Q&A: A GENENIS FOUND filmmakers Lee Fanning and Ben Stark pt. 3
Click the link for the audio (note: length of audio may not match length of text, but you can refer back to previous posts): http://www.mediafire.com/file/yyzgyfentdz
Ben Flanagan (BF), Tusk Magazine
Lee Fanning (LF), director of A Genesis Found
Ben Stark (BS), producer of A Genesis Found
BF: When going exclusively local and independent, filmmakers will find it difficult to find actors whose on-screen presence doesn’t feel amateur or awkward nearly every second of a film (especially on a college campus). Describe your search for your principal cast and your assessment of their overall performances.
LF: Going in, I knew that, just from experience from working with a lot of collegiate actors and older actors who are around who I knew would be the actors we would have to get, that on average you’re probably going to find better younger actors in Alabama than older. The reason being, the younger actors are still here, though they’re going to move off to L.A. or New York and have successful careers while the older actors who are here, for a lot of them it’s just kind of a hobby they decided to get into when they got older, or maybe if you’re lucky they used to do professional theatre or professional work and now they’re just kind of teaching and what not and doing something else. Going in, when I was actually writing the script, I’m not saying that’s the reason I wrote it young, but that was kind of a happy accident that we kind of used. All of the cast were pretty young. All of the principals were young, like in their early 20s. Because, again, I knew that I could find stronger younger actors here probably on average, at least more stronger actors that are willing to work for no money. But going in, it was a real test to us being able to trust ourselves and our assessment of actors and of potential in people. One thing that I found that helped the most in casting, and Ben and I have talked a lot about this, but the best thing to look for, it is look and it is how they handle the material with the sides and auditions. But primarily, just their intelligence and if they seem smart, that really goes a long way. Most everyone we cast, we cast because in the audition, to a certain extent, they were comfortable-appearing, but they were just smart, and you could tell that there was never a moment where you could tell that they were a deer in headlights when you were talking to them. They were smart, they were vocal, they were willing to talk to you about what they were doing. People were nervous. I’m not saying just the people who were very cool and casual, we cast, because that’s not true. But you can tell, I think, when something’s going on up there that’s not just, “Oh, I’ve had audition classes. How do I react to this?” And I’m not trying to be condescending at all. People have their own ways of doing things. But the one thing we were looking for was a kind of honesty just in that person, just an honesty and an intelligence. We were very lucky with the older actors we got for that reason I said. And all of the older actors we have were very, very good. Dr. Steve Burch actually was in the film, who is a UA professor. All of the older actors who were in bigger supporting roles were former professional actors that are now teaching and are still really good, and they just do independent films now whenever they can get them just for fun – just to stay in practice. They liked the script enough to do a really good job. I think with the younger cast, they were very hungry. It was everyone’s first feature. They were all extremely excited about that, which is good. You want people to be very excited about the film. I’ve worked on independent films with even bigger budgets than this where everyone was doing it as a day job, and they hate it, and it’s a stupid movie. It sucks out the energy of everything on every level. And here we are, this is everyone’s free time for the whole summer working on this. What drove them to do such a good job is the excitement of the project and liking the project and not getting the opportunity anywhere else. They were smart, they were craftsman. I’d say all of the performances were really good. We had one actor, Luke Weaver, who played Bart Thomas, the red-headed guy in the trailer. He was amazing because that character, I knew, was going to be very hard to cast because he was very specific. He was kind of this guy who went out to L.A., he was this really smart filmmaker, he was from Alabama; and he kind of does the Billy Bob Thornton thing, he kind of overdoes the southern thing a little bit to kind of serve him well up there and make it kind of his persona. He kind of has this sort of vendetta thing going on. I knew that was going to be hard to cast because a lot of the people who read for it…it’s kind of a hard thing to understand. He overdoes the southern thing a little bit, but it’s got to come off like he’s not trying to do a bad southern accent. And Luke was a guy who’s from Guntersville, Alabama, and he was trained professionally in New York, lived in L.A. for a while, so he understood the character perfectly a) from a personal standpoint, but b) he’s just a really, really strong actor, and he’s very, very smart, and he was very, very professional. All the actors were great, but Luke was probably the most professional in terms of just he knew everything and was there to work, and he was a UA guy. Elliot Moon (Gardner Patton), he was our lead, and Elliot was great. Again, he was really smart. He listened to me, and was very good at taking direction. That was another big thing