Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours…never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren plac.
–Helen Keller
My Interview with Christopher Coppola
For those unable to access it, this is my interview with Mr. Coppola from a while back:
For my first interview, I may have bought off a little more than I could chew. Christopher Coppola gave me a call last Thursday to conduct this interview over the phone, with only my iTalk to record it. Coppola’s obviously a man with a great amount of excitement about what he does, and it showed through in this interview to a fault. He made lengthy statements aplenty. Yet, in an industry where so many care so little, having people like Christopher Coppola who seem to care too much is a heartening thing. Overall, whether you agree with him or not, this interview gives a good overview of his views on film as an art and a business. Enjoy.
-For those unfamiliar with it, what is PAH Fest and how is it different from other film festivals?
PAH Fest is where we bring the concept of Hollywood to the people, let them feel, let them know that they’re celebrities and they have a voice and they have the creative process in them as well. One of the things about Hollywood that I can’t stand is that it’s exclusive, so part of what PAH does is we make it inclusive.
What makes this festival different…for two reasons: One, it’s the only festival that is a real-world cyber-world where we actually go into communities and work with people, focus them, digitally empower them to tell their stories…and then the other aspect is it’s shared online and people around the world see it and then they talk about it on the PAH Nation forums, so it’s both of those things. There’s a lot of festivals that are just online festivals where you never meet the people, and you’re never sure if the person you think you’re talking to is the person you’re talking to. One of the things that PAH does is that it really celebrates our human spirit and uses the digital media to bring us together and know who you’re talking to.
The second thing about this festival is that it’s all about the new media, and a lot of people are afraid of it, and what we do is we show you how to use some of the latest technology and focus you to be able to use it to communicate your voice and what community you’re from in either a fiction or non-fiction kind of way, and that’s good. It’s sort of like a focused Youtube, because in Youtube everything goes; you have to look through a bunch of stuff like moms feeding their babies corn mush, or look through things like pornography. And there’s a place for Youtube, obviously. People want to do that. My idea’s to think about some of the contests that we’re doing, some of the topics, to really respect the creative process and then to share it with the rest of the world.
-Where did you get the inspiration for PAH Fest?
Well, what happened was is I was one of the main judges and mentors for a festival called Flix on 66 which was in New Mexico, and I have a little house there, and I was helpful in setting up the whole film incentive there. But I got really tired of just seeing film school students submit scripts and make shorts that are primarily being made to get something else, and for me that was a real problem. Like, no matter if you’re making a little cell phone piece or you’re making a 100 million dollar movie, you go at it exactly in the same way and with the same sort of respect. You don’t use one as a stepping-stone to another. I said, well, I don’t just want to do film school students, I want to do so-called “common people.” That kind of thing. Let’s see what a plumber has to say. Let’s see what a librarian has to say. They can make a movie. So, at that festival we did a Common Man category and a construction worker from New Jersey submitted, and he was someone who didn’t want to come out once he won because he lived in his basement and he was horribly electrocuted and essentially rewired and felt like he was a Frankenstein. So, I said, you won, you submitted, you gotta come to New Mexico. And, after much talk, he did come out in the sun. Very large man, imposing, and definitely rewired. Not comfortable or confident around other people, but in the process of me coaching him and helping him to tell his story, he got very confident and very comfortable. It actually healed him, the creative process healed him. I said, Wow! We gotta be doing this for everybody around the world, communities and individuals. So, I basically broke off from that festival and created PAH, which made everybody kinda like part of the Hollywood process using old Hollywood craft & storytelling in the new media world.
-Where’s PAH Fest held?
PAH Fest is held all around the world. It’s been doing that for two & a half years. We usually find hubs to do it in, like right now we’re doing PAH Fest 2008 on the campus of L.A. City College. We’ve done it in San Francisco. We just came back from PAH Fest Bay Area where we had two hubs, a high-school art school and a San Francisco Art Institute. Sometimes we do it in conjunction with another festival or we do it at art galleries. When we did Mini PAH in the high desert we did it in a coffee shop, an art gallery, and a motel all at the same time, so it’s really a traveling festival that looks for hubs to work with to bring the people of the community to the hub so they can use this new arena to share their stories.
-How has PAH Fest changed the lives of its participants?
Well you told you a little about the New Jersey construction worker, and he was somebody that was not confident and lived in his basement, so when he participated, he got very confident and doesn’t live in his basement anymore. I think that everybody else that has participated have all been inspired and have realized that they have an artist inside themselves, that their human worth is just as much as any Hollywood celebrity and that they have the right to share that with the rest of the world, and the fact that they completed something in such a short period of time really makes them proud.
-What are some of the most moving of these experiences?
