IONCINEMA.com’s “IONCINEPHILE of the Month” puts the spotlight on an emerging filmmaker from the world of cinema. We’ve featured tons of Sundance folk, but this November we are profiling a well travelled film festival pic that received its world premiere debut at Slamdance. This month we feature: Tao Ruspoli and his road trip movie, Fix. Click here to view Tao’s top ten films of all time list.
“Fraternal duty turns into a wild ride through nearly all Greater Los Angeles in Tao Ruspoli’s breezy, brash narrative feature debut “Fix.” Urban road-trip pic risks being yet another tiresome exercise in full-length, hand-held first-person-camera. But the diversity of visual tactics, characters, settings and incidents keep this shaggy-dog tale consistently diverting.” – Variety
Eric Lavallee: During your childhood, what films were important to you?
Tao Ruspoli: The first film I remember seeing was E.T. I was 6 years old and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. I had nightmares about that horrible creature for months!
EL: During your formative years what films and filmmakers inspired you?
TR: While I was an average filmgoer in my youth (I LOVED the Coen Brothers, and especially Barton Fink in high school) it was not until college that I realized the full potential of the medium. I took a course called “Existentialism in Literature and Film” at UC Berkeley and we watched films like The Third Man and Hiroshima Mon Amour while reading texts by Nietzsche and Dostoyevsky and Beckett. I got so excited about the potential of films to say something meaningful about our place in the world that I started watching everything I could get my hands on. I probably watched an average of 2 movies a day for 3 years; covering everything from the the Lumiere Brothers to Buster Keaton to the Russian Montage movement to German Expressionism, film noir, italian neo-realism, French New Wave, etc. etc. Without this background it’s easy to think there are only a few ways to make films. Of course the history of film is brief compared to the other arts, but there is still so much there to study and learn from.
EL: I believe you come from a background in photography…would you say
that it is by working in the docu form that lead you to your feature debut?
TR: Given my background in both photography and guerilla style documentary filmmaking, I wanted
to use the language I had developed in that medium and apply it to my
first narrative project. In that way, I hoped to get the best of both
worlds: the immediacy and realism of documentary and the structure and
story arc of scripted, fictional work. Given advances in digital
media, I was also excited by the fact that we could do this without
sacrificing my love of photography and “cinematic” imagery.
FIX is inspired by a true story: My brother, a very charming,
larger than life character in real life, was struggling with drug
addiction. The law caught up with him, and he was offered a deal by
the judge: if he didn’t check himself into rehab in 10 days, he would
be sent to prison for 3 years. On the 8th day, he was arrested again,
for something else. His lawyer called me, while I was working on a
documentary in San Francisco, and said, “If someone doesn’t bail him
out of jail and get him to rehab by 8pm tomorrow, he is going to
prison for 3 years.” So I drove overnight to bail him out and soon
found out that the rehab wouldn’t accept him without a non-refundable
$5000 deposit. Since we didn’t have the money, the day turned into a
race to get the funds before the 8 o’clock deadline.
Four years later, my wife Olivia [Wilde] and I had the idea of turning
this premise into my first narrative feature film. I knew it was time
for me to move into scripted features and I was also dying to work
with Olivia, who was developing into an incredible actress. We always
joked that while we had gotten married after only knowing each other
for 6 months, the real commitment (and risk) it takes to make a film
together required 4 years.
The process and result turned out to be more gratifying than I ever
could have imagined. Seeing Shawn Andrews bring his own vision and
spirit to the Leo character was delightful. Shooting was adventurous
and fun, and bringing the film to festivals around the world and
seeing how the film touched people from so many walks of life was more
than I ever dreamed of. I am excited for the film to now reach an even
larger audience with this fall’s release.
EL: What kind of features were you looking for in Leo’s character? What
spirit/characteristics did you ask Shawn to embody? And is his character
a biographical imprint of someone who does or did really exist?
TR: The Leo character is loosely based on my younger brother, who’s story inspired the film. I asked Shawn to spend time with my brother and to try to capture aspects of his essence without attempting to imitate him. I wanted to evoke a sense of someone who is at once reckless and self destructive and full of enthusiasm for life.
EL: There appears to be a docu feel to certain scenes, I was wondering
if everything was storyboarded or planned out, or did you borrow a more
organic/improvised approach?
TR: We had a very tight script we started with. My co-writer Jeremy Fels and I spend many many months perfecting the screenplay, and had we stuck word for word to it, we would have had a solid film. That said, once we started shooting, and given the documentary style we used for the film, we left a lot of room for actors to improvise, especially in later takes. The end result is about 75% scripted and 25% improv. The camera style was mapped out on the day we would shoot, and we would pretty much stick with the camera movement from take to take so we could mix and match pieces from different takes. My Director of Photography Christopher Gallo and I would then alternate and do about 5 takes each.
EL: What ideas did you have for the style of the film? What inspirations
(other films, location, paintings etc.) did you and Christopher draw
upon for the look/style, aesthetics of the film?
TR: Again, what most excited me about this approach was that we didn’t need to sacrifice pictorial qualities for the realism that came from the documentary style. In other words, we have moved past the time of Blair Witch Project, where a sense of realism meant a shaky camera and a “videoy” look. Of course the camera is always hand-held, but we tried to be as smooth as possible in our style, we shot on beautiful HD and spent a lot of time color correcting to achieve the most cinematic results possible.
EL: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with producer Nat Dinga?
TR: Nat Dinga made it possible to pull off 18 incredible days of shooting in 36 locations, all revolving around Olivia’s house schedule–something that would have made a lesser producer check in to an insane asylum. The film, which had a tiny budget, involved permitting some locations, stealing others, renting chickens and goats and other crazy props, hiring a motorcycle gang and a million other things that I can’t believe we were able to pull off.
EL: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with cinematographer Christopher Gallo?
TR: Christopher Gallo also has a strong background in documentary production and has a keen eye for capturing spontaneous events in a cinematic way. We work incredibly well together and the back and forth nature of our collaboration was a wonderful way to make sure we didn’t get stuck seeing things only one way. Gallo also helped subtly light several scenes in ways that never felt staged, but nonetheless improved the overall look of the film.
EL: Can you discuss the collaborative process you had with editor Paul Forte?
TR: Our editor Paul Forte started working with me before we even started shooting. We cut together mood tests and other attempts at concretizing the style of the film. He was present every day of shooting and would cut as the shooting progressed. This way, we learned very early on what worked and what didn’t. If you ask me, the editor is both the most underappreciated and most important member of a filmmaking team.
Fix opens November 20th at the Village East in NY. For more locations and dates visit the official site.