we kind of looked for. And he was willing to talk to me about it. And he was a kind of guy where it seemed from his performances that…he and Luke were kind of the first couple of takes where they had these ideas, and they were dynamite, and they were kind of feeling everything out. And after that, their performances got a bit more set. I wouldn’t say they were stale because they weren’t bad. But there was a little less exploration, so it was good with them because I always got stuff in the first couple of takes. We didn’t have to do that many takes with him. That was the difference with the older actors. But that’s a different process, which is something you learn when you’re directing. And then Elise Zieman played Kelsey West, who was another lead, and I thought she was really great. And she was like very book-focused, but that was really cool. And, again, she was really smart and just understood the process of acting well and understood her character well. And the only sort of amateurish or untrained actor we had was the other lead, Bennett Parker, who played John Patton Jr., who was actually a friend of mine from high school. I hadn’t worked with him in a long time. We had made stuff when we were in high school together. I was just talking to him about the film, and he said he wanted to come out to audition. And so I wasn’t going to give him, by any means, any special treatment because I knew him. But he did extremely well. He was probably the best natural talent that I’ve seen in a long time because he has no training. A) I know him well, so that was an advantage of me casting him because he understood me as a director and just understood me as a person. But, again, he was really smart and everyone brought their A-game, I thought, so I’m very happy with the performances. I don’t see anything that I felt was off. Even the supporting characters were freaking on, so everyone worked really hard, and I think we were pretty smart in casting for intelligence and for that honesty, and it helped us a lot.
BS: Yeah, I think one additional gauge we used was a sense of humor because that’s a pretty good gauge for intelligence in acting and that kind of way. People that you could be honest with. A big, useful thing that we went to time and time again on this thing was being able to call shenanigans on each other and being able to be honest enough with each other and say, “I don’t buy that” and “I’m not sure if you’re giving this all of your attention.” Lee and I were able to do that with each other, and he was able to do that with his actors. I was never in any of the private conversations, but I’m sure they were able to do that with him, too, where if something wasn’t specific enough they could ask a question, and Lee wouldn’t be like, (forcefully) “Because I’m the director, and I said so!”
LF: Elise actually called me out on that one time, and I’m glad she did because I had to kind of reevaluate it, and I gave her a reason, and it wasn’t something I just pulled out of my ass. They cared enough about it. They weren’t just like, “Okay, I’ll do it this way.” They were interested in every aspect of the scene and what leads point A to point B, and they were very thorough about it and they were as hard on me as hard as I was on them. There were times when we saw it different ways. There was never any time when I was like, (forcefully) “We’ll do it my way, and we’ll do it your way!” We came to an understanding and got the best thing out of it. I’m not saying that there weren’t times when we didn’t agree, but generally it never brought up gunslinger moments because we didn’t agree. It was always very vocal, and we understood, and we talked, and that was good.
BF: I’m aware of most of Ben’s major influences – Eastwood, the Coens, Sturges, Spielberg for starters. Lee, whose work would you say you mostly draw from? What films were you watching before and during your writing the script and making the film?
LF: The director that I most admire and probably want to draw from the most would be Orson Welles. I was watching a lot of his work going in, and we did do a lot of deep focus in this. That was more just because we used a lot of steadicam, but at the same time that was kind of a conscious decision. A lot of the shots did call for that kind of thing, which of course Welles was a great master of. I’ll probably say that I’m most influenced by – and not that I did very much like it, but I love his work – will be Spielberg. Particularly for this film because, in a lot of ways, it is kind a reaction to a lot of his adventure work. I’m not saying that it’s a conscious kind of – that it’s a way for me to get away with ripping him off, there’s not that – it’s just there are certain elements that I could certainly say probably have a Spielbergian influence on them, and it’s good because the film is a deconstruction of the modern mythmakers, which he’s probably one of the most influential of. And then actually going into this, I had like a list of reference films, but I won’t bore you with all of that. But going in, I was watching a lot of “X-Files,” which I don’t know if I want to say that or not, and it doesn’t much bleed into the script, but I did watch a lot of “X-Files” going in, which I really, really like. And “Star Wars,” of course, is probably the one, that mixed with like “Batman: The Animated Series,” are probably the two things that led me to storytelling to begin with. And I wish I could tell you things that sound a lot cooler, man. But honestly, I’d say the two directors I think I drew from the most, at least for this film particularly, would be Welles and Spielberg.
