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My first choice for a Fair Enough Friday interviewee was noted comedy writer/director and proclaimed "troublemaker" Garrett Gilchrist, a very energetic young man who has been one of the most outspoken members of the REwind amateur moviemaking community. Garrett's frequent verbal assaults on amateur moviemaking, (and some of the people involved in it) have become commonplace in the REwind forums, but one question looms over his actions: Why? Gilchrist's movies seem to indicate a thoughtful, honest, very funny and yes, very longwinded creative mind. He is currently working on an epic drama entitled Gods of L.A. starring his longtime friend and frequent Orange Cow Productions contributor, David Ashe. Why would such an introspective and thoughtful person be driven to what some describe as immature, occasionally ugly behavior? I hoped to find out in this interview. The interview process involved a long series of Instant Messages between Garrett and myself. It is very long, but those who know Garrett and his work would expect nothing less, and I believe at the end, one comes to a better understanding of this very creative, rather eccentric mind. Be advised, there is strong language contained in this interview. Jason Santo: Thanks very much for taking the time to do this interview, Garrett, the first of which I hope will be many with writers, actors, directors and musicians who are currently trying to make a name for themselves in the microcinema world. Garrett Gilchrist: I'm making a name for myself and that name is asshole. Santo: Why is that? Gilchrist: I know I hold different opinions than some people. And long ago I sort of got labeled, pretty accurately, as a troublemaker. Which I don't think I really am, but if I am I don't think there's anything wrong with that either. 
Santo: You have been very vocal about comedy in amateur movies, saying specifically that certain groups shouldn't try it at all. Gilchrist: Comedy is the hardest thing on earth to get right. I still haven't done it, and I've tried very hard. I've been doing drama lately because I know it'll make my comedies better. And because I like it. I came to Rewind as a comedian. And I felt that Rewind didn't understand what comedy was. They still don't. Comedy was very looked down upon as an art form ... sort of looked on as something a group who was making movies about a guy with a gun pointing a gun at another guy with a gun could do on the side. Which isn't true. Comedy is a fulltime job. And there's nothing more painful than a non-comedy group attempting it. Nothing on earth. So I started to feel like it was the job of the comedy groups there at Rewind, the few groups who DID do only comedy, to sort of support the genre. Get it respect. I'm one of the only ones left who posts, from the groups who only do comedy. I don't do comedy anymore. But that's why I did this awards thing everyone hates, the Orange Cow Awards. That was my sort of half-joking attempt to honor the comedies I really love. I give out awards only to comedy groups. I don't like to watch amateur drama, generally, which is odd as I'm doing one. And that wound up pissing everyone off. I was just there to support comedy. I was trying to give a little love to the people whose work I love. Santo: Could it be your occasionally extreme use of profanity that's gotten you more into trouble, and not necessarily your views? Gilchrist: If people don't like profanity, they won't like me! I always swear like a sailor. To me that's just being me. I can't help it. Sorry. Fuck. Sorry. I enjoyed doing the Orange Cow Awards. I was nervous and awkward doing them; it sort of creeped me out, but I did like giving awards to the films I love and I wasn't excluding anybody or making fun of anyone. With the exception of Guy McConnell. Santo: How do you know that what you see as funny is what most will view as funny? Gilchrist: Obviously it isn't. I have pretty odd taste. And that's been proven time and time again. It seems as if I can't even compliment a film without somebody getting angry. I am, contrary to popular belief, not fond of attacking films... I would rather compliment what I like and ignore what I don't. But I'm a loudmouth, I want people to know, if I like their work. If I don't like it, I tend to shut up a little faster. Santo: Usually people like compliments. What is it about you that upsets people? Gilchrist: The people I compliment like it! But I have a bad habit of not complimenting people that are REALLY used to being complimented. Because their work doesn't excite me or whatever. It can be slickly produced, but I find it unoriginal. And Rewind can be a rowdy crowd so even decent movies draw jeers and people make fun of them when they screen. Afterward they look for some loudmouth to blame, and they blame me, because I'm a loudmouth and not liked anyway. Santo: Are you, perhaps, not tact enough about that which doesn't excite