00:26This is Tim Wasprick from Fast Trek on CERC TV.
00:29I'm here in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Film Festival.
00:33Because the thing is with slam poetry, also that's about rage and anger, but it's also
00:37about catharsis.
00:38Could you talk about that?
00:39Because yeah, you're right.
00:40You can listen to this poetry, but I went back and rewatched certain scenes because the thing
00:45is the poetry, the more you listen to it, the more it gets into your head, the more
00:49you think about it.
00:51There's a film that really inspired by, called Louder Than a Bomb, a documentary that Joe
00:56and I was one of the first things we watched together.
00:59One of my favorite films, and I showed it to her while we were still dating.
01:02And you just walk away from that film with such immense respect for young people, what
01:09they're capable of, what the depths of both joy and silliness, as well as seriousness and
01:17grief that they can express through their poetry.
01:20So that was really the aim with the poems.
01:23And especially, you know, Jack's poem is much more kind of similar to what I would write
01:28typically, which is like quieter, a sonnet.
01:32And so when I was writing the young people, I could hear them in my head.
01:35And I did not, these are not performances I could pull off myself.
01:39And so when the young actors got to come in and do it, they were just so amazing at it
01:45that it just, it came to life in like a way better than I expected.
01:49The whole, you mentioned kind of going back to seeing certain poetry scenes again.
01:53I had the similar experience when just reading the script, going back and reading certain poems
01:58and being like, oh my gosh, this hits differently the second time or even the third time.
02:02And I think we got feedback when we were, you know, still in our little test screening
02:06phase from friends where they were saying, it's interesting how the poetry in the movie
02:09informs what the characters are going through, especially on a second watch or a third watch.
02:14And I don't know how you did that, but it's really cool.
02:18I point this poem at you.
02:19I pull the trigger.
02:20I point this poem at you.
02:22I pull the trigger.
02:24The big kind of scream is one of the sadness.
02:27The fifth time I woke up screaming, I carried the dream out with me.
02:33So I...
02:38It's okay.
02:41Obviously, the thing is, is that you can't play metaphor.
02:43You have to make like practical and grounded.
02:46So the thing is, is that you have to interact with these other actors and what they're feeling.
02:51And this is, you know, that can be emotional memory, but you also have to ground yourself
02:55in the character.
02:55What grounded you in this character?
02:57Because he's going through an awful lot.
03:00Yeah.
03:00I mean, I mean, a lot of it is sort of what I felt was just that because I felt
03:07myself in
03:08the character on a sort of just a base level.
03:10So I didn't do much, you know, I didn't try to leave myself, especially when he's teaching
03:17and he's with the students.
03:18Like that is, that's how I hope that I am when I'm teaching or when I'm with younger
03:23people or when I'm sort of leading a group.
03:25I feel that.
03:26So I allowed that to sort of stay.
03:29And then once I found that trauma and then once I found how to access his trauma and his
03:35grief, I sort of was able to say, okay, well, if I'm sticking with myself and then I layer
03:39that on top of it, then I'm able to sort of marry myself and who I am when I'm grounded
03:47and the thing that kind of grounds Jack in the story.
03:50And if I keep them together and I just hold on to those two things that are true, then
03:55it will, it will be a grounded performance.
03:59You got this.
04:01Hold on.
04:01Let's start this again.
04:07Let's go dead deer high!
04:09Yeah, let's go dead deer high!
04:12Let's go dead deer high!
04:20Well, because there's a Pandora's box.
04:22There's a, I don't want to give away what's in the box, but there's a literal box, you
04:26know, in a way that sort of encapsulate all these pressures, you know, that is a really
04:32wonderful device, I think, in many ways.
04:36I mean, obviously that's something that you guys came up with too.
04:39That came from you, you, Josh, and you, Joe, but also in how it plays into some of the final
04:45scenes.
04:46Could you talk about using details like that, using that sort of device in that way?
04:51Making decisions like that, it jumps off the page with what Josh wrote, for sure.
04:56And we made a lot of decisions, me and the cinematographer, Anup, we made a lot of decisions
05:01to kind of like almost limit ourselves, because to do an object POV instead of showing the
05:07object is harder.
05:08Like, we had to think and sit and be like, okay, this is a little difficult.
05:12How are we going to do it here?
05:13How are we going to fit into our schedule?
05:14It took longer to set up the camera in that way.
05:16Um, but I think those limitations, they pay off and it's, it's nice.
05:21It like stretches our imagination a little bit.
05:23So we had a certain things like that.
05:25We had some things where when Jack isn't inside the classroom, we can't go inside either with
05:29the camera that really, like we were tired on set.
05:33We're like, oh my gosh, why did we decide to do this?
05:36It would be so easy to just turn the camera around and be inside the classroom and then get
05:40his face, you know, in the window.
05:42So making decisions like that, I appreciate that our team was willing to like do that
05:47and limit ourselves because we didn't have to.
05:50And I think it just, um, there's some poetry in doing that.
05:54And I think that like the intention there is like we as a small budget film, and we've
05:58made lots of small budget films in the past.
06:00And we know what works is when you really lean into moments like that, where you can have
06:05something poetic in the format itself.
06:08Um, and that adds an element of production quality that you just can't buy with money.
06:14Um, so that was, that was a big intention for it too.
06:17Yeah.
06:17I just want to wrap this up, but I did want to ask this last question about perspective
06:21and perception, because that's exactly what we're talking about.
06:24But perspective of tragedy and perspective of trauma versus the perception, both these
06:30kids feel internally, this teacher feels internally versus how they are seen in certain ways.
06:35Can you talk about perspective and perception, both as, you know, a practical application,
06:40but also in a broader sense?
06:43I think this is, was part of Joe and I's discussion as we developed the film was this idea of,
06:49um,
06:50like, you know, there's a line of poetry in the film that the kids say, I point this poem
06:54at you.
06:55Um, and that is really sort of, they're, they're pointing the poem at us, at the audience.
07:00Um, from our perspective, we are watching them point the poem at us.
07:04And that was a big part that we wanted to, to really land in the film.
07:08And Joe does a wonderful job getting us there with her directing.
07:26Bye-bye.
07:28Bye-bye.
07:28Bye-bye.
07:29Bye-bye.
07:35Bye-bye.
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