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New User?'Don’t think too much, just do it!': Director Johanna Wagner on filmmaking in Scotland
by: admin | Category: Industry News | Published Jan 6th, 12:49
In our latest look at the work of documentary filmmakers who have made a name for themselves in Scotland, we spoke to Johanna Wagner, whose 2009 film, Peter in Radioland, was made in association with the Scottish Documentary Institute (SDI).
Peter in Radioland, a portrait of Johanna’s father who is on sick leave due to depression, won the Best Film Award at Glasgow Short Film Festival 2010 and a was screened at film festivals around the world.
Johanna took time to speak to Jonathan Melville about her early career, the development of Peter in Radioland and her filmmaking plans for 2012.
Can you tell me about your background and what inspired you to begin filmmaking?
I was born in Sweden, and raised by a Swedish father and an English mother. At an early age I was introduced to filmmaking by my father. He was a keen Super 8 user, and used to document me and my siblings childhood and upbringing on his Super 8 camera. So in a way film was always a natural and integral part of my upbringing.
When I was around 10 years old me and my siblings made our first films, shot on my father's Super 8 camera. We made horror films, animations and dramas. I remember my childhood being very creative and fun. But it was not until about 10 years later that I decided to take filmmaking seriously. I attended a year-long documentary film school in Sweden where I made my first “proper” films.
I loved that year and developed a lot with my own personal style, but it was not until I studied a two year long Master in Film Directing at Edinburgh College of Art that I refined and fully developed my own style. During these two years I experimented a lot and found new ways to play with the boundaries between documentary and fiction.
Because the school was an art college I believe the course was more orientated towards creativeness and it gave a lot of creative freedom and encouraged you to experiment, maybe more than a more traditional film school would do.
When did you first pursue the filmmaking route? How successful were your early attempts?
I applied for this documentary film school in Sweden. I think my first films there were not very good, which is naturally the case when you start out with your first couple of films. However, looking at the films now, even though I can see many faults in them, I can see some of my style, that I think is quite distinctive, coming through already in these earlier films.
For instance, for my second film I made at this school, I used subjective camera movement, i.e. the camera acting as the“eyes” of the main protagonist, and this technique is very dear to me and something I explored in my graduation film from Edinburgh College of Art, where the whole film is shot from the perspective of the main character.
How did you come to work with the Scottish Documentary Institute?
I applied for Bridging the Gap (BTG), which is a documentary film scheme programme that SDI runs. Its aim is to help, guide and fund seven documentary filmmakers each year to realise their films. Each year they have different themes that the projects have to in some way or another correlate with.
During October 2008-May 2009 I was working with my film, Peter in Radioland, on the BTG scheme.
Did you have an idea in mind for a film(s) to work with at the SDI or was it a result of working with them?
The theme they had the year I applied for BTG was Future, and I remember struggling to find an idea that corresponded to that. I only had a vague idea that I wanted to make a portrait of a hoarder that collected old items and gadgets, radios etc. I was always using my father as a “reference” for this character (my father being a hoarder of old radios, analogue gadgets and general junk).
However, in the workshops that we had with SDI together with the other six selected filmmakers, it became more and more apparent that I should use my father as the main character, something they suggested several times to me. I resisted for a while, saying that I did not want to do a personal film about someone so close to me.
But I gradually realised that I, without knowing it, had a subconscious need to make the film about my father, as at the time he was going through a difficult personal crisis, with deep depression and personality change. I needed in some way to understand him and grip the situation he was in, so I guess my way of dealing with it, was to make a film about it, as a kind of self-therapy. So you can say that the film evolved and developed a lot through the SDI/BTG workshops and the guidance that they offered me.
What was the development process behind Peter in Radioland? Did the SDI offer support you wouldn't have otherwise had?
I think SDI were brilliant in that they were very supportive of me through the whole process of making the film, without being to interfering. They also helped you in teaming you up with a producer or other crew members if that was needed for your film.
In my case, the producer of my film, Rebecca Day, was at the time working at SDI, so that was something that was offered to me. Another thing that SDI were really good at was with festival distributions. They distributed my film and the other BTG films to film festivals all over the world, and that is something that I would not have had the time or money to do myself.
Festival distribution can be a very daunting process if you are doing it on your own, and I think it helps if the film is produced and distributed by a well known institution such as SDI, which I believe has a good reputation all over Europe. My film got shown in very many festivals around the world and some of these festivals I was also invited to, something that has definitely been an exciting and invaluable experience for me.
What was the editing process like? What happened to the film once it was complete?