you? Gilchrist: I'm not sure. I'm a sort of eccentric person. I'm pretty much an open book. I'm honest as hell. And I try to be quiet, but even when I am, someone can tell when I don't like their stuff. And they get angry. People don't realize that I myself hate basically every movie I've made. I have trouble watching them. I hold films to VERY high standards. What I look for most in a film is originality. I have seen more no-budget films than most people. Just by living in LA and going to school at USC, I've seen far too many. And some of them are excellent, and most of them have great technical quality. Films made in LA tend to have a lot of style, if not always much substance. So after that, it's hard to go back and be as impressed by some of the movies shown at Rewind, unless they have that substance. Style doesn't count for anything once you see how many movies have style. Santo: What's it like being an East Coast kid on the West Coast for film school? You grew up in Connecticut, but now are attending the University of Southern California. Gilchrist: I would say that moving out to California is the most important thing I ever did. I recommend it, actually. California ain't so bad. I actually hated it for the first two years or so that I was here. The first year and a half anyway. I thought everyone was stupid, and fake, and utterly self-involved. I got no sense of friendship, or community or of anyone approaching being a real person. And I hated the weather. It made me sick. My body wasn't adapted to it.
The thing is, the fact that everyone here IS making movies turns out to be a good thing in one way because a lot of people are making good movies. And you suddenly realize that you're not alone and that there is a higher standard you need to live up to. Santo: What's a "good movie" to you, Garrett? Gilchrist: Requiem for a Dream. The Empire Strikes Back. The Lord of the Rings. Something, anything interesting, original. Fight Club. The musical of Little Shop of Horrors. Anything Gilliam ever did. Santo: Something with "soul" as you've mentioned? Gilchrist: Sure, with heart and originality. I want movies to have a pulse. But I would never ... I would never hold my own work up to that. My old movies in CT were ... I call them original, but they were not made to be held up to Hollywood standards. Santo: Why not? What's bad about your movies? What are they missing? Gilchrist: They were something for the people who made them ... they were cheesy and funny and filled with in-jokes that only we would get. They weren't lit. They were horribly shot and whenever I'm onscreen I'm screaming. I hate and love a movie like Excaliburger, as I hate and love myself. I think the cast did a great job with what they had, but it's ... it's not an ambitious film. All it wants is to be funny. And it is, and I'm proud of that, but the problem with making a movie like Excaliburger is, it's very hard to defend. I mean ... there's a sort of bar that's being raised. The amateur movies being played at the Rewind fest are no longer your standard amateur movie. Rewind, for whatever reason, is attracting somewhat higher quality stuff now. And I see films at the Rewind fest that blow me out of my fucking seat. Santo: Isn't that a good thing? Gilchrist: Of course. But here's the problem. There's no quality control. Let me give an example: One night at Rewind Fest 2, they showed my favorite amateur film of last year, Pervert Goes Home, and what is maybe my second favorite, The Robert Cake. Wonderful comedies. But before this they had shown this film, shot on film, Lethal Force, that had blown everyone away. It's an amazing film. We were all just amazed by this wildly creative insane film, and it was not the sort of thing that maybe should have played at the Rewind fest, but any of us would gladly have lost to it, we had so much fun watching it. Anyway, at the end of the night, Jon shows one more short... and it's a retarded short. It was, like, shot by somebody's little brother. It was the classic awful amateur movie, only worse. I had never seen worse than this. And immediately, before I even say anything, the audience starts to scream and throw things at the screen. It was horrible, it was a massacre. It was MST3K all of a sudden. Suddenly everyone's shifting the blame for who scheduled this short to play. Anyway, this was like a slap in the face, sort of, to all of us: that when we're working our asses off trying to create truly original well-made films, Rewind still thinks our work ought to be shown alongside something somebody's little brother made. If Brad Osborne or Alvin Ecarma had been there, they'd probably have been embarrassed. I think Rewind can't decide what it really is. There was some stuff played at the first fest that was horrible, and obviously made with a LOT of money. And for both reasons it shouldn't have played. And both years the comedy films, which were to me the better films, just didn't get the noms! This year all the