Our Filmmaker Interviews.

A screen grab of Christopher Nolan from our documentary, These Amazing Shadows

One of the most challenging aspects of our documentary was getting interviews with prominent filmmakers. The reality is that prominent people have worked long and hard to build their success. Why should they risk their reputation and precious time with a documentary produced by two guys with no discernible reputation. We had to develop strategies to overcome this reasonable attitude held by the multi-layer of people between us and the person we wanted to interview. Our main ally was persistence. And, the benefit of some small to large connections to people we know who have real connections in the film business.

The most interesting "celebrity get" was the director, Christopher Nolan. He is unquestionably one of the top directors in the world. We interviewed him about two weeks before the release of Inception. We had no idea his film would become the blockbuster of 2010. How did we "get" Mr. Nolan? Here is the surprisingly simple story. Our editor, Doug Blush, has a very cute daughter. She takes piano lessons from the same teacher as Christopher Nolan's daughter. A funny coincidence. During a recital Doug met Christopher and struck up a conversation about movies. Through this real, but a bit tenuous connection we relayed an interview request to him. To our delight he accepted.

Here is the interview scenario...Christopher is working night and day trying to finish his very, very complex film, Inception. He has a family. He has the mainstream media constantly knocking on his door. Literally thousands of interview requests. What does he do in the face of all of this? He makes time for our doc. Really amazing. He appeared for his interview on time (big thanks to his fantastic assistant, Stacey Kelly!!), coffee in hand, wearing his trademark vest/suit and looking a little tired, but ready. He was so nice and gracious. He focused on our questions, gave thoughtful answers and even flashed us his boyish smile several times. As you can imagine, to us, Mr. Nolan is quite the prince.

Here's rooting for Christopher to win the DGA award!

DGA Nominees for Outstanding Directorial Achievement: http://www.dga.org/thedga/aw_announcements-11.php3