BF: Ben, who do you see in Lee’s work? You’re pretty good at assessing styles. Is there anything you’ve noticed any differently than what Lee has said?
BS: A lot of the kind of moving in – the pushing in and observing things and kind of investigating things – that happens a lot in the movie just from a perspective standpoint, and a lot of that reminds me of [David] Lynch a little bit. Specifically just that one part in “Blue Velvet” where it goes underground, and it’s just kind of like a thematic way of saying, “This is what I’m doing writing now is I’m investigating this specific thing.” So I think Lynch is there probably a little bit, but other than that, I’m not sure because it’s such a subconscious thing. I’d have to carve his brain open and look at the gooey insides to figure out exactly what. But we never had any discussions or conversations of, “And now this is going to be the part where we do it like Ridley Scott did it” or anything like that. But yeah, the only thing he really didn’t mention and that I can kind of see is David Lynch.
BF: Why might you recommend staying in-state (or away from Hollywood) to graduating or budding filmmakers who hope to make feature films? Does it always depend on what kind of story you want to tell?
LF: I think so, a lot. I think a lot of people, though, who want to get into filmmaking tend to do it for different reasons that aren’t to tell stories; and that’s not necessarily a bad thing. That’s just what they want to do. For that reason, I don’t see much reason to stick in the state if you’re not going to create your own opportunities, at least as of right now because there are so few opportunities for you, unless you’re willing to make your own. So that’s why a lot of actors that I know go out there for a little while, or at least go other places like Austin or Florida, or some places that aren’t New York and L.A. but do have a little bit better of a scene. I can’t begrudge them of that because if you’re not directing or writing your own crap or all you need essentially is investors, then you really have to go where there are jobs. And I’m working a day-job now, and I know what it’s like to work a day-job that’s not really what you love to do all the time, and not get what you really love to do because there’s not enough opportunities here, which sucks. But I think if your goal is to make your own film, make your films the way you want to make them – and be that telling stories or be that, some people believe that movies aren’t a primary form of storytelling, and that’s fine if that’s what you want to do – but if you want to make films your way and you’re from here, I guess it does depend primarily on what you’re doing, but I just don’t see much reason to go somewhere that’s a lot bigger because all you’re going to do is have a lot harder of a time because you won’t be able to make things your way. The good thing about being in an area where there’s not a whole lot of industry is if you can get some money, then you’re going to have a lot of free reign. I guess it all depends on your investors. If you can get some pretty good kind of passive investors, and you’re willing to work a little harder for a little less money and get people on board who might be working for deferred salaries, then wherever you’re at is the best place to do it. Because it’s like Ben said, you don’t have to transition. You don’t have to transition into a move. You don’t have to meet a whole new set of people. One of the big things that helped us make “Genesis” when we made it was a lot of the crew base was either in school or out of school and were in transitional areas themselves, and we knew them from school, and we were able to say, “Hey, well do this for this last summer where you’re at home with your parents.” (Laughs) I hate to kind of give that away, but that really was an advantage that people were that free yet still really mature enough to do a professional job on the film. It wasn’t like I was in high school. I do think, though if you’re telling a story, it does depend on your story. I don’t really see the point of making a film set in Manhattan if you’re going to shoot in downtown Birmingham. But it’s not like it can’t be done, and I’m sure that people do it a lot. I personally think if you’re going to tell stories in a place, it’s a much bigger advantage to tell them about that place than to try to make it set it on Middle-Earth or something.
BS: Which is where our next project is set. Yeah, I would say that it all just determines on what you want and what you need. I think that filmmaking is a collaborative art form, which is great because that means you don’t have to be one thing. If you’re not a good screenwriter, that’s okay. That doesn’t make you a bad director and vice-versa. So I think if you’re just honest with yourself and ask yourself the hard questions, you’ll figure out exactly what you want to do, and that will determine the best places for you to do it. Right now, if you want to be a production designer, apparently here is not the best place to be. But I think if you want to be a production designer, your best bet is to probably go somewhere else. But you have to be specific about that, or you’re going to get there and realize, “No, I want to be a screenwriter,” which actually that might be a better place to be, too, than here. But what I’m saying is once you’re honest with yourself and determine what you want to do through experimenting, you need to focus on that; and if you want to be a filmmaker, you have to determine what kind of filmmaker you want to be. You could be a narrative feature filmmaker or a documentary filmmaker. There’s a huge difference, I’d say. They’re two completely different art forms. You could be a music video filmmaker. There’s nothing wrong with that. For some reason, people are kind of demonized with that. There’s nothing wrong with that, but that doesn’t inherently make you a feature film director because they’re two completely different art forms. I think if you want to be a music video director, going somewhere else is probably work better than here because you’re going to be focused on market demands a little bit more than narrative feature filmmakers are going to be. So there’s kind of like a false nobleness in wanting to be a director and going to L.A. and doing it. But it’s so much more complex and specific than that.
