Interview with Scott Cummings
Friday, February 1st, 2008
He is an up and coming (pardon the pun) independent filmmaker, experimental musician and a person with a very original view on things. He speaks English, Russian and Japanese (all just enough to be understood) and his film has a 12-year old smoking a cigarette in front of his sister.
My first introduction to Scott Cummings was through an innocent little link in Sinisa Kukic’s website (Sinisa is the brilliant filmmaker responsible for ‘Pump‘). Sinisa had recently wrapped up cinematography on Scott’s upcoming short film ‘Storm Tiger Mountain’ and just one look at the film’s trailer was enough to make me email him asking for an interview.
Scott was up for a discussion and this was the result:
Scott, at one point in your life you tried making a film by wrapping yourself up in 16mm filmstock and wearing it for an entire day. What were the results of that experiment?
When I made this I was really into very experimental filmmakers, especially Structuralist-type work. I had “seen” a film by Tony Conrad called “Fried Film” where he took a bunch of 16mm film and fried it, then threw it on a table. I thought that that was just so brilliant. I wanted to make a self-portrait so I woke up one morning, went into a completely dark room and wrapped myself from neck to toe in 16mm reversal film. I put on a turtleneck – I didn’t want anyone to know what I was doing. Anyway, I wore the film for 24 hours, even slept in it. Honestly, it was terribly miserable, especially because the film was scratching against my skin, including in some really private places. Imagine getting papercuts every few minutes -there were scratches all over my body, but the worst is when the film pinched, well, you know. I looked pretty funny because I was walking really really slowly and purposefully. I even made out with my girlfriend – she never knew. Anyway, sweat and other unmentionable things got on the film, which is what kind of made whatever image was there (there wasn’t much of one). It was fun, but I wouldn’t do it again.
Tell us more about your upcoming film “Storm Tiger Mountain” and the various director fantasies that you’ve fulfilled in the film.
“Storm Tiger Mountain” is a short 16mm film about two lower-class Russian kids hanging out on the streets of Los Angeles. It’s a simple film that I hope captures the experience of being a withdrawn 12-year-old boy just about to pass that major threshhold into adolescence. We finished production about a month ago, and I’m working on editing right now. I got to do a lot of things that I’ve always wanted to with this, like work with non-professional actors. I actually wrote the script for this older armenian guy (Sergei) who works at my local laundromat. He doesn’t speak any English really, but he’s a really fascinating guy, and I love just watching him walk around and interact with people. He still manages to communicate despite the language barrier. He always sings. He’s got these amazing tattoos. He’s a really warm person – he always offers me tea. The film started with him – I really wanted to work with him because I thought it would be an interesting challenge, but that he would bring something to a role that a normal actor wouldn’t. The only really experienced actor in the film is Ari Simon, the lead (Jon), but most of his experience is from when he was literally a baby. The inspiration for the story comes from my childhood and spending time with my sister, specifically this day that I came home from school and smoked a cigarette and drank a bunch of my parents’ liquor in front of her. I’m not sure why… Anyway, I love when people do real things, things that you can’t fake, in films, and I wanted to have a young kid smoking a cigarette in the film in front of his sister. Ari and his mom were incredibly cool about it, although I don’t think he enjoyed the smoking much. What other fantasies do I have? Well, I speak Russian and I’ve always wanted to make a film in Russia in Russian. This was kind of my consolation prize until I can do that. I love how in Tarkovsky films people whisper all the time – Russians whisper a lot. It’s a language that lends itself to hushed tones. I was really excited to introduce animals also. Introducing animals to scenes adds the tension of something completely unpredictable and uncontrollable that really leaps off screen. Making actors navigate with this real thing while they try to perform is always interesting to see. The guinea pigs fell into our laps, but the chicken, Ruby, was there from the start. I’ve always thought it fascinating that so many people in LA have chickens in their yard, no matter how urban the neighborhood. It’s just such an odd characteristic about this city for me, so I really wanted to use that, plus give a little wink to Herzog. Ruby was not very cooperative – at one point, she ran away and took to the streets of Little Armenia (the area where we shot, in Hollywood). She was running through these busy streets with us chasing her. Miraculously, she was unharmed, but she held up production for an hour. This was literally right before lunch, and I really enjoyed the irony that lunch was at a chicken place down the street.
Just like “Storm Tiger Mountain”, you’re other films like “Nosebleed” and “Moorpark” feature children in prominent roles. Why so and What is your view on working with children?
I like working with kids on shorts because short films are about little, seemingly insignificant moments that end up having a deeper importance. Anything that happens to kids can be life-changing, so they fit into the world of shorts perfectly. I’m sick of films where what happens slaps you across the face (guns, murders, mysterious illnesses, whatever). I prefer to spend time with characters and get to know them, and kids are interesting to get to know and watch. Plus, kids are so uncorrupted by what they think acting should be. Once they get used to being themselves, they start to bring that to the role. They’re interesting and rewarding to work with in a different way than experienced actors (who are also interesting to work with).
