Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: HEAVY IS THE HEAD & THE FIRST (Shorts) [Waco Independent Film Festival 2025 - Waco. Texas] - Part I - video Dailymotion

Fest Track

Directors Chap Edmonson ("Heavy Is The Head") & Susan Ruth ("The First") talk to Fest Track about perspective, ideas and metaphor  in regards to their respective short films playing the 2025 Waco Independent Film Festival in Waco, Texas.

Transcript

00:00But can you each talk

00:27about the notion of visual style in conveying a certain emotion or an idea?

00:34Because each of these films have those kinds of ideas.

00:37Yeah.

00:38If you'd like to start.

00:39For sure.

00:41The visual identity for the film really kind of started with the passion of Joan of Arc

00:44and like the close-up.

00:45Yeah.

00:46Like the idea of how a close-up can really invite the viewer into a certain emotional

00:51frame where you can't escape.

00:54And kind of putting that on top of the story that is the plight of a lot of young black

01:00men, which is like, we don't want to be seen because there's so much pain underneath.

01:03And so it's like, what are you looking at?

01:05Don't look at me.

01:06But in this film, you are forced to look at them.

01:08And so you're forced to be reckoned with their humanity, the entirety of the film.

01:12And that in conversation with some of my other kind of inspirations, which were like Maria

01:17Brominovic and the artist is present.

01:19And like that exhibition where she just sat in front of people and just stared at them.

01:24And also just some of my other influences like Terrence Malick and Tarkovsky in terms

01:29of like how I shot some of the B-roll and some of those scenes.

01:33And so like the visual language really came out of a lot of the inspirations that informed

01:37the film.

01:38And so me and my director of photography really just kind of went back and forth on that to

01:41create the visual language that made the film.

01:42I have remembered reading my eighth grade yearbook and realized all the chances I had

01:49squandered as girls floated in jail pen.

01:57Take one summer of heartbreak.

02:01It turned out exactly how I saw it in my head.

02:03And so in order to get the image that was already in my head out, I met with the costumer

02:09because costume is a character.

02:11The light is such a character.

02:13The production designer, Arnella Barbara, she really captured it.

02:17You know, it's a period piece.

02:18So it really captured the vibe of the time period in 1928.

02:23And I wanted the tone of it to be quite dark and foreboding in places.

02:30But there's also a really strategic use of light that is quite metaphorical throughout

02:35it.

02:36But the overall, and even sound is a character in it and where it empties out.

02:43And having the conversation also with my director of photography, Jake McPherson, and knowing

02:47that he understood that space in a film and lighting is so incredibly important.

02:54And so all those things cohesively came together of having those conversations of trying to

03:01pull the idea out of the brain and get it out onto the film.

03:05So that was really the thing is it had to have a darkness, but also show these moments

03:11of not epiphany necessarily, but in a sense to experience.

03:24They both deal with the essence of what time means and how time impacts you.

03:47Yeah.

03:47Obviously, yours is done almost in a more literal form, where hers is done in more like a

03:53ephemeral form, where it's just like, this is how we become who we are, which is an

03:59interesting idea because it's about environments, about circumstance.

04:02It's about...

04:03Expectations.

04:04Yeah.

04:05Could you each talk about that in reference to it?

04:07Yeah.

04:08I think you talked about it like the expectation in my film is the thing that weighs heavy over

04:17a period of time.

04:18And what does that do to a person?

04:20What does life circumstances do to a person in terms of time?

04:23And in a more literal sense, as you see the character kind of grow older, for me growing

04:29up, I was obsessed with time.

04:30I never knew why.

04:31I would ask my brother all the time, like, what time is it?

04:33He's like, it's 4 or 5.

04:34You asked me at 4 o'clock.

04:36It's five minutes later.

04:37And so this idea of time.

04:39But then as a filmmaker, having time as a tool that I can use, right?

04:44And so moments of really elongated, like, pause or silence.

04:50There's a scene at the beach where it's just this kind of breaking moment of just silence

04:55in the midst of everything else.

04:56Or the extended stares that some of the characters have, where you're just forced to kind of look

05:00at them.

