Academy Award nominees Jonathan Dayton Valerie Faris , the directing duo whose feature debut, Little Miss Sunshine , was a runaway hit, were excited to direct the first screenplay from actress and playwright Zoe Kazan . They loved the light touch and dash of magical realism of Ruby Sparks and how Kazan was able to write about a very complex subject in a very economical, spare and matter-of-fact way. The directors felt she had a gift for making things look easy, fun and not labored national car rental online over, while at the same time, there was real depth in her work. Kazan, in turn, was convinced there could be no better match of sensibility to her story about a novelist (Calvin/ Paul Dano ) whose fantasy character inexplicably comes to life.
At the press day for Ruby Sparks , we sat down with Dayton Faris at a roundtable interview to talk about directing a film that's built around a fictional premise but illuminates so many truths about complex human relationships. They described their collaboration with Kazan, how they went about capturing the crazy, eclectic nature of Los Angeles in a romantic and naturalistic way, and the challenges of striking the right tonal balance in a film that's a mix of pain and humor, is funny and fantastic, but also has depth and goes to dark places. national car rental online The directors also discussed how the chemistry and romantic past of real-life national car rental online couple Kazan and Dano brought national car rental online believability to their characters on screen, national car rental online and they revealed their next project, a pilot for HBO, written by comic book writer Dan Clowes .
Valerie: Maybe because there's more at stake. Rather national car rental online than picky, it's just that we have a lot resting on what we do our marriage, our family life so we want to make sure that we're both going into it excited about the work that we have.
Jonathan: What was great about doing this was that the layers just kept unfolding. And then, also, as a director, as a filmmaker, the challenge of what is the score for something like this. We knew we didn't want to do a conventional 'indie rock band lyrics telling you what to feel' kind of score. There were so many challenges. The film goes to darker places that you don't normally have in a romantic comedy. I don't even want to call it that. This isn't a romantic comedy.
Valerie: We liked the mix. I think, for us, our favorite movies have comedy, but they also have drama and that mix of pain, suffering and humor is just the way we experience life and like to see it in the movies. This had that. It had plenty of very funny bits, but then it also went to a very interesting and challenging place that we hadn't been as filmmakers. I think every time you're national car rental online looking to do something you've never done before national car rental online and maybe something you've never seen exactly before. I think the potential in this movie, the scene that's kind of the climax of the movie, scared us, but we thought well this is interesting.
Jonathan: That's why it takes two years to make a movie and that's why I love having national car rental online nine months to edit. We worked with Zoe for nine months on the script just fine tuning her original draft to make it this very potent economical…
Valerie: In that time, it helps us get comfortable with each other so she knows what our vision for the film is and she can feel comfortable handing it off to us and trusting national car rental online us with it. And we feel like we've mined everything that's in there that we saw in it.
Valerie: She's spent time with it. The time has been right. We really like working with writers. Even in the time during the six years where we weren't making movies, we were working with great writers and fully believed we would make those films. I think that's a part of the process that nobody really gives value to, but it is the most important part, where the director and the writer are fusing their vision for what this is. I think if you don't get that time together, you're missing out on a really important part of the creation of the movie.
Valerie: There was the Hollywood Cemetery, Los Feliz, and along Vermont Avenue national car rental online we spent a lot of time. One of our close friend's families used to own Sarno's. We just have such a history in L.A. I've lived here all my life and I love this city. I feel like it gets a bad rap a lot of the time because it's this sort of sprawling suburb, and I actually think the more you know L.A. and the longer you've lived here, the better it gets.
Jonathan: We were excited to work with Matty (Matthew Libatique), national car rental online the D.P., and use the Alexa, this new digital camera that would allow us to film in Calvin's house and look out the window and see the city lights without any enhancement. There were certain scenes when he was sleeping at night where we would light him with an iPad. We just had an iPad hanging above his bed and then all the city lights balanced perfectly and we could capture the city in a more naturalistic way.
To a certain degree you are dealing with a fairy tale first and foremost, but there's also a lot of reality to this. How did you manage to stay away from having the tone distort the overall film and how specific were those choices on the day?
