there looking right back at the artist. Using some personal experience as a framework of the film, I thought I’d write something to explore what could have happened next.”
Read More“Somehow this interest in home movie dynamics and my experience getting to know Elena morphed into a hybrid documentary, which followed Elena and her friends hanging out while leaning into the dynamics I was interested in from the home movie footage. I wanted to represent the ambivalent experience of straining to live up to the ideal of the teenage years and stance of ironic detachment one assumes in relationship to that hyperawareness.”
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