Out of This World: Zach Clark on The Becomers
Bleeding Edge chats with the renowned writer/director about his new feature and working in the indie film world.
Zach Clark’s important place in microbudget American cinema would be set if just for his editing gigs alone; after all both Aaron Katz’s influential 2006 mumblecore feature Dance Party, USA and Mike Bilandic’s Jobe’z World are amongst his credits. But a wholly distinct writer/director on his accord, his body of work which includes indie hits White Reindeer and Little Sister, is one that always makes sure to prioritize entertainment and colorful aesthetics. Being a cineaste very aware of the history of cult movies, he’s deeply conscious of how to get the most out of little resources.
His first feature since 2016, the extraterrestrial comedy The Becomers boldly mashes tones in its attempt to capture the hectic social landscape that came to the forefront in America during the height of the pandemic. We were lucky enough to be able to chat with Clark about the film, its prolonged production and his general filmmaking philosophies.
Ethan Vestby: I always ask this very basic question since it’s useful for starting a conversation, but how did you get into films and filmmaking?
Zach Clark: When I was 12, I saw the movie Ed Wood in the theater because I loved Beetlejuice and Batman as a child. When I saw Ed Wood, that was the first movie that explained camp and also introduced cult movies to me, which I had no idea existed, since I was 12 years old. So it opened up this world of movies and this way of thinking about and appreciating them that was unlike what I was used to. And it also introduced this concept that anyone can make a movie. You can make a bad movie and it can still be talked about X amount of years later. So I started making movies on a video camera for school projects and stuff and then went to film school.
EV: The Becomers is the first film you've written and directed since 2016. What are the big changes you've really noticed in the independent film world since?
ZC: From my perspective, a lot of the festival landscape has changed. Some of the outlets that me and other filmmakers used to rely on for getting smaller work out there don't quite seem to be around in the festival landscape anymore, and maybe that's because it's shifting into something else. But here in New York we lost BAMcinemafest a few years ago which I think was truly devastating to the independent film scene here. There really is no showcase for that kind of work. Tribeca doesn't count. A few movies will squeak by at Tribeca maybe. But there really isn't sort of like a nice outlet for showing that work here anymore. There are things that are starting to pop up, and there are certainly some things that still exist. But mostly it's the getting a movie out into the world part that feels different.
EV: In regards to the film specifically, I mean, obviously it's inspired by what the world or rather the United States really felt like in 2020 and early 2021. Can you kind of talk about what your COVID experience was?
ZC: I wrote this movie in March 2021 and we shot it in May of 2021 and then came back about a year later and shot some pickups. In a lot of ways, this film is an effort to sort of capture the year 2020 in a movie and how that year felt. I was living with my ex-wife at the time, she wasn't my ex-wife, then we were married and it really felt like it was us against the world. It really did feel like we were these two beings, sort of who only had each other while the world was going crazy around us and I feel like we saw the best of individual people. It felt like individual people were doing good but that the world as a whole was going crazy and that feeling is what's at the core of the movie.
EV: If you don't want to answer this question because it's too personal, I understand, but were there family members or friends you saw go down certain rabbit holes, to put it lightly, during the pandemic?
ZC: No, I was lucky enough no one in my immediate family or friend group went super out there in one way or the other. We didn't have any conspiracy theorists or anti-vaxxers or anything in my immediate circle. But it was also checking the news all the time and listening to these reports of people who had for all intents and purposes, lost family members to conspiracy theories and stuff.
EV: The suburbs are a running theme throughout your films. You're based in New York, but other than the very beginning of Little Sister, your films really avoid the city. They're set in the suburbs of North Carolina, Virginia, Illinois. Can you talk about the lasting impact of the suburbs on your imagination? I'm assuming you grew up in them?
ZC: Yeah, I grew up in Alexandria, Virginia, which is outside of Washington, D.C. To some degree it's a write what you know situation. I don't even necessarily conscientiously say I'm going to make one in the suburbs. I think for independent film, it's a lot easier to make small movies outside of New York and LA. It's just a little easier to wrap your head around. And it also is a little more visually interesting if you get a little further out from the city. Logistically speaking the suburbs do sort of afford you a little more, even just from a practical level space; to put people and to have things and to park cars and to have holding. Also, certainly in New York and Los Angeles, there's a lot of skepticism and cynicism when you say you want to shoot something for not a lot of money. Then when you get a little further out and are wanting to shoot a movie in somebody's business or home for a few days, there’s certainly more of a novelty to those people than it is in the city where most people are burnt out on things either having had production studio themselves or just trying to walk down the street and you can't because it's blocked off.
EV: I feel like throughout your films you have a real interest in female leads and femininity. Is that something you’re conscious of when writing a new film?