comedy actresses were up for best supporting actress, even though they were the lead actresses of the film. I think Queequeg Films, which is a very entertaining group whose work just gets better and better, is one of the few to sort of break through, because their stuff transcends genre. But I always feel like Rewind is embarrassed to nominate any films which have soul. I don't understand how they nominate things, because a lot of what they really honor is very flat to me. They don't have the performances but instead just sort of rip off Hollywood. And if there's one thing I can't stand it's bad acting. And if there's another thing I can stand it's passable, but uninteresting acting. And Rewind doesn't seem to judge its movies by acting, at all. But I've never been liked at Rewind. No real important reason behind that, we're just different people, Rewind and I. And a lot of the people I liked most and could hang out with, the people who like the same movies as I do, don't post at Rewind anymore. Or not much anyway. But they show up to the Rewind fest, and that's the highlight of my year, I have more fun there than I have anywhere. Santo: You mention some people you respect no longer frequenting Rewind. What's happening in amateur moviemaking right now? Gilchrist: At the Rewind fest, there's this huge rift you can see growing. It's just the sort of general difference between people. There are groups at Rewind who don't like each other, or each others' work. And these groups are showing up in larger numbers. The first year of the Rewind Fest was wonderful because EVERYONE hung out with EVERYONE. No matter what group you were from, you mingled. The second year, the groups sort of kept to themselves, which was horrible. I don't like picking sides. For me, it's not about that. Because it's not about who likes who for me. It's always about the movies. If someone I didn't personally get along with makes a great film, I will LOVE that film. All this cliqueishness and infighting is total bullshit. It shouldn't be about who you are and who you know But people do seem to want to keep to themselves to form an army of people from their own group. And judge other people's films on who made them. To get around this and still fit in, I have tried, desperately, to hang out with the people whose movies I like most at Rewind. That's sort of a natural thing for me, I gravitate toward people I think are uniquely talented. Because I want to thank them and I want them to not hate me. But it got a lot harder at Rewind 2. I felt like I couldn't talk to some people. Santo: This is why you are a colleague of Jay Bauman of Blanc Screen and Mike Stoklasa of GMP? Gilchrist: Yeah, I love Mike's movies. And Jay's movies. Mike is the best editor on the planet Earth and Jay is about the most honest writer working in amateur film today. I happen to like honest, and they make me laugh. I think that's why those two got together too. Though they have broken up now. Again, personal bullshit. It gets in the way of making good films. Always. I wish we could get past that, but unfortunately we're all human beings, not movie making machines, and we have problems. Santo: So is there a real difference, a really big division, between amateur work and independent cinema? Gilchrist: There shouldn't be. You get out to Hollywood and you realize that amateur movies and independent cinema are the same thing. Santo: So is the current definition of amateur really just saying movies without effort put into them? Gilchrist: No. A lot of effort is put into a lot of amateur films. Santo: Some of them, yes. What is the difference then? Gilchrist: There is no line, it's the same thing. Or should be anyway. You realize that in CA. That if you're making a movie, you're a filmmaker. You're not an amateur filmmaker, you're a filmmaker. And there are very expensive movies being made for a lot of money that don't have any of the originality of a Mike Stoklasa directed-edited film. Or Pervert Goes Home or The Robert Cake. Santo: There's no difference between amateur and indie. But the good in both have heart, originality and soul. Gilchrist: Exactly. I want a film to make me laugh or make me cry, or just entertain me, make me care. You see a lot of films, at Rewind too, which have great cinematography and the leads can deliver their lines... but it's all flat somehow. It's a copy of some other movie and doesn't have any originality or life to it, so it can't be as good as it wants to be. Santo: So what's the deal then? Passionless movies that get applause at all levels bring you down, but you are vocal about pictures on the amateur level because you think you can make a change? Gilchrist: I can't make a change, but people ARE making the change. The fact is, amateur movies are getting better. And you ask me why I call them indie... It's because with a lot of them I can't tell the difference. Amateur movies aren't shot on VHS by a 15 year old in somebody's living room