LF: But there is a certain amount of draw. To me, it makes sense now that the film industry as it’s getting, or at least certain aspects of it, are getting more inexpensive, there will be more of a push for regionalism in film. The main reason being, though it’s always been an industry because it’s so expensive, but as costs go down, it is innately an art form, which makes it different from any other industry out there. So it’s almost like with novels. Southern gothic was such a huge movement in the 20th century, and it’s so important where you’re from if you’re a writer or if you’re a painter because it affects your work and how you approach your work and what decisions you make. And that’s true with film, too. So I think we’re starting to see that already with the rise of digital technology. We’ve seen elements of it since film’s been in existence. But I think now particularly it’s becoming more prominent. And people are more willing to watch independent films and are more willing to watch digital films, and there’s the internet where you can download full feature films, hopefully not illegally, that are by independent filmmakers. There’s more of a draw to and a more development of a kind of decentralization. The film as an art form, particularly the American film, which as always been one thing, is starting to break out a little more into different styles and into different kinds of things. And I know that a little bit of that’s kind of wishful thinking of me right now, but I think definitely in the next ten to fifteen years, we’re going to see more of a push for that, more young filmmakers interested in telling stories that are more closely associated with the areas that they’re in and colorized by the areas that they’re at, as opposed to them going out to L.A. and just kind of shooting something that’s neutered and standard and kind of pale and boring and well that’s just kind of the standard thing. The standardization is going to kind of change more hopefully, and we’re already seeing that.
BS: Yeah, I think it’s just kind of common sense if you look at the patterns of decentralization. In the 70s, Lucas was audacious enough to move his whole operation out of L.A. completely, although it’s not very far away in San Francisco. But that was the first step, and then you see Rodriguez in the 90s set up an entire movie studio in Austin, and that place is growing exponentially and has its own little mini-industry now. I mean, I won’t comment on the output, but he did it. Now, even if you look at Indian film and “Slumdog Millionaire,” the popularity of that, even though that’s kind of a fake Bollywood movie because it has direct Hollywood roots, it’s still a testament to the fact that people will embrace and watch a movie that has no superficial links to Hollywood, and it’s kind of a good thing for independent film but for also decentralized film. And I think combined with globalization and the fact that the art form is getting cheaper – in metaphorical terms, that the paper and the pens are getting cheaper – you’re going to see authors come from all over the place. And it will be marketable, which is all that matters at the end of the day as far as a future is concerned. As much as creating art is important, having a place in the marketplace is still important, and the idea that it needs to be an investment and a building upon itself.
LF: And to get philosophical for second, tying on to Ben’s globalization thing, I think the world’s getting smaller it seems like in terms of mass communication, and this has been happening since television, but I’m just saying, particularly with the internet, the world seems to be getting smaller and seems to be one thing. And you’re starting to see a bit of a reaction against that. A lot of it with right-wing conspiracy theorists, which I’m not agreeing with, but I’m just saying that I think you’re going to see more of a reaction against this kind of theory of an autonomous, one world, and of course because it’s not. We have different experiences, and different towns have different experiences. So I think you’re going to see just as kind of a reactionary movement, if nothing else, just from an art form movement reactionary standpoint, that you’ll see more of a specificity in the world, kind of a need for that, a need for different perception, different stories, different types of things. Because we’re not getting it, we’re starting to lose that awe of how wide the world is anymore.
BS: Yeah, everybody’s interested in other cultures and able to learn about other cultures, but everybody’s okay with that fact, and nobody’s threatened by it. We can all watch “Slumdog Millionaire” and not feel like, “Oh God, they’re going to make us believe the way they do.” And I think that that reaction to globalization is going to be reflected in movies the same way that we can read the Harlem Renaissance stuff and just understand that that’s how it works in a different part of the nation. I think the way American works is the same way the world’s going to go, and I think that filmmaking being the populist medium of our time is only going to go the exact same way. Transcribe that!
BF: What are your distribution plans with this movie?
BS: You want to buy it?
