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It’s Part one of our EXCLUSIVE interview with Director Gary Winick and Aaron Stanford from the film Tadpole. In case you don’t know Aaron Stanford is a Hot young actor who is in numerous upcoming high profile projects including, Xmen 2 (playing Pyro), Spike Lee’s 25th Hour with Ed Norton, and some other interesting projects.
Gary has been involved in several exciting new DV Projects, and is connected. We got some really good dirt from these two on all of these projects and more. Gary Winick (InDigEnt Founder, Producer, Director) won the Dramatic Directing Award at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival for “”Tadpole,”” starring Sigourney Weaver. He previously directed “”The Tic Code,”” starring Polly Draper and Gregory Hines, “”Sweet Nothing”” starring Mira Sorvino and Michael Imperioli, “”Out of the Rain”” starring Bridget Fonda and Michael O’Keefe, the horror film “”Curfew”” and “”Sam the Man,”” a DV feature starring Fisher Stevens and Annabella Sciorra. He currently teaches film at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. In 1999 he co-founded InDigEnt (Independent Digital Entertainment) as a joint creation of IFC Productions with his partner John Sloss. The spiritual cousin of the Danish collective, Dogme95, and vanguard filmmaker John Cassavetes, InDigEnt is dedicated to exploratory digital cinema, drawing on established screenwriters, directors and actors. ![]()
EMLet’s start the interview off with my standard overly broad question. Tell us who you are and why we are speaking with you today.GaryMy name is Gary Winick and I directed, wrote, and am one of the producers of the film Tadpole, which we made two years ago.EMYou made it two years ago?GaryYes, we made it two Christmas’ ago, and shot it 14 days. We showed it at Sundance in January of 2002, where it was bought by Marimax.EMWhy did it take so long between the production and the actual release?GaryI made it with Digital Video, and the nature of DV is that you shoot allot. So it took a long time to edit, probably longer than I normally would take, and the release date was Miramax’s decision. EMI’m really into DV myself. What made you go with DV on this film?GaryI have this company called Indigent, and we specialize in DV Films. In the last several years we made nine DV films. We made Richard Linklaters “”Tape,”” Ethan Hawke’s “”Chelsea Walls,”” Rebecca Miller’s “”Personal Velocity,”” which won Sundance and some others. I think DV is a fantastic medium to work in.EMWhat type of camera are you using?GaryWe’re using Sony PD150s at the moment. There are some new cameras coming out in the next few months that we’ll be buying. We like using the small little cameras to shoot in PAL format, then we transfer it to film when we’re done.EMSo you shot it on DV and then transferred to film? What I’ve been trying to figure out is how you get that nice smooth film look shooting in DV. Without transferring to film, or when you transfer to film does that clean look automatically come?GaryFirst you have to shoot in PAL. If you are shooting in NTFC (broadcast standard video) you are not going to get the most out of your camera. In PAL when you are transferring to broadcast, if you use “”Slow”” PAL transfers then you will get a nice smooth look.EMDo you think DV gives you more flexibility than film?GaryYes. DV gives you much more flexibility and more intimacy with the actors than regular film is huge. Then there is the creative stuff, or the mechanics of it which I’m really interested in. The ability to rework scenes while on location is a tremendous benefit. You can do so much more in terms of scope with DV. There are obvious downsides to shooting on DV.EMThis will be my last technical question before we get down to other business. What type of editing software are you using?Gary InDigEnt owns Two Avids and Two Final Cut Pros. We edited “”Tadpole”” using Final Cut Pro.EMNow back to the movie. How would you describe “”Tadpole?”” What is the film about?GaryTadpole is about a 15 year old who is wise beyond his years, and is coming home from Spring Break. He is about to declare his love, but it gets complicated.EMWhere did this story come from?GaryMe and a couple of writers were trying to think of a story that we could write and I can direct for InDigEnt on DV, we were sitting around throwing around ideas and this one came from the seed of an idea about a 15 year old boy who came home for Thanksgiving and had a crush on his stepmother. From there the writers started throwing out scene ideas.EM Considering what’s going on today with… [Thought for a moment] Well, I don’t know if I want to make this comparison. No, yes I do. Considering what’s going on with R. Kelly, and the whole Catholic Priest issue, do you think there is a real double standard in society; where somehow it’s ok, for a 40 year old woman to go around sleeping with a 15 year old boy – and then brag about it, while if it was a 40 year old man everyone would be trying to throw the man in jail.GaryObviously, I have personal opinions about that. I’m not condoning any of the themes in this movie. But in terms of the film, I’m just trying to make an entertainment film that makes people laugh. As you said there are certainly darker themes that could have been explored, but that wasn’t our intent with this film.EMWhat would you say are some of the themes in this film?ASWell it’s a coming of age story in reverse. My character Oscar starts a kid he feels like he’s a 40 year old man trapped in a 15 year old kid’s body. And through the course of his journey he realizes that maybe it’s ok to just be a kid.EMHow do you get to that point in the film?ASWell I’m not going to give that away, it’ll ruin the movie.EMNo, I didn’t mean that, I meant what do you think drove him to think that he was “”older”” and more “”mature”” than his friends in the first place?ASIt’s just who he is. He comes from a very artistic family. He’s just precocious, he’s into poetry and art.EMWhat attracted you to this film?ASIt’s a very well written script with clever dialog. This was one of the first scripts that I received when I graduated from Rutgers University. I got this while I was freelancing through the Endeavor Agency. They put the script in my lap and when I saw the character, I thought it was something that I can do, and do well. Thankfully, Gary agreed.EMHow did you like shooting in such a short time frame?ASThis was the first thing that I’ve ever done, and my first time in front of the camera, so I really had nothing else to compare it to. We had a 14 day shoot and that’s what we had to do. Yeah it was a little rushed, but I think we came out with a pretty good movie.EMWhat has been the reaction to it so far?ASWhen they first screened it, I was alone in a room, and I was cringing at my performance and expected to get the same treatment at Sunday. It has been overwhelmingly positive. We went to Sundance and was surprised by the reaction that we got. EMBeing a young actor, do you feel that the roles are really limited to teenybopper films like “”She’s All That?””ASThere are a lot of projects like that. You don’t become limited unless you limit yourself. There are a lot of really good scripts out there, there may not be a lot of money to make them, but they are there if you look for them. EMDo you think things are getting better for young actors? Five years ago, it seemed like the only type of film you could make was a film like “”She’s All That.”” Now with films like “”Pumpkin,”” “”Virgin Suicides,”” and “”Tadpole”” the teen genre is starting to expand a little more.ASThere’s a lot out there. And there’s always been an independent film movement.GaryI think you are correct Michelle the majority of films for teenagers are teenage movies. There are very few movies like Cider House rules.ASWell I’m trying not to pigeonhole myself into that kind of situation. If that’s all a young actor goes after, then that’s there problem. In the next installment we get into dirt about Steven Soderbergh’s Full Frontal, Xmen2, Spike Lee’s 25th Hour and more. Feature Story byMichelle Alexandria