FELDMAN INTERVIEW
	Part 1

Arne Zaslove interviews filmmaker John Feldman

Interactive Interview in 4 parts (click on key word, or scroll down and read):

Part 1: overview, production process, no script, origins of idea, improvisations, new technique of making films, Roger vs. Bobby, father

Part 2: film itself, structure, ending, darkness, music, fight scene, love

Part 3: digital filmmaking the new paradigm, technical specs and sound

Part 4: Feldman background, influences, early works, first two features, artistic voice, audience, Hollywood vs. independents, what's next

PART 1

ARNE: You say "Who the Hell is Bobby Roos?" is based on the experiences of Roger Kabler. To what extent is it a true story?

This film exists somewhere between fact and fiction. It is neither a traditional fiction film nor a traditional non-fiction or documentary film. We have taken the real life story of Roger Kabler, including footage from his years as a stand-up and his "moment" in the media spotlight, and combined this footage with newly shot footage which tells a fantasy of what might have happened to him. In effect, Roger is playing himself. While different from Roger's actual story, this fantasy endeavors to paint an emotionally honest portrait of someone who has gone through Roger's experiences.

ARNE: Which is why his character is so multi-dimensional?

Yes. The depth of the Bobby character -- and to a lesser extent the depth of all the characters -- comes from the fact that -- because everything was improvised -- the actors are all really playing themselves... at a gut level. Of course the danger of this technique is that -- if we do our jobs well -- the final film portrays the characters with "warts and all" as they say -- we show the good and the bad. These are not the traditional "fictional" movie characters that audiences are used to.

ARNE: Could you describe how the film was shot.

We staged the scenes on-location without any noticeable lighting units, then shot with one or more mini-DV cameras -- cameras that look like tourist cameras. Wireless microphones were hidden on the actors. I would start the improvisation and not cut until it was over. Sometimes the performances went on for five, ten minutes. Which is a long time.

ARNE: Which is why you needed two cameras?

Absolutely. But I never staged these scenes with the intention of getting one continuous "scene" rather, I set up a situation, "let reality happen," recorded it on videotape, and then "wrote" the scene when I was back in my studio in front of the computer -- as one would do a documentary. I first wrote a complete version of each scene, then in the final movie I used parts of the scenes. Some scenes I didn't use at all. These unused scenes, plus lots of Roger's past performance footage, will be the value added elements in the interactive DVD version.

ARNE: You told me you didn't have a script. No script at all?

We had a treatment which described what was to take place in a scene, but there was never any dialogue given to the actors. Except maybe in the break-up scene, I wrote some dialogue for that one.

ARNE: But you are a scriptwriter I would have thought that you put a lot of value in a script.

Well I do, but this is a different kind of filmmaking. And I suppose I'm a filmmaker first and a scriptwriter second. My dream has always been to "write the movie with pictures and sounds" -- which is a phrase borrowed from Bresson.

ARNE: Henry Bresson.

Right. The film is written on the computer. I like to think of the footage as "moments" on the hard drive that I am using to tell the story. And, most importantly, I can go shoot more material -- more moments -- as I go along.

ARNE: Did you do that a lot?

I think there were five or six shooting workshops. The first was for two weeks solid, then it was three days here, two days there...and so on. I suppose in total we shot 15 to 20 days. But it's hard to gauge in that way, because Roger came up to edit with me on several occasions and if we needed something, we'd just shoot it.

ARNE: Did you depart a lot from the original treatment?

Oh yes, well... we kept writing the story as we went along, of course. But I would always have some idea of what I was going to shoot before we started. Well, almost always.

I haven't looked at that original treatment in a long time -- which was called "Rubber Noses." I think we were pretty faithful to the spirit of the original idea -- which was Roger's.

ARNE: Tell me about that: the origins of the idea.

Well, about four years ago I began talking to everybody who would listen about my ideas for a new paradigm of fiction filmmaking... using miniDV cameras and improvisations... but it was all talk and I was looking for a way to put my ideas into action. In October of 1998, Roger called me out of the blue. I hadn't talked with him for over a year. He had an idea for a film. Usually when a person says that to me I hope for a call waiting or something, but this was Roger Kabler who I really respected and who I had worked with before. I immediately recalled that years ago I had said to him that if he ever came up with a great movie idea with him as the star that I would try to make it.

So he told me his idea and I thought about it for about a week. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that it was the perfect opportunity for me to try out all my digital ideas -- and my ace in the hole was that I had a built in partner who I knew to be a fabulous actor.

ARNE: And you worked with him during the editing?

Oh yes. Roger and I were collaborators throughout the process. This is a very deep collaboration, much more of a collaboration than I've ever experienced in the filmmaking process before. We tend to call filmmaking a collaborative process and it's wonderful when it is, but generally there is a dictator -- the director or producer -- and lots of hired craftsmen. My task was, in effect, to help Roger tell his story. Not the other way around.