anymore. Michael Linn says he doesn't think a lot of them could get sold, but somehow I think otherwise. Santo: So is the category disappearing? Is there a need for a focus on amateur cinema at all? Gilchrist: Of course there's that need. The wonderful thing about amateur moviemaking is that there is a chance for all those skill levels. You need a movie like Lethal Force just as you need something like Excaliburger, or even a horrible movie someone shot with a VHS camcorder. Because it's all learning. The old saying is that everyone has 30 bad movies in them. And the younger you are when you make them, the better. The problem with LA movies, the problem with them being all style and no substance, is because the people who make them have money but no experience. You're a fool if you think your first movie is going to be genius. You can shoot it for 10 billion dollars and it's not gonna have good performances. That's the easiest way to tell if a director knows his shit. Do the people onscreen seem entertaining? Or is it the scenery? George Lucas put a lot of money into The Phantom Menace, but he hadn't done a movie in a long time. And the acting in the movie sucks, because he can't direct actors. Santo: How do you feel you've done directing actors? Gilchrist: Oh, I'm a horrible director. I'm learning. I've been blessed by a very good cast on every film I've made, especially this last one. What people don't realize about something like Excaliburger or even The Animal Game (which was a more realistic sort of drama), is that they weren't MEANT to be shown at film festivals. Even something like Rewind. 
Santo: You and David Ashe have been together forever. What works in your relationship? Why has it lasted so long?
Gilchrist: Oh, Dave's a comic genius. He's the best guy on the planet Earth, and he puts up with my shit. Basically, no matter how horrible I am onset, he survives it. I was a huge fucking asshole the entire Excaliburger shoot. He was actually amazed on Gods of L.A., that I had actually grown up and didn't throw temper tantrums anymore. But I still didn't look or act like a pro. I often feel like the village idiot onset and my goal is one of these days to not look like that, not look stupid. To have that money behind me and that experience maybe so that I can still be horrible useless me, and look good. Like a real director. To grow up. At this point I look pretty silly as a director. And I know a lot of people wouldn't put up with that. Thankfully Dave does. He already knows I'm an idiot, so there's no problem. Santo: Do you think he gets some perverse kick out of it? Gilchrist: Hahahahahahhahaha. No. People wonder why when I moved to L.A. I switched to drama .... that's all Dave. He was the funny half of Dr. Fred. (Orange Cow Productions' long-lasting Public Access sketch comedy team.) We worked really well together, and I think he was the funny one. The stuff I wrote... it tended to be a little stranger. Most of my bits in Dr. Fred tended to be ... sort of rambling improvised self-exposes. The first Dr. Freds were just portraits of my life. I do a lot of goofy things at rewind like "The Torgo Donuts" and "Camp Fastforward," which are just me bitching about my boring life. And people don't get it, they don't get that I've been doing this for years. I used to say I made my movies to make David Ashe laugh. And maybe I gave up comedy when Excaliburger made him not laugh. Because that made it a bomb for me, that meant I needed to grow more as a director. But I'll return to comedy, with a different edge. More like my newer work. There's a zombie musical I've been waiting to do for a long time. Which I am totally rewriting. Santo: How long did Dr. Fred last? Gilchrist: Dr. Fred was around from 1996 to 1999, officially. I moved to LA after The Animal Game in 1999. Although Excaliburger and The Animal Effect were shot in 2000. Santo: Just friends getting together to make movies? Gilchrist: Just me wanting to make movies, and friends not showing up and me having to do it myself! Except Dave. Dave always showed, and got other people to show. We wound up assembling all the best people from my high school, wonderful people. All total geeks and nerds. Santo: Are you happy to still have him involved? Gilchrist: Ecstatic! I didn't think I'd be making movies with Dave anymore. It turned out to be a very lucky accident that my original lead actor and all my other actors quit Gods, thinking it was below them. Because I had to beg Dave to come here and save this film. And once I'd shot this with him, and realized he's still the best actor I've worked with ever, I never want to shoot without him again if I can help it. He's just easy to deal with and cuts through the bullshit. He is all about his character and he wants to know everything about him. My only direction to Dave often would be to talk to him about his past, as a character, and he would ask questions, point out things from the script I had never thought of. 