LF: As of right now, that’s unfortunately been the one thing that’s probably a tad vague and that we’re probably going to look back on and say, “Man, I don’t know why we were so idealistic about that.” But right now the game plan has been festivals first. We’ve talked to a couple of people. We know a producer who has expressed interest in helping us sell it and that kind of thing, and that’s great, but we really want to get a bit of that festival experience first, see what happens. We’re not really expecting anything huge, but as of right now nothing’s locked down, but the plan is to kind of play some festivals, get a feeling for crowd reactions, get a feeling for general interest in the piece, particularly since a lot of the festivals we’re hoping to play first are nowhere near here. Right now we’ve been kind of nurturing a very small regional kind of people who know about the film. Not too many people know about it, but there’s enough where people have asked me about it that I don’t even know, so that’s kind of cool. We kind of want to see the reaction there, and see what happens. There may be that wonderful luck where we get an offer at an early festival, but we’re not banking on that. Our plan is to see what happen with the first couple of months at festivals, and if things seem to not be going anywhere, then we’ll try some other avenues that come open to us. And worst case, we’re just interested in getting it out there, so we’re not above sending it directly to distributors, saying “Hey, take our film,” or just trying to get them to buy it just from solicitation. There’s a lot of really good outlets now that are DIY. It’s like self-publishing for film. There’s like indie flicks and stuff like that, which is definitely not going to be where we first go, but it will kind of be our last resort to do it all ourselves just because we’re not distribution guys. So I don’t really want to get into that because in order to be successful as a DIY distributor, you’ve got to be smart and innovative, and I don’t know that that’s where our talent lies. So we’ll see, but that’s one of the things I was talking about earlier about the advantage of a small film is we have the advantage because we have a very, very passive investment and everyone’s on deferred. So essentially we could do a very, very, very, very, very inexpensive deal, and we’re not going to make much money, but we could get potentially pretty nice distribution or at least some kind of distribution that’s in our favor. So that’s an advantage we have and we are going to kind of nurture is that we don’t have investors calling Ben every three weeks saying, “If you don’t sell the film within the next three months, then we’ll execute powers and take over the film.” So we don’t have that pressure, and we’re taking advantage of that, and that’s the only reason we’re able to have a bit more of an unplanned distribution approach. It’s not unplanned. We have a festival plan, but in terms of we don’t really know where it’s going to go after festivals. And that would probably scare the crap out of us if this movie cost a lot more money and we had our personal lives on the line for it in terms of if it didn’t make any money we’d go bankrupt. But we don’t have that kind of pressure, so we’re taking advantage of that.
BS: Yeah, whenever we first mapped everything out as far as our five-year business plan goes, we’re not banking on this being “Blair Witch” or “Primer” or one of those really low budget things that explodes. We’re not banking on that, and we understand that the likelihood of that is very small. So we went in with a small enough investment and small enough hopes to just kind of use it as a learning tool. We believe in this film the same way we would if it was our last film, so it’s not like, “Let’s just throw something out there to get started.” But we do understand that it all works in steps, and we’re trying to be pretty humble with it in that way. But one of our direct plans is to kind of focus on sci-fi conventions and sci-fi festivals because deconstructionist movies are so popular right now, especially with genre markets. “Watchmen” didn’t make a lot of money globally and nationally, but on a comic book genre perspective, it’s a step in the direction of that deconstructionist movement that everybody knows is coming. So we’re looking at that kind of direction as far as marketing the film to those kinds of festivals.
BF: You’ve described this experience as a “résumé-building thing” or a reason to get something “of note” under your belts. Does it only go that far, or was it more personal than that?
LF: It’s a lot more personal. From a professional standpoint in terms of me being blatantly cold and honest with myself, ultimately I knew the film might not mean more than that to anyone else, and that’s like the cold heart of everyone doesn’t really like the film and there’s no response to it, then at least I have something on there. So that’s sort of where that statement came from to John at the Huntsville Times. But it’s a lot more personal. Like I said, the CCC is something that I’ve been personally interested in for a long time, and my grandfathers were in it. A lot of the subtext is kind of spiritual subtext, and in a lot of ways, it’s a character’s search for God. And in a lot of ways, that’s certainly a personal thing that everyone can kind of attest to within themselves. The continuity I’m really happy with. It’s a pretty thick kind of history in the world, and I really like the characters. It’s not something I’m planning on making into a franchise or anything, but it’s something that I would kind of like to revisit and use characters to revisit later. And because there’s kind of a longevity to everything. Actually there are some guys making a promo mockumentary just kind of adding on to the continuity right now. We have some friends who are making that, which is kind of cool. So that means a lot, and it’s your first feature. It’s like your first baby. I think I really do like the story, and I think it’s everything that I like in films. I think it’s introspective, and it’s structured at least mean something more than you look at on face level. But on its base core, it is an adventure film that moves pretty well, and it kind of has just a basic conflict between these two cousins, and a character and ideas that may or may not be true. So all of that kind of makes it sellable, but it is very personal.
