Who: Matt Ruskin, director, writer and producer
Logline: When Colin Warner is wrongfully convicted of murder, his best friend Carl King devotes his life to proving Colin’s innocence.
The length of the shoot was: five days
Our crew size was: about 60 people
Our camera, lenses and lighting package were: Arri Alexa, Cooke anamorphics
The first spark of an idea for this movie came when: I heard Anya Bourg’s amazing piece on This American Life. The story blew me away.
My favorite scene (or shot) in the film is: the ones that end up being far better than what I had envisioned. It’s a great feeling to discover something even better than what was in your head. One of those shots is a dream sequence we shot when Colin walks out of the prison to meet his wife.
Matt Ruskin
An audience watching my film probably won’t know that: many of the real people involved in the story allowed me to interview them as I was researching the film. It was invaluable in piecing together all of the many details of the story as I started to write the script.
An influence or reference on this film was: Bruce Davidson’s book Subway, a book of photographs that he shot in the early 1980s that beautifully captures that era in New York City.
The weirdest or most difficult location we shot at was: the prison locations, which were difficult for a bunch of reasons, but mainly because they are really cold, awful places to be. We kept joking that we’d shoot our next movie at a beach house somewhere.
The biggest lesson I learned making this movie was: Find great people to work with. We were incredibly fortunate to have an amazingly talented and good-humored group of people. Without them we never would have survived this shoot.
When I heard we got into Sundance I: called my producers and then my parents… in that order.
I’m most excited about seeing: as many films as humanly possible this year.
My favorite moviemaker of all time is: a long list. Here’s two–Stanley Kubrick, Michael Mann.
Alyla Browne isn’t easily shaken. For her role as Charlotte, a young girl obsessed with…
Mamie Gummer and Catherine Curtin have joined the cast of "In The Pocket", an upcoming…
Quentin Tarantino is walking away from his movie The Movie Critic, which had previously been…
Sydney Sweeney is firing back at producer Carol Baum, who took aim at the Immaculate…
Netflix's Unlocked: A Jail Experiment follows Sheriff Eric Higgins as he gives surprising new freedoms…
Brian Cox isn't sugarcoating his opinion about Joaquin Phoenix's performance as Napoleon Bonaparte in Ridley…
View Comments
After reading a couple articles in this new issue, I am becoming convinced I should allocate some of my budget for VFX! I am writing and directing a film about a cyber relationship between a man and a woman across two different galaxies, though one is unsure which lives on Earth, and I'm struggling with transitional scenes across the Milky Way.