EARTHLINGS – Q&A WITH DIRECTOR ALEXANDRE O. PHILIPPE

Q: HOW DID THE IDEA TO MAKE A FILM ABOUT THE KLINGON LANGUAGE INSTITUTE COME TO YOU?

AOP: Well... about three years ago... I was at the Denver International Airport on my way to Europe to visit my parents... I got there early, and had about an hour to kill, so I went to the terminal bookstore to see if they had any Philip K. Dick novels I didn't yet own; and that's when I found it: a copy of William Shakespeare's HAMLET, translated in Klingon! I've always been fascinated by the bizarre. After all, my first film, CHICK FLICK (The Miracle Mike Story) is about a chicken that lived for 18 months with no head! But I have to admit: the Klingon HAMLET was then (and probably still is) the weirdest thing I'd ever seen. I remember distinctly coming up with the idea of making this film on the spot. Originally, I wanted to make a film about Hamlet—something like Al Pacino's "LOOKING FOR RICHARD", only in Klingon. But it didn't take me long to realize that the idea was too obscure, too artsy for my own good. After researching the KLI online and talking to the Institute's director, Lawrence Schoen, I realized that the film should be about language and communication—issues that are very dear to me and, I think, particularly resonant today. We unfortunately live in a world where people and cultures tend to react to and against one another with increasing violence and madness. Constructive dialogue seems to have given way to blind catharsis--an emotional plague of sorts, as Wilhelm Reich would put it. I find it ironic that the members of the KLI, who most people would only too readily characterize as “geeks with no life”, are some of the most tolerant, profound, and introspective individuals I've ever met.

Q: WHAT WAS THE PRODUCTION PHASE LIKE?

AOP: We originally went to Essington, Pennsylvania (where the annual qep'a' or conference took place) to shoot a couple of trailers. The idea was to raise enough money to hopefully complete a feature. After a couple of interviews, it became increasingly clear that we had enough material for a 70-minute film; and that's where EARTHLINGS is at right now. Because we only had four days to document the event, we pretty much shot non-stop with two cameras, ending up with 33 hours of footage. The last day was a grueling experience: 30 hours straight with our last interview at 3:00 am and a plane to catch three hours later. That was Captain Krankor, who gave us a phenomenal interview. These people don't usually go to bed early, which turned out to be a blessing!

I knew I wanted to make a sci-fi documentary, meaning that I had certain shots in mind to give it the look and feel of a sci-fi flick. In fact, two movies came to mind: ALIEN and SOLARIS (the original Tarkovsky version, which in my opinion is one of the greatest films ever made). The problem was that when we showed up there, we were unable to take our interviews to visually stimulating or resonant locations. We were stuck in a Comfort Inn! The challenge was to turn a visually uninteresting space into something beautiful. I knew that I wanted to make a primarily black & white film, and I knew I wanted to experiment with the anamorphic widescreen look, which I think is appropriate for this film because it's so elegant and slim as a spaceship might be. Faced with that challenge, I started riffing on the idea of turning an ugly hotel room into the inside of a craft. That's why all the shots in EARTHLINGS are composed with numerous variations of lampshades and mirrors. Jeff Pointer, my Director of Photography, used his macro lens to capture various plain, day-to-day objects in extreme close-ups, making them look like they actually could be located inside of a spaceship. We even have a toilet shot in there that has a SOLARIS feel to it! So in the end, the entire movie was shot in two rooms, but you'll never believe that if you watch the film. As a director, these four days gave me the confidence that I can take compelling material and shoot it anywhere (and I mean ANYWHERE) and still make it look good. Who needs $40,000,000? A small budget forces you to think outside the box, to stretch your creative boundaries. EARTHLINGS certainly did that to us. I'll venture to say that it's probably unlike any film you've seen to this point.

Q: WHAT ABOUT THE EDITING PROCESS?