ARNE : So -- getting back to the shooting for a moment -- you improvised the scenes based on your treatment. Can you describe this process.

Roger is a brilliant improvisational artist and all the other actors were chosen because of their improvisational skills. As you know, some brilliant actors can't or don't like to improvise. Their job is to realize a script. It's a particular skill.

I set up the improvisations very carefully. Each actor has a very clear and powerful set of objectives; some objectives are secret from the other actors. I set up an instigating moment to get the improv rolling, and then I step back and let it happen. The end is not pre-determined. Often the improvisation will go in a way that I wasn't expecting and that, frankly, I don't want. In that case, I either have to rethink the improv with, perhaps, new objectives, or new constraints, or go back to the treatment and rework the basic story.

For example, I would go into a scene and say, okay, here we are in the market. Emily this guy is going to come in and he's going to try and pick you up. You are a major De Niro fan. Do and say whatever comes naturally and don't engage with him anymore than he convinces you to do. There was no dialogue written.

ARNE: That's a highly memorable scene. It looked to me like it was shot with maybe five cameras, yet the spontaneity was never lost. How did you do this?

It was shot with two cameras and it was shot three times through. My basic technique is to stage the improv and then do it twice more. So I end up with six different views of the scene.

ARNE: Which means the consistency of their improvs must be extraordinary.

Well... no. I think it's the inconsistency of their improvs that really works in my favor.

ARNE: What do you mean?

Well, when I was first working out this technique. I assumed that I would stage the improv a few times and then in the editing select the one that worked best. I never planned to intercut the improvs because I assumed that would just be impossible. There was no real control of continuity. I would take what happened and what we learned in the first improv and I would work with that heading into the next improv. But what I discovered in the editing phase was that not only could I intercut the improvs but I could use this to my advantage to create -- to instill -- a radical change in beat.

For instance in the scene where Bobby wakes up with Emily and he's Robin Williams. He had to really charm her. In one improv she was so pissed off at him that she made it out the front door. But then in another improv Roger changed his timing, got into De Niro faster and did indeed charm her, as you can see in the film. The reason that scene works so well is that it's genuine. He really is obnoxious at first and she really is pissed off, then he really does charm her. That's what I love about improvisation -- when it works the results have a genuineness that is hard to beat.

ARNE: With Roger being such a true and honest performer was it frustrating? How difficult was it to keep up with him... in terms of knowing... oh God, I'll never be able to edit this, I'm wasting footage and time... finding his marks... or is there discipline within this incredible spontaneity and freedom? Or was it even an issue?

It wasn't really an issue because everything was built around his style and around Roger. There were no marks...

ARNE: He knew you could follow him no matter what he did...

He could do whatever he wanted.

ARNE: That's the answer.

But Roger is very aware of the camera. A total professional, and, yes, there is discipline within this madness. You know... as scenes unfolded before me, I knew that the real job was going to be in the editing. He could never do anything wrong -- get off the path if you will -- because we were making the path as we went along.

ARNE: And you discovered that path in the editing?

Exactly. It took a long time to edit, much longer than I thought. Around two years.

ARNE: You are using this extraordinary talent that Roger has... this incredible unpredictable nature ... and you're building that into the film at the same time... so there's no cart and horse here. So I have this question: Your direction of the film is so subtle... it's really there... but it's so subtle. Did this just happen? Was this a conscious choice on your part as a director to say I'm there, but I'm not there... to be just a fly on the wall? And yet there's tremendous direction and control throughout the film.

The scenes aren't really directed in the traditional sense. My goal is to create moments in life -- the fictional life, but it's life -- create the moments and then to cover them in a documentary fashion. So it's happening and we are flies on the wall.

ARNE: That's it?

Then I take it home and write the scene.

Arne: Yeah, it's almost.. you're redefining a whole technique of making films. Is it art imitating life or life imitating art? It's both of those...happening simultaneously... and as a viewer you're privy to such a private story, and yet we are being moved through the story by strong direction.

Because the writing comes after, which is to say that the control and direction you feel was imposed during the editing, not the shooting.

ARNE: Yes. Mike Leigh develops his scenarios through improvisations, but then he gets a complete script before shooting.

Well he's -- in terms of improvisation and acting -- one of my heroes. John Cassavetes is another model... closer than Mike Leigh to what I'm doing.. and you bet that if he were living he'd be well into digital video.

ARNE: You mention Cassavetes. What about Goddard was he an influence?

Well, you can't discuss film language without mentioning Goddard. He was a prime influence on me. As you can see from my love of jump cuts.

ARNE: Let's see... the crazy man on the street and the heckler. They look so extraordinarily real... like Roger is improvising with real people. But these are actors.