05:01And so just playing with time in different kind of ways, really quickly or really extending

05:20a moment beyond what feels comfortable and kind of using as a mechanism to also help

05:24tell the story.

05:26Malik is so good at that.

05:27Oh, yeah.

05:27100%.

05:28Yeah.

05:29And I love that because I think so often that filmmakers, I think we have gotten to a point

05:36where we just want to be done this too, nonstop, right?

05:40And sometimes it works, right?

05:42Like, you know, a Marvel film, you want to have everything coming at you all the time.

05:45But I think there's something really to be said about allowing the audience to sink into

05:50the moment because there's a morphing that happens.

05:55I know it does for me is that when I'm watching a film that allows me to sink into it and gives

06:02me that space, the first reaction is usually discomfort.

06:05And then as you start to get into that, not emptiness, it's actually, I think space is

06:12more full than the browbeat thing, you know?

06:16So, yeah, I really appreciate it.

06:18It's one of our greatest tools that we have as filmmakers.

06:19I agree.

06:20Yeah.

06:35How much longer must we wait, Father?

06:46Patience.

06:48Yes.

06:51Sometimes they call it films that are demanding because it requires our attention in a way

06:55that some other films don't, you know?

06:57Yeah.

06:57We can just kind of put them on and it just gives us everything we need versus other films

07:02which require something of us.

07:04Which I think is kind of a really sweet spot for some films.

07:08But it's also about, you know, subtlety.

07:11Yeah.

07:11Because that's the thing is that you can do have these sort of, you know, benchmark moments,

07:16but it's about those little things between the lines.

07:19You know, I mean, your character is, the character has been around for a long time and that creates

07:26a sense of who we are.

07:27Your character, we see him all through his life.

07:31Yeah.

07:31But he even says, that's why that voiceover is so key.

07:34He's like, okay, I should have done this in my relationships.

07:38Did I?

07:39No.

07:39Right.

07:39This is, but I understood.

07:41Right.

07:42Which is a really interesting sort of, you know, psychology.

07:45Yeah.

07:45And even the voiceover for the film wasn't part of the original idea.

07:51Okay.

07:51Like I said, the film started in one place.

07:55The idea in ways died and then I had to resurrect it.

07:59And, you know, that was really important for me to not let it go.

08:02So the death of an idea that I thought was like, oh, this is washed.

08:05Like, this is not going to work anymore.

08:07Really laid the foundation for an idea that built upon that.

08:10And then even after the first shoot, the voiceover still wasn't part of it.

08:15I had to go back out and shoot additional B-roll just because it wasn't quite there.

08:19Yeah.

08:19And so that, like you said, really making sure that what came out on the screen was exactly

08:25what was in my head was so important and trusting that along the way until I got to

08:29a place where I could sit back and say, okay, this is, this is good.

08:32Wow.

08:32There's something here.

08:33Some day you'll do great things, she told me.

08:53Details are so important.

09:05Obviously, the crown, fire, all, there's all these things that are almost grounded earth.

09:12Yeah.

09:12You know, and yet, and the colors in yours and the way she does things.

09:17No spoilers.

09:18I was going to say.

09:19No, those are choices.

09:22Those are specific choices, you know, and that has to do with direction of your actors

09:26too.

09:27Yeah.

09:27Because you talk about details, A, but then direction beyond that.

09:31Or uncomfortable with our greatness, right?

09:33Oh.

09:34So we might put on the crown, but it's, it's at a tilt because we're not ready to wear

09:39it full on.

09:40And that's what I, when I look, I know that that's not answering your question yet, but

09:43I was going to say when I, because I haven't seen your film yet, but the poster, it was,

09:47as I said earlier, it was so evocative because I thought, oh, that kid, he's like, he's got

09:52it in him, but he's not yet comfortable with having, that was just my immediate response.

09:56So even something as, as what's seemingly minute as a poster, it has such a huge impact.

10:03Yeah.

10:04And spoke to.

10:06Well, thank you.

10:06Yeah, for sure.

Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Interview: HEAVY IS THE HEAD & THE FIRST (Shorts) [Waco Independent Film Festival 2025 - Waco. Texas] - Part I

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended