Austinist Interviews: Filmmakers Bob Byington and Alex Karpovsky

That's awesome. So what is the process of his reintegration into the world? How do people react to him?

BB: Well, have you met any sex offenders?

Not personally, but I have gotten one of those cards in the mail that said there was one in the neighborhood.

BB: Well what was your response? Were you freaked out?

I wasn't freaked out because it was in the university neighborhood and it was just a young fellow who was on his first offense.

BB: Did it say what he had done?

It didn't say on the card what he had done, but I could have gone to the database to find out, but I didn't really want to know. I didn't do anything besides stick it to my fridge because I found it amusing.

BB: Well, there you go. You found the card amusing.

But at the same time, you these have very frightening, seemingly unredeemable, serial sex offenders who aren't amusing at all. Is that the type of character that we are going to see in the film?

BB: Well, I'm not going to tell you that. I'm not going to tell you what he did, either. we actually shot in a neighborhood in North Austin, and we had him go door to door to tell people that he was moving into the neighborhood. We had set it up so that people would know that he was coming, but people really did bring a natural, documentary type curiosity to that particular point. They all were asking "What did you do? What did he do? What..." Everybody asked, because that helps us positions ourselves. If I know what he did, then I can gain some ground. I want to believe that what he did is "okay." Like, he had sex with a 17-year-old girl and he was 19, right? That's our deepest hope is that it was that. And then there is all of the other super scary stuff that we hope it isn't. So I think that's why everyone immediately asks that question. If he is a child molester, then we don't want to talk to him, do we?

Well I don't personally.

BB: Exactly. I am scared to death of child molesters and I don't even know why. We don't want to think about someone molesting children, because that is just gross. We kind of used to do the same thing to gay people culturally. Culturally it used to be okay to ostracize gay people, but that is not acceptable anymore, but it is still okay to ostracize sex offenders. That's interesting. That is an interesting tension to me to explore.

So, in the process of making RSO, did you meet any sex offenders or study them?

BB: Not really, because I am just as scared of them as you are.

So how did you get inside the mind of one to be able to write this story?

BB: The guy playing the lead was enough material for me to work with. He's the real deal.

What does that mean?

-------At this point in the interview we are joined by Writer/Director/Actor extraordinaire Alex Karpovsky, who we were not expecting to interview, but who was very gracious with our ignorance of the back story for Woodpecker and our relative rambling/stumbling interview style, especially considering that he had been color correcting his film all day and still needed to cut a trailer that evening.-----------

Earlier, before you arrived, we were talking about the fact that you two are still trying to wrap your minds around your movies and figure out what they're about.

BB: I don't want to assert that on your behalf. Don't let me speak for Alex.

Alex Karpovsky: No, that's fair so far.

Since you have just finished the film and it is still fresh in your mind, do you think you have a clear picture of what you are trying to say with Woodpecker?

AK: I feel like I know what I am trying to say with it. I think a lot of the perspective has withered off because I have been focusing on fine tuning very specific technical issues, but I feel like I have a clear idea of what I want to say with the movie and how I'm saying it.

BB: I was really suggesting more that we are finished, going into SXSW and that we are at a time where there is some uncertainty with how the movies will be watched and how the material will be processed by the audience.

Well what are your expectations right now? Bob told me earlier that he thinks his film is more of an audience film, while yours may be more of a critical darling. Where does that differentiation come from?

BB: Well, his movies are smarter. Critics are going to respond to that.

AK: Well I don't want to generalize on critics, but based on my experience with The Hole Story, I feel like some critics really like to figure things out on their own and draw their own conclusions that may even be counter to what other criticisms have said in the past and I think that my movie allows for that specific possibility to be greater. Maybe parts of it are more ambiguous than others and I think that the critics might respond to that. I don't know. I don't know how critics think exactly.

BB: I draw a comparison to restaurant reviewers, because I think restaurant reviewers want to be surprised in a good way, to a degree, whereas someone going to a restaurant to eat might not bring that expectation or hope to their meal. That might describe the difference between my movie and Alex's.

I think that watching the audience reaction to both of your movies is going to be interesting. Naturally the SXSW audience is going to be a little more open with their tastes, whereas the general moviegoing public will maybe not pick up on some of the nuances of your films. You know, it's like eating at Applebee's or Chili's in the suburbs whereas I think the festival crowd will want to be surprised.

BB: I always like to mention the Olive Garden when mentioning restaurants like that. I would hate to leave out the Olive Garden.

I encountered a gentlemen the other night who had just eaten at the Olive Garden with his family and all he could say about the food was that it was "italiano". No matter what he had eaten it was "salad italiano" or "cheesecake italiano".

