Mumbling Around *Interview With Directors Of Closure*

So if you remember, last week/last post, I did a little piece on a film called Closure. Well also last week, I got the opportunity to catch up the directors Joel Hewett and Andrew Golden and just ask them the standard uramyx interview questions. Little did I know was that for the next 2-3 hours we just sat and talked whilst I occasionally slipped in the questions I had prepared. There was some sort of formality, where I did say I was going to start asking the questions. But these guys are so eager to talk about films that the conversation just kept going.

I met the pair in a pub in Dundee, sat around a small table, all wearing different (yet quite similar) spectacles and from there had an amazing time just chatting.

Hey guys. How are you doing today?

Joel: Good! Tired.

Andrew: Good Actually, I just had some macaroni cheese.

Joel: Did you? I just had... actually, it's been so many hours since I ate, I can't actually remember what I last had. Does that matter?... I feel good.

Andrew: Joel's gone crazy from starvation I think.

Joel: I have a few things in a bag here for later. A nice innocent smoothie and a couple things of noodle. Living the high life right here.

Andrew: *Laughs* yes, this interview is sponsored by innocent smoothies.

Joel: So the short answer is... We're Good! 

Andrew: *Laughs* And so the mad tangents begin.

So, as people would have read, you are the creative minds behind Closure. For the good readers, can you tell us a bit about yourselves?

J: You can go first.

A: Em... Well, I'm Andrew Golden. I'm a design student at the moment. Em... and I like films and...stuff. *Laughs* I don't know, kind of hard to sum up I guess. 

I didn't think I would ever be a director of anything. But, it's weird. This is something that just happened almost spontaneously I guess. Joel pretty much triggered it all with writing the script and so on. 

J: Well I guess for me, I'm kind of finished university and I was trying to do something good and creative, with my life anyway.

A: I think we're both quite creative people anyway.

J: We're the kind of guys that are constantly bouncing ideas about to the point we know the kind of things we want to do about ten steps ahead of what we are doing already. 

I guess I would describe us as "Creative Individuals". I try to give a brief sum up at the end of every bit of rambling we do.

A: It think we need a summing up at the end of everything. *Jokes* That's every scene in the film, there is some form of summing up. So you've got bit's like "Basically what happened in this scene is..."

J: I pop up in the audio

A: Yeah! Do a sort of Morgan Freeman voice over thing. An analysis of the scene itself.

J: I should mention, Golden Co-Directed, Co-Edited, Cinematography, Sound edited and also did one of the song.

A: Whereas you did, Directing, Writing, Producing, Acting in, Co-Editing... Yeah. Only that. It's not much, it's not much at all.  You were like Orson Welles or Tommy Wiseau, take your pick.

J: Ego-maniac, I think it's how to describe it.

For people who don't know what Closure is, can you give us a brief overview of the film?

J: Well, first thing I should say is it's quite Mumblecore. So it's like super cheaply made, super realistic, quite a bit of improv. I mean it's still scripted and everything, but the actors were given room to improvise. 

The story is about a relationship told in reverse, so just something that doesn't work, as if you were looking back on it. Relationships with your friends, relationships with your girlfriend, just how your friends helped you, also how they didn't help you.

A: So for us the big twist on it was the fact it should have been quite an ordinary relationship, but shown in a really unusual way. So when we say in reverse we mean, from when they break up, to when they first encounter each other basically. Not to mention that gave the film a sort of happy ending, but not quite. A bittersweet ending I guess, because you know it doesn't work out in the end. But it ends on a warm vibe so to speak. 

J: It goes from black and white to colour as well.

A: People might not notice that though, because people watched the one and a half minute teaser trailer and didn't realise that it went from colour to black and white. If that happens over 76 minutes...

J: I think that's good if that happens though.

A: Yeah, I mean I would like it to be a thing where people come into the cinema to see the film, and a couple of individuals might come out and be like "Wait! Did that start out in black and white and end up into colour?" and everyone else turns round like "OOOOH YEEEH!" Totally like a moment of realisation. That would be good.

