The Ramones. Fugazi. The Dead Kennedys. Patti Smith.
I wasn’t old enough to see shows at CBGBs, but as a teenager I gravitated towards many of the 1970s and early 80s punk bands.
On their early records, the Ramones could barely play their instruments and sounded like they were recorded on a cheap cassette player: the sound was tinny, their instruments out of tune and the vocals were garbled. But it was also raw and honest, in a way that the glossy production values and virtuosity of The Eagles, Journey or Foreigner could not match. I fell in love with that sense of abandon and enthusiasm.
As an adult, I continue to love these bands (and their contemporaries like The White Stripes) because of the “DIY ethos” that defined much of the punk scene.
Making the most of what you have. Broken guitar string? Keep playing. Can’t sing? Scream.
These artists will not be denied their voice. They transcend their lack of resources and create something amazing, without compromise.
In many ways, these bands have inspired my recent approach to filmmaking.
In the early drafts of FOR IZZY, how I was going to tell the story influenced what the story would become. For a number of story moments, I knew I would never have the budget needed to shoot them in a way that would look like a traditional feature. Rather than holding me back, this limitation opened up a world of possibilities.
That’s how I came upon formatting the story like a documentary. In composing scenes, combining in-character interviews with the freedom to shoot different kinds of footage with small crews and budget cameras hopefully creates a sense of rawness and intimacy for actors and audiences alike. Since we don’t have the budget for huge set pieces, that also opened up the possibilities of using magical realism and animated inserts during the brainstorming process.
As audiences, so many of us are accustomed to how a feature film should “feel” and look like because conventions and tropes are overused. We anticipate what we will see, making stories less engaging to watch – particularly with small budget features that lack the set pieces of franchise films. But that also opens up the possibility for us indie filmmakers to spotlight characters we normally don’t see in movies, or experiment with story structure.
With this collective mix of elements, my aim with FOR IZZY is to engage audiences through whimsy and playfulness, dodge predictability and, above all, take them along for a ride.