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Digital By Design
A Conversation with Dopamine Writer-Director Mark Decena
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| Mark Decena on the set of Dopamine. |
You can talk about pixels, resolution and transfers all you want. For first-timer Mark Decena, the choice to go the digital route on his feature debut Dopamine was about one thing: having the time--and tape--to work with his actors. It's a level-headed approach, but then again Decena has had a lot of training--first as a short moviemaker, with both Fly By Shooting and One of Those Days screening at Sundance, and then as a student of the Sundance Lab.
Opening in theaters in October, Dopamine is the story of a computer programmer whose view of feelings as nothing more than a chemical activity begins to change through his relationship with a schoolteacher. Here, Decena talks about what he hoped to achieve with the digital medium and answers a few of the recent false claims about Sundance.
Jennifer Wood (MM): It's almost impossible to talk about Dopamine without talking about the role Sundance has played in its progression, from being developed in the Sundance Lab, to premiering at the festival and now to being part of the Sundance Screening Series. There are so many critics who claim that Sundance has become too commercial--that it's not the indie-friendly place it once was. How do you respond to those comments?
Mark Decena (MD): Well, I think it all starts with the support of the Institute. I had originally done some short films [that played at Sundance] and the one in 1996 was One of Those Days. Shortly after that, Lynn Auerbach from the Institute called and asked if we had any feature scripts.
I think the goal of the Insitute is to bring in people who don't normally do film or haven't done film. When we finally submitted and were accepted in 1998 there were spoken word artists, there were poets--a whole slew of people. We had never done a film before and I think we learned that what the support was about was what your vision was. [We learned] what you should be doing with film to have it do well in the market. That was instilled in us from the beginning and I think it's a great boot camp for first-time filmmakers.
MM: What about the production of the film: when did you shoot it and for how many days?
MD: We shot it last year and it was a 25-day shoot.
MM: Was it all shot in San Francisco?
MD: Yeah, pretty much. It was all shot in the Bay Area; we had a couple locations in Marin and one in Oakland, but all in the Bay Area.
MM: I know the film was shot digitally, but what camera did you use?
MD: The Panasonic 720p.
MM: What was it that eventually sold you on this camera? Did you test out other options?
MD: We had come back from Sundance the year before and Personal Velocity and Tadpole were there, so we thought we were going to shoot on the Sony PD150. The story required some effects--like slow motion, time lapse, that sort of thing. My DP, Rob Humphreys, who I actually worked with in the Sundance Lab, just said during pre-production 'You know, you're trying to run the Indy 500 in a go-cart.' He had done some shooting with the 720p and was really amazed by the camera.
MM: But did it help in integrating all of the effects that you have in the film--the computer animation, the chemical sequences, etc.?
MD: Yes, all of that. And you know again, this being an independent production, I thought originally I was going to be picking up stock sequences for all the inner-body stuff, but we ended up getting that from PLF in LA, who did it for us for very little money and really stepped up the production value.
MM: When people talk about 'should I shoot digital or should I shoot film?' it always depends on the story. As Dopamine is a story that is defined by science and technology, the digital medium really works for it. Did you consider film at all, or did you always want to go for the digital look?
MD: It wasn't necessarily the look. Most important to me was having time with the actors. As a first-time director, not having to worry about how much film I was burning was of paramount importance. So I discussed the look with Rob and what I was going for, but ultimately I put it in his canvas. Getting everything I needed to give me time to work with the actors and do takes and run as many masters as I want and let the actors find it in a scene. We ran the scenes quite a bit and even in close-ups we were able to do that, again not having to worry about film being run off.
MM: I thought you also did some really interesting things with color in the film. When the story starts out, it's a bit muted. But as the main character's outlook seems to brighten, so do the colors of the film. How did you go about addressing these specific elements ahead of time?
MD: Rob is very experienced. He also shot Charlotte Sometimes, and those were the PD150s, but they cheated an incredible looking using post--the Da Vinci systems. We worked with Chris Miller at Visionbox and their recommendation was to shoot everything straight and then budget in time on the Da Vinci and we'd be able to achieve the colors that we were going for.
Rob counts his blessings every day. Because I had very, very tight ways that I wanted to shoot this, not only in the color arc but in movement of the camera. Of course, best laid plans, you get into the edit and realize that the story works better if you use the opening scene a little bit later or vice versa. So, if we hadn't shot everything digitally, we'd be in trouble.
MM: When all is said and done, how would you advise other first-time moviemakers exploring the digital--and specifically HD--medium? You mentioned working with the actors, which I think is so important, but it's an aspect that is often overlooked.
MD: That was my primary concern, and having that freedom was the most important thing to me. But I think it also depends on, and it's cliché to say, but it depends on what your story is about. There was a digital tie-in to what we were doing, so it made sense for the story. That's not saying that I wouldn't shoot film next time or shoot with the PD150 if I wanted more of that handheld look or something more verité or dogma.
MM: So are you planning to do another feature?
MD: Oh, yeah.
MM: So you're hooked now! Do you know what you'll be doing?
MD: Tim Breitbach, my creative partner and co-writer on Dopamine, and I have a first draft of a script called Hanging Chad. It's about a family that's all too reluctant to talk about anything, including politics. But it takes place on Thanksgiving weekend during the whole 2000 election debacle and the recounting that's happening there so it sort of brings political discussions to a forefront of the family to boil over a little bit.
MM: Do you know when you'll be shooting it?
MD: Well, our hope--and this is very aggressive--is that we're going to get it into distribution by the 2004 election. So we hope to raise money and be shooting by next year some time. I'm also working on some documentaries. So I'm doing a few things! [laughing]
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