BS: Yeah, and I think from a production standpoint it would have been impossible to just look at this as kind of an arbitrary process of just going through the motions of getting something out there and getting something made. Because if it was that, I would have quit several months into it because it was very hard. It was very personal, it was very emotional but in a satisfying way. Like I said earlier, I think we’ve all kind of come as far in one sitting as filmmakers with this one experience than with any other. So I think that even if I had been detached at the beginning, it wouldn’t have stayed like that, or else it wouldn’t have continued happening.
BF: Do you both still want to be filmmakers?
BS: No. (Laughs) I’m just kidding.
LF: Completely, yeah. There was never any point in it, and I think Ben probably agrees, where I was ever like, “This is the wrong choice.” It’s hard, but it’s amazing because it’s amazing how much you like it. I think back, even now, and I’m working on it constantly, I come home and I edit. That’s all I do. Peyton keeps complaining. When I’m not working, I’m working on the film. The physical exhaustion it was, it didn’t even phase me. It was just, “Okay, this is what you’ve got to do.” And thinking back, I’m like, “Man, that was crazy,” because seriously it was. Whenever we were on lunch breaks, we were working at the same time. We were talking about it, and throughout the day we were talking about it. And when I got home that night, we prepped for that shoot that weekend. Like I said, every Monday, there was a catastrophe of some kind, of some magnitude. Sometimes, it was like Wednesday, and that was the worst because we had to shoot Friday or Saturday. But, no, despite all of that, I want to do it as much as I did going in. it’s kind of unreal to me right now because it’s actually finally going to be tangible, and people are going to be looking at it. And it’s kind of scary because, again, it’s your baby, it’s your first thing kind of going in. But in terms of do I want to stop while I’m ahead? No.
BS: From my perspective, it was a little bit hard for me doing the producing thing because I will say I don’t want to do that forever. But it was extremely satisfying. It’s the kind of freakish hard work that you can’t believe you’re doing and you can’t believe you’re going through. But at the end of the day, it’s very satisfying. And I remember on the last shoot day, when we said, “It’s a wrap,” that was a ridiculous feeling. If anything, it’s just calcified me. It’s like a no-turning-back thing. You’ve put so much of your emotional part of you into it that you can’t turn back now because it’d be just a big waste of time. Not only that, it’s just you’ve done something and you’ve come to a realization with it, and it’s the kind of satisfaction you just can’t turn away. So no, there’s no way that I’d ever do anything else.
LF: And also from an artistic standpoint, there’s things that I’m even noticing now – and granted, I’m seeing the film every day, so I’m too close to it, and that’s the danger of editing your own work, which I hate that I had to do that – but you see things that you would do differently. And there’s moments, where seriously, you’re like, “I don’t even know if this works anymore. I can’t get my head around it.” So there’s a certain amount of liberation. Going on to another film, and well I’ve learned so much from this one I want to apply it to the next one because there’s only so far you can take this one. I’m not saying I’m just throwing it to the wayside or anything, I’m just saying that I, at this point, there’s not too many more artistic decisions I could make on the film. It’s what it is, and if I made the wrong ones, then tough. That’s the way it is. So you look forward to the opportunity to get to do that again. But that’s one of the things I have a hard time understanding about the special editions of “Star Wars” as much as I love them. Going back to your work 30 years before and enhancing it seems like, to me as a storyteller, it’d kill you because, like I said, a) there’s nothing I could change that much anyway, but b) I wouldn’t want to. It’s a testament to what it was, and what I was then, what I am now, and that’s it. Then I can go on, so at the beginning of the next film, you start from scratch. So there is a certain amount of desire, just strictly from that sense, just wanting to apply what I’ve learned. I don’t want to just sit on my butt and forget about it.
BS: Although, we are planning in 20 years to digitally replace Elliot Moon.
LF: That’s right.
BS: With a giraffe.