What are your thoughts on Super16 as a filming medium?
It’s funny because a few weeks ago I was helping on an HD feature that my friend was shooting and we ran into this semi-deranged homeless man. He was curious to know if we were shooting film or video? When we said video, he told us we should quit now and start over on film, because with video there’s nothing there. Video is just a bunch of numbers, no images – it’s dead. But with film, he told us, there are all these little pictures of everything – the images exist. I thought that was interestingly put, images that exist and images that don’t exist.
Film is wonderful and expensive. I like working with film because above all it shows total commitment to the work – you need to know what you want and how to get it, or you’ll bankrupt yourself. You need to be prepared and ready to sacrifice. You know what every second of that film means. Plus, I still feel it can communicate so much more than video. I work with video too, but I prefer making narrative films on film. The lenses, the stocks, video just can’t do that. The worst words for me are “clean” and “crisp,” and those are video words. Plus, video is just so “easy” – I think limitations make better films, and easy things make people lazy.
This all said, perhaps it’s the ex-structuralist in me, but I love that film “exists,” that you can hold it and cut it; that you pay a price for it. I love that it dies too – the image degrades over time, scratches and dirt get on it. It’s not predictable, it’s alive. I think some people can really feel this difference still, that they’re watching something real. I really appreciate Sinisa Kukic as a DP for this, and for his background. I feel like he understands this on the same level that I do – he doesn’t want to shoot film just because it looks better, he understands what film really is, which is a living, breathing thing.
You’ve made over a dozen short films. What are the advantages of this medium? Do you want to make a feature-length film?
Sure, I’d love to make a feature-length film but I find a certain satisfaction in working with shorts. I think my next film will be another short, even though I’m working on like 3 feature scripts at the moment – shorts are financially more realistic right now. I feel you learn a lot more working with shorts – you learn about images and tone and communicating something quickly. I like how intimate and microscopic shorts can be – although good features incorporate the same strategies. Anyway, the world doesn’t need another substandard feature, and so few people make good shorts. I like making them, I hope my next short is even better than this one.
What kind of films do you like? Tell us more about the films you’ve chosen to show at the CalArts’ Cinematheque Fall 2007.
I have pretty haughty taste, despite what I showed in my class. Personally, I’m excited by very formal filmmaking. I love Antonioni and Tarkovsky. I went to film school because I saw Bela Tarr’s “Werckmeister Harmoniak” and Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s “Blissfully Yours” and got incredibly reinspired about narrative filmmaking. I remember leaving those films and just wandering around for hours not knowing what to do with myself. That’s a good feeling – I like when film’s do that, or books – when you finish them and you don’t know what to do anymore, like everything has ended. I love James Benning. I like a lot of the Asian filmmakers that everyone talks about. I love a lot of Japanese stuff from the mid-60′s like Seijun Suzuki, really stylish stuff. Also, Alan Clarke’s BBC films are perfect. Oh, and Peter Tscherkassky is incredible. There are so many, but my absolute hero is Werner Herzog. I’m kind of a Herzog obsessive. I agree with 2/3 of everything he says, no matter how crazy, but I appreciate all of it. He always tries something new, and he actually goes out and does things without being afraid – he goes out and becomes a bullfighter. He’s truly committed to what he says and does, and he truly cares about finding images that people haven’t seen before no matter what the cost. I knew Sinisa Kukic was the right DP for me when he told me he was a mechanic.
My Cinematheque class mostly focused on work that was provocative by design, work that meant to challenge and assault the audience’s sensibilities. A lot of the films are pretty rough to watch, even “Pink Flamingos,” which is easy to take for granted. That film still pushes buttons. I make some work like this, work which has sent people out of the room complaining, and I’m always interested in this reaction. The first time it happened I was mortified, until I realized that that was my intention. Now, I can proudly say that “the Hesher” chased people out of its MOMA screening in droves. Filmmakers and audiences both need to be challenged when they watch work, either formally, emotionally, physically, whatever.
What sort of background do you come from? When did you first discover cinema?
I was a professional ESL teacher for many years, but I discovered film when I was about 20. I was living in Moscow and I randomly went to see “Solaris” at the university theater. Even though I was pretty intrigued, I fell asleep. Shortly after, I saw “Potemkin” in class and the entire mechanism of filmmaking suddenly became transparent. When I came home I got into Godard and started making experimental stuff. The narratives came later. I think having an experimental foundation is often a plus for narrative work as long as you can get rid of the restrictions it places on you. That was kind of tough, because sometimes experimenting makes people afraid to follow rules and expose themselves. Narrative filmmaking is such a naked artform – it’s like standing in front of a roomful of people with no clothes on. People really see who you are and judge you based on your work, much moreso than with experimental work I think. I mean, it’s not just your ideas or your technique that is opened up to people, it’s your entire personality. You can’t be afraid of anything if you want to make narratives. It’s hard to open yourself up to that kind of thing when you’ve already spent time scratching on film and naming Paul Verilio and Deleuze as sources.