But basically, he showed up! That's the best gesture of trust in amateur land. Santo: What more can you ask for? Talent is secondary to a cast that shows up! Gilchrist: Exactly. My best cast members on this were the ones who would postpone their lives to make it work. And you'll find that the ones who show up, are the ones who will perform better anyway because they actually want to be good - to be good for you and impress you. Like my old cast ... Ben Sipprell especially! He still wants me to come back to Connecticut and do something with him! The problem with the actors in LA, is that they'd look down their nose at me - me and my shitty video camera - like they expected Hollywood. Like they expected me to put on a show for them. They don't realize that the movie is THEM. That THEY'RE PUTTING ON THE FUCKING SHOW. Not me. The camera is pointed at them. It doesn't matter what I look like, if I wear a fucking suit or not. And these were always horrible actors - too full of themselves, too wanting Hollywood to even be good enough for my film. And none of them gave half the performance Dave could ... Dave, who hates himself onscreen... Santo: But would you have used them had they said they'd show? Gilchrist: Sure. I'm desperate. I'm lucky too, otherwise they wouldn't have quit and Gods... would have sucked. Katherine and Cori and Mariana - the female cast of this film - are staggeringly good. And they're all USC students. Santo: You sound pleased with Gods... Gilchrist: It's a beautiful film. I absolutely adore it. But it's not finished yet! I'll let you know when it's actually done and ready for review! I'm actually dreading going back to shooting it. Katherine's part is finished, but Cori and Mariana, no. I doubt Mariana will come back, since she left me. We were very different people. But she's the reason I wrote Gods, and I don't regret the time I spent with her. You see, Mariana and I were ... we were very different people and we were ALWAYS fighting. And I was wondering, with all this fighting, what's the point? Why do we stay together? And I realized that, it's because love is important. Love is the most important thing there is. And I would rather suffer through a lot of pain and have love than not have love .... love is worth fighting for, and if there is a God he wants us to fuck like animals. I've recently realized that's what this movie is really about. All the Dave and Katherine scenes are wrapped. Katherine was great. She put up with my horrible directing and constant lateness almost as well as Dave did. More importantly, her and Dave had this amazing chemistry onscreen. Some actors just strike sparks together, and it's hard to believe they're not a real tormented, but very much in love couple. I think when people read the script, they didn't like the Rhonda character. They found her really evil and hard to understand because she was inspired by a lot of the problems my own stupidity would cause in my tumultuous relationship with Mariana. But obviously when you get a good actor, who's likeable onscreen, they can make any character likeable and wonderful. Which Katherine did. We were always worried about that, making her likeable so that you do indeed love her at the end. Mariana too. Her character was at one point supposed to be the villain of the piece. But she played her so wonderfully and with such tragic humanity that I couldn't bring myself to write that. So I just left her as this flawed but wonderful character. Played by an actress who will never speak to me again. Santo: What about Cori? Gilchrist: Cori is a great actress and person and she got pretty well-known among our friends after a great performance in Stripped Away. And suddenly all our friends wanted her in their movies. She had to appear in a lot of shitty films, and went through movie Hell, I think. She quit acting in movies, because she got to think that all directors were sadistic rapists. I convinced her back to appear in this movie, but she was very nervous. I think she liked some of it! She's quite good in the film. We haven't finished her part yet, I'm giving her time. 
