My next interview is with Dir. Andrew Erwin. Andrew co-directed the film
October Baby with his brother Jon (known as The Erwin Brothers), and I am honored to have a chance to talk more about this film with him. If you remember,
October Baby was on my
TVIFF 2011 "To-Watch List," and it was such a treat to watch it again on the big screen, where it was so much better than my puny TV. (By the way, audiences agreed with me, sending the film with a runner-up Audience Choice Award. Congrats!)
Even with big things in the works for the film (theatrical distribution!), Andrew was very approachable and graciously sat down with me after the festival.
Anthony Pang | First of all, where did the idea or the inspiration for
October Baby come from?
Andrew Erwin | The inspiration came from a girl I heard speak, named Gianna Jessen, who had an incredible true story. As I heard her story, that really moved me as a filmmaker to explore it. I didn’t know there was an issue with abortion survivors. The movie is ultimately about forgiveness and a girl’s journey, Hannah, as she tries to find her birth mother. It was because of Gianna’s story, who's an abortion survivor herself and [who] also has cerebral palsy, that really moved me to explore the world of “October Baby.”
AP | Obviously, the topic is very sensitive and also very charged at times. What was your approach tackling such a subject?
AE | Well, the subtext of the film is “life is beautiful,” and it was an exploration of life and forgiveness. We wanted to take not a politically-charged look at it but an emotionally vulnerable look at it, “to be human is to be beautifully flawed,” as I've heard said. It’s a complicated issue that becomes easier to look at when you look at it through the eyes of complicated people. We tried to take more of a sensitive approach, so there are no villains in this story. It's more a look at a very important issue. There are heartbreaking elements, and then, there’s a coming-of-age love story at its core as this girl Hannah begins to find out who she is and comes to grips with it all.
AP | You guys just got distribution and
October Baby will be seen by a lot of people, hopefully. But so far, showing the film a little at the film festivals, what has been the response to the film so far?
AE | I’ve been nervous about it. Anytime you put a film out there as a filmmaker, it’s highly intimate because it’s something you’ve invested at least a year of life into and it’s a story that’s become deeply personal. And because it's such a charged issue, it wouldn’t have been my first choice to take on, but it’s a story that found us as filmmakers that we just had to tell. So, I’ve been nervous as we presented it, because it’s so important to me that the issue is presented in a way that is genuine, humble and sensitive. I was nervous to put it out there and to see how it [would be] received, but in all respects, it’s been received extremely well, whether someone agreed with the premise movie or not.
What the movie was intended to do was to promote dialogue and help people discuss the issue. Paul Haggis, who did
Crash, said “good films don’t give answers, they ask the right questions.” Hopefully, this movie asked the right questions. At the end of each screening, there has been a lot of talking and dialogue back and forth, and that’s very gratifying for me as a filmmaker.
AP | Let’s talk about some of the talent from the film. With great films, there’s definitely great talent behind it, whether in front or behind the camera. Talk about Rachel Hendrix, who played the lead role of Hannah, who I think the performance was fantastic. Give me some thoughts about her.
AE | Rachel Hendrix is a fresh face that a filmmaker friend of mine cast in a short film, and I saw her and thought she was phenomenal. She really has this quality that people fall in love with her when they see her on screen. She just has a genuine-ness and an honesty to her that is very much like a Natalie Portman or Keri Russell. I think she’s got a wonderful future. She was discovered, like I said, by my friend, and we put her in a few of our music videos and a TV series that was a pilot for a network. With [
October Baby], we really felt with Hannah’s character, it was extremely important that you loved her and rooted for her. We wanted an actress that would make you break your heart for her. Rachel just became Hannah and she’s got a special future ahead of her.
AP | I think another major component that stands out is the music, which really helps underscore some of the tensions, the drama and the emotions of the film. Talk about that.
AE | The music is something that I’m passionate about. I love Cameron Crowe films, how the music is a character to the film, especially with the band music that he chooses and the fresh voices that you haven’t heard before. So, we tried to find fresh music that may not have been heard on film before, a lot of indie bands. My opinion is that music in a film shouldn’t tell you what to think but that it should really reinforce how you should feel. The music very well does that. And then the score, Paul Mills, my composer, came along side and wrote a very simplistic score that had a very minimalist undertone that went hand-in-glove with the bands that we chose.
AP | Let’s talk a little bit more about the filmmaking process. What was a difficult aspect of the process and how did you go about seeing it through?
AE | The writing process was very interesting. My brother and I, our background is music videos and documentary. With those things, the story sort of comes to you. Documentary is all about going out and finding the story.
