Your new movie The
God Inside My Ear - in a few words, what is it about?
After experiencing a peculiar and sudden breakup with her
boyfriend, Elizia discovers a world of conspiracies, strange voices and
horrifying visions. What
were your sources of inspiration when writing The
God Inside My Ear? And especially since the film's slightly
surreal in approach, is any of this based on personal experiences?
The main inspiration came from Carnival of Souls from the 60's. But
there's a lot of my favorite weird movies thrown in as reference - such
as: Eraserhead, Essex Spacebin, Repoman, Roger Corman's
The Trip [Roger
Corman bio - click here], Suspiria,
3 Women and a few others.
As far as personal experiences, I took a lot of things from my
experience with organized religion and my time as a youth pastor in a
charismatic evangelical church.
To
put the last question on its head, to what extent could you actually
identify with Elizia - or any of the other characters in The
God Inside My Ear? I can identify with her
confusion, her spiritual confusion. There's a lot of talk about God,
aliens, conspiracies, ayuwaska trips, etc... I can relate to trying to
find yourself, trying to figure out the meaning of life, of spirituality,
etc... With the world of The
God Inside My Ear at times following its own rules, and bending
genres almost to breaking point, how hard was it to not just lose the plot
when thinking it up? Oh, after writing the script, I was
definitely worried that none of it would make sense at all. That was my
biggest fear, even after filming it and while editing. It really wasn't
until it was totally edited and I sat down with the cast and crew
screening when I saw that it actually did make sense in its own weird
way. I was very happy that it walked the fine line between story and
chaos.
What can you tell us about your
directorial approach to your story at hand? I had a pretty
clear vision as to what I wanted and I just tried to make that vision
known to the cast and crew as clearly as possible. I showed my main
actress Linnea Gregg a few movies that were influences for this film. I
gave my cinematographer Daniel Waghorne a bunch of movies to watch and
movie stills to look through for reference. I also storyboarded the entire
film myself in order to have a clear guide for everyone to follow. Do talk
about your key cast, and why exactly these people? I
basically gave a casting call on Facebook to all my Facebook friends and I
asked around to my artist friends for actor recommendations. After that I
did a bunch of test readings with a bunch of people until we found people
who fit the bill. For the Elizia role, that had to be perfect and we had a
bunch of actresses read for the part until Linnea finally nailed it. She
was made for that role. A few
words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? It
was fast! We shot it in 13 and a half days and we blew through scenes as
fast as we could because we were on such a tight schedule and such a tight
budget. I spent $8,000 to make it (which is basically a tiny piece of a
shoe string in movie Dollars). But everyone was very happy, it was most of
the cast and crew's first feature, so we were all excited and we all got
along really well! The
$64-question of course, where can your movie be seen?
Right now, we're submitting to festivals so I'm just waiting to hear
back from a bunch of fests at the moment.
We have one screening lined up so far. Dispatches from the
Underground (the Boston Underground Film Fest's monthly screening
series) will be playing our movie The
God Inside My Ear on Wednesday
August 15th at The Somerville Theatre in Somerville, Massachusetts at
7:30pm.
We'll be posting screenings as they come about on our website:
thegodinsidemyear.com
Anything
you can tell us about audience and critical reception of The
God Inside My Ear yet? The cast and crew screening
was amazing, people are really impressed at what we did with $8,000. Some
industry peers have watched it as well and they're pretty blown away. I
can't wait to get this on the festival circuit. Any future projects you'd
like to share? I'm writing the script for the next feature
as we speak. It's a sci-fi, art house, musical, thriller, horror entitled
Sister Tempest. What got you into filmmaking in the first
place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject? No
formal training. Just always had a passion for films. I had been doing
freelance movie storyboard work for the past few years. What
can you tell us about your filmwork prior to The
God Inside My Ear?
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I had drawn storyboards for a
few films including Keanu (2016), Desiree (2015) and commercial storyboard
work for KFC and Volkswagen. How would you describe
yourself as a director? Surrealist arthouse director with
pop and comedic sensibilities, I guess? Haha! Filmmakers who inspire you? David
Lynch, Quintin Dupleux, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Anna Biller, Shane Carruth. Your
favourite movies?
True Stories, Belle Du Jour,
Under The Skin, Holy
Mountain, My Dinner With Andre, Evil Dead
2. ... and of course, films you really
deplore? Titanic, most new superhero movies. Your/your movie's website, Facebook, whatever
else?
thegodinsidemyear.com
facebook.com/thegodinsidemyear
Anything else you're dying to mention and I have
merely forgotten to ask? That's it! Thanks so much for
having me on! Thanks for the interview!
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