![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rapportoconfidenziale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/locarno_2012-321.jpg\" "\\"Sean")
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It’s weird I go after these challenges<\/strong> by Roberto Rippa<\/span><\/p>\n from Rapporto Confidenziale numero36<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n S<\/span>ean Baker is a New York native and a graduate of NYU film school. He directed the award-winning and Spirit Award nominated films <\/span><\/em>Take Out<\/span> and <\/span><\/em>Prince of Broadway<\/span>. The latter was named one of the best films of 2010 by the Los Angeles Times. It won Grand Jury Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival and Woodstock Film Festival, and Special Jury Prize at Locarno International Film Festival. Lee Daniels (<\/span><\/em>Precious<\/span>) presented the film. Baker’s second career lies in mainstream comedy television. Roberto Rippa: First of all, I\u2019m very curious about what inspired you in writing such a peculiar story.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Sean Baker: I co-wrote it with Chris Bergoch, who I worked with on a comedy television show that never made it outside of the States. It was a comedy show on MTV, so you can imagine it was targeted towards the male demographic 16 to 20 years old…<\/span><\/p>\n RR: Greg the Bunny<\/em>!<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Greg the Bunny<\/em>, yes! So we were doing stunt casting and we were having cameos by adult film stars. We thought it would bring interest to the project if we did little cameos with these women and sometimes with the guys. So we got to meet them while we were shooting, became acquainted with them. I was always fascinated on a personal level what their lives would be like, what their lives were between shooting, between work, their everyday lives: is it normal as any other else\u2019s? Is it mundane? Are they hanging out with friends? Are they lonely? Are they bored? That sort of thing. RR: Going back to the depiction of the porn industry \u2013 in the film it\u2019s a small-time industry \u2013 that\u2019s a thing I really appreciated because you showed it in a very realistic way. There are no stars, nothing exceptional, just people working. I also liked the difference between the two characters: Jane, Dree Hemingway\u2019s character, very quiet and sunny, and her colleague Melissa, who appears to be much more problematic. About the choice of showing the porn performers, what made you decide to make everything so normal, as people wouldn\u2019t expect it to be.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Well, you know, as you said it\u2019s a very small, close group of people and once you break into that world and understand it, it\u2019s a small community, they sup\u00adport one another, they hang out with one another. Because unfortunately there is a taboo in society, they are sort of outcasts to a certain extent, so they need each other and what I found \u2013 somebody may say I\u2019m wrong about this \u2013 from the research I\u2019ve done, they basically socialize with one another. But to the point of why I decided to go this way, when you explore any group of people, it\u2019s im\u00adportant to go underneath the surface layer and everybody is very much alike, if you think about it. I mean, no matter what culture you\u2019re in, you all have the same dreams, hopes, aspirations, fears, to a certain extent. So I thought: \u00abThis is the way that I want to see a movie depict this culture, this industry<\/em>\u00bb. Because it really hasn\u2019t been done so much before. You know, Boogie Nights<\/em> was a period piece, a different time. Actually, back in 1996, I wanted to make a film about this industry and Boogie Nights<\/em> came out and so I thought: \u00abI can\u2019t touch this industry anymore!<\/em>\u00bb. I thought I could never touch this argument, not even at\u00adtempt to, because Paul Thomas Anderson has done such an epic look at that industry. So I didn\u2019t even think it was necessary. But then, years later, I saw what the differences were as for the state of the industry between 2012 and the early 80s and I thought it would be worth revisiting. It\u2019s really about capturing real life and there\u2019s a very casual state when you go to the sets. That\u2019s why we decided not to make it such a dramatic story, it\u2019s not about that, it\u2019s very much like any sort of filmmaking. It\u2019s not always formal as you would think it is and that\u2019s why you see the director taking a phone call in the middle of a shoot. That\u2019s quite normal. So I just thought that this would have been something worth to be shown. Because you\u2019re putting a human face on this characters so you have to make every scene and all the dialogues and the interactions human.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: That\u2019s what I liked. In fact, usually there\u2019s a lot of drama in the de\u00adpiction of the porn industry and here you made something different and much more believable.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: That\u2019s what we saw on a regular basis, when we would go there, on the sets. We were actually more interested in after the scene, the porn scene. They hang out, outside, they smoke weed ad talk. I saw that all the time. Everytime I went on a set, they would be underneath a tent to shelter themselves from the hot San Fernando Valley sun. It was really the social interactions and the jokes, the bonding, that I thought were most interesting. That scene in our film where the actors talk outside the set is actually much longer. We had them going on for a long time. But of course we had to cut stuff down for timing purposes. And I was very, very lucky, by the way, to find the two number one porn actors in the world, basically. Two very important ones and they came to us by chance. Manuel Ferrara and Asa Akira they both agreed to be in the movie after I just ran into them by chance and said: \u00abIt would really enhance the film, bring it to the next level and validated it if you came into this<\/em>\u00bb. I was blessed once again that their performances are so great. And Asa was so funny! She could be in the mainstream if she wanted to.