Tell us more about your time in Tokyo. What did you learn from your stay there?
Wow, a lot. I lived in Tokyo for 3 years and in Moscow for a little bit more than a year. I’ve had a pretty international adulthood, I’ve travelled a lot, met a lot of interesting people, had a completely unrestricted lifestyle for a long time, where I didn’t have to answer to anyone and could just up and go to Cambodia for a month if I wanted. It was really hard to come back to the US for grad school, and I still haven’t resigned myself to staying here. The world is an interesting place. People are different and totally interesting everywhere you go. If I were to make a feature it would almost certainly be filmed abroad in Japan or in Russia (I’m working on those right now). It’s kind of amazing, living abroad, because something totally fascinating happens to you every day. I have so many stories, many of them about culture clashes, or the crazy people I’ve met. A lot of unbelievable things have happened to me, and I’ve gotten myself into some pretty strange situations. I guess I’m very interested in the experience of being a fish out of water, which is kind of the other thing about kids, especially 12 year old boys. That’s when boys go through that phase.
Apart from your filmmaking career you also seem to dabble a bit with music. Tell us more about your various adventures in this artform.
I’ve always been involved with music, but, unfortunately, I’m not much of a traditional musician. I’ve been in plenty of indie and punk bands, but I don’t like playing live, so I started getting into making electronic music about 5 years ago. I mostly just do it as my other outlet, really just for myself, although my stuff is getting better. I like arranging, it’s almost the same as editing. I’m working on a “new” project called thee married men, where I do live improvised performances and take the sound of the space I’m in and shape it into harsh noise music, so the more noise a space makes (for example, people talking in a bar that I’m “playing” in) the more noise I make. The “music” is created by the surroundings and any noise I make. It’s just me and a laptop rolling around. I’m pretty into a lot of the 80s/90s Japanese noise stuff at the moment. I love how confrontational it all was, so I love the idea that if the audience is “disrespectful” by ignoring me and being loud, I get to blow their eardrums out, and if they’re “respectful” and quiet nothing really happens. So noone ever wins. I just played my first show – it was fun. I do more traditionally ambient-type stuff too, that’s another project – Republicans. I just made a Cd to give to friends and interested parties. You can download the songs from myspace, please do.
Do you find any common ground between Cinema and Music? If yes, how so?
I do, especially composed music. Composed and ambient music are all about texture, just like a film; about pace, timing, movement and subtle changes, basically what Walter Murch says about editing. Pop music is about stories, it rarely works with films because the music is so loaded. The narrative of the music is pushed into your face – you have a singer who’s telling you about his girlfriend or whatever people sing about, or her interest in whales or whatever. Composed and instrumental music might be more like the films I like, where a narrative might reveal itself through sound – you start to create images and narratives in your head. Still, to contradict myself, the minute the Exploited come on during Alan Clarke’s “Made in Britain” my heart jumps into my throat, and I can think of plenty other films where that happens. But God, who doesn’t hate watching some blockbuster film and having Linkin Park shoved down your throat while Spiderman swings around Manhattan?
What is your philosphy about experimentation? What motivates you to experiment in Cinema, Music or any other artform? How important is it to experiment in any artform?
I think challenging yourself is the most important thing, to know the rules and to follow them and break them. Sometimes it’s harder to follow the rules than to break them. Probably the most interesting thing is to do the opposite of whatever you feel inclined to do – push your own limits. Experimentation is a great thing when there are limits imposed on it – limits are far more interesting to work with. I think it’s a good thing to seek to modestly add to any artform, or else what’s the point? Isn’t the most interesting part about making something the possibility of falling flat on your face? Is it rewarding to make work knowing it will automatically succeed?
What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?
Make sure something you do offends the hell out of someone. Try to make boundaries for each thing you create and stick to them. Get out into the world. Put yourself in dangerous and crazy situations. Don’t be afraid of anyone or anything. If you ever find yourself bored, get a life, go to Phnom Penh, and walk around the darkest neighborhood there for an hour at midnite. I bet something interesting will happen – it did to me.
Thank you Scott for taking time out to do this interview, I’m very pleased to have your views and I think the readers would find it as inspirational as I have. I wish you all the best for your upcoming projects and I have a feeling we’ll be hearing more from you very soon.
For more details on Scott Cummings and his upcoming short ‘Storm Tiger Mountain’ you can visit his official website here.