These are all actors. We planted them on the street or in the club and then covered what happened. The real people passing by... they just reacted as they normally would... which in New York City generally means they act like nothing is happening. Our cameras look like tourist cameras, so people may have thought that the guy with the camera was just some tasteless tourist. Like in the subway. I acted like a guy with a camera who was filming this weird guy I came across in the subway.

ARNE: What about the scene where's he's pretending to be Robin Williams and they are getting his autographs.

They were all real people who thought he was Robin Williams and that I was a tourist ... except the woman he picks up and takes into the limo, she was an actress.

ARNE: I want to get back to the relationship of Roger Kabler and Bobby Roos.

The simpliest way to look at that is that Bobby Roos is Roger Kabler's alter ego..

Arne: At some moments its impossible to distinguish what's real and what's fiction and that's one of the strengths of the film. Can you talk about that? He's living his part. Of course all great actors do... but at least they have to find their marks. How is that to work with?

When I first started talking to Roger -- and the reason I decided to do this project with him -- I knew that Roger could be totally honest. And that was my ace in the hole. I knew that if I had an honest performance, I could make a great film. Honesty is everything.

From the very beginning we made very clear decisions about what parts of the subject's story we were going to tell and what parts -- what information -- remained forever private. Roger and I felt very strongly that instead of telling Roger's story, we were telling a made-up story that was "uncannily" similar to Roger's own. Roger is married with a child. Roger has some issues that Bobby doesn't have, and Bobby has some issues that Roger doesn't have. I tried to understand what was in Roger's mind as a way to inform what was inside Bobby's mind. At best, it's a portrait of Roger. While I was working on the film, I toyed with the idea of telling more and more of Roger's real story, but that seemed cheap ... too easy. So I used this restriction as an artistic foil, and I think some of the most exciting parts of the film come from this limitation.

At all times I was trying, as a filmmaker, to be unscrupulously honest about creating visual metaphors (eg:. Bobby putting the props and masks in a box) and allegorical scenes that got to the heart of Roger's soul, and Roger's issues. This was only possible because Roger was tremendously honest with me. As I think the other performers were as well. Iris's (Emily) performance is amazingly honest, as is Annabelle's (Katherine). The flashes in the film, particularly in the scene in front of the mirror when he slashes his wrist, were Roger's idea... his way to portray what he remembered experiencing.

ARNE: I'm curious how this -- the fact that, at some level, he's playing himself -- how did this affect his acting?

(Laugh). You'd think that it would be easy... for him to play a character so close to himself. But keeping track of the differences, if you will, not letting himself slip into playing Roger, instead of Bobby, made it quite difficult. But Roger is, indeed, possessed when he does an improvisation. I've never worked with an improvisational actor who let's himself go to such an incredible extent. Elizabeth Pena who starred in my second film, "Dead Funny," could do it and certainly Annabelle Larsen, the star of my first film "Alligator Eyes," which is why I think she did such a good job in the epilogue in this film.

You know I still don't know if the story her character Katherine tells Bobby at the end of the film about retreating from the world and hiding in the backseat of her car is really based on Annabelle's experience or not.

Making the film was really an adventure. During the first shoot, Roger kept insisting that we do a scene with his father. And I would say, but Roger there is no scene with your father in the treatment. But he insisted and I finally realized that it was not only a good idea, but a brilliant idea. So we staged the scene...

ARNE: With his real father?

Yes. Nobody else could do it, because... well... how else? I had no idea what was going to happen.

ARNE: I think it's one of the most moving scenes in the film.

And it's very honest. So there's this level of honesty that we all try to get and that comes out of the nature of the improvs that to me is ... golden.

It's all the more poignant because sadly Roger's father, Mel, has since passed away, but I'm very pleased to say he was a big fan of the film.

ARNE: And what about the ex-wife, was she really his ex?

No... Roger doesn't have an ex. You know... that's another scene in which the gut level honesty of the performer shines through. While we were shooting I could tell that Jackie Malouf, who is another great improvisational artist, I could tell that she was really getting pissed off with Roger. And I thought I'd better take him aside and say something, but then I realized no... she should be pissed off, let it happen, she can handle herself, and she did.

ARNE: It's a marvelous scene... what does she say? "The world...

"The world already has all these people, what they don't have is you." It's a great line directly from her lips.

ARNE: Did it hit you as soon as she had said it -- that this was a brilliant line?

No... not until later did I discover this particular line and structure their scene around it... but while shooting I did get that wonderful thrill that sometimes comes during the shooting of a scene that magic is happening.

Filmmaking to me is a kind of adventure. I didn't know how deep we were going to go, how heavy the subject was likely to become before we started, I was committed to letting Roger and the story take me where they had to. I wanted to be honest and I wanted to explore the psychology of Roger in this "once removed" kind of way.

ARNE: Thank you for your time.

NEXT PART OF INTERVIEW - CLICK HERE