J: So to sum up. It's a black and white film that chronicles a relationship in reverse. 

*Laughs all round the table*

What made you guys want to make the film? Especially yourself Joel. What made you want to write the script for this? Was it based upon real life experiences you'd had or...?

J: I think to an extent it's like watching relationships and having been in relationships that haven't worked out, there's never been a set reason. No one has ever cheated or anything, you just kind of move on and that really interests me. Watching other people's relationships and they way they interact with each other and things they talk about. Just watching the way people interact. That's something I'm interested in writing about and whether other people are is another matter but, to that extent everyone else, Golden and everyone else had been attached for quite a few years, back when it was a purely improvised film and then I wrote a script and Golden stayed involved in different capacities and then we just went into a casting process. We had loads and loads of auditions and got it down to just a few people and just cast the film, got on with it that way. 

A: As well it was like... There's a lot of films about escapism and that's fine, that's great. There are films that are really far fetched that you want to lose yourself in, but at the same time, it's not often that you see something that is totally true, but that you can see that the makers of it have completely given themselves into it, poured themselves into the material so to speak. 

Hopefully that's sort of what we've aimed for (with the film anyway) and whether that comes across or not I'm not sure. It might just come across as total bullshit *Laughs* people just talking shit about nothing. That was actually a bit of a working title for a little while. 

J: Yeah, I wanted to call the film "Talking Shit About Nothing In Particular" 

A: It's not very marketable though. I don't think STV would have had us on talking about the film then. Them just setting up the section on the news like "And the film Talking shit about nothing in particular is out on Monday" *Laughs*  Or them asking us the name, us telling them and being like "Wait! where you going? SHIT!" 

I would summarise that whole thing, but I'm not as good at it as you are.

J: I don't think we could summarise all of that up really *Laughs* Too much. 

But at the end of the day, with the film, people can look at it and say "That's all bullshit" but I can honestly say 99 percent of it happened to me. 

A thing I was quite curious about was, what are your plans with the film? More screenings? Cover a wider area? Distribution?

J: I got few aims with it. I want to take it round the Scottish universities, if we can manage to do that. Just show people that you CAN do it, even if you have no money, people working for nothing, no real equipment and things like that. I just want to show people that it can be done.

A: Yeah, it's always thought that film making is the massive, big Hollywood thing that millions of pounds/dollars are poured into. It doesn't need to be about that. It's still an art form and it's still about personal expression. It's kind of nice on the smaller budget films like this because I think that's where you see the most personal expression and you get someones personal film/piece of work. You know, if there is only 10 people involved, then everyone has some sort of input into it and it's not like 200 people and you know 198 of those people didn't get any say in what came out of it. 

J: Other things like, we want to enter it into as many film festivals as we possibly can. We will look into it. But we will do, well we will actively look for distribution, but we're not expecting to get anything from that and if not we will do self distribution in some way shape or form. But we will be keeping the price down the lowest we possibly can. 

A: It's never been a film about making a profit. It's been more about expressing our passion for film making and that specific type of film making. 

J: You know, in terms of money, we have tried to keep the price down for everything. So it has been £2 (two pounds) for screenings and whatever the cheapest price is we can get DVDs for and sell them for, then great! The more people see it, that's what film making's about. If no one sees it, then what's the point in making the film. 

A: All the profits, so far, is going to go right back into the film I think. All the money we make from the screenings, goes into the DVDs etc. 

So like I said, the long term aim we're not really thinking about making money out of it basically. We'd just prefer people to see it. We have had people saying to us "you could charge (enter ridiculous amount here) for tickets" and we've been like "That's not the point of the film!" 

J: It's going to mean less people would see it that way. Plus, if we can sell two screenings out, in that space of time for two quid. I'm not sure, but doing my logic, we charge anymore than that I don't think we would have even sold out one. 

I don't know whether people would have or not, but in my opinion, I wouldn't pay that much to see a studenty type film. 

It would just be too clinical! The whole film's about being naturalistic and my natural instinct was to make in the way we did, using things the way we did, to try and promote it in that way and all through word of mouth. 

