5 Questions with the youngest filmmaker at Sundance
- Marianna Palka (26) Matthew Caldwell
Creative Director - HP Newsgram
Marianna Palka
©Wireimage Busacca
Marianna Palka's original love story, "Good Dick", is turning some heads here at Sundance. It's not because the film is a touching expose of one woman's relationship struggles, but because the Scottish artist wrote, directed, produced, and acted in the film - and she's just 26 years old!
CNN recently added her to their
YOUNG PEOPLE WHO ROCK list.
Watch the interview.
We're impressed with these do-it-all types. How do they do it?
We asked Miss Palka 5 questions to figure it out:
Q1: You're a writer, director, actor and producer. You seem to be wearing many hats. What other talents do you have? MP: I am a photographer and I am good at writing letters.
Q2: Everyone seems to be "multi-tasking" these days. Would you say that is true of you too? From sunrise to sundown, can you give us an example of what an average day, while making this movie, was like? MP: Yes, I guess I multi-task. When we were shooting the film, I would wake up 3 hours before the call time and work on the notes I had prepared the night before (for that day) while having green tea and breakfast. Sometimes this process would begin in the middle of the night. I would then shower, think about the day to come and I'd get dressed.
Once on set, I would talk to Cora and Jen (the producers), usually while in hair and make up. Heads of departments would come chat with me while I was in wardrobe too, so we could set up the first shot in an economical amount of time. Then, I would talk to the actors who were there that day. They say a director gets asked hundreds, if not thousands, of questions a day; that was true of our film, yes, but the set was generally very calm and people were having a good time with each other. Everything was well rehearsed, and Andre (the D.P.) and I were super well prepared. People were attentive to my situation and would ask if I needed water or a snack, as I never had time to go to craft service myself. Lunch always involved talking about what we were going to do after lunch. By the day's end, I would be so happy knowing everything we got that day. I would get home and work on the notes for the next day for a few hours, and if I was too wired to sleep, then I would watch "The Staircase", which is an eight-part documentary DVD (from Sundance, if I am correct) to decompress in order to sleep. The next morning, it would start again. This is how the shooting experience flew by for me. Days felt like minutes, even the night shoots. I don't know how it was possible, but I had so much energy, for everything.
Q3: Follow up - do you have any advice for people who are trying to play many roles at once? Literally, how do you do it? Special tools? Organizational tricks? Assistants? MP: I did not have an assistant on set, but I had one toward the last part of the post production schedule. My only advice is really simple. I would say turn the volume up on the good thoughts in your mind, and turn the volume down on the bad ones. When you are a positive, supportive person, and you treat people with dignity then you will find yourself in situations that are positive, supportive and dignified. It is all about the way you talk to yourself. Also, read Stephen Pressfield's THE WAR OF ART (It is a short read)
Actor Jesse Garcia, actress Marianna Palka, actor Jason Ritter and Eric Edelman visit The Green Lodge on January 20, 2008 in Park City, Utah. ©Wireimage Michael Bezjian
Q4: With regard to your new film, "Good Dick", did you have an "ah Ha!" moment of clarity when things clicked, and your vision appeared, or did it come about another way? MP: I had lots of "ah Ha!" moments, from when the idea originally came to me, all the way up until today when I was talking about the film. Early on, I made a film wall in my office that was made up of every image/piece of writing/card from a friend/ texture/song/smell/color/concept/token that I thought had something to do with the film. When I was stuck in the writing process sometimes, I would spend hours looking at the wall or adding to it. The things on it were not literally to do with the film, but viscerally. I suppose you could say it was an "ah Ha" wall.
Also, I came up with a lot of the ideas in my shower. I would go into the shower with a question and, during the shower, I would figure out the answer. At one point, during pre-production, I was in the shower and I looked down at my feet and saw A PLANT GROWING OUT OF THE DRAIN. This was so crazy to me, so I got on my knees to check it out, and it was in fact A PLANT GROWING OUT OF THE DRAIN. This felt like support, as if someone was saying to me, "You are doing the right thing by making this film." I told everyone about it. We put a copy of the plant in the film, in the spaghetti dinner two shot; the plant is on the table. Andrew Trosmans (the production designer) grew lots of them to match what the actual one looked like. It was a detail that was just for us all really, as everyone was really inspired by the PLANT GROWING OUT OF THE DRAIN, but it had nothing to do with the story in the film.
Q5: Lastly, in your work as an artist - What do you have to say? MP: I think I am just basically trying to support people and help people. Hopefully people who see the film will be uplifted and, if so, then we all did our job. Then the next piece of work I do will hopefully help a completely different group of people, and the same with the next and the next. So that when I'm done, the world will be better off than it is now, and people will be better off. I would like to say let's treat each other with dignity. I think I am re-telling the big truths with my work: we are all the same, we are all seeking love, we are all going to be okay.
Jason Ritter & Marianna Palka
©Wireimage A. Wyman
