JJ: Do you differentiate between those techniques and more conventional story-telling methods, or filming methods?

MG: For starters, I haven’t had a lot of experience writing stories. I’ve had more experience doing weird experimental stuff, which is why that becomes more significant than the story in some ways — at least, a few respectable people have said that to me, and I believe them. (_Laughs._)

Another thing, that I think I talked about somewhere… oh, I know where: part of the web site. There’s this little statement that I, somewhere, wrote out. I was talking about how one thing about a story is the protagonist is supposed to be challenged in big ways and is do a lot of things to help themselves, but with this sort of semi-pseudo Buddhist perspective, it’s not so much about taking such obvious action. Bruce’s philosophy sort of stems from the idea of just existing, and being in the moment. If you’re existing and being in the moment, then you’re not being proactive in the same way as someone who’s a go-getter.

In the movies, I think it was Woody Allen or someone, said “we go to the movies to see people do things, because in real life we don’t do things”. I think that he doesn’t really get challenged quite enough, or do quite enough, in terms of the story, but I just kind of… I sort of like David Lynch’s concept, which is: you just start making it and you get into the world of the film and then it dictates itself, it writes itself like a poem, if you let it. Certain things are thrown in, even certain part of the story are worked out, just because it felt right.

JJ: That said, did you write anything for Bruce or any of the characters that dictated who they became or did you let them run free?

MG: That’s a good question. There was no screenplay, but there were pages and pages of notes, like 30 pages. Within those notes, there was a shot list, and – within each shot – there was, just about, all the dialogue — not verbatim how they would say it, but all the concepts I wanted to get out. I thought that improvising would be more natural. In retrospect, improvising is more difficult. And, besides, I came up with all their lines for them anyway, on the spot. (Laughs.) I learned a lot. The whole thing was a real learning experience.

I pretty much told everyone what to say, even Bruce. Bruce has this line, a couple of lines, in “Sling Blade”? The movie?

JJ: Yeah, the band scene.

MG: Yeah, and in one of them he reads that poetry stuff, like he’s the poet/lyric writer guy. He just spews off this stuff that’s very Bruce-ish, and I assumed that he had just come up with that himself, but he said that Billy Bob [Thornton] wrote it for him, just knowing Bruce… which is sort of the same thing that I did.

I started off with a whole bunch of concepts, terms that Bruce had used – like the vomit, or whatever – and then encouraged him when we filmed the guitar lessons, which were just random days of guitar lessons, to just use these concepts and play with them. There are a couple of things – like the monologue when Rick first arrives at his house – that he did without any prompting at all, I wasn’t even rolling the camera. He just started doing it, and I just rolled the camera. That’s a good little monologue, the weird thing. Other than that, I pretty much told him what to say and he just said it in his own way, for the most part.

With the other characters, the same sort of thing: they sort of ad-libbed and went off on concept but I was sort of figuring out what worked on the spot. There was a lot of planning, but a lot of improvisation also.

JJ: Did any of this grow at all out of the “Mike’s Corner” vignettes or stories?

MG: Those little vignettes are so much more visual than narrative, I think. For me, it just starts with some funny image and then I just write some things down to match it, to go along with the situation, the image. I like the idea of trying to keep that same sort of tone going in movies. Some people have said that I’ve sort of done that, like, if you like the “Mike’s Corner” book then you probably have the right sense of humor to appreciate the movie.

I don’t think it was conscious, but I had thought of that. The “Mike’s Corner” book was a compilation of stories from my whole childhood and everything, old stuff. But, when I directed the video – the “Down With Disease” video, the MTV video – the band thought that it didn’t have the Mike stamp on it enough, because there were too many people working on it when it was done. Everyone seems to think that, whether or not you like the film, it definitely has “Mike” written all over it. (Laughs.)

JJ: (_Laughs._) I’d definitely agree with that. Why did you choose to use untrained actors or local actors?

MG: It was partly of because the way the project grew, the same reason it was shot on video. The original goal of the project – it was going to be called “the Outstructional Video” – was going to be Bruce looking into the camera, no other actors, just some spoof on playing guitar. That was the original concept. So, I went down and just filmed the guitar lessons, but – between coming up with the original concept and going down – I decided I wanted there to be a student. Bruce showed up at the airport and there was Jimi with him – he was Bruce’s tour manager – and I asked him if he wanted to help move lights and, on the side, be in the movie.

I was getting more and more into the concept of there being a story, so – for the next year – I came up with the rest of it, based more on the life of Jimi than Bruce, and I thought that would be sorta cool. And Bruce didn’t really want to travel as much either, so it worked out to concentrate on the life of the student. Originally, it was just a whole bunch of guitar lessons, just randomly done, and then pieced together.

Then, what I was going to say, the original goal was to learn how to use my new video equipment and editing system, the Avid system. When the film started growing a little bit, I still thought it was going to be a lot smaller of a project than it ended up being. There were these funny people that I know — and I always liked the concept of taking some funny people that I know and have them try to be actors. It was fun for me. I’ve done a lot of verite, I guess you could say, more from the real world. I feel more comfortable in that situation.

But, with all that said, I think next time, I would have a script, I would shoot on film, and I would have real actors.

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