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What inspired you to make this piece?
This was my first venture as a filmmaker. I wanted to make a film for the longest time, but was too scared -- scared I would fail. My mother got horribly sick in 1996, I was standing in the middle of her hospital room, in a lot of emotional pain, stressed beyond belief, and I realized that if I didn't make a film now I never would have the guts to later. I picked up the phone by her bed, coordinated my crew, and was shooting in two weeks. If I didn't have this film I don't think I would have made it through the anguish of the next two years.
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| From P.I. SNAPS. |
Tell us a little about the process involved in making this work.
My goal as a filmmaker is to create organically stylized portraits of real people. Each film will be different in look and feel, since the executional style is driven by what I am able to glean from my subject. I want to heighten the "real world" with elements from the fictional. Dempster Leech inspired the look of the film: black and white, dramatic, dark, mysterious, and subterraneous. I went to such photographers as Weegee, Bresson, Deakin to arrive at the lighting and look of the film. The actual shooting of the film was only over three and one-half days including the raid. Dempster Leech has this marvelous way of dividing his world into reality versus truth. I wanted to interweave his story telling (or acting) with the real world; therefore, I shot the raid on videotape, whereas the rest of the film was shot on 16mm. I intercut the tape and film, the stories and the action footage to the point where the viewer could no longer distinguish one from the other.
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| From P.I. SNAPS. |
Do you have any interesting and/or amusing behind-the-scenes stories about the making of this particular work?
Working with a private eye the likes of Dempster Leech was very amusing and unpredictable . . . I never knew what he was going to do or how he was going to react. At one point during the raid, my cameraman and I went after him as he followed a perp into one of the storefronts. Well, he really flipped out and let me have it. Underneath it all, I think he was motivated by his concern for our safety. The night shoot in Chinatown made him very nervous since there had been a contract out on his life a number of years ago by the leader of the notorious "Born to Kill" gang.
I asked him to walk with his partner, Andy, down Canal Street. As I followed him with my camera, the shopkeepers were scared as hell -- they thought we were going to raid them and they went crazy, covering up their merchandise and running down to the next store to warn their neighbors.
The end of the first day we were down in an alley, and I wanted him to recite a monologue from Shakespeare (to ultimately use as representative of his life before investigating). The rats were everywhere, and every time we did a retake I jokingly positioned him: "Could you stand by the third rat on the right? After you finish, would you continue to walk until you reach that lone rat at the end of the alley?" Thank God for his sense of humor.
Is there a relationship between your work as a video/filmmaker and life in the New York metropolitan area?
I think my life as a New Yorker (having lived here for 35 years) has deeply affected the way I represent the world through my filmmaking. The executional style of P.I. SNAPS, though entirely drawn from my subject, Dempster Leech, is "very New York." We see the city through his eyes as a gritty, subterraneous, noir-esque, and seedy pulp novella.
How has the burgeoning independent movement affected your life and work as a video/filmmaker?
I think the burgeoning independent movement as well as the growing popularity of the documentary format encouraged and motivated me to make the film.
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