I remember the editing process as very hard and intense, but that is a good sign I think! Editing documentaries should be hard, as that is usually where the film in many ways gets shaped and created. I worked very closely with Mark Jenkins, the editor, and for a few weeks it felt like we were eating, dreaming, breathing this film 24/7! Mark helped me to realise several important things, that I had been struggling against.
For instance, some of the footage that I was not at all happy with aesthetically (because for these particular shots I was using a camera that had a lower picture quality than for the rest of the footage), Mark thought was better than the footage I had shot with the better camera. Mark meant that my father was more relaxed and more natural in front of the camera in these shots.
The reason being that the lower resolution footage I had shot with only a trailer in mind, and nothing to use for the actual film, which made me more relaxed while shooting, and something that rubbed off on my father (who at the time was very susceptible to my stressful mood while shooting the film).
That experience taught me that in a personal documentary content (or what is happening in front of the camera) is more important than picture quality, or perfectly set up pictures. Also, one should not stress or show ones stress too much as it invariably rubs off on the people you are shooting. Another hard thing during the editing process was having to eliminate many of the animation that I wanted to have in it, mainly because it proved to be difficult to integrate them and not getting them to jar with the more straightforward observational digital footage.
In the end I ended up having three animations in the film, it was a compromise from my side, but when you work in a team and with a commission behind you, you always have to compromise so I think it was a good lesson for me to learn.
After the editing was finished the sound designer worked on it for few weeks (also a process that I followed quite intensively, though not as much as in the editing process) and later it was sent to colour correction and then it was completed. The film was screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival in June 2009, which was the films premiere, and this was only a month after it was completed. After that it went on festival distribution circuit for over a year.
What happened after your time in Scotland/at the SDI and where are you now?
After I completed Peter in Radioland, I went on to do the second year of the Master of Fine arts Degree in Film Directing at ECA again. The reason was that I wanted to continue to work creatively and develop my style more extensively, also I really missed working in teams with other students, and the community feeling that you had at the film school.
For my graduation film I made an experimental fiction, Danaus Gilippus, a short film about a girl suffering from schizophrenia and her fight to get better.
During this year of studying I also worked as a freelance cinematographer and editor for various theatre companies and galleries in Edinburgh, and I also produced an experimental documentary, Submerged, a commission work for a Mental Health organisation, on the subject of people with Borderline Personality Disorder.
In April 2011 I moved to Berlin, where I am at the moment studying an art and media at UDK, the Art University in Berlin. I am hoping to start up a film production company with a couple of filmmaking friends, where we will work with freelancing within the cultural sectors as well as working and helping each other out on our own personal projects. Berlin has a very big art and culture scene, and people who experiment a lot with different medias, and I think there is big potentiality to get involved in many interesting projects here.
Has your career gone in the direction you wanted or expected it to?
In the last two years I have been to so many film festivals and introduced my film, and got so much positive feedback and praise for Peter in Radioland that it can be hard somehow to live up to that after such “success” and sustaining it by ones own accord. Filmmaking and the film industry has become quite tough and is a lot about self-promotion, something that I am very bad at and feel uncomfortable with, however it is something I am learning to deal with and grasp more now.
I try not to stress myself too much with trying to chase a “successful” career, whatever that would mean. I try to take it step by step and make sure that I continue to make films that I have a passion or a drive to make,and then finding the means or funding to do it. It feels natural and the right step forward right now to start a film production company, as many filmmakers are doing it at the moment, as a means of establishing themselves and as I am a person that does not work well on my own, and love filmmaking because of its inherent trait of being a collaborate process, I think starting something up with other people, where one can inspire and help each other out, is a good step forward.
Do you have any advice for filmmakers considering making their first feature or short film?
My initial advice would be, don’t think too much, just do it! If you have an idea for a project, set out to do it and don’t be too bogged down at first of the practical details, of if it will be possible to realise, etc.
The most important thing is passion and drive, and a belief in the project. Then that will always rub off on the other people that are working with you or people who want to help you. there are amazing films that have been made on practically zero budget. It's all about the drive and passion, if you have that the rest will sort itself out! Finding people that you feel comfortable working with and that “get” your idea is important too.
In the beginning one tends to believe that If you only have a competent crew then the rest of the film will sort itself out, but you are the director, that wants to tell a story, so always keep onto your initial vision with the film. other crew members are themselves sometimes creative filmmakers that involuntarily impose their visions onto your project. Of course filmmaking is a collaborative process and can be valuable to take on board other peoples’ suggestions, but only if you feel that they are valid points and will gain the film in some way.
If you are considering making a feature film, its good if you have made a couple of short films before. Shorter films are good practice in finding your visual style, and to grip the art of telling a story in a short space of time.
Visit Johanna's website at www.johannawagner.com
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