A: ... So to sum up! It's not about making money. It's about

J: Passion! 

That's exactly what it should be about! As we were discussing before (pre-interview) that is something that Hollywood is unfortunately lacking and where modern cinema in general is lacking.

A: Aw you mean you don't think James Cameron is SOOOO Expressive in his films? *Sarcasm* Aw he's so lovely.

I think he's really expressive at diving really deep or some shit like that.
 

A: I think James Cameron is very expressive in a way that he speak to me because it reminds me of that time, that I met this blue person and they had this tail that they connected to animals. What?! YEAH! Yeeeeaah!

That's a fond High School Memory right there.
 

A: Yeah. I was on a lot of shit then *Laughs*

On a side step from Closure (and James Cameron) What are some of your favourite films? Also, what film influenced you to get into making films?

J: I'd go back to Mumblecore I guess. A lot of my favourite films are those ones that are made for really cheaply. I mean My favourite film of all time is "Before Sunrise" / "Before Sunset" had to go to two there. I mean I like things like "Pulp Fiction" and stuff, but if I'm going into films that made me want to make this film, it would be stuff like "Mutual Appreciation" by Andrew Bujalski, "Quiet City" and "Dance Party USA" by Arron Katz. Em... "LOL" and "Hannah Takes The Stairs" by Joe Swanberg.


A: Anything by the Duplass Brothers (Mark and Jay)


J: Yeah "The Puffy Chair" specifically. "Humpday" by Lynn Shelton. "Baghead" by the Duplass Brothers. 


A: Just that whole genre really. Particularly for me, the two that stood out the most were "Quiet city" and "Mutual Appreciation". "Mutual Appreciaition" more so, because it was just such a beautifully shot film, it was so understated in ever way and this is the first film I watched and was like "Effectively nothing happens in this film". I mean if you describe the plot to someone, you couldn't really. It's just a few people talking and yet somehow it's so engrossing and captivating. In seeing that I was just in awe like "Holy shit! People can make a film like that. Why does it have to be, explosions and this guy like eating a... fucking truck or something ridiculous like that?" I don't know. Some of the stuff they come up with like... A Gazelle with an exploding head or something. You don't need to be ridiculous to make a really good film!

 Michael Bay effectively then!

A: Yeah Exactly! Looking at that crossed with Michael Bay. He spent how ever many millions of pounds making that and then "Quiet City" comes along made for...

J: Two Grand (£2000) 

A: Oh really?  Well there you go. He makes it on that and it's genuinely a lovely, lovely little film. Puts Michael Bay to shame slightly. 

J: I should have also mentioned Alex Holdridge's "In Search Of A Midnight Kiss". 

A: See, I'm kind of crossed with films like that, taking normal everyday situations and just making them into nice little pieces and yet, I still like really overblown films like "Moon" which was awesome! I love that. I re-watched it the other day and thought "Wow. What an amazing film". Plus things like "Chinatown" where it's quite dramatic as well. 

J: But these are still films that play on human emotion and have a really great amount of depth and characterisation. As long as you believe the characters, that's all that matters to me.

You tend to find with films like that though, is that the director comes from some form of an indie background, most of the time. 

A: Yeah, without a doubt, because then they will have a passion for that sort of film as well. I was reading an interview, I can't remember the guys name, it was a Finnish director and he was saying that when he was a kid he would dream of going to other countries to see films because he was saying in Finland it's like they have no films. I was thinking "Wow, to be just a kid and imagine that kind of thing, clearly this guy is meant to be a director" 

J: So summary, Mumblecore! *Laughs around the table*

So, I think something everyone is wondering, is Closure going to be a one off gig? Or will you be doing more projects? More importantly, will you work with each other again? Or splitting off to do your own things?

J: We actually have discussed this in quite some depth. Obviously we both want to do other things separately, but we also want to work on other things together. I mean, we do plan to do a couple of short documentaries at some point. Which is kind of planned out.

A: We are really excited about that actually. 

J: Yeah, I'm mega excited about it. 

