CMFH Interviews

It is hard to deny the power of short films, whether as a proving ground for emerging filmmakers or a chance for those who are established to experiment, and the format has become a respected art form receiving increased attention. Looking back at Palm Springs International ShortFest winners, the alumni list is impressive: Eduard Grau acts as cinematographer for the upcoming Julianne Moore film, A Single Man; Daniel Barber directs the thriller Harry Brown, starring Michael Caine; Adam Arkapaw is cinematographer for the upcoming Guy Pearce film, Animal Kingdom; and Andrea Arnold won BAFTA's and critical acclaim for her film, Red Road.

And then there is Cold Souls. The film highlights not one but three ShortFest winners: director Sophie Barthes won the 2006 Best Live Action Short under 15 Minutes Award for Happiness; producer Jeremy Kipp Walker won the 2005 Audience Favorite Live Action Short Award for Goodnight Bill; and in 2003, cinematographer and producer Andrij Parekh won both the Future Filmmaker Award for Dead Roosters and the Second Place Kodak Award for Best Student Cinematography for The Cutman. Cin-E-File reunites with the Cold Souls filmmakers to discover the road that lead from ShortFest to Paul Giamatti.

Why are short films important?

Andrij Parekh: "It is an amazing format and amazing training for a cinematographer. I made 50 short films at NYU, which provided a huge opportunity to try different things, work with different directors and screw up a lot of people's movies and figure out what I did wrong. It is a special format itself. I still shoot shorts with friends quite often, as I can get an idea and fully flesh it out in an hour and then shoot a little short in three days. A small idea in a short film works really well."

Sophie Barthes: "It's a way to learn the craft that you can't really learn from books or theories or classes. It's a very physical process that gets into your flesh -- a very emotional process. Ideally making three to four short films helps to really understand what it takes."

Jeremy Kipp Walker: "It gives you that firsthand experience on a smaller scale of what you hope to achieve. I'm a big fan of short film itself; it's like the minor leagues for future filmmakers. It's a slightly different art form, forcing you to be more efficient and precise in your storytelling."

How did you get into the filmmaking business?

Barthes: "I attended the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University in the media program. I began making documentaries and they let me organize my program as I wanted, adding writing and theory classes. I became interested in narrative shorts and made two with Andrij (Snowblink, Happiness). I then gave myself five to six years to write after which I could reconsider, as you're writing in the darkness and don't know if anyone's going to ever read it. You need to have a very modest, simple life in the beginning. I was lucky because I went to the Sundance Directors Lab, which provided crew and equipment for one month. You really get trained, and it helped a lot."

Parekh: "In undergrad, I took a few classes in film studies at Carleton College in Minnesota and made bad Super 8 movies while living in San Francisco. I then attended NYU grad school with a directing and cinematography focus.

"I worked on The Last Days of Disco with cinematographer John Thomas. It was important to be on a feature set and see how things work. (In comparison to short filmmaking) it's a matter of scale, not necessarily quality. As a camera intern, I made sure enough ice was in the cooler for the beer -- essentially a camera department slave. It's a way to pay your dues and learn how not to treat people later on. I realized that I had no desire to work my way up the camera department, so I tried to shortcut that with an apprenticeship.

"I met camera operator Bruce MacCallum who was going to work on The Yards with cinematographer Harris Savides. I sent Harris my reel -- which was probably terrible at the time -- and he called me while I was attending the FAMU film school in Prague, just minutes after I had watched The Game, which he had done.

"I worked as an apprentice for a month on The Yards with Harris. I made lighting diagrams, took films to the lab for printing references; it was an amazing experience. He would pick me up on the way to the shoot, and for 20 minutes in the car it was just me and him. That was huge in terms of my development, though I didn't realize how important that was at the time."

Walker: "I hadn't planned on pursuing the profession. I was active in theatre and a video making class in high school, and became an English and Theater major in college with plans for grad school in filmmaking. But I began working in the business instead of going to film school.

"As producers, (Journeyman Pictures partner Paul Mezey and I) are drawn to the story and work with writers and directors more. We like to support filmmakers with strong visions and don't shy away from first-time filmmakers. Sometimes it provides a really incredible opportunity to harness this energy that they've worked so hard and waited so long to make this at any way possible."

How was the transition between short films and feature-length films?

Parekh: "Cinematographers spend a lot less time than directors do on a film, spending four weeks before pre-production begins rather than years like a director. Going from two weeks to four weeks is not that big of a jump. For shorts, I do everything cheap and then apply that same working style to features: minimal and essential. There's no reason to spend money if you don't have to."

Walker: "In my short filmwork (Goodnight Bill, Super Powers), I direct and have a writing partner (John Mitchell). I am also a partner at Journeyman Pictures (Half Nelson, Maria Full of Grace). As a result, I am producing from a creative vantage point: keeping an eye on dollars spent but protecting the overall interests of the film and filmmaker. Next year I am hoping to shoot a feature film with John."

