DIRECTOR'S STATEMENT
**Mild Spoilers**
One of the biggest struggles any filmmaker faces these days is the battle to get films made, either with a budget or without. In a world where Richard Linklater can't get a sequel to DAZED & CONFUSED made, it takes a minor miracle to get a film off the ground, even a bad one. So when Reid Gershbein threw out the idea of just blowing past all those normal roadblocks and making a film in two weeks, no matter what, it was attractive in the same way that going all-in in a poker tournament does. Good or bad, you're taking control over your fate. You're picking a spot and taking a stand, instead of just waiting for that perfect circumstance and bleeding chips until they're all but gone. Add to that the allure of getting a first feature film made and the opportunity to make all those mistakes all filmmakers make on their first feature and you've got all the reasons you need to make a film. Making a flawed film is better than having another film die on the vine.
As far as the film itself, I've always been fascinated with the idea of identity and what that means, how someone's perception of who they are informs their actions, how a big part of getting through life hinges on how people perceive you. Thus, BLANC DE BLANC revolves around a character who declines to give his backstory, who takes every opportunity to re-direct the conversation. How does that affect his relationships? What does that say about him?
One of the first decisions I made on this film was to withhold all of David's backstory from the audience, to leave it all as a blank slate. Partly because the limitations of the production would have made that pretty much impossible to execute, but partly because when I think of stories built around a mystery, the questions are almost always more interesting than the answers. Whenever I watch a show like LOST, the answers are never as much fun as the speculation, the digging, and the theories that the big mysteries trigger. So, if I'm going to make a film under such tricky circumstances, where execution will be so hard, giving audiences an opportunity to speculate is bound to have a better shelf life than a story where all the threads are neatly tied up. But just because questions aren't answered doesn't mean that we didn't have the answers or that they aren't in the film. A few people have even found them.
But some people have spent the hours, the days, and even the weeks afterward speculating, debating. To me, that's part of the joy of cinema. If you can do that just once, it makes the whole process worth it.
-- Lucas McNelly
**Mild Spoilers**
One of the biggest struggles any filmmaker faces these days is the battle to get films made, either with a budget or without. In a world where Richard Linklater can't get a sequel to DAZED & CONFUSED made, it takes a minor miracle to get a film off the ground, even a bad one. So when Reid Gershbein threw out the idea of just blowing past all those normal roadblocks and making a film in two weeks, no matter what, it was attractive in the same way that going all-in in a poker tournament does. Good or bad, you're taking control over your fate. You're picking a spot and taking a stand, instead of just waiting for that perfect circumstance and bleeding chips until they're all but gone. Add to that the allure of getting a first feature film made and the opportunity to make all those mistakes all filmmakers make on their first feature and you've got all the reasons you need to make a film. Making a flawed film is better than having another film die on the vine.
As far as the film itself, I've always been fascinated with the idea of identity and what that means, how someone's perception of who they are informs their actions, how a big part of getting through life hinges on how people perceive you. Thus, BLANC DE BLANC revolves around a character who declines to give his backstory, who takes every opportunity to re-direct the conversation. How does that affect his relationships? What does that say about him?
One of the first decisions I made on this film was to withhold all of David's backstory from the audience, to leave it all as a blank slate. Partly because the limitations of the production would have made that pretty much impossible to execute, but partly because when I think of stories built around a mystery, the questions are almost always more interesting than the answers. Whenever I watch a show like LOST, the answers are never as much fun as the speculation, the digging, and the theories that the big mysteries trigger. So, if I'm going to make a film under such tricky circumstances, where execution will be so hard, giving audiences an opportunity to speculate is bound to have a better shelf life than a story where all the threads are neatly tied up. But just because questions aren't answered doesn't mean that we didn't have the answers or that they aren't in the film. A few people have even found them.
But some people have spent the hours, the days, and even the weeks afterward speculating, debating. To me, that's part of the joy of cinema. If you can do that just once, it makes the whole process worth it.
-- Lucas McNelly
