Hackworth

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Wanna Buy A Ghost?

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INTERVIEW WITH CHRIS FORD OF WAVERLY FILMS

Could you tell us a little bit about Waverly Films. How you got together, got started, etc?

Chris Ford: We all met at NYU filmschool. We became friends working on each other’s projects. At the time, the teaching philosophy at NYU was more about encouraging the students than providing a lot of criticism. So we eventually started meeting outside of class to go over our scripts, storyboards, editing etc. When we graduated that little group named ourselves Waverly Films after Waverly Place that goes past the school and the Waverly Diner where we used to eat ALL THE TIME. We started a website and then an LLC when we started getting work.

So then there were kind of two parallel directions we were pursuing. The first was filling up our website. We started making “clips of the week” - at first just little one-shot snippets. They eventually became more like little short films or comedy sketches. But that was always just something we did for fun and to keep practising at making movies.

The other direction was getting work! We went about pursuing that in a lot of different ways. Some of us, like Jake and Jon, got jobs working for commercial production companies as interns and assistants. But the most important thing was to keep making things and getting them seen. We showed our work at a lot of places that didn’t lead to anything, but eventually it started to work out. Having a self-financed music video in ResFest or making a show for Channel 102 (now called Channel 101 NY) led to opportunities like getting hired by commercial production companies and doing a pilot for Comedy Central.

Along the way the clips of the week started helping out with the professional work, just as little things we could put on our reels or helping us pitching our show to Comedy Central. At this point, I think, the two are coming together even more in the projects we’re pursuing, which is great.

Have you ever missed a clip of the week? How do you feel about deadlines in general?

CF: Oh we have missed many, many clips of the week. Some people even thought the name “clip of the week” was supposed to be ironic, since we didn’t always post. Really it’s more of a motivating goal, although our adherence to it comes and goes. There’ve been stretches of months at a time when we’ll constantly be in a state of “oh shit, what are we going to make for the clip of the week?!” and DELIVERING. And then we’ve missed three weeks. But the goal is there.

I guess deadlines in general can work the same way. If a deadline helps you work - to DO work - then it’s great. It can be nice to just see what you can do in a certain period of time, no pressure to be a great genius, just have fun making it. And posting on the Internet, getting feedback and having people become FANS was a great motivating factor. Without the satisfaction that comes from having the work actually seen, it would be really hard to stick to a “clip of the week” system.

On average, how long does it take you to make each short? Hackworth, for instance.

CF: Ha, well Hackworth took months for some reason. We shot it in an afternoon, but for whatever reason Jake was busy. Oh, he wanted to practice working with an editor and it got more complicated. So that’s a bad example of time. It’s a good example of how we’ve been using the clips not just to play around with shooting, but with post processes and collaborations. I think Hackworth is also a good example of how the clips are about experimenting. I wrote the Hackworth script and no one was sure whether it would be good or HORRIBLE. We had to shoot it and find out.

But normally we’ll shoot a clip in an afternoon - or sometimes over a few days if we need day and night or whatever, but the shooting time is never more than 5 hours, probably. I guess we do take a more relaxed attitude to editing. It can either be done the next day, or… months later. Usually we’ll have a few ideas and projects going on at once, though. Sometimes it’s more of a “let’s just do this idea fast and easy” and sometimes it’s more of a carefully thoughtful process. Depends on who the director is!

Who are your favorite heroes?

CF: Favorite heroes? You mean characters or personal heroes? House M.D. and Charlie Kaufman.

If you could have a superpower what would it be?

CF: Invisiblity. Or being nigh invunerable.

What were the other items you considered having sold on the black market? What do you wish you could find there?

CF: You mean besides ghosts? We’ve gotten a lot of comments on youtube about how people want their own ghost, even if it might kill them. I think that’s because they’re small and cute. No one wants a six-foot tall ghost. Honestly, all I want to find on the black market is all the stuff that’s been stolen from me. Or not even that same stuff, but just great deals on a variety of stolen goods. I’ve had so much expensive shit stolen in Brooklyn that I feel I have a free morality pass on buying large quantities of stolen merchandise.

Do you believe in ghosts? Do you believe in UFOs?

CF: I don’t believe in ghosts and UFOs and stuff but I am still very interested in them. I don’t see why you have to actually believe in something like that to find it interesting. Ghost stories are still scary. The mystery of the Loch Ness monster is still MYSTERIOUS.

What made you choose the crest as your logo? What else was up for consideration?

CF: Ah, the crest logo. I don’t remember what else we were thinking about. I think we wanted it to seem old fashioned and not super-cool. That’s why we didn’t name ourselves something modern and edgy. And with a crest you get to put in little icons of what you stand for. At first we were just out of filmschool and bushytailed so the crest had a film camera, film reels and a pen… but now it’s a glass of whiskey, a knife and a skull. The motto “victus” was some piece of Latin we found. It’s pretty cheesy, so you’ll have to go look it up. Although I recently learned that “Invictus” means “unconquerable” - so maybe we’ll modify that to be more bad-ass?

What are some of your favorite films? Series? Sites?

CF: Favorite films… Well one thing that’s nice about our group is that we never agree on that stuff. We’re united more by friendship and our goals than by having the identical sensiblities. So I’m just going to throw mine out there, because they are the best - basically it’s Coen Brothers, Kubrick and Kurosawa. “Hudsucker Proxy”, “Barry Lyndon” and “High and Low”. Oh and “Back to the Future”. Series - of course The Wire, and great British stuff like The Office and Darkplace. Sites… I find a lot of very different stuff on the somethingawful.com forums. Channel101.com and Channel102.net. And we found these guys called FatalFarm.com who do “lasagna cat” and these amazing new versions of classic TV openers.

Did you always want to work in film? Were there other jobs you had first?

CF: We pretty much all wanted to go into film. I mean we all went to filmschool. In fact it got eerie after we got to know each other, how we all had very similar experiences trying to make videos in middle and high school. I think probably almost every kid now dabbles in filmmaking, with their parents’ camcorder just laying around.

What are you working on now?

CF: Right now we are doing a lot of writing on several screenplays. Our goal has always been feature films. But recently TV has gotten a lot more interesting programming and we’ve been working toward getting a show. I still believe that combining where we’ve gotten with our professional work with the fun of the “clips of the week” is going to be our next big step.

Check out waverlyflams.com for more clips from Waverly films.

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