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: I was surprised because I just discovered later that they were both porn performers. I thought they were actors… SB: Sasha Grey, yeah. But Cronenberg did the same years ago with Rabid<\/em> (Adult star Marilyn Chambers was the main actress. Ed.). And there have been others. You know, everybody, if given the right opportunity \u2013 well, not everybody but especially those folks that are already comfortable in front of a camera \u2013 could do a good job. We often associate them with bad acting but that\u2019s because they are given horrible scripts. But those movies aren\u2019t about the acting and they sort of know it. But when I spoke to Asa and Manuel, and said : \u00abI wanna make this as realistic as possible, I want you to communicate the way you would in your everyday life<\/em>\u00bb, they got what we were going for. By the way, they are both cine\u00adphiles, we were talking about Korean cinema that day. So I just said: \u00abLet\u2019s play this real, I don\u2019t want this to be stilted in any way<\/em>\u00bb. And they were just flowing. You can see Dree looking around like she had no idea.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: Speaking about Dree, you seem to like challenges: you chose two un\u00adexperienced actresses for the main roles.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: I know, I know… it\u2019s weird I go after these challenges. In my last film Prince of Broadway, that played here in Locarno, we had a real kid and a first-time actor playing the leads. I don\u2019t know… I just have faith in things coming together if you cast right. If you have faith they\u2019ll be able to catch the persona you need. And also it\u2019s about communication and making everybody comfortable. As soon as everybody is comfortable, their performances will come naturally. And Dree won me over during a video Skype call. I was in Los Angeles, she was in New York and I offered her the role by the end of the hour because we bonded. She told me her favorite film that year was Sophia Coppola\u2019s Somewhere and I knew that sensitivity was correct for this film. Not only that, she told me about her training, she joked around, I could see she had a sense of humor \u2013 we were on the same page with that sense of humor \u2013 and the look. So I knew she would be absolutely fine. As for Besedka (first time actress Besedka Johnson. Ed.), I was a little more worried about. Besedka required Dree\u2019s guidance a little bit. So I was very happy with Dree\u2019s patience. Besedka is amazing but she\u2019s not that character. She\u2019s so not that character! It\u2019s funny because Harold and Maude (Hal Ashby film from 1971. Ed.) was a big influence on this film and she\u2019s like Maude. She\u2019s a very positive woman, she loves life and she\u2019s always very philosophical. She\u2019s in no way Sadie. Sadie, the character she plays, is reclusive, that is not Besedka. So it took her a while to allow herself to go to those places and we would have to say all the time: \u00abBesedka: nasty Sadie! Nasty Sadie!<\/em>\u00bb. Dree helped in many ways to get to that point.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: I was deeply surprised when I discovered she wasn\u2019t a trained actress. I thought she was a very experienced actress from the old school.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Oh yeah, we were blessed!<\/span><\/p>\n RR: How did you work with them both? When you hired them both, the script was already the one you used for filming?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yes, we had an approximately 70 pages scriptment, that how we call it, it\u2019s kind of a treatment-script. And we had the dialogues flashed out for many scenes. Then there were other scenes in which we said: \u00abThe three kids would sit on the couch, smoke weed and talk about videogames and anything but the porn industry<\/em>\u00bb. We wanted them to talk just about life and we just let the camera roll for two hours and if they came up with an idea that I liked but that needed to be flashed out a little bit more, I would say: \u00abExpand this<\/em>\u00bb. And then maybe I came out with another idea and we just rolled for the afternoon. PJ was great, he was guiding everybody because he was the most outspoken of the crew and he was very helpful in guiding the conversation.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: So you left room for improvisation.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yes. Especially in scenes like that. For example, it would be like this: Stella Maeve (Melissa in the movie. Ed.) started to improvise about the dog being a little Mexican dog. That was her thing. And then she goes: \u00abYou should call him Carlito!<\/em>\u00bb. And then I said: \u00abDree, Starlito!<\/em>\u00bb and she would go: \u00abStarlito!<\/em>\u00bb. It was really just about feeding each other back and forth.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: Starlet<\/em> is also a very complicated movie, more than it seems at a first look. I read it also as a long journey from \u2013 let\u2019s call it so \u2013 an emotional numbness to an awakening at the end, when she discovers the truth about Sadie. Is this exactly the story you wanted to tell?