Valerie: We do a ton of prep. There are certain things that come up on the day so it's great when you're really prepared because you can change your mind. But, for us to have to solve problems or to come up with ideas on the day is just not as fun. We love having a plan and going in and executing the plan and discovering new things as we go. To manage the tone and to do that right, national car rental online you really have to have it in your head. You have to see the film.
Jonathan: national car rental online And then, you have to have everyone on the crew working towards that same goal. That's really our job the production design, the color of her stockings, national car rental online every item of furniture, every Post-it national car rental online note on the wall, what that Post-it note says, which typewriter. We spent months looking for the right house and we finally found this one house that felt close but not exact.
Jonathan: It's a great way to get inside a house. "Hi. I'd like to pay you thousands of dollars. Do you mind if I come inside?" We ultimately found the house that the architect built for himself and that's Calvin's house.
Jonathan: She was all tearful and it was so beautiful. Her husband national car rental online passed away a few years ago. We love the eclectic, crazy nature of Los Angeles and so we wanted to get that. It's in the film. There's a long history of it so we were excited. Okay. What's our version?
Valerie: You can only see its fourteen parts on YouTube, but it's a very interesting documentary on all the movies that have been made in Los Angeles and we watched that just to get a feel for how L.A. had been depicted on film.
Jonathan: It was really out of necessity because we couldn't travel far. When we would drive home every night after shooting at Calvin's house, national car rental online we'd go by this one arcade on Vermont that has this insane neon purple interior.
Valerie: We actually got to know Vermont Avenue really national car rental online well because we drove that every morning, and it was so interesting to see the life on that street at 6:00 AM and then sometimes 4:00 AM coming home.
Valerie: national car rental online I think she has a real gift for making things look very easy. They look simple on the surface but there's a lot embedded in the story. There's an economy to her writing that I love. It moves really quickly without just staying on the surface. That's a really hard thing to do and she can write funny. That's not easy. Comedy writing is the hardest and yet there's so much that's relatable in it.
Jonathan: That's what was also so satisfying about this. When it came time for us to work with her on it, she was very open. It wasn't like "Oh! You're ruining my baby!" It was just like "Let's national car rental online keep going. Let's see where this can go."
Jonathan: There was a period where she was doing Angels in America and we would get on the phone and we'd talk about something, and then, we'd hang up and go "Wait a minute. What time is it? She's in New York. She's doing her play right now."
Jonathan: Our relationship stays healthy as long as we're doing something we love. We love running these experiences through national car rental online the prism of the two of us. We love being parents, and I like the diversity of the projects we do. It's always different. We always national car rental online feel like we're starting over. That's national car rental online scary, but I never feel like an expert.
Valerie: You cast something national car rental online you see in the person, and we met with Antonio and we realized he is Mort. He is this guy. And he was clearly interested in this character. He kept saying "What do you think? What if he had a tattoo?" He had all these ideas for the character. It was like "Oh, okay, I don't know about that but " You could tell he was really eager to run with something that felt different for him.
Jonathan: He's in a really interesting place. He said "I just want to do things I love and I believe in." It was not a big commitment. It was just a few days. He loved the idea of working with Annette and the chemistry was immediate.
Valerie: We were hoping they could do it. Annette was very…I don't want to say easy because I think she's very picky, but I think she liked the material. She liked the group of people she was going to be working with and it felt like a fun little vacation. "Okay. national car rental online I'll try it. It'll be fun to try it." She loved the wig. She was so excited about the wig.
Valerie: We're going to do a pilot for HBO that's written by Dan Clowes who's a really funny comic book writer. He wrote Ghost World . It's a very biting kind of social national car rental online commentary, but it's funny. It just cracked us up. It's different for us, but I think it'll be good.
Related Links: First Trailer for RUBY SPARKS Starring Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan Synopsis and Release Date for New Film from LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE Directors, RUBY SPARKS, Starring Paul Dano and Zoe Kazan Zoe Kazan Talks RUBY SPARKS, Her Experience Writing and Acting in the Film, Her Original Ending and Working with Daniel Radcliffe on THE F WOR
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