David Baker directs Mission X.
This is part 3 of our interview with David Baker, producer/writer/director/editor of the massively ambitious Mission X. If you’ve been following this series, you know David is a no B.S. guy who speaks his mind with radical honesty.
In part 1, You Can Make and Distribute a Movie Yourself, David talked about his decision to go it alone, even though his previous movie was funded and distributed–an endgame most indies dream about.
Part 2, Make an Action Film for $8000 we found out just how to shoot full-on gun battles in the middle of a major city for no money.
Today, we look at David’s hands-on approach to making and directing the film.
You wear a lot of hats on this film. What are all the jobs you’re doing?
I am doing everything, basically. I acted because I had experience in that and I could rely on myself in a no budget situation. I wrote, directed, produced. I edited the film. Grant help me tweak the cut, tighten. He did sound post and color grading with me. He was great.
It’s not an ego thing, its simply that I have no money.
I think every filmmaker should edit their films at the start of their career.
If they get a bigger film, then get a top pro editor, but at the start its so useful to edit it yourself. It teaches you what to shoot in the future.
I have also done all the web design stuff, and I am doing distribution myself. It’s not an ego thing, its simply that I have no money. I want the job done, I know what I want, so I have to wear a lot of hats.
When taking on so much responsibility, do you worry about suffering from a lack of collaboration? In other words, having no one to say, “That’s a bad idea.”
I dont work like that. Example: When I had the idea for “Death Movie” my family said “Let’s hear the pitch.” I never told them. Why? Your loved ones say you are great, even when its shit!
I put the pitch on MySpace, and targeted Rob Zombie fans. About a 100 hardcore horrors fans.
Filmmakers posting their horror short films to these people often get comments like, “It’s sh*t mutthafu**a, bury yourself with it you talentless sh*t!”
So I sent my page and pitch to them. I forgot about it, and looked back months later. There were a few thousand messages and followers that said “This f*cking rocks!”. My point is, I ALWAYS listen to others. My crew, actors, post people, and more importantly, an audience. People that don’t, have a problem.
It’s sh*t mutthafu**a, bury yourself with it you talentless sh*t!
I never know 100% what I want. But I always know 1000% what I DON’T want. Thats means I have plenty of room for changes, suggestions. You get the best out of people when you make them part of the collaborative process.
I want others’ suggestions, but I filter what I think is right or wrong, and make the final decision.
I worked with a lot of directors as an actor, and 90% were bad. People think directors have to be all shouting, cigar in face, intimidating. It’s bollocks.
What do you think makes a good director?
Most directors are bad because they are not “movie fans.” Tarantino, Scorsesse, Speilberg, Rodriguez, Rami, and many more are all “film buffs.” They are right in that audience with the cinema goers when making a film.
A lot of directors I met go “I rarely watch movies. This film is about my personal experience when I was struggling with my inner demons and sexuality!” Crap!!
They don’t really care or know who their audience is. I think they think that sounds really artistic, bohemian. No, it’s plain dumb!
That attitude’s okay if you are scribbling poems, or painting a picture, but for the movie business, where you burn up a lot of cash, you SHOULD know. If you don’t, you will not be productive, and you will be a slave to others as you beg for cash your whole life.
At the end of the day a dvd still has a bar code on it whether its a popcorn or art flick! It’s a product!
For your cast, you mixed both actors and non-actors. Why?
In my view, lots of drama students are bad. They have that “actor” thing going on. You get the rare talents that come out of schools, but most have little life experience.
I found some experienced and pro actors via social networking. The ones that did have their shit together online–many don’t have videos on their sites.
So I could see from their showreels they were natural. I met with them, was honest about having no money, but they liked the story.
In my view, lots of drama students are bad.
I cast about half of the guys with non-actors. They looked the part, they had life experience, they didn’t “act”, they “re-acted”. I gave them all a solid script, then told them to forget the exact lines. Just know their characters. They worked brilliantly.
Grant (playing the documentary filmmaker) had never acted before. However, he was a video gamer, a film student, and he had military experience. The line between fiction and reality blurred. I even let him keep his own name for the character.
The witnesses were all real people from the street, stores. Some of them had seen the battle when we shot, so I used that fact.
What was it like mixing your script with heavily improvised dialogue?
I am a script man, and I am a strong dialouge writer. I believe in solid scripts, so this was a big departure for me. But I am glad I did it, because it was a huge learning experience. The script had to be solid because of the non-linear narrative within the story. But the film was so natural, that I had to be flexible with it.
There are several big dialouge spots that are almost word from word from the script, because the actors felt it was written naturally. I like to write the way people talk. But a lot of the time I told the actors to dump the script, and improvise witin their characters in the scene. This worked really well. It was a good balance of scripted and improv. Very structured improv of course, because there is nothing worse than unstructured improv lines.
Stay Tuned for Our Final Installment…
…in which David spells out how he used social media to promote and distribute his film. Cutting edge ideas that taught us a thing or two! You won’t want to miss it. Be sure to follow us on twitter or to subscribe to our feed to catch the rest of David’s brutally honest interview, filled with great tips you can steal!