Well, I would say definitely being the coach for Doug Arnie, the construction worker, and then having people at the awards ceremonies tell me how much it meant to them that we’re doing this. It always feels worthwhile when people come up to me, because I’m pretty accessible for one of the Coppolas. I’m actually out there talking to people in the street, whereas my family members either can’t be or don’t want to be. But I appreciate people coming up to me saying that really meant a lot to them and they’re gonna continue on and enrich their voices and grow. That means a lot to me. There are some pieces of What is Left that was made by a high school student in albequrie and she wanted to tell a story about her father who passed away and its totally moving. It’s from the heart and it communicates to the heart, and it kinda blows me away when I see that and then when I go and have to look at students films at the directors guild. Yeah they look great, they’re slick, the lighting’s great, the makeups great, but there’s nothing there. There’s nothing from the heart to the heart, and then you look at what this young lady from a high school did and…yeah. It’s not slick, the craft is a little sub-par, but it works. The story is intense and it goes right to your heart. So that makes me happy, and some of these people they continue doing it using this technology because it’s available to everybody and its easy to keep doing it on your own using your cell phone to keep making little films that are true to yourself, and perhaps they’ll become forces in Hollywood. I know one gentlemen who won the PAH fest Chicago for a poem piece that he did which won on the festival as the best mobile flick and he decided he liked it so much that he’s raising money and making his own little feature.
-What inspired you to move into this business?
First of all, I grew up in a family, even though I was sort of on the outskirts, being my father was an educator, which is kind of interesting because what I do is I mix education with entertainment which is important to me, so I’m using both what my father taught and what my uncle does and has taught me. But my dad would show great movies, Fellini movies, silent movies, when we were kids and then at the same time you’re aware that your uncle made The Godfather and all these movies, and you’re impressed with that and also people would start responding to you just because of your last name. I just thought, it’s a new art form, I love music, I want to combine the two. I went to art school, and in the process of developing my voice somebody said, well you oughta try this in Hollywood, and that was really part of it I did. Doing my first feature, sort of Dino De Laurentiis Draculas Widow, which was a very intense experience coming right out of art school, but I enjoyed the process. I enjoyed working with a big group of people to make something, create something. I would say part of it is growing up in a family that makes movies, and the other part of it it’s a modern medium to be able to express yourself to as many people as possible, and thirdly I love genre movies. I love B movies as well as A movies, and I like going to drive-ins and I have fun with it. I’m the one Coppola who is able to do that. So that’s part of it. And I feel like I’m good at it. I enjoy working with people, so I think people enjoy working with me.
-Overall, what would you say your mission as a filmmaker is?
My mission as a filmmaker is to become the next producer-director like Roger Corman, because this doesn’t exist anymore. But to be a digital Roger Corman where we use new media to make very low-budget genre movies, letting students work with professionals to get their feet wet, to learn how to do it. Basically that’s where Francis and James Cameron and Ron Howard all learned it was by working with the Corman studio, low-budget studio. I’d like to redo that and then make a slate of movies every year that has its brand & stamp that has a message. Like a genre movie with a message, every single one. Then get that going. In the old days if you saw an RKO film or an MGM film you knew what you were gonna see; now it’s all a big blur because the brands are all the same and I’d like this to have its own brand and then build up to where I get to do some bigger movies on my own, like doing MacBeth with motorcycles, things like that.
-There are those who call you the DigiVangelist. Why digital?
Because I have embraced digital completely. Back in 1998 a film that I made was completely destroyed. The negative was destroyed, and I was definitely a film snob then but I became a real believer in digital because it’s saved my films, so I’ve embraced it completely. I’ve embraced the fact that it’s the great equalizer; anybody can get cameras and software and actually make some movies. But I also think more than that I think they call me DigiVangelist because I really do digitally empower people from PAH. I get people not to be afraid of digital, but actually make it a tool rather than just being plugged into it because a lot of people just use digital as a controlling thing, playing games and being plugged in and what I like to do…I mean, new school could care less about old school and old school is afraid of new school and I try to blend the two, bring those generations together with digital. For example, if there’s a bunch of teenagers that have no idea what their elders feel or think, there’s a real disconnect there. You give these kids a cell phone that hass used video you create a contest making them go up to the hill and go where the elders are (I’m giving you kind of a Native American thing here) the Native Americans used to have the highest rate of suicide because there’s a real disconnect with their elders and that’s a spiritual society and most of the kids feel they’re nobodies because they don’t have a lot of money, but if you give them a cell phone they think they’re somebody because of the materialistic nature of our society – you give them a cellphone and say, “look, go up on the hill and do a little piece on the elders and you’ll win a prize,” so they’re all excited about having a cell phone, they go up on the hill and they do a piece and they make a connection, they’re making a connection with their elder, and it just so happens there’s a piece afterward that they both can look at, so I think that’s why a lot of people call me a DigiVangelist, because I feel digital can bring us together, and unfortunately a lot of what’s happening with digital is it’s separating us even more, so that’s part of it.
-So what are some of the possible cons of digital filmmaking?