A: The idea that we have for it is actually quite nice. We just thought, a feature length fiction film and a short documentary seemed like a good counter balance to one another. Also, we recon that making the short could go a lot quicker. I mean, I loved making "Closure" it was one of the best experiences of my life, but I just don't know if I have the time to spend on something that long again unfortunately. But I'm really glad I did it whilst I could. 

J: The thing we always said was "Oh that was really huge. We're going to have to have a long break before we go back to do a feature film again". But we know that a couple of years down the line, we'll go "Remember we made a film? We should fucking do that again man!" 

A: Just the nostalgia of how good it was, because we did have a great time, even as stressful as it might have been at some points... whenever I think about last summer and making the film, I think "That was really good times. I'm really proud of what we did there" 

J: And the documentaries, I don't  know how soon they will be, because there will be a lot of promoting "Closure", but I'm guessing probably within the next couple of years really. 

A: I definitely would like us to work together again, but I think if you went on to make another film, I would like to make a film about that. Weirdly enough. I think just because we have too similar an idea on what film we want to make, that we have to work together sometimes. 

J: I think it would be hard working with anyone else as well though, because we have worked up a bond within editing over the past 6 months and everything. So to move on to then get that same link with someone else, would be quite difficult. 

A: Without a doubt. We are totally on the same wave length. Even in editing, we would play around with scenes and when we got it right, it was like we just knew and just had like this mad telepathic thing going on you know *Laughs* 

J: So short answer... Yes! 

Can you expand upon the documentary projects in mind? Or is that something your keeping very close to your chest? 

J: I will divulge it's name. It's called "In My Day". 

A: Oh and the other one. 'Cause we're going for a two-parter, "In My Day" and "When I Grow Up" 

J:  It'll be things on the everyday, things that other people might think are a bit mundane that we found interesting I guess. 

A: I think that kind of sums up films for us though. I mean we're thinking that a lot of people when they see "Closure" might think it's a bit too mundane and realistic and we accept that to be honest. It's not a on hundred percent accessible film, but we accepted that because our film taste is like that as well really. 

J: I mean it's a film I would really want to go and see, and that's all you can make. I don't think you can make something that you can think everyone would want to go and see. I'd want to go see it and *Points To Andrew* you'd want to. 

A: I just want there to be more films like that, in that genre anyway. I mean there's not that much in the genre at the moment. Which means it's also really nice to be able to play round with it, the theme doesn't really have any conventions or anything with it at the moment. Things like putting the film backwards, feels like there isn't going to be any other films quite like that really. I hope so anyway. 

J: In that genre at least. 

A: We talked a lot about other films that maybe go in reverse. I mean there's "Irréversible" by Gaspar Noé... Don't worry, it's not going to be like a Gaspar Noé film. I saw "Enter The Void" and it fucked me up badly. 

J: We did it so it played chronologically in reverse though. So it doesn't jump about. It literally goes from December to January. 

A: We tried to make it blatantly obvious it's backwards as well. We were worried people weren't going to get it was going backwards, but we put so much in to make sure it was completely obvious. 

J: You have to accept that people aren't stupid. People are so aware of what's going on around them. If you make something too obvious, it becomes pandering to almost assuming people are stupid and that's not the case with most folks. 

A: Although, there's obviously still going to be a couple of people who don't get it. I mean we had a friend, no names, who saw "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" and didn't get why Jim Carrey got on the train at the end again. 

J: "I really liked it man, but why did he get back on the train at the end?". I'm sitting just thinking "Well, you didn't really like it then if you didn't get the point of the film"

That's the same people who go see (big title to mention here but) Inception and sit like "I didn't get it!" It's so simple, it explains it and the settings change again and again. What more do they need?

A: I took my girlfriend to see "Lucky Number Slevin" and she fell asleep and she woke up towards the end like "I have NO idea what's going on right now" I'm like "Well, You're winning! Basically, Morgan Freeman's an ass hole somehow and Ben Kingsley is a Rabbi and he shoots people... Enjoy!" 