Barthes: "In my short film, Happiness, I wanted to make something immaterial be very material -- make the soul physical and be able to trade it. In the States, everything is made into a commodity, and this is how I see the consumption. Marketing is so prevalent, and everything is for sale. These are themes I like to explore.

"Cold Souls is in the same vein, with the same tone. I love the theatre of the absurd, making your mind play a little bit. You can take something which is very playful but underlying you can dig for meaning if you want to go deeper.

"I've only done a few shorts, so I was lucky to work with Andrij, who is more than my partner -- he's a real creative partner. Directors and cinematographers have one of the most important relationships on set, and we share the same vision. I couldn't have asked for more for my first film, shooting in two countries (America and Russia). I got a lot of help from Jeremy, who is used to making movies on small budget; I don't know how they do it.

"We were very surprised (about the Russian crew). They have all these clichés about bribes and corruption, but it was actually an old school company who was doing it for the love of film. It didn't feel very businesslike, and everything went very smoothly. We shot the whole movie in 36 days."

How did Cold Souls come together?

Walker: "Andrij and I have been working together for about five years (Half Nelson, Sugar), and he is hands-down my favorite cinematographer to work with. It is an unusual thing to find someone incredibly talented creatively who can also do the production work. Often with smaller budgets you don't have the resources, but Andrij is able to make it look amazing no matter what.

"Much of the crew went straight from Sugar to Cold Souls, with a lot of them from Half Nelson. We partnered with the Giamatti's Touchy Feely Films. It was a small film, with everyone working 24/7. It was one of those projects that was a lot of fun."

Barthes: "Cold Souls was inspired by a dream I had about Woody Allen going to heaven and discovering that his soul was the size of a chickpea. I then wrote the script for Paul Giamatti, whom I later met at the Nantucket Film Festival. He was giving an award to Alexander Payne, and I was getting one for the Cold Souls screenplay. I told Paul about the film, and he started laughing. Then I told him that screenplay was for him. I didn't want to make the movie if I couldn't get Paul.

"Once he was on board, a lot of actors were attracted to work with him. David Strathairn had worked with Paul on a Chekhov play. I was dreaming to have Emily Watson and feel a bit terrible because her role is small; I would have made it bigger if I knew (she'd be cast). I was lucky to get Paul and Emily; they were my first choices. I fell in love with Dina Korzun, the Russian actress in Forty Shades of Blue. I liked her because she transforms herself from one movie to another.

"Paul had some interesting input (into playing a character named after himself). He said that he doesn't have a persona like Woody Allen, and I was just inventing one based on his American Splendor and Sideways characters. He wanted me to make a character further from him. He comes across as very neurotic (in his acting), but he is not like this in real life.

"We think we know actors after watching them on screen for two hours. Directors love that he's very soulful and grumpy. But in real life, Paul's a very charming, extremely smart, well-read person. He's very poetic with a sharp sense of humor. He's a real actor, not like a movie star. He loves the craft and the theater. There aren't many actors who have such a complex range of emotion. I think he can do anything.

"This is a challenging role with all possible emotional states. He is really carrying the film on his shoulders, pushing himself to the extreme. This was interesting for me, as I was curious how he was going to play it off."

Parekh: "We met Paul Giamatti and his wife at the festival and told him the idea over champagne -- the dream scenario. Once Paul was attached, others came on easily and financing was easy after that. We made the movie we wanted to make without any compromises.

"I basically had two years to prepare the movie as Paul was not free, which was an amazing amount of time. Sophie and I went to museums, made visual treatments, did a lot of experimentation. There are a couple of sequences where people go into their souls, and I wanted to figure out a visual trick for that that wasn't too gimmicky. So I took off my eyeglasses and put them in front of the lens. I had recalled looking through a wine glass and realizing how glass affected the view."

What advice would you give to ShortFest filmmakers heading into the business?

Walker: "I feel like for all of us (the short film is) an absolutely important tool to have. With any first-time filmmaker, we always like to have that short to accompany a script. You are better off with a great five-minute short than a mediocre 20-minute short; less is more with short films. People get overly ambitious and fail in overall execution, and it is better to make the best possible film that you can."

Parekh: "The short film is the most important thing you can do in a filmmaking career. It is part of the baby steps to learning. Many fellow film school classmates gave themselves only two to three years. Be persistent, keep trying and don't give up."

Barthes: "Do it and do it. I think it's easy to get discouraged because it's a tough environment. The road is very bumpy while getting your film into a good festival and onto good distribution. My only advice is that to make films, you need to know the reason you're doing it. It is an industry with a lot of vanity and ego, and if you go into it for celebrity reasons it will be very painful. You have to do it because it satisfies something inside you as you grow as a person and artist, not just for recognition. Every step in making film can be so painful; the reward must be to enjoy making it."