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yes. I didn\u2019t feel like going too deep into Jane\u2019s past because, to tell you the truth, every girl, every guy, in the industry has its own story and it\u2019s not just cookie cutter. Sometimes people say: \u00abShe has no father, that\u2019s why she\u2019s in porn<\/em>\u00bb. That I found out not to be the truth. I found out that sometimes it has more to do with the mom. Or, sometimes, there\u2019s an exhibitionist attitude towards life. Or sometimes they think about porn as a sexual revolution, to be changing the US sexual mores, in a way. So there are many reasons. I\u2019m not in any way downplaying that there is a dark side. There is. But what\u2019s important to know is that is not all about the dark side and everybody has their own rea\u00adsons. So, as for the character of Jane, I felt we were responsible filmmakers and storytellers by saying that there\u2019s probably something there. But we didn\u2019t want to harp on it because that\u2019s not the focus of the film. The focus of the film is the relationship Jane is having with this woman, this unlikely friendship. Maybe there are hints that she\u2019s having issues with her mom and her mom has some drugs problems. But to go any further into that would have been \u2013 I feel \u2013 ste\u00adreotyping.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: Since you are talking about it, what\u2019s the state of the morals in the US?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: I feel that it\u2019s so crazy that we can show such over the top graphic violence in films but we shy away from anything graphic when it comes to sexuality. It doesn\u2019t make any sense to me and it\u2019s a very sad state of affairs we\u2019re in. I have a feeling, from what I\u2019ve seen there\u2019s less of that outside the US but US has a strange hung up on exploring sexuality. It may be a generational thing that\u2019s changing but, for example, with my parents we didn\u2019t have open conversations in any way. We had that initial \u201cbirds and bees\u201d conversation \u2013 one time! \u2013 and that was all! My parents, or at least my mother, doesn\u2019t not believe in pre-marital sex. Growing up I had just one point of view and suddenly I reached my 18 or 20 and realized…<\/span><\/p>\n RR: … maybe that\u2019s not the only way to go…<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yeah, maybe it\u2019s not the only way to go! Actually it\u2019s very close-minded and what it does is that it makes sex a dirty thing, it makes it negative. Often, when you see sex depicted in movies, it seems negative. This doesn\u2019t apply to Starlet because the film is really about the porn industry, where sex is a business. But back to the point of the actual depiction of it in movies, it is very often depicted in a very negative light. There\u2019s no loving sex or completely lustful, animalistic sex. That\u2019s changing a little bit on television. I feel that the new wave of cable television is changing the way to depict sexuality, and that\u2019s great. I haven\u2019t seen it all but what Lena Dunham is doing in Girls (2012 TV series produced by cable network HBO. Ed.) is a funnier exploration of sex.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: Will it be difficult for your film, for the rating, to be distributed wide\u00adly?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yes, it\u2019ll be difficult. But we\u2019re working at a budget level where I think it\u2019s OK to take that risk. We\u2019re with a distribution company in the US called Music Box Films, they released The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo<\/em> (M\u00e4n som hatar kvinnor<\/em>, 2011, Niels Arden Oplev. Ed.) and some other successful foreign imports and we are one of the first American films they\u2019re releasing. So yes, of course there\u2019s a limited amount of risk but I feel that all independent, art-house, films are on the same level of competition in getting on the screen, getting on DVD. So I don\u2019t really think it\u2019ll affect that much: If anything it\u2019ll bring more attention to the project. I don\u2019t know about outside. There are some countries, obviously, where they won\u2019t allow us to show the film the way it is but I don\u2019t have a problem with that. I\u2019m not going to say: \u00abI don\u2019t want it to be cut<\/em>\u00bb. And at the same time I\u2019m OK if they have to black bar some scenes. If they can\u2019t play it \u2013 for example I hear they can\u2019t play it in Korea without the black bars \u2013 that\u2019s fine with me, as long as the audience knows that the real one exists.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: The film has a very soft cinematography, with a prevalence of pink, purple, fades and shades. Was this your choice or Radium Cheung\u2019s, your cinematographer?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: My last two films were very NY oriented and I would never thought I would make a LA film, because NY has such a texture to it, so the production values are there, in every corner. So I didn\u2019t know whether we would be able to make LA look interesting on a low budget. But then, as soon as we started doing our researches and location scouting, we realized that the Valley has a very unique look to it and there\u2019s an expanded landscape. There I thought: \u00abWe can cap\u00adture this and make it look very unique and very beautiful at the same time<\/em>\u00bb. So Radium and I we decided first to shoot anamorphic, widescreen, and second that we wanted to use the light of the Valley. Because you feel blinded by the light there, by how bright it is. So at first, quite honestly, we shot it with natural lighting and decided that we were going to test in our postproduction how we would color it. At first I went with a more NY look, you know: the greens and the greys… We played with that but it seemed too forced. So we allowed those oranges, those purples to come out. It felt real to us, more truthful. So it was more about capturing those landscapes and find the proper locations. And al\u00adlowing the light to take over.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: In fact, sometimes it\u2019s kind of blinding.