First, I like to look at the footage myself. And I mean all 33 hours of it! I separate the good footage from the bad footage, taking notes along the way, arranging the good clips by theme. I have a fairly complicated letter-code system that works for me, but probably wouldn't make sense to other directors. Anyway, once my themes are in place, I work on a rough structure, with an emphasis on composition and progression for each act. When I'm fairly happy with the result (by that time, the 33 hours of footage have been trimmed to roughly two or three hours of what I consider to be our best material), I call in Clay Fong, who's worked on developing some of the questions before the shoot. He and I worked together for a couple of weekends (having way too much fun, I'll admit, as we did with CHICK FLICK), going over the remaining clips to come up with the actual sequence (give or take a handful of last-minute changes) that you'll see in the finished film. Then, I'm back to working alone for a little while, polishing my director's cut log, adding visual cuts, music cues, sound effects, etc... In short, the final blueprint for the movie. Then, I'm ready for my editor, Dave Lenk. He jokingly calls himself a 'button-pusher', but he's a lot more than that. We work together so well. He knows what I want to accomplish, and he typically adds many wonderful, often quirky touches to the film. We had, I believe, nine full days of editing. After that, Mr. Z sweetens the audio, adding his own brilliant, subtle details. And lo and behold, we have a movie!

Q: WHY DO YOU LIKE TO CALL YOUR FILMS PICTURE SHOWS? ISN'T EARTHLINGS A DOCUMENTARY?

AOP: A documentary, in the true sense of the word, presents its subject matter factually, objectively, without editorializing or any fictional matter. A mockumentary uses fictional material and strives to make it look real. ZELIG and WAITING FOR GUFFMAN are among my favorites. A Picture Show is, in fact, the exact opposite of a mockumentary. I take something that's real (Mike the Headless Chicken, the Klingon Language Institute) and work hard at blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Why? Because I believe that documentary filmmakers are (or should be) first and foremost storytellers. The way historians (or, at least, great historians) are storytellers. I'm not so much interested in the truth. Who can tell us for sure how Mike the Headless Chicken (a.k.a. Miracle Mike) actually died? Does it really matter? For me, what matters is what we make of it. It's not the history, but the 'images of history', as Muriel Rukeyser would put it. The swastika, the Tienanmen Square protests, JFK's shooting... many stories surround these images. But the images themselves transcend cultural boundaries. They are so powerful and visceral that they make us want to know more, to find the 'truth'. The responsibility of the storyteller is to present the audience with a memorable journey, meticulously structured and composed to express a clear and engaging premise, in order to arouse (as Robert McKee would put it) specific emotions. This is precisely why ten great filmmakers would invariably end up making ten entirely different movies if given the same subject matter. Consider Eisenstein's IVAN THE TERRIBLE, which focuses on the warrior-king's gradual isolation and personal tragedy, triggered by specific childhood traumas. What about his six or seven wives? That might be another story. What about his alleged courtship-turned-sour with Queen Elizabeth I? What about the mercury poisoning theory, which would account for his late madness? All these are other stories which could be used to express other premises. Same character, different points of view. And, to me, point of view is everything. When you're making a documentary film, you're definitely more than a fly on the wall. Yes, you're observing; but what do you choose to do with the material you're given? I'm sure Erroll Morris would end up making a completely different film with the 33 hours of footage I have locked up in my vault. But that's the beauty of it. And so... why shouldn't a documentary film look like a work of fiction? Why not compose shots as carefully, play with the texture of the image as drastically and evocatively as 'fiction' filmmakers do? I hate shaky cameras. And I hate talking heads. Thanks to Michael Moore, documentary films are definitely more 'hip' nowadays; but I think we're still largely facing the same problem with the general public: the notion that documentaries are boring. And sure enough, too many of them are. Nobody wants to be lectured at, especially in a dark theater. So the idea behind the Picture Show is to present a highly stylized, visually stimulating, subjective documentary film that freely navigates between fact and fiction, putting the emphasis on its various narrative strands (as opposed to 'truth' or 'facts'), and taking certain liberties (often for comedic purposes) with tone, pacing and overall composition. Phew! Next question?

Q: NOW THAT EARTHLINGS IS A FINISHED FILM, WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR IT?

AOP: They're certainly not very different from those of any other filmmaker with a finished film. I obviously want it to do well. My producers hope to at least break even. Artistically speaking, I'd like it to be an official selection of at least one major film festival, somewhere around the world. That would make me very happy. Commercially speaking, I'd like to see it do a little better than TREKKIES. But it's so early now, and we have so much to do. Next on our agenda is getting ready for the Cannes Film Market. I'll probably be in a much better position to tell you what our plans are in a couple of months.