Santo: How would you react if someone was not tact in describing their dislike for your picture once it is released? Gilchrist: I would be unhappy and unsurprised. Heh. I don't expect my movies to be liked. I just hope they are. I would order that person to be killed immediately. It will probably get odd reviews as it's a character piece, just a performance piece. I found that all I could shoot well was two people talking in a room, so that's what this is: the Orange Cow long dialogue piece. What little I know about relationships in movie form. It is, so far, the culmination of what little I know about filmmaking, and what I love, and the things I think about. And I think you can tell it's by the guy who did Excaliburger. It's me. I mean, I've been writing drama for years in some form - I've said I feel like this is a script I've been writing for years under different titles but never shot. I never shot a long drama until now. Well, technically I shot The Animal Game in 1999. That was sort of a drama, and more realistic ... I hadn't finished the script, I'd only written about 10 pages, and the script was coming out bad anyway ... imagine a drama written in the same style as Excaliburger! I said, you guys can adlib better than this. And Dave and Ben were looking for a quick movie to do before I left for college. I had only about two weeks left so I said, okay, let's make it all up and shoot it in one night and call it a drama. And it was painful, everyone hated it when we shot it, we thought, okay, that experiment failed. But then about a year later I watched the footage and just started laughing and enjoying it. I didn't know if it would work. So I showed it to some people who liked it. I released it and it's not a popular film but it's aged better than any movie I've done. It's the same movie it was in 1999. It's overlong. The first cut I only showed friends was 3 1Ú2 hours, which is insanely long but actually got better reviews than the later 2 1Ú2 hour cut. I would like to do a shorter cut, but I don't have the time to revisit old movies ... and the master tapes are currently in the hands of Mr. Jason Santo. The raw footage is 5 hours long and plays as a 5 hour movie! Which is weird. My movies tend to get long, and I know the Gods of L.A. script was way too long. 255 pages if you can believe, and we cut about 100 pages out of it, we didn't shoot the original ending. But the funny thing is, my movies are all dialogue, and being long happens to be the style. They're that long because they work that way. My friend Jonny Block hated the Gods script and did a rewrite that was shorter, he rewrote the whole thing to a 90 minute movie that was done in much more a Hollywood style, he rewrote all the dialogue and made it a very conventional shorter film. And everyone who read it thought it was the most horrible thing they ever read. Me most of all. Because for whatever reason making my movies short and conventional ruins everything that's good about them. Long movies are underrated, they give the audience time to dream. Or fall asleep as some people might say! But heck, I'd love to fall asleep in a good long movie. Fall asleep in Lord of the Rings, I'd dream of elves. Someday you'll find me at a screening and I'll say it's going great. But everyone's asleep, they'll tell me. Yes, I'll say, but they're having great dreams. That's all films are, celluloid dreams. And when I shoot a movie that actually has dramatic substance to it, you better believe it's going to be long. Santo: You say Gods of L.A.is your first drama, but you did another very dramatic movie which I consider your best work... Gilchrist: I shot a short drama, Stripped Away, which I was embarrassed to write. At one point (it was) supposed to be a comedy. It was supposed to be more of an American Beauty sarcastic look at death. And I couldn't write that. Santo: I'm glad it wasn't. Gilchrist: Whoever I am, couldn't bring myself to make that funny. So I just poured out my soul on paper, and I realized the character was becoming unlikeable, but yet human. And I was embarrassed! I didn't think I could or should do it! See my film teachers, they heard I was a cartoonist, and they called my movies cartoons. I got angry and said, "I'll show you a cartoon." So I made this movie about cartoonists, because I grew up among them. It's a dark look at them, but ... real I think. I didn't want to show it to people, but it's become my most popular work, and that's heartening. I don't know what my dad would think of it. Santo: It is your most honest work...Gilchrist: I've realized people reward you in film-land only when you're