Well, there really isn’t. I don’t see any cons. I do see, in terms of the accessibility of being there, that there’s gonna be a lot of stuff made in the same idea of, Hey! If I make a low-budget George Lucas movie maybe I’ll get a bigger movie, and there’s going to be a lot of junk made, and it’s gonna be a huge glut, and it’s going to be harder to get things seen because there’s so much out there, but I think that completely is lesser concerned than the fact that people, if they’re true to themselves, can use digital technology to keep developing their craft and their voice. Again, they can do it very cheaply, but take it seriously like you are doing a big budget movie, and to me that’s amazing. To me, if you can get everybody to use this latest technology that is all around the world, to share their creative process that’s unique to them, I think that’s a good thing. It’s like MacBeth (I bring this up a lot) a great Shakespeare modern play, he’s an awesome warrior and then when he’s forced to be king everybody loses. The whole community dies. So be who you are, be yourself, and that’s a major positive of digital because it’s the big art form now, it’s the big communicator, and now everybody has the chance to tap into it, whereas before, they didn’t. I mean, from a Hollywood standpoint, for a person that is making their business in the Hollywood way, it’s a problem because there’s going to be a glut, but Hollywood’s changing, it’s all changing and it is becoming a new media, and in the long run it’s going to be great to have new voices.
-Who would you consider your biggest influences on your career and art?
Well I don’t really have completely…I mean I have influences. I would say my music teacher, Dr. Bernie Childs who was Aaron Copeland’s main pupil, he was an influence because he basically said, write what you like. Be who you are. And he opened up that for me. I think also George Putchar* who was my film teacher up in San Fransisco. He influenced me in that he made everybody feel like a star. He would take a street person off and put lipstick on her and make her look like Marilyn Monroe in a funny little movie and that person felt like a star. So that’s kind of like what I’m doing. In terms of things I like to listen to that get me excited: Stravinsky, as a kid I would listen to Stravinsky a lot. I liked the intensity and that percussiveness. In terms of movies that I like to look at over and over again, I would say Fellini’s La Strada because it’s really moving and there’s a sense that there’s more to it. There’s something really sublime about it. I remember somebody asking me if Mel Gibson’s Passion of the Christ really brought me closer to God, and I said absolutely not. Look at La Strada, look at To Kill a Mockingbird at the end when Gregory Peck is talking about justice and race, and it’s moving. And that kind of filmmaking and storytelling, which is kind of really sincere, is what brings me closer to God. So I would say films like that that I still look at. And then I have fun looking at Attack of the Giant Leeches, I enjoy that. What I enjoy about that is that there’s nothing pretentious about it and you can just kind of enjoy yourself with a beer looking at these movies, and I think that’s important as well. So, I would say the whole drive-in movie concept is an influence, and then these A-movies that go right to your heart are also an influence, and maybe I try to combine those two.
-What are you most proud of from your career so far?
Oh, that’s a big one. That I haven’t changed. That I just do what I do, that I’m known as somebody that just does what he does and a lot of people are scared of me. Like when I was directing America’s Most Wanted I would really get creative and really push the envelope a little bit and after a while they started getting mad at me and saying to reel it in, then I said, “What difference does it make if you’re catching the criminal?” Might as well be creative and have some fun and I’m not doing it to be silly I’m doing it because I think it makes sense. An example would be we had to do one on a mafia Paul Leguza* in New York, and how they were using little kids to rob banks so that they wouldn’t go to jail because they were kids, and I found that really despicable, but also they were using me because of the fact that I’m related to the guy that made The Godfather so they were trying to advertise that to get more viewers, but what I did, I really thought about it, and I would have little things like when they gave out the guns they used a booster seat, they would bring it up on the table and have all the guns in it. Obviously, they didn’t do that, but that was symbolic to the kids. During the big shoot-out, I had desks, old desks, student desks that the kids would hide behind. Obviously, the desks weren’t there, but symbolically it still said, hey, these are kids. Most importantely, what really bothered them was when they were figuring out the whole bankrobbery, the next big bankrobbery, they bring a pizza out at the end with bullet and gun parts for toppings, so that really bothered them. Nobody eats bullets. Why would you do that? And I said, “Well, look, you only have seventy seconds to make a visual statement.” That statement was killing somebody is like eating a slice of pizza. They could care less. So obviously, I don’t just do this stuff to be weird. I’m looking for imagery and ideas that sell the point through and I never stop doing that. I’ve always done that and that has bothered a lot of people. I did a lot of kid shows and the producer really loved what I was doing if I was really creative and entertaining, but the big studio was afraid because they thought I was somebody you couldn’t control and tell you what to do their way, and there’s some truth to that, and I would keep saying, “As long as it’s entertaining, I can be myself and grow my voice and I’m happy.” So I think I’m most proud that I stayed true to myself. I’ve done what I’ve wanted to do and I’m still here doing it. I haven’t given up.
*Spelling may be incorrect
“…human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but…life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.”
–Gabriel Garcia Marquez
A very happy Mother’s Day to all.
Photo by Paolo Durazzo
Infinite gratitude for all things past. Infinite service to all things present. Infinite responsibility to all things future.
–Roshi Goto Zunigan, Zen Master
Cell Phone Photo by Laz Crawford
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