Written on March 13th, 2012 on the yellow pad...
The sun has finally decided to hang out with us! Too bad we had to spend a good portion of our day indoors, but the interviews we did were totally worth it. Our first interviewee was the super talented and productive director, Jonad Akerlund from Sweden. He divides his time between Stockholm and and Los Angeles and works on over 35 projects a year. He has made music videos for Madonna and Lady Gaga amongst others, worked on commercials, short films, and features. His latest project is a feature called Small Aparments, which is premiering here at SXSW. Talking to Akerlund was inspiring, and I could totally feel his enthusiasm for his work and the level-headedness that allows him to complete his projects successfully. When we asked him to pick three keywords to describe himself, he chose "director," "father," and "black metal." The best thing about him is that he is super open to alternative methods of distribution and loves the Intranets, which means you will be seeing some of his work on Film Annex soon!
Our next stop was the W hotel, where we interviewed the cast, the director, and the writer of SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED, a comedy that made us laugh out loud several times the previous night. It was one of those, funny, moving, and quirky movies with a sci-fi affect and a dab of hipster touch. Mark Duplass, one of the producers and an actor in the film, has previously directed movies such as Cyrus and Baghead. Aubrey Plaza aka April in the NBC Show, Parks and Recreation, gave a "thumbs-up" performance, by portraying yet another seemingly sulky but fun and emotional in reality character. Chatting with them about the film and their use of social media was surely interesting, and this time we changed things up a bit, and asked them to describe each other in 3 keywords. Apparently, Mark Duplass is a sex machine and Plaza is... I'll keep that from you for now until we go live with the interview video.
Last but not least, we interviewed Brian Savelson, the director of the indie film, IN OUR NATURE, which explores a father-son relationship. Savelson loved our questions, and therefore we loved him back. A Brooklynite, Savelson once again reminded us how challenging making a feature film can be. Yet, he seems to be a positive and energetic, independent filmmaker who is excited about life.
So that's it for Day 3. I'll type up my notes from Day 4 soon, because I'm old school like that! See you in another life, people! I miss Desmond...
-- Eren Gulfidan