ZC: It's something that I'm aware of. I'm aware that's what the focus of the movie is. I don't have an intellectual reason, that's just always what’s felt right to me. I think too that the movies that I've always gravitated to the most are movies that tend to focus on women as well. I think when I was falling in love with movies and was falling in love with the movies that really inspired me to make movies, be they the films of John Waters or Chantal Akerman or Douglas Sirk or Russ Meyer, those are all filmmakers that I am incredibly influenced by whose work tends to put female characters front and center.
EV: Also, how did Russell Mael of Sparks come to be involved with the film?
ZC: This is a real COVID story, which is that a friend of mine was running a secret Zoom screening series once or twice a week. And because it was deep COVID he was able to start reaching out to celebrities, for lack of a better word, to join. About 100 or so people were tuning in to watch these movies. And he got Sparks to come out. They have been one of my favorite bands since college. And he knew that I was a fan, and he mentioned this to them and sent them a link to my last film, Little Sister. And they watched it and liked it. And so summer 2020 I got to zoom with Sparks for an hour or so. And they were super nice, sweet guys. And when it came time to find what the voice would be for this film, like most other things when you're working on this scale you think about what you have access to that could be interesting and unique. And I knew that Russell liked Little Sister. And so I just reached out and said, I have this project. We had a cut at that point, but I think I was doing the voiceover and sent it to him, and he watched it and said, yeah, I'm interested. And he didn't have to leave his house to do it.
EV: In terms of some filmmaking questions, I mean you're very experienced as an editor. You've edited other people's films and also edited trailers. Can you talk about how your editor brain functions on set while shooting? I'm always really interested in that dynamic of an editor/director.
ZC: For this movie because we were shooting so fast, especially during the first shoot, it came in handy in that I would just know when you don't need coverage. To some degree, I already plan a lot of that stuff out. I say this scene is going to have coverage so maybe it would be nice to take a rest in the next scene and play something out a little longer. Or I would say well you know, we have a lot of stuff to do or this is a more complicated scene so I need to protect myself and get more coverage. In the first shoot for this especially, there would be sequences where we had a very limited time to shoot something and I was able to come in and say to an actor this is your reaction shot, but this scene plays seven minutes if we do a full scene. So here's what I need from you, I need that line and that line, and I need you to react in this way, and I need you to react in this way and react in that way.
EV: Was working with special effects for the first time kind of intimidating?
ZC: I mean a little bit. On Little Sister we had Keith [Poulson] in special effects makeup the entire time. So I had worked with special effects. And actually, in White Reindeer there's one special effect where the husband's brains are blown out, so he had to be put in that makeup. But that was easy because it was just basically one shot, one setup. And on Little Sister, Keith and our makeup person were housed in the same place, and so Keith just showed up to set that day every day basically looking like that. And he left set looking like that which was a sort of interesting experience for the production. Because that was just how Keith looked. And therefore I also didn't really have to think about it too much. So on this, I had the incredible idea that there would be, instead of seeing one special effect for the entire movie, like in Little Sister, there would be a variety of special effects that we would see almost one time each. Which yeah, proved to be a huge logistical nightmare. On top of that, the special effects person we had during the first shoot was terrible and really put us behind and promised things that he could not deliver on. Almost all of the special effects stuff that you see in the movie now is stuff that we went back and reshot because it was unusable the first time around because we shot so quickly and he was just the guy who was available.
So that was a real learning curve for me. I feel like I'm much better primed to tackle that stuff again. But also, so much of what we were able to pull off in this movie is the result of not knowing some things going in and being like, oh right, yeah, this is fine. All these special effects things, they'll be okay. All of these VFX shots, it'll be fine. I think if we had gone back and budgeted it out, like truly budgeted out what we needed to pay everyone and the personnel that we needed to execute these things before we started shooting that first shoot, I don't know that we would have pulled the trigger on making it. This project came about because our producers, Eddie Linker and Joe Swanberg, came to me and said, we're looking to shoot low budget genre movies in Chicago this year, do you have any ideas? And this is the idea that I pitched. So the movie was supposed to cost a certain amount of money and be shot in a certain number of days and we obviously ended up going over that, but I think part of what allowed the movie to even exist was that we all sort of said, yeah, I think we can pull this off for this amount of money in this amount of time.
EV: What other genres are you interested in exploring?
ZC: I’m pretty genre neutral when it comes to preferences. I am trying to write a creepy castle movie right now. I have a comedy about old ladies that I've been wanting to make for a few years. I don't know that I would rule anything out. A lot of it comes from what feels achievable and what feels attainable. I can't say that I would never make a western but that's something that right now is like oh I can't quite wrap my head around it. If someone came to me and said hey I have a ghost town western set, do you want to do something? I'd probably say, yeah, I'll come up with a western idea.
The Becomers is having its Toronto premiere at The Paradise Theatre as part of BE Fest on July 19th at 9 PM. Tickets and packages are currently on sale. The film will be released later this year in the United States by Dark Star Pictures.
If you’re curious, Zach Clark’s 2010 feature Vacation! just recently got a Blu-Ray release from Factory25 and Vinegar Syndrome