Last week SALDANATION was lucky to talk with our old pal, Austin-based director and screenwriter, Tim Norfolk. He's often put into the "aspiring filmmaker" category. SALDANATION feels the term is a misnomer. Tim's been shooting his own stuff for the better part of two decades. And like many in the category, he brings to the table a wealth of knowledge and expererience coupled with a love of the medium. We asked TN five questions and he gave us five answers.
SALDANATION: The general public has access to high quality video equipment and editing software at reasonable prices. You Tube and similar sites provide an outlet for just about anything one is willing to commit to video. Do you see this trend of self entertainment leading to the eventual obliteration of television networks and movie studios as we know them?
TN: No, I think Big Media will always exist in some form. As someone who puts stuff on the internet I can appreciate the want and need to direct people to your stuff, so I think that's the role they will most likely play. I wouldn't be suprised if studios became providers of some sort like You Tube, etc. And with advertising behind them they will always have their draws. Sure there will always be the viral (is that even relevant anymore?) phenomena but even now we see those absorbed in some way by the bigger entities. I think one thing that will be impacted the most will be advertising. I think we will start to see the average person influencing marketing trends more.
SALDANATION: As a screenwriter you spend many hours working with words on page. Your product, the script, is not the end goal but rather the road map for the moving pictures. Why work so hard on something that most people will never read?
TN: You mean like answering questions on a blog?
SALDANATION: Ouch.
TN: Just kidding. These days I try to appreciate the writing experience as if I'm making the movie itself. Recently you read a script of mine that I wrote for Bill Murray and George Clooney to do. Now you and I both know there's probably no chance in hell either of those guys are ever going to actually make it, but when I was writing it, I did make my movie with George Clooney and Bill Murray and I had a great time. Maybe I'm becoming delusional but I think you kind of have to be to even keep at it. We do talk all the time though.
SALDANATION: During the 1970's Hollywood studios produced several profound and ground breaking films (speaking in both visual and narrative terms). Many of these films (Mean Streets, Midnight Cowboy, Annie Hall to name a few) would more than likely not be produced today by major entertainment outlets. In your opinion, what's the most important lesson we should learn from the films of that decade?
TN: I would say to know their place in cinema would be the most important thing. Those movies caused such a stir because of what came before them and what they brought to the table. I think there are movies being produced today that are just as challenging and innovative we just see all the other crap that comes out with them, so we might not see them so clearly now. Think about when you first saw Fight Club in the theater, I don't know about you but I wanted to actually punch somebody, it had an energy to it that I hadn't really experienced before in a comteporary way and the same thing with Harmony Korine, there was a time that it seemed like he might undo the fabric of our society but now his movies seem kind of dated, times change. I think in ten or twenty years when people are only talking about the work of the same five directors from our generation, people will be asking the same question of whether those films could be made at that time. But there will be those of us that remember the City of Gods and the Oldboys.
SALDANATION: You are a self-professed horror officiando. The visual effects of today, while amazing, leave nothing to the imagination. The modern viewer has been desensitized by an almost continual stream of graphic images. Is it still possible to make a scary movie?
TN: I think so. In my opinion the biggest mistake that's made with horror movies these days are that they're too glossy and kinetic to allow anyone to really invest themselves, the viewer's imagination is atleast 50% responsible for the success of a horror movie in my opinion if not more, we know it's not budget (look at Blair Witch Project or Paranormal Activity and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in it's day). I know as a movie goer that Eliza Dushku is not going to die in the first twenty minutes of HER movie, but in the first movie they do that in, we're all going to be shocked because at that point no one is safe and we'll be invested. I loved the Blair Witch Project when it came out. Everybody likes to say they weren't scared by it, but whenever the Main Character went down into that basement at the end and we saw their friend standing in the corner and you saw all those little handprints on the wall, you connected the dots of what you had been told over the course of the movie and you knew that we as the audience did not want the characters or ourselves to be down there. Now I don't care who you are, but you shit your pants when that scene unfolded, you can act like you didn't but you did. The viewer has to invest themselves to be affected by horror, their imagination is the only thing that will strike the right chords.
SALDANATION: Actor Steve Buscemi knocks on your door with a film crew in tow. He says you've got two days to make a movie starring him. What is your opening scene?
TN: He holds his wife's hand as she's in labor. It's a wonderful, defining moment in their lives. The soundtrack is slow and intimate. The film plays in slow motion. The music fades as the film speeds up to regular time turning the scene upside down, monitors signal things aren't going too well. The doctors and nurses frantically try to get the situtation under control. He's lost in the chaos of it all. One of the nurses tells him they need him to leave. He refuses. He's forcibly escorted out of the room as his wife screams in agony. He watches desperately through the swinging double doors as his wife's arms are strapped to the bed. All of a sudden it becomes eerily quiet. The double doors are now stable and closed. He completely breaks down. The doors bust wide open as the Doctors and Nurses come running out covered in blood, we see that one nurse is missing a hand another has an animal of some kind on her face or is it his child?
This would be my opening for IT'S ALIVE IV: Age of the Alive.
SALDANATION: The entire editorial staff of SALDANATION just peed a little.
Tim is always working on new stuff. You should check out his You Tube channel regularly: http://www.youtube.com/user/timnorfolk
Below is his short The Jam Box Technician.