There are many documentaries about
many famous and even not so famous directors - so what inspired you to
make the assistant director the focus of your movie Legendary AD for a change?
Almost no
one knows what a First Assistant Director does, but if you were to watch a
first AD in action, you'd notice he is the busiest person on a set.
First ADs know everyone and have their hands in all departments. They need
to have social and organizing skills, and knowledge of all elements of
movie making. If there are stories to tell, they always have all the
details.
We
know everything about actors, directors and even the producers and
directors of photography but nobody ever thought to interview first ADs of
legendary movies to obtain their tips, advice and the stories about these
classic movies that we love so much, such as Star Wars, The Godfather,
Batman, Superman, Lord of the Rings, Pulp Fiction,
Mission
Impossible, Saving Private Ryan and many more. This
project is a unique.
The
title Legendary AD is to remind people that these individuals are the
core part of a movie, and the stories that they can tell have never been
told before. The extention of this is also the fact that people now have
the possibility to be part of this project, in the production of this
documentary, thanks to my Kickstarter Campaign of Legendary AD. Included in the prices is the opportunity to become Associate
Producer of the project.
Legendary AD Nilo Otero |
As
you have also worked as an assistant director time and again, to what
extent can you identify with your subject matter? Absolutely
yes I can identify. The only difference is the scale of the films, these
"Legendary ADs" they run huge movies that have up to $400M budget, and I've
done Independent movies, where the biggest problem is to always try to spend
as little money as possible. In the big blockbusters instead, you actually
try to use money to solve problems and save time. Also when you are in
these big budget movies, you start to delegate a lot of work to the
second AD, the second second, the third, the second unit etc. I think a
big budget movie (from the first AD's prospective) is more similar to a
military campaign. Instead, when you run the set of small Independent movie,
it is more similar to a big "Family". For sure it's fascinating and
very helpful to listen the stories of these Legendary ADs to prepare and
prevent problems I may have in future feature films. If I had the budget,
I'd never stop interviewing these people and gleaning from their
infinite wisdom. Time with them is priceless. How do
you approach your subject matter stylistically? This
is really important
for me. If you watch the trailer, you'd notice a lot of B roll with these
Legednary ADs. First of all, it is a movie, and visually needs to be
interesting. I spent a lot of time on this, I don't want to
do these kind of documentaries where there are heads talking all the time,
I entered the houses and private life of these legends to share with
the audience what they do on an every day basis, and what they like to do.
Legendary AD William Paul Clark |
Do talk
about your interviewees so far for a bit, and why exactly them? I
started researching what are the best 100 movies ever made by the world
audience, and then try to contact each First AD of these movies. We start
by asking them a series of questions, but then we cover other aspects of
the job that are different with each interview, and they come randomly during the conversation. It is a 2 cameras recording, and a long chat
about their experience - usually each interview became a 6 hours casual
conversation. We are the first audience because we're the filmmakers, and we never
want to leave this amazing meeting with these extraordinary people. You
cover some pretty iconic movies in Legendary AD - so how easy or
hard was it to track some of the ADs of these movies down? This
is the point. It is extremely difficult to reach these people. First of
all for privacy purposes. Their email addresses don't exist, no phone numbers, and
only agency contacts, which receive unsolicited messages and calls all the
time, and most of them extreme fans of these legendary movies who want to
know more details about their favorite films and stars, even from the
first ADs of these projects. What I did then, I started using my connections
in Hollywood, and call after call I reached the first person, met for a
coffee, chatted about and did my first interview. Then start from zero again
for the others, now it's a bit easer because people in the field of first AD
know about this documentary and they are more confortable to meet us for
the interview. For sure is not easy at all, actually this is the most
difficult part of this documentary.
Legendary AD Burt Bluestein |
As
far as I know, you're currently running a campaign to raise funds to
finish your movie - so what can you tell us about your fundraiser? I
think is an extraordinary opportunity to be part of a Legendary Project.
You can chip in and receive so many great rewards: Special Thanks credits,
Associate Producer credits, special editions of the movie, special
videos, private projections, a day on set, and even a dinner with one of
the Legendary ADs! There are so many rewards that involve the audience in
our project, which make Kickstarter the best tool for a person who want to know more about this profession or the stories of his favorite
movies. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/815483644/legendary-ad Any
idea when and where the film might be released onto the general public
yet? Yes, the movie will be released to some Special Theatrical Projections during
Christmas 2015, then right after released on Video on Demand. Also the film
schools and film programs will have a special version much longer for
special film classes. Any future projects beyond Legendary AD
you'd like to talk about? Yes,
first of all the fact that Legendary ... will become a
franchising idea for documentaries, we are debating the fact of a Legendary Stunt or
Legendary Composers for the
next episode. I am also these days filming the movie The Art of
Fighting and preparing an horror film that will take place all in
one "place". People can check
www.leonardocorbucci.com
for news about it.