AK: Well, I figure if you are going to go there, do it right. I would get the "italiano" everything as well. Herbal tea italiano?

BB: I'm not sure they have herbal tea.

AK: I think they have everything italiano. But yeah, I think it is true that our movies will play very, very differently. I mean, I only have The Hole Story to go on, but it didn't really reach much of an "Olive Garden" audience, but when it did it played very differently. What I found interesting was that different jokes were playing differently. I don't want to say that the smarter jokes were playing worse, but there was definitely a different wave form to the way that the comedy played out. It was pretty consistent everywhere outside of the festival atmosphere. For the most part people are rooting for your film at a festival.

BB: I am very interested in that notion of how an audience will come in and root for a movie. I worked at Telluride a lot in the '90s and people would come in and it was like watching sports. You are hoping that your team can pull it off. It is a very similar experience where people come in with that type of energy and cheer your movie on in a way that is more forgiving than other types of demographics. And indeed why a lot of these movies that would play at a festival like Sundance then come out into the real world and people will be, like, "What the f**k is that? How on earth did that movie ever do anything anywhere?" I have a bunch of titles that come to mind that I am not going to name. I have a couple of vendetta areas.

For movies that you thought should have gotten more recognition or should not have?

BB: Movies that played very well at Sundance and then laid an egg in the real world, but this is not necessarily the platform for my bitterness. I think we should talk more about Alex as an actor. I've seen Woodpecker and I like it a lot.

Well, let's explain the basic premise. We apologize for not being prepared. We read the press kit about two weeks ago, but have slept since then. The story is based on a real life bird that has been deemed extinct, but people still believe that it is around.

AK: Right, so it is a hybrid film in the sense that the backdrop is real, the town is real, the setting in every sense is real, but the main character and the story are fictitious. There is a very famous woodpecker in the bird watching world called the ivory billed woodpecker. It is the largest woodpecker in America and very colorful and part of American and Native-American folklore. About 150 years ago its numbers began to dwindle, after the civil war, because they started to deforest a lot of the bayou. It was declared extinct in the 1940's and that was it; we lost another glorious creature on the planet.

Two years ago, this guy said that he saw one, but nobody believed him. But then all of these eyewitness sightings started happening, mushrooming over this small area. Then the ornithologists came down and they saw it, and then it was pandemonium. This whole sort of circus began in a very small, economically depressed town in Eastern Arkansas, but no proof ever materialized. There were credible eyewitness accounts by experts, but no photos or anything really indisputable that manifested. Suddenly all of these birdwatchers came down because they wanted to get definitive proof of this holy grail of birdwatching, combing the bayou with their video cameras and that is what the main character in the film is doing - he is a fanatical, determined and existentially tormented birdwatcher. As we follow him and his sidekick, the hints of an existential crisis begin to manifest and slowly we begin to realize that the search for this bird may have a deeper and more personal resonance for him. That is how the story begins.

It seems that it is similar to The Hole Story in some ways. How did you approach the documenting of this phenomenon? Are the lead character and his sidekick making a documentary?

AK: That's one thing I wanted to do differently from THS, I wanted to avoid a clunky exposition. The main character is just an interesting person and we decided to follow him and there is very little justification made. I don't think that's a problem. There is one scene where he points at the camera as he is explaining while interacting with a towns person and explains that we are just following him because we think he is going to spot the bird and that's enough, I think. My first film I was very paranoid about the audience questioning why I was filming from a certain angle and then can I cut to a reverse angle, because it is supposed to be a documentary. No one really care, only the filmmaker cares about that stuff. Just don't make any incredibly obvious mistakes, but I think I was over anxious about that the first time. To answer your initial question it is similar to THS in terms of its style to some extent and the story arc and both films are character driven stories, but the characters are totally different. It makes them quite different movies, in my mind, anyway. So, they're similar but different.

Have you ever encountered anyone with the same fanaticism in your own life that you based the character on?

AK: Well, I didn't base it on anyone in particular, but I think that fanatics are made from kind of a cookie cutter. It's just a trait that I find interesting. And to be fair, the birdwatcher in the film isn't totally obsessed. He is running away from his life in many ways.

BB: Well, you knew that you wanted to put Johnny (Hyrns) in there.

