One World Cinema

Q: What was it like to work with Sam Rockwell?

A:  "It was absolutely wonderful, but when I actually met him, I realized what a lovely and talented guy he was.  Until you have the opportunity to work with him,  an actor of that caliber, you don't realize just what it is he can bring to the shooting environment. Very professional and patient. He's just an amazing guy, and was willing to put his career into the hands of a first time film director. Lovely guy. He inspired me."

Q: Tell us more about the character of the robot and what it was like to work with Kevin Spacey? The voice of the robot.

A: "We were playing homage to a lot of sci-fi films that I was a big fan of growing up. Obviously, you can't get away from the fact that 2001 is a big influence to all science fiction, let alone, my little film.  There was going to be a robot in the film, we knew that people were immediately going to be making the connections with Hal, so what I wanted to do was to play with the expectations, and maybe lead them away, make them think they know where things are going, and one of the things that Kevin Spacey was able to bring, he's got this voice, it's kind of syrupy and slighyly malevolent, it just does so much work. 

Kevin Spacey being the tremendous actor that he is, understood where I wanted to go with the character , and how I wanted to defy the expectations that people had, but lead them on at the same time, and he helped me do that."

Q: Why a sci-fi film?  Any influence from family and friends? 

A: "I'm a product of the environment that  I was brought up in, and obviously my father was interested in science fiction. That was part of where I was growing up, surrounded by the creative juices what was going on around me when I was little, but what I think is unique about sci-fi, is if you want you can do lasers and explosions, but you  can also tell a very human story. The beauty of science fiction is you can show who this person really is, and you stick them in a science fiction setting, you really get to see them in a fully realized way. The environment they are in, is so alien, you see them up against it,  and they really show up as a human being. You can show things about the human character that may get lost if it's a contemporary story.  It shows the contrast, it shows the uniqueness of human beings, and how we all have some intrinsic fundamental value that there is goodness in everyone. It shows the contrast, what makes us unique, what makes Sam unique. That's what I like about science fiction."

Q:  What was your budget?

A: "5 million dollars."

-Tell us about the special effects.

"There were over 450 effect shots, a lot of special effects, especially for an independent film. 

Not to give to much away, but there are a particular set of effects shots that we had to do, that had been done in the past, where we wanted to push the boundaries on some of those effects, it was a challenge, but we wanted to push the boundaries on the budget and on 

the time frame."

Challenges: 

"It was a lot of stress, a lot of tension, but it was very exciting, constantly having to come up with solutions. It's not a big Hollywood film where you can constantly throw money at it until the problem goes away, it's a small independent sci fi film, where we had to come up with solutions."