2014 Sundance “Trading Cards” Series: #22. Sydney Freeland (Drunktown’s Finest)

Eric Lavallee: Name me three of your favorite “2013 discoveries”…
Sydney Freeland: Her (Film), The Newsroom (TV), The Legend of Korra (TV)

Lavallee: Could you discuss what kind of visual strategy you had in place what were you looking to achieve with your dp Peter Holland? Freeland: This is interesting. The original influence for the film was Amores Perros and we talked quite a bit about using this as reference for a visual style (handheld, kinetic). That was our basically our game plan going into production, but we found that film wanted to be much quieter and static than that. It’s a testament to Peter’s skill because he was able to recognize that and adapt accordingly.

Lavallee: We all know how Robert Redford is a support system of his own with the festival and institute but here he took an extra, unusual step in becoming an executive producer. Could you perhaps clue us into his motivations for supporting in the project.
Freeland: Well, I think a lot of if stems from his familiarity with the Navajo Reservation. Our first conversation about the script was great because he was so familiar with the locations and people on the rez. It was a little surreal because he is such a film icon but yet we were just talking about small reservation towns that nobody else would know about. He really seemed to take an interest in the story and its characters.

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