AK: And I wanted to put Johnny in the movie, but he is not the kind of guy who wakes up at six in the morning and runs out to the bayou and looks for the bird. He wakes up at 9:30am, probably has a Busch Light, a cup of coffee with a sip of brandy and then he'll go to the bayou around 1:30pm, when all of the other birdwatchers are taking their afternoon naps under a tree, he's rolling into the parking lot. He is not really a birdwatcher, he is just involved in the search to take his mind off other things. This gives him some sort of vague sense of purpose or meaning. I think there's a Beatles song about that.

BB: I think that's one parallel that I think is interesting with our movies is that we both knew legitimately interesting people that we wanted to put into a framework where they could excel or soar or function in a story. I met a kid and wrote a sex offender movie for him, but it was really a framework for his personality to explode on screen. One of the things I really like about Woodpecker is the same thing, there is a framework for Johnny - you get to really look at Johnny. When we were talking earlier you mentioned American Movie, which gives us a good way to look at Mark Borchardt.

AK: That's a good point because both of our main actors are not really actors. Gabe (McIver) and Johnny haven't done much yet.

BB: You want to find a story where there is actual movement so that the audience isn't impatient. If the audience thinks that they are just watching a character study they're like, "F**k you, get me out of here now." They need movement, so the story lets the character really breathe.

AK: Especially in the narrative context, people really demand that. If subconsciously they walk into a theater thinking this is going to be a narrative film, I think the way they couch their expectations is that there better be a story pretty soon and it better be interesting. If I'm sitting my ass down for 90 minutes to do a character study, this is going to be rocky. But if it was a documentary with the exact same movie they would be fine with it, but it's the way they contextualize their cinematic experience.

BB: Which is why you also rarely find the average moviegoer gravitating towards documentaries; they usually prefer more narrative work.

Unless it is a big blockbuster documentary. No End in Sight for example has a very defined act one, act two and act three. It moves along in a foreseeable fashion even though you already know the end of the story so it appeals to a larger audience.

BB: When I watched No End in Sight I was marveling at how much information they were giving me in act one so that I could watch act two and act three. They really piled it on, setting you up. A bit like your milieu act one, Alex.

AK: Yeah, I haven't seen it, but what you were describing sounded familiar. It's kind of like paperwork, getting the files in place so people can hang on for act two and act three. It's a lot of business in my act one, but I tried to minimize it. I put in some music and kind of massaged it, but it's really just set up for the most part.

As far as the setting for both of your films go, it seems like both stories would bring some interesting reactions from those who lived there. Alex, we know you shot in Arkansas, but Bob, where did you shoot?

BB: Pretty much all over Austin.

Had any of the residents of the neighborhoods that you used ever encountered a sex offender moving into their territory before?

BB: Not in my experience, but they all brought some healthy prejudice and distrust to the process, which gave us some good material.

What about the people in Arkansas? How did they react to you coming into their town, or did they even know you were there?

AK: They definitely knew. Everyone knew from day one that seven yankees were in town with a video camera, so it was tough to keep it under wraps. I think for the most part they were thrilled. The people who weren't thrilled just didn't come close to us. This bird, when it was rediscovered, gave a huge economic boost to the town, which was dying, so any faint glimmer of exposure or publicity that this woodpecker might provide was welcome. There were two other documentaries being made about the situation at the same time we were filming and they were welcoming towards all of us. They want people to visit Brinkley.

BB: Right, because they associate it with an economic benefit.

AK: Right, the people on the surface do, but the longer you stay there, the more I found people who were discontent with the woodpecker's rediscovery, specifically hunters because it forced strict prohibitions on their land and that becomes woven into the fabric of the film itself. These people want the woodpecker to go home with all the peckerheads who are looking for it.

Well that is certainly something that Austinites can identify with considering the Barton Springs Salamander and the Golden Cheeked Warbler and some sort of spider out in Bee Caves that prohibited development and other things on public and private lands. Did the rediscovery of the Ivory Billed Woodpecker stop the deforestation of that region?

AK: Yes, and that is a big part of the movie. They froze 250,000 acres of bayou, which is a really big stretch, and turned it into a national wildlife refuge with strict prohibitions on development, hunting and timber harvest. And that is a big part of their economy. The farmers can't use pesticides within seven miles of the refuge, and considering there are a lot of farmers in the area, there were a lot of unhappy people. Unhappy people tend to stay away from movie cameras, but we found them because we wanted the story to be accurate. The few people that would talk on camera, I think, evenly paint this picture of discontent in the town. Not all is well in Brinkley, Arkansas.

Bob, what lead you to make RSO? You had been in LA for awhile, so what was the impetus to return to Austin to work on this film?

BB: Well, I met this kid who I thought would be great playing this part and basically wrote a movie for him. That was basically it.

Wow. That's a pretty great break for him.