really honest and true with yourself. So, Gods of L.A. is an attempt to extend that honesty. It too was supposed to be funnier than it wound up being. Santo: You mention your father, who is a career cartoonist. What does he think of your moviemaking? Gilchrist: My dad's a good man. We barely speak. I mean, he's in CT and I'm here, and there's no time. But there's definitely more than that. There's this difference of opinion. Santo: Does that come into play in your work in any way?Gilchrist: Oh sure, because he wanted me to be a cartoonist and I saw that career as a financial dead end, and maybe a creative one too. I thought, he's done this and he's not particularly rich or famous or successful. And he's repeating himself as an artist, turning out work that isn't as good as what he's capable of. I wanted to make films instead. Santo: You do have a very strong, natural ability to draw. Gilchrist: I started as an animator. My first movies were animations, when I was like 12. The movie that made me want to make movies was The Nightmare Before Christmas. I remade it on my tabletop when I was 12 and still have that footage. My voice was high. But gradually I moved to live action because it was easier. I still animate. I'm doing a cartoon for Jay Bauman's new movie. But it seems like my dad refuses to watch my films. He has sort of creatively disowned me. And it's sad. And weird. And he'll get over it. But he thinks I'm pretentious - that because I make films, I think I'm some hollywood big shot. Santo: Are you?Gilchrist: I don't think so. I don't pretend anything. Santo: I think you're very honest as well. Gilchrist: I always try not to lie and I make an ass of myself and I go down flaming. But at least I'm going down as myself you know? I don't come to REwind to promote my films and tell people I love them when I don't like their work and be ... false. Above all, I want to be true to myself. 
Santo: Do you think a movie with soul is a movie that comes from the writer's real life?Gilchrist: I think so, yes. I think the problem with a lot of movies is that they're based off other movies. I know I do this all the time. It's so much harder to be honest. It's easier to say, "oh, somebody else did this." But I realized I didn't go into filmmaking to not be myself. The reason I'm not a cartoonist is because I want to be myself. And I think who I am is a writer - of dialogue mainly. I can shoot that as a film. I don't hate anyone at REwind. There's just some people there whose work has, to date, bored me. And you know what? I'm the first one to want to see them do good work. To finally make that movie that doesn't scream amateur. To make that great film that can stand alongside anything Hollywood does - that doesn't have shitty performances and pretensions to something it isn't, that isn't some big clichŽ. Santo: You're waiting to see yourself do that as well. Gilchrist: I guess so. I never thought I could succeed in Hollywood being the sort of person that I am, being uncomfortable in my own skin. I can't pretend to be a normal person. Like most creative people, I have serious emotional and even physical problems. I have trouble functioning. Then I realized that there were successful directors that were the same as I was, and worse. Like looking in a funhouse mirror. So maybe there's hope yet. I think I have a few good movies in me. But yeah, there's always that quest to learn and do something better. Santo: Is that why you keep making movies?Rich Evans, the great Rich Evans who does a bit part in Gods of L.A., was feeling depressed recently, and he asked me why we do this. Why movies? Why do we kill ourselves making these stupid things? And you know what? For a second I didn't know. And then it snapped into my head: Because it's good. When it's good, it's worth it. When the movie comes together, when you're able to express yourself that way, and when the art is good, it's worth it. That's why we do it, and if you want to know what the point is, that's the point. To make it good. And to always do your best, learn from every movie you do, and eventually make it better. To tell a story with passion and heart. And be honest. And occasionally hit someone in the nuts with a ball.
Jason Santo - Mindscape Pictures Garrett Gilchrist - Orange Cow Productions |
Part of the goal of Fair Enough Friday is to introduce the world to amateur moviemakers circling under the radar of independent cinema.
Um, after that, the pod people must have gotten me or something, because I love it here now.
And finally Jon Ashby comes forward kinda nervously, and he says, yeah, that was the best one on the tape.