So, what’s the thing you’re working on right now, what are you editing? ^ It’s called “Takeaway.” I was living in Berlin for six months on an artists in residence grant. It’s one of the things we shot there. It’s pretty neat, about this older woman who leaves her husband, and at the same time it’s about the actress – her husband leaves her. Sort of a double story about love and leaving and sex, lots of public toilet sex.
Who’s the older woman? ^ It’s Philly. The infamous Philly. It was a lot of fun to make in Berlin.
The whole bunch of you were over there? ^ It was me and Jim and Philly, and then Brenda Velez came over and Bill. And we filmed more stuff for a different movie. They came in shifts, all the stars came in shifts.
Did you get to work with some German actors too? ^ Yeah, I met some interesting characters over there, put them on film.
Were you shooting in English? ^ It’s in English. I was gonna make on in German but I never really had time to get around to learning the German. Maybe next time.
Who were the German actors? ^ They were just people we met. We met with some professional actors, but we ended up like doing a lot of improvisation and just sort of meeting people and throwing them into the movie. Without really letting them know exactly what was going to happen, so it was kind of fun. We tortured them.
How? ^ Well, you know Philly. See the movie to see.
When’s that one gonna be done, tomorrow? ^ Um, I’m almost finished editing it, I just have to put some more sound on it, some more music. And some more voiceover. And do the titles and stuff, but it’s pretty much done.
When did you get back from Germany? ^ Got back the middle of July. And we were supposed to have it done a month or so ago, and the whole 9-11 thing happened and it was a little distracting.
Where were you when it happened? ^ I was supposed to be in New York that week, but I ended up not going. I can’t remember why. I was here in Boston.
How did you go to Germany, how did that happen? ^ It’s called a DAAD grant, it’s a pretty good program, for regular artists it’s like a year, but for some reason filmmakers only get six months. It’s baffling to me. Erika Gregor, one of the programmers for the forum at the Berlin Film Festival suggested, are you interested in coming to live in Germany for a while, and they’ll pay your way, and give you a nice apartment and give you the money to make movies? And I was like, sure, sounds good to me. So, I was funded by the German government for a little while. It used to be the Ford foundation, but they stopped doing it and the German government took over. It was fun.
What was the little bits you were shooting for? ^ That one with Philly in it is called “Takeaway” and the other one is “The Final Girl” which I had filmed a lot of here already, and I decided to shoot more in Berlin and then Paris, so that’ll be the next thing. And I’ve got 3 other ones that I’ve finished shooting and I need to finish editing, so I’m a little backlogged right now.
So how many features have you made now, what’s the total? ^ I think uh, 12 shot, hard to keep track…
Did you get your ten done by your deadline? ^ I got them shot, but not finished yet. Lots of backlog. I’m frantically trying to edit and get them done, but at the same time I don’t want to rush them. Each one needs their time to grow and become something, so it’ good to have time to let them seed and see what comes out of the ground.
What’s the last one that you actually finished? ^ That was “Against.” It just played at the CUFF.
You mean “Up Against a Star”? ^ No, Against. This one’s a ghost story about this guy who inherits his parent’s house and moves in there, and he becomes possessed by his parents and starts dressing up like his mother and his father and having conversations with himself and he goes a little crazy. Interesting little scary, horror movie almost. Which I want to make more of.
Get the rest of the interview in the next part of TODD VEROW: ONCE AND FUTURE KING OF DV>>>