BB: Yeah, he's living in LA now ironically. We had all of these actors in from NY and LA to work from him,. so through the process he got better and better at it, so now he wants to be an actor.

Well, what was he doing before?

BB: Working at a video store.

So he's keeping the dream alive for all of the people in Austin who want to get into movies.

BB: Yeah, I guess so. It was very gratifying to see these professional actors work with him and watch that shift.

As far as his character goes, you had mentioned that he is unrepentant, so what is the point of telling his story? What are you trying to get across?

BB: I guess that we are all sex offenders. I am very interested in the fact that I am freaked out by sex offenders. I am very interested in what is going on there. What is going on inside me that I am so frightened by someone making a sex offender movie three blocks from me? Why does that scare me? That is certainly a point of departure for me in making the film. What if that sex offender is getting out of prison and he had to do all of the bullshit stuff that they have to do and he didn't think that what he did was wrong in the first place? So what if you had to do a bunch of stuff to redress something that, in your mind, wasn't wrong? That is the "what if" of the movie. But I think the point of the movie is what you will take away from it after seeing it, and you may not take away anything. I think some people will see the movie and be so put off by the idea that we would make a comedy about sex offenders that they won't really be able to process the material. I think there are other people who will be interested in him, the guy, because the reason that I wrote the movie about him is because he actually is really interesting. If we have done our job and put him in the framework where you get to know him through the movie, then you get to decide what you think. We'll see. I don't know if there is a space for an audience to relate to him. I think there is and from the test screenings it seems like there is a space for people to let him in. He says some pretty eye opening things.

Did you find during the course of those test screenings that people related to him, that they got the same feeling of "what if" I did this thing that I didn't think was wrong, but it turned out to be criminal and I had to go through the steps of rehabilitation and paying for my crime?

BB: We tested it at Austin Film Society for 60 people, and it was clear that the material engaged the audience, which was a relief, and it has been our job to make sure that there aren't distractions to the audience being able to relate to him. We are already at kind of a disadvantage, right? If you are making a film about a fireman from 9/11, that is a different starting point for your audience than a story about a sex offender. And if the sex offender is a child molester, the audience isn't going to want to relate to him. You would watch that movie and not only would you not want to relate to him, but you wouldn't want anything at all to do with this guy.

Are you concerned at all about retribution?

BB: A little bit. I am trying to keep my home address off the public record.

AK: What have you done Bob?

BB: I don't know, I am just sure that there are people out there who think that making a movie about a sex offender, or at least a comedy about one isn't necessarily a worthwhile endeavor and they may want to teach me a lesson. I think it is really easy to find out where I live, but....I don't know. Alex, are you worried about retribution.

AK: My address isn't listed here. I still have my address in Boston. My mom's house is going to get teepeed.

Well, it seems that even the tagline from you film, Bob, (A film that will touch you, inappropriately) would draw scorn from people.

AK: It's a great tag line. That's why it is going to pack the house. Smartest tagline at SXSW. I don't even have a tag line for Woodpecker.

BB: Alex is suffering from tagline envy, actually.

AK: I don't have a tagline. The Hole Story didn't have a tagline. I need to work on a little jingle or something. I just can't do it. However, there is a song in my movie and the band is called Sports Center. They are a bunch of pot smoking alcoholics from Florida. They have to go to the coffee shop in town to email me the mp3s.

We are not really surprised. I was just in Florida and technology is not their strong suit. Driving around trying to find wifi was like trying to find this woodpecker.

BB: That may be your next film, Alex. I think Alex is shooting another movie in the fall.

AK: I don't really want to talk about it, but the central element in the movie are noses. That is all I am going to say. It is a movie about noses. I think that's all I know, at this point.

Well, noses are our favorite part of people's face. They really tie the whole thing together. Everyone's nose it at least a little bit different and they are all interesting. If someone had a different nose they would look completely different.

AK: It's very true. That line is basically in the movie. You are writing my movie right now.

BB: Well, Alex is also going to be in my new film, Harmony & Me. I am very excited to work with him. You may know, Alex came to town last summer and I met him almost immediately.

Well we were just noticing that all of the Texas films at SXSW this year seem to be very incestuous. Everyone has worked on each others movies, or helped write each others movies or are in each other's movies.

BB: Alex, are you concerned about being lumped in with all of the Texas filmmakers?

AK: Depends on how good the movies are, right? I don't want to be lumped in with a bunch of rotten eggs.

BB: Within the context of the incestuous that you are talking about there is an accompanying uneasiness. Sometimes you see a friends movie and you don't like it that much, but you don't know how to tell them.