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yeah! And Dree is so beautiful she can be shot from every angle. You never have to worry about this. You just have to move her to be against the proper light and it\u2019ll compliment her.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: She\u2019s a real surprise. SB: I just found out this morning that the film will be released late October. So what\u2019s great is that it\u2019ll have a theatrical run. The film will be shown in NY, LA, Chicago and slowly in other cities. And, to be true, I really don\u2019t know what the reactions will be. I know that probably many people will see the film in stream\u00ading, VOD or Netflix and that\u2019s a good thing for me and that\u2019s the way my last couple of films have been getting exposure. So it\u2019s a good way. And, you know, Dree as well as Stella Maeve, as well as James Ransone… those three are blowing up. And Karren Karagulian, who played Arash. He was in Prince of Broadway<\/em> and now he is starting to break out and work in other people\u2019s movies. So, I feel that the four of them will just go through the roof very soon. It\u2019s going to be interest\u00ading to see what their future popularity will bring to this movie.<\/span><\/p>\n RR: One last question: money. Was it difficult to find the money to pro\u00adduce the film?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n SB: Yes, but we did find it so I can\u2019t complain. There are so many filmmakers out there who are still looking. But even though it\u2019s a struggle everyday \u2013 still right now there are some bills to pay \u2013 we were able to finish the film and bring it to the festival. Basically, the way it came about is Ted Hope, who is an amaz\u00ading independent film guru. He\u2019s a producer and he\u2019s been a mentor for so many young filmmakers \u2013 he produced In the Bedroom<\/strong> (Todd Field, 2001), Ang Lee\u2019s \u00adearly films, Martha Marcy May Marlene<\/strong> (2011, Sean Durkin) last year: He loved my last film and asked: \u00abHow can I help you?<\/em>\u00bb. So when we were ready to make Starlet he helped us find some key finances. So, without his help we wouldn\u2019t have been able to find that initial amount of money we needed. \u25a0<\/span><\/p>\n Locarno, August 10, 2012<\/span><\/p>\n STARLET review<\/a><\/strong> in RAPPORTO CONFIDENZIALE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n
\nInterview with Sean Baker<\/strong>, director and writer of Starlet<\/strong><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n
\nHe co-created the FOX and IFC series <\/span><\/em>Greg the Bunny<\/span>, and most recently directed, wrote and executive produced the MTV series <\/span><\/em>Warren the Ape<\/span>.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n
\nI was actually thinking about making a small cin\u00e9ma v\u00e9rit\u00e9 film that just basically followed one of this girls through one day. The most dramatic thing that would happen to her during that day was her dog getting lost and then her finding it. And that\u2019s the film. A very small film. Probably along the lines, in therms of char\u00adacter ark, it may have looked like a Dardenne brothers\u2019 movie.
\nBut then it\u2019s hard to raise the money in the States, there\u2019s no Government sup\u00adport for films and you have to find investors, and so it\u2019 s very hard to make that sort of movies without a plot, a very strong narrative. And also you need to go after stars, to a certain extent, or names that are important. So my friend Chris Bergoch, who i co-wrote the film with, said: \u00abLet\u2019s take this up a level and give it a narrative. Do you have any other narrative that you\u2019re thinking of, something a little more popular<\/em>?\u00bb. And I mentioned that I had this old idea based on an event that happened to my family in which somebody found money at a yard sale and faced the moral dilemma on whether to return it or not. I thought it would be the perfect catalyst to bring two people together and then I thought one of this two characters would be this adult film star (In \u201cStarlet\u201d, the main character buys a thermos at a yard sale to find out later that hidden inside there are 10\u2019000$. Editor\u2019s note).
\nI was very happy with this project that moved forward. We wrote it over the course of winter 2010 going into 2011. We shot one year ago, in the summer of 2011, one year ago today. Oh yeah, we started production on the 10th and we shot for 25 days in the very, very, hot San Fernando Valley with a dog that was overheating and a 85 years old woman, Besedka Johnson, who we had to be very careful of because of the heat. But we were very happy. It was a tough shoot being that there was little money, but we\u2019re very happy with the results, and we had fun making the film.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rapportoconfidenziale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/locarno_2012-29.jpg\" "\\"Sean")
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\nIn fact it\u2019s been happening lately that an adult star succeeded in the transition to mainstream. There\u2019s this actress, I don\u2019t remember her name right now, who was in Steven Soderbergh\u2019s The Girlfriend Experience<\/em> and then in a few episodes of Entourage<\/em>. I think she\u2019s still doing porn.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rapportoconfidenziale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/locarno_2012-31.jpg\" "\\"Sean")
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\nWhat will happen now? You just said that in the US there\u2019s a great competi\u00adtion for independent films to be seen.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"http:\/\/www.rapportoconfidenziale.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/locarno_2012-30.jpg\" "\\"Sean")
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