Legendary AD Lisa C. Satriano |
What got you into filmmaking
in the first place, and did you receive any formal education on the
subject?
Part
of my family in Italy come from the film business. The Great
Silence I think is the best movie of my uncle Sergio Corbucci and
one of the best Westerns I ever watched, together with the original Django that Sergio Corbucci directed and Quentin
Tarantino made the remake of. The funny part is that I interviewed the
first AD of Django Unchained too and we become friends.
I
started to be interested in movie making around the age of 14, when I was
watching the TV Show Twin Peaks by David Lynch, and that let
me really think "How is that possible that I get so much emotionally
involved in a movie that is a fake representation of reality? What is there behind moviemaking?" Then I started to do my first short films
in Super8mm because I was fascinated by film. With digital it's easier, but
is also easier to quit a project. With film once you start the process, you
don't want to waste that "physical material" of film rolls!
Yes
I did attend a few film schools, in Italy and in the USA, but honestly I don't think
they are important if you want to become a director. For however romantic
people think the "job" of the director is, in the end the
definition is one and one only: "A director is an individual that is
able to convince other people to give him money to produce his
movies." Period. It is really this simple. It is up to you how you
convince producers to invest in you and your movies, and how many you are
able to do.
What can you tell us about your filmwork prior
to Legendary AD?
Legendary AD Donald Murphy |
I
directed documentaries, short-films, feature films and even music videos
and commercials. I think my best movie is Black & White in
Colors, a metaphysical drama feature film I shot in Bulgaria over 3
years of production! My first feature film project I did at the age of 21
was Cinecittà Story! is still for me to this day the movie I
directed that did more money and got a bigger audience at the movie theatre
than anything
else ($380,000 in the first week). How would you describe
yourself as a director? An
"actor driven kind of director". I think the most important
element of a movie is acting. I am one of these directors who work a lot
with actors in pre-production, and care a lot about casting. If an audience
doesn't believe in the acting of the actors in a movie, you want to leave
the movie theatre after 5 minutes, no matter how beautiful the
cinematography is, no matter how smart and intrigueing the script is, you
just don't believe the acting, then all the rest become useless, just a frame of a
bad painting. I love long takes and shots that nobody did before.
Leonardo Corbucci |
Filmmakers who inspire you? Francois
Truffaut is my prime influence, but also Fellini, Antonioni, Sergio Corbucci,
Sergio Leone, Bunuel and Kubrick. Contemporary directors are Richard Donner, David
Lynch, Alejandro
Jodorowsky, Emir
Kusturica, Alfonso Cuaron and Wes Anderson. These are the filmmakers that
are always on my mind, but I love cinema and movies in general, each filmmaker has a specific style and quality that I love. Your
favourite movies? All
the movies of the filmmakers that I mentioned - my top 10 change pretty
often depending from my feeling and status. ... and of course, films you really
deplore? None.
I really enjoy all kinds of movies. I just wish the big audience was less
interested on "big impact" movies like Transformers, X-Men,
Avengers etc. and more interested in original Independent movies like Primer"by Shane Carbuth or
El Topo by Alejandro
Jodorowsky or The Cube by Vincenzo Natali - that way there would be a bigger market and more money for these
auteurs, rather than so
many huge franchise "big Impact" movies that are very similar
to each others. But again, I enjoy them too. Your/your movie's website, Facebook,
Kickstarter, whatever else?
|
Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
The links below will take you just there!!!
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First
of all the Kickstarter website: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/815483644/legendary-ad
The
Facebook page of Legendary AD: https://www.facebook.com/LegendaryAd
The
Legendary AD Instagram: http://instagram.com/legendary_ad_com
Then
my personal homepage: www.leonardocorbucci.com
Our production company webpage: www.embassiesofcinema.com
My
Facebookpage: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Leonardo-Corbucci-Zanobi/56368587719?ref=hl
The Facebook page of our production company: https://www.facebook.com/pages/EMBASSIES-OF-CINEMA/86667043863?ref=hl
Anything else you are dying
to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Please
become part of our LEGENDARY PROJECT and help us to finish this amazing
documentary, it deserves to be finish, and you deserve to listen these
amazing stories.
Legendary
AD
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/815483644/legendary-ad
Thanks
for the interview!
Thank you!
:)
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