45. Brian Padian

Brian in LA

At the American Film Institute, and I worked in and around the movie industry afterwards. We just, at the same time we were both a little over it. Just every day quality of life, and money, and we had some connection to Portland, and Margaret’s family is from here; my wife. We decided to say let’s do it and we just moved up, almost on a whim.

They should call it Whim City; I did the same … I did that … I moved here on a whim too.

You did huh?

Yeah. I don’t know, what the heck. I wanted to have you here to talk a little bit about a movie that you’re making.

Yes.

Now this movie you’ve been making since 2004?

Well, yeah.

Why don’t you tell me about that?

All right. The back story is, in Los Angeles I went to film school for screenwriting. I was pursuing a screenwriting career. When we moved up here I realized I didn’t want to just write scripts, I wanted to direct them also. We came up here in February 2004, and I went out one weekend with a couple friends to a beach house on the Oregon coast and I had this idea that what if I could shoot a movie there.I wanted just a really simple plot to make my first feature; to direct my first feature. I wrote the script based around that and it just changed over the years, and took a long time to finally pull together and make a film out of. Now we’re in the end stages of it.

You’ve been working on this movie for a decade?

True, yes.

Wow. It’s like a Guns and Roses album.

Well, you should qualify or I should qualify that it’s not active working all the time for a decade.

Sure.

There was a period, a year or two where it was just on the back burner and other things took over, but it was always kind of there, so it came back to the front.

Do you mind talking about some of the stuff that put that on the back burner?

No, no, of course, of course.

Okay. In 2005 you were diagnosed with a brain tumor?

Well that’s right. That’s in fact, one of the primary things that moved it off the back burner. I’m in the middle of writing the script and more or less in the middle of it I get diagnosed. I was having terrible headaches and blurred vision in one eye, and I was diagnosed with a very rare kind of brain tumor. This is in 2005, early 2005. I had two brain surgeries to resect most of it, and then proton beam radiation at Mass General in Boston.Then after that whole experience was processed and out of my system, maybe in about late 2006 or 2007, I returned to the movie.

Okay. Did you … Was that hard to come back to the movie after that? Was it emotional for you?

Was what emotional, the whole thing or coming back to the movie?

Well obviously the incident you described is emotional, but it seems like this movie had been … You’d already been sort of in the middle of the active creation. To come back to that, was that …

Right, right. I think I see where you’re going, yes. Because I was in the middle of writing it, I think it was still kind of unformed. My experience, the feel of it, bleed into the movie. It took on a different tone and shape then my original intent.

Okay.

The original intent was that it would just be a by the numbers, plot driven. This story’s about these five friends who go to a beach house on the Oregon coast; one of them disappears. That plot is still intact, but it has a different feel, a different emotion to it, and that’s certainly influenced by my experience.

The Super 16 camera and some behind the scenes.

Yeah. Have you been editing on a digital transfer or …

Yes, we had the film transferred at a place in Seattle called Light Press.

Okay.

Then that went onto a hard drive and that went to my editor in Los Angeles, and we’ve been editing it on an avid system.

Now how do you work with an editor in LA?

Well that’s a good question. It adds some snags in terms of just immediacy and availability, but this is … My editor is a friend of mine, Evonne, who I’ve known from undergraduate. She and I by coincidence or not, just ended up going to The American Film Institute. She was in editing and I was in screenwriting. We’re part of the same group of friends so we always kept in touch with each other, and I started directing …When I came up here I didn’t want anything to do with short films. I just wanted direct features and nothing else. Then so I directed a scene from this movie to apply for a grant, and everything went wrong right out of the gate. I realized I should probably direct some short films before I venture into this feature, so I had Evonne help me edit it.

She’s been editing all my short films the past few years. It was very logical for her to do the feature as well because we’ve developed shorthand over the years. Some people prefer to edit their own stuff. I like giving it off to someone else who wasn’t there for production …

I can totally relate to that.

… and is just looking at it with as unbiased eyes as possible.

Yeah. It’s just occurring to me that, that’s a lot like … I’ve thought about that before because I was more of a film fan than anyone who has had any education, but it struck me as doing that editing part, it’s a part of the process where it’s either you really want to do it yourself or you really want someone else to do it. It’s like with web development.At first I really liked to be the person that actually coded the website, put it together from the actual ideas, but I found lately when I haven’t been doing that, it’s actually been a completely different experience, and in a lot of ways it’s better because I mean frankly, having someone look at it with completely new eyes, they might throw out ideas that I hadn’t thought of or …

Absolutely.

… just putting pieces together. You can do that a million different ways.