With the writing process, if I had to do it again, I probably would’ve cut about 20 pages out of our script. [laugh] I found out the hard way that we really had to work to hone down the film to find out what was the story we really wanted to tell. They say when the Statue of David was carved, they chipped away until nothing was left but David and we kind of took that approach. We tried to just keep whittling down unnecessary things, good things, to get to things that were better, so that was the long part of the process.
And then, just the difficulty of the marathon that it is to make a feature film. It's a much longer process, and you have to pace yourselves. It was much longer that I anticipated.
AP | We’ve talked about some negatives, but now let’s talk about some positives. What was or has been the best part of the process so far?
AE | To see people emotionally engaged with what you’re putting out there. As a filmmaker, by the time you get done with a feature, especially since I'm also the editor, I’ve seen the film 100 times and by then, all I see are the mistakes. So, to be able to be in an audience and live vicariously in a fresh sense with people who are seeing it for the time, that’s a very satisfying. To hear them laughing at the right moments and crying at the right moments, to see people wiping away tears and at the end, see their emotional response to the issue and that they want to engage it and they want to talk about it, that's very satisfying to me.
And then, there’s been a healing aspect to the process, as well. So much of the time, as filmmakers, we get to deal with some very painful issues but in a way that is cathartic. Gianna Jessen, my friend that originally inspired us, she watched it and she said it was a very healing moment for her. Shari [Wiedman], who plays the birth mother in the [film], has a story very similar to the character she plays and to play it from the other side, to walk back, she said it was very healing for her to move on with her own story. That’s very satisfying, to see people emotionally engaged and to live vicariously through people who are watching it for the first time, let’s the movie be fresh for me again. That's a fun part of the process.
AP | We previously talked about faith and how faith is very central to your life. Talk about the mix of faith and filmmaking, where and how does it play in your process, because, obviously, it can be a very difficult place for faith to play out. Your thoughts on that.
AE | Yeah, I’m happy to speak to that. It’s a very important thing to me. I am a firm believer in Jesus Christ, I love the teachings of Jesus on forgiveness and redemption, and I hold those very, very personally. I feel like a lot of times in faith films, the way we present our message has lacked sensitivity to engaging culture in a way that they can hear us, not all the time, but sometimes. And sometimes, I feel like it’s lacked some art and craft to it, as well.
Jon and I really want our movies to be salt as we engage culture with the right questions. We look for stories that are redemptive at the core in a genuine, organic way, not forced, not fake, not disingenuous. Now, sometimes they may have overt faith message and sometimes they may not, but I feel like when we find a redemptive story, the Gospel shines through no matter what. And there have been movies that have that very, very well, like
Chariots of Fire, one of my favorites, did that incredibly well and was recognized as Best Picture for that. We want the salt of the stories we tell to make people thirsty for the truth, truth that I feel is found in the freeing message of Jesus Christ. Hopefully, our films will ask the right questions to engage culture in this way.
AE | I think this film certainly does. Now, on a lighter note. Most recent film you saw and you liked.
AP | [thinking] I loved
The Help. I watched it a couple weeks ago. Tate Taylor, the director of the film, he's from my neck of the woods. Heartbreaking look at a lot of the racist history of the South, but I liked it cause it was complex. You were able to empathize with both sides of the issue and where people were coming from back then. Just looking back at the history of that, it was heartbreaking but at the same time very healing. I [also] loved the look of that movie. I thought Emma Stone and Viola Davis were phenomenal in their respective roles.
AP | And just for fun, who was the first person you ran coffee for?
AE | [laugh] Ran coffee for… [laugh]
AP | [laugh] You’ve run coffee before, right?
AE | [laugh] Yeah, yeah, that’s the beauty of working with my brother. (Note: Andrew originally said “for” and then corrected himself) There’s a joke on set, that Jon, my brother, when he wants something, he’ll get snippy about it. So the running gag that my 1st AD says is “Les Grossman needs a Diet Coke,” from the movie
Tropic Thunder and Tom Cruise’s character. So, my brother, I probably ran coffee for him and he’s picky about how he likes his coffee.
Thank you so much to Andrew for his time.
October Baby will be playing at
Heartland Film Festival and
Red Rock Film Festival this Fall 2011, so check it out if you have a chance! I'll definitely keep track of the film's journey and I hope everyone gets an opportunity to watch the film.
Why this film: There are comedy films aplenty, but good comedy films? Now that is difficult. Comedy films are hard to do, any experienced filmmaker or cinephile knows this. When a good comedy film comes along, it deserves a closer look and deeper appreciation, which is why I've chosen this film. This film cuts against the grain because it isn't slapstick, but rather a "structural" comedy. In other words, it's humor is found in the film's structure and that should be evident for anyone who has a chance to watch this film. It was certainly evident enough to do quite well at Cannes a couple years ago, for whatever that is worth.
