Sundance 2008 Interview: Stacy Peralta (Made in America)

[IONCINEMA.com is proud to feature the rookie and veteran filmmakers showcased and nurtured at the 2008 edition of the Sundance Film Festival. This is part of collection of emailer interviews conducted prior to the festival – we would like to thank the filmmakers for their time and the hardworking publicists for making this possible.]

Stacy Peralta

Your past three
documentary films appear to have one trait in common: survival of the fittest
in a sometimes unforgiving landscape….Can you discuss the genesis of Made in America ­ how did you go from Xtreme Sports to
extreme living – how did the initial idea come about?
The initial idea sprang from this question I asked myself:
if white American teenagers were forming gangs, arming themselves with
automatic weapons and killing each other on the street of America,
what do you think the response would be of our government? Would government
allow this to happen? And would our government allow it to continue to happen
decade after decade?

Where was Sam George
in this process and how did this become a story you wanted to tell?
I originally hired an African American journalist, Trey
Ellis, to co-write the film with me, but at the last minute he got an offer to
teach at a prestigious NY University. So then I decided I would write it alone.
Sam came into the edit bay one day, my editor T.J Mahar and I showed him a
sequence of the film we were working on and he literally fell out of his chair.
I then asked him if he was interested in working on the film. He said “yes”.

Can you elaborate on
what kind of work went into the pre-production process (how long you’ve been
working on this project prior to pre-production and what specifically you did
to prepare, and were there specific people involved in this process that are
worth signaling out?
It took over a year to obtain financing. We had a superbly
written treatment and a seven minute demonstration piece of the film cut and we
were still turned down by every major Hollywood studio
and Production Company we pitched too.

I read as many books as I could find about the gang
situation in Los Angeles, about
African American history in LA and about the black experience in general. All
were very helpful.

The real interesting preparation came when I began meeting
gang members early on and the initial pre-interviews I had with them. They were
all so very enlightening and all were so eager to talk and be heard.

What aesthetic
decisions did you make prior to shooting? Did you use any new techniques that
you wanted to employ?
I wanted the locations and the background of the interviews
to look and sound like the inner city as I wanted the inner city to be a
character in the film. We shot half of our material in the inner city and half
at secure locations where all of the gang members were safe to be. We used
quite a few new #D techniques and SFX as we were eager to keep pushing the
envelope of the documentary world.  

The strong presence
of narration appears to be a key component in setting the tonality of your docs
­ can you discuss the choice of having Forest come onboard…
Forest Whitaker was our first choice from day one. He was
our one and only hope. We had no idea if he would ever become a reality. We
were able to set up a screening and show him an early rough cut. He was moved
by the film. Weeks later we got the great news that he decided to give the film
it’s voice. The day we recorded him he nailed it in one quarter the time we had
booked.

Anatomy of a scene:
What was the most difficult sequence during production?
The most difficult was also the most fulfilling which was
introducing myself and my crew and our intentions to everyone we asked to be a
part of this film. I went into many dangerous neighborhoods and met with gang
members to build trust and put a face on our side, before filming ever began..,
so they knew who was doing the film and what our intentions were. This took tremendous
amount of time and energy of myself and the crew and a lot of diplomatic skill,
but ultimately, it is what made the film possible because we got to know them
and they got to know us.

What are you hoping
that future audiences will take away from this film?
I hope those who see our film see these young men and women
who are caught up in a gang life as fellow human beings.  

After premiering your
last two docs at Sundance, would you say that it is almost a given that
whenever you have a new film idea in mind that your aspired showcase is Park
City?
I gear my production schedule to the Sundance schedule in
the hopes that my films will be accepted. Getting accepted into the festival is
never a guarantee but it’s what I shoot for. I’ve had the two greatest
professional experiences of my life at the Sundance festival. Being up there with
my film is the only time I feel like a filmmaker. Also, I cannot overstate the importance
Sundance plays to documentaries and to independent films. I don’t know where
the state of things would be without this festival.

In Search of Captain
Zero: how far are you into the process of realizing this project?
It’s one of many projects that may or may not go forward. At
this point it is up to Sean Penn whether or not he is interesting I pursuing
it.

Made in America is part of the Spectrum: Documentary Spotlight at the 2008
Sundance Film Festival. It is currently seeking distribution.