It all came down to just seven minutes.
Two hours of interviews, hours upon hours of pre- and post-production鈥攊ncluding intricate theatrical staging, lighting and a professional puppeteer鈥攁nd at least four months of editing.
Tom Mason
Then a green light from legendary documentary filmmaker Ken Burns and from the film鈥檚 subject, acclaimed author and professor
Finally, 鈥淕eorge Saunders: On Story鈥� by filmmaker and graduate Tom Mason 鈥�01, and his company , which he founded with fellow filmmaker Sarah Klein, was ready. After more than a year in the making, the captivating, seven-minute film was published this week on The Atlantic.com. The film is also available on PBS.com, since Burns is the series鈥� executive producer. ; Saunders is the second.
In the film, Saunders, whom Mason describes as a 鈥渟torytelling Jedi,鈥� talks about his writing process. But just how interesting could an author, even one as accomplished and lauded as Saunders, be in a seven-minute taped interview?
鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing more visually boring than writing,鈥� Mason says. 鈥淓verything interesting about writing happens inside somebody鈥檚 head.鈥�
鈥淲atching him type was just not going to cut it.鈥�
So Mason and Klein sized up two hours worth of interviews with Saunders鈥攃onducted last fall in the Joyce Hergenhan Auditorium at the Newhouse School鈥攁nd had to figure out how to make it more than just a guy talking to the camera.
Much of their post-interview production time was spent developing ways to creatively illustrate Saunders鈥� words. They shot the interview on green screen to later substitute any background and Saunders gave them plenty of material to work with.
In a first for Redglass, they hired puppeteer Deb Hertzberg, who spent 鈥渄ays with an X-acto knife鈥� cutting out paper letters to illustrate a sentence that Saunders explains in the interview, as well as the silhouette of a man hunched over a clicking typewriter. The film features several tattooed and colorful paper puppets, a mysteriously lit black box and a series of silky, smoky backdrops as Saunders describes his creative process.
鈥淭he puppets were a way we could visualize what he was saying and be whimsical and dreamlike and not too literal, which is kind of in keeping with his tone,鈥� Mason says. 鈥淗e doesn鈥檛 take himself or his writing too seriously. We wanted the piece to feel the same way.鈥�
And Saunders, whom Mason met in 1999 while shooting a portrait of the writer for The Daily Orange, was pleased with the end result. Saunders emailed Mason after getting a preview of the film about a month ago.
鈥�(He wrote) 鈥楾hat was fantastic,鈥� and in all caps, 鈥榯hank you,鈥� 鈥� Mason says, 鈥渨hich was just about the best response you could hear.鈥�
Saunders wrote in an email Wednesday: “I think Tom is a wonderful and innovative filmmaker. The film somehow exactly matched (and enhanced) the spirit of what I was trying to say鈥擨 felt, throughout, that I was in the hands of a real master.”
Redglass Pictures, which specializes in short films and installation work, was not paid for the project鈥攖he company has produced two 鈥淥n Story鈥� short films, essentially for fun. The series鈥� mission鈥攊nterviewing storytellers about their process鈥攊s something both Mason and Klein are passionate about, he says. The exposure the film will receive, through The Atlantic, PBS, the company鈥檚 website and social media, elevates the company鈥檚 credibility, Mason says. Burns鈥� support and involvement add some serious weight in the industry as well; both are a trade-off to doing all that work for free.
Redglass worked with , a creative audio studio that produced an entirely new soundtrack with live instruments for the film. And the Redglass website features additional content from the Saunders interview鈥攏o surprise since the unscripted interview is more than 120 minutes long, Mason says.
鈥淲e make shorts, we don鈥檛 make TV shows, which is really liberating,鈥� says Mason, who lives in New Jersey with his wife and two young sons. 鈥淲e can just not worry about a number and just make (the film) what it wants to be. We鈥檙e pretty critical about when the energy drops in it and we cut it down and cut it down. We got to the point where it was finally tight and every word was