AK: Well how do you do that, Bob?

BB: I don't know, I don't have a template.

AK: I'm developing a template, because it happens all of the time, we should just have a template. The obvious thing to do is just focus on the stuff that you like, but people are savvy enough now that they are familiar with that technique.

BB: Well, back to Alex being in my movie, the very first character that I wrote was for Alex. His name is Mean Man Mike. He's mean to his wife. He is not mean to the main character, who is going to be played by Justin Rice. Maybe impatient, but not mean. We start shooting March 22nd, so there is a good deal of work that is being done right now. Sorry to talk about the future project, but I'm really excited about the new movie and have moved on.

What all is happening with the Annenburg fellowship that you were awarded for Harmony & Me?

BB: They help put advisors on the project, which has been amazing, and being able to talk to people about it has been awesome.

----At this point in the interview we have heard Tori Amos and Radiohead back to back at the coffee shop we were sitting at-------

AK: I don't know if anyone noticed but, the Tori Amos just switched to Radiohead.

BB: It is very depressing. That music depresses me. I won't listen to Radiohead in the house; I have to be driving. Can't have it in the house.

If you ever have children is that going to be a rule for them? "No Radiohead under my roof, kids."

AK: Are you going to have children Bob? Still open to it? I didn't mean to throw in an insult with the word "still".

BB: No, there was a clear subtext there. I am hoping for a lot of opportunities to come out of RSO, you know, just a lot of opportunities with women as a result the film.

AK: Do you think your desire to make movies is rooted in your desire to meet women or attract women?

BB: It's not nearly on a level of what yours is, not even in the same arena, just in and around the parking lot. Alex is showing the the film at a bunch of festivals after SXSW, so there should be festival groupies.

Are there a lot of festival groupies?

BB: I don't now. Alex would know much better than I.

AK: No, there aren't a lot of them.

BB: Not even in Atlanta?

AK: Turn the recorder off and I'll tell you about them.

BB: Well, what other festivals are you going to? Do you have tangible hopes for Woodpecker?

AK: Yeah, I have hopes of having a small theatrical release. I think that would be a huge success, 15, 20 cities. I think that would be a huge victory. I'm going to Sarasota, which is a really great, fun festival. Boston, which is where I'm from. Wisconsin. Atlanta.

BB: I have been encouraging or perhaps discouraging Alex from showing his movie at all of the festivals because I need him for scenes in my new movies and he's like "F**k you, I'm gonna go to these festivals. F**k you. F**k your movie." That's been hard to hear.

So you two collaborating has actually sealed your own doom. Nobody wins. Either you don't get to make your movie or he doesn't get to show his.

BB: Well, we have had to pare down his part from five or six scenes to one or two.

AK: Is that true?

BB: Hey, you paint me into a corner....

Well, Bob, what are your hopes for RSO?

BB: I don't have such lofty aspirations. I can't imagine RSO having a theatrical release. I think there is something counterintuitive about watching it in a movie theater. I think you should watch it at home on your computer and hope to be able to jerk off to it, but then not be able to. That's what my goal with it is, is to have a lot of people mad at me because they weren't able to jerk off to it.

So along with the angry mothers you will have angry young men and women...

BB: I have rented movies with with expectations of that, and then they didn't deliver and I was pissed. I was angry, because then you feel stupid. My hat's off to them for getting my $2.71. I rented that movie, The Nasty Girl, and it's the most un-erotic movie ever made, well, you know, besides The Hole Story.

However, if you need a laugh, go on Netflix and read some reviews for The Hole Story.

AK: I stopped going to that site. It's too painful.

BB: There's some people who really have it in for Alex.

Yeah, but it's okay because they don't know where you live, they only know where your mother lives.

BB: You're right. It is very entertaining. You would have to have a certain amount of self possession going in. But Alex, you are a fairly confident filmmaker.

AK: Sort of. I feel like it's a protection more than anything else: deflect the criticism by assuming that I really am confident in myself and that I really know what I'm doing. It protects me from the very personal, stinging criticism.

BB: Well I have the advantage because if people just say that my movie sucks, well then obviously they were just offended by it; it's not a problem with how it's made. I am clearly a skilled filmmaker, it's your problem with the material and your inability to process it.

We're starting to think that Registered Sex Offender is just going to piss everyone off. Soccer moms, young men...

BB: And confused young women will end up liking me, you know, because they hate themselves. See how that equation works?

RSO [Registered Sex Offender] and Woodpecker both had their world premieres as part of the SXSW Film Festival. More info at the Film Threat / B-Side SXSW Guide.