Absolutely, and for something like editing too, if I’m evaluating a scene I might be looking at it from how poorly I directed it or something I should have done on set. Putting the next scene closer in or letting that shape the actual content of it.

Right.

I want it to be shaped by the narrative, not by …

Right, more objective. Is a more objective.

More objectively.

Yeah, whereas you’re maybe even subconsciously you might be trying to cover up things …

I’ve got baggage.

Yeah.

Yeah, right?

Yeah, exactly. Well, and those are probably … Listen, I was just recently reading a quote from … I wish I could remember who it was. I’ll put it in the show notes, but it may have been Orson Wells or someone like that who said that they couldn’t watch movies because they could always … Every time they watched a movie they could always see right where the slate was being yanked out, right at the beginning of a scene.All the time, they’d just notice one frame where the just edge of the slate was there and it drove them crazy. That’s how I imagine maybe you would view that differently.

No, I think there’s some truth to that. You have to put blinders on sometimes.

Yeah. So, movies are … I mean we’re just coming through awards season here as I’m sure you … Did you watch the …

Some of it. I have two small children you know?

Yeah exactly. It’s so much harder now.

Everything is so hard.

We used to play … What was it like … You used to have parties for these things.

Yeah, you came to one of them actually; two of them I think.

Yes. It’s like now we had the TV on and it was the pre-show, and then it was we’re going to have dinner, and never turned it on.

No.

I guess that’s what Twitter’s for.

I was going to say, I snuck off to the bathroom and checked the Twitter feed.

Yeah, exactly.

Saw who won supporting or something like that but yeah, it’s totally different.

That obviously sheds light on the fact that movies are big business and they’re very expensive. How did you … How could you afford to make a movie?

Well that’s an excellent point. This movie wouldn’t have been possible if I didn’t crowd source it. I did it through a foundation called USA Projects. I think they’ve changed their name since then; Flapsource or Crowdsnap or something zippier. Apologies to USA Projects, but the central concede of it versus Kickstarter or the other one Indiegogo was that all the artists got a bigger cut. Scratch that, they didn’t get a bigger cut, the donations were all tax deductible. Where if you gave me fifty bucks for Kickstarter it’s just you’re giving it to me, but if you gave it to me through USA Projects it was tax deductible.

I see.

Anyway, our goal was to raise thirty-two thousand dollars, and we did. After their take we got a check for twenty-six thousand dollars. We were able to shoot the movie on that. Although going into it probably assuming nine to ten thousand dollars of debt on credit cards to finish it up. Then we’re still managing it. It sounds like a lot of money, but to me personally. In terms of a film, it’s a feature film that’s very, very cheap. For a feature film actually shot on film it’s ridiculous.

Right.

I’m proud of that, that’s good, but it’s still a very difficult thing to raise the money. For the next one I would really like someone else to go do that part of it.

Tell me about how you developed these characters? When you were writing it all this time ago did you have the people in mind who would play the characters or have they sort of appeared since?

I guess I’d have to say I had the type, so because it was going to be a plot driven story it’s … The idea is that these three couples go out there, but right from the gate only one person from one of the couples shows up. Instead of six people it’s five. That’s a central question throughout it. You’re wondering why.That led to who these different people are. Since this was ten years ago I had basic ideas who was going to do it, and I had some people in mind. They were mostly friends, not actors. Then over time as the script became more refined I was more able to delineate what each person was going to be, and so we’d casting for it.

Okay. Do you have a place in mind to premiere this movie?

I got to check all that out. There’s still a couple variables because we’re … As of right now I’m flying to Texas this weekend to do the final sound mix. Then we have to do the titles, then we have to do color correction. Which we’ll probably do in Seattle, and then we’re hoping before April 30th to screen it. Some of the variables are, I don’t know exactly when the film will be done so it’s hard for me to set up a screening, but I have a few venues in town that I’m checking out.

Having both written and directed, do you have one that you enjoyed more on this project?

You mean do I prefer to write versus directing?

Mm-hmm.

Well not to be cute, but they’re totally different processes. There’s something great about the writing part because it’s just you, and in the quiet. I typically write early in the morning. Which is great, but there’s also the unknown. There’s a terror involved with that. What if I can’t summon this thing?With the film, I like the directing part, but a lot of it is just very physical and tactile, and moving. This needs to move there now, and things. Which don’t occur to you when you’re in the process of coming up with a feeling or emotion or these characters will say that. In some senses they’re really antithetical, but they’re serving the same vision for lack of a better word.

Brian directing on the left, and the same scene on the right.

At the same time there are still purists who speak with it sometimes similar to vinyl. You will always have enthusiasts. You will always have revival cinemas. You will always have prints somewhere.