(Just for the record, Joel made a Groucho Marx face out of a ripped up beer mat. This ensued many jokes on whether it was Groucho Marx or Hitler. Then Golden claiming to be 1/16th part German and how it offended him *jokingly*)

A: You can tell we're creative people.

Now, kind of a double question here. I always like to ask folks this, where do you guys see yourselves in 5 years time? But specifically for the film, where do you see Closure in 5 months time?

J: In terms of the film... If I'm happy...

A: It takes a moment to contemplate. *Laughs* 

To be honest, I don't know where I see the films in 5 months, because I was in such a state of disbelief that it got finished in the first place that, I mean I'm glad that it did, I'm so glad that it did and I would have been furious if it hadn't been by this point. I mean we didn't even think it would get a sold out screening at all. Let alone two. To even have enough interest for a third is incredible. We just didn't see any of it coming at all. I guess we just never thought about where we wanted the film to be, I just wanted it done and show it to people and now that we can, it's like "well where do we go from now?".

I guess all I can hope for, is for other people to see it, hopefully it will be in for festivals in 5 months time and hopefully it will be on DVD by then also. Maybe set up a little website for it or something.

J: If by then 2 maybe 3 hundred people have seen it then I'll be delighted because we will be at a point that certainly over 100 people will have seen it just now let alone 5 months. That's all that kind of matters to me. If we can get more and more people to see it. If we can take it to a couple of universities by then and get more folks to see it and spread the word also. 

A: Would be kind of nice to show people that they can make films for nothing, like those Mumblecore films that we watched that almost opened our eyes to the thought of "Wow. We could do this. We love films, so why do we have to be just viewers? Why can't we be creators of them as well?" 

J: Anyone can make a film. Just put your mind to it. 

A: And in 5 years for us? Em... In 5 years time, to be honest, I would kind of like to be living in another country. Would be nice. It's fine here, but people always say "Oh, would you like to move to Glasgow or something" I sitting like "NO! Nowhere near far enough away". I just want to see a bit more of the world basically. Hopefully in some form of graphic design situation with doing film making also. That's the dream. Always got to have your dreams and goal, set them nice and high. 

J: I would like to be alive and happy... Alive Ideally  *Laughs* 

A: Happy Dead's ok as well I guess. Just not for the long term. 

J: I think in 5 years, I will have definitely want to have made another film. 

Oh! On a side not, before I forget I want to just mention "Mild Eyes" who did the soundtrack to the film. 

A: Oh yeah. He's definitely to be metioned. He was the bassist in "Oceansize" who I am totally obsessed with, they are my favourite band ever. So once they split up he did his own solo project, so I e-mailed him asking if I could use a song of his for a uni project, to which he agreed. So we got talking from there. We were meant to have a friend doing the soundtrack for the film but as a placeholder we had "Mild Eyes" just in there and we were sitting like "But it fits so well. Would be a shame to take it out" So we e-mailed not expecting anything and he got back like "Yeah sure thing". We were just like "... Holy shit!" So worked out so well. So he did most of the soundtrack except for a couple of other tracks. But overall it's him. I'm still speaking to him as well because I did a music video for him which was fun. But yeah, having that music as the "Closure" soundtrack was just perfect.

In a way it was like having one of your heroes on board the project with you.

A: Definitely, that's exactly what it felt like. It was really flattering to have that as well. Something else I didn't think that would happen but there you go.

Well! That's basically it guys. Final question being, did you have fun?

Joel and Andrew: Yeah totally. That was great.

Andrew: Definitely one of the more informal interviews we've had, been really fun just having a laugh as well as discussing the film. 

J: I think we have given you enough to play with right? That'll be fun to edit down *Laughs* 

From here I gave the guys the usual blank uramyx logo and some pencils and pens to do as they please with it. The guys decided to go with the films arrow logo and to do the letters going from black and white to colour.

  

This was an amazing interview and we just hung about a chatted for a bit after. Joel and Andrew were great and you can all nip across to the "Closure" Facebook page for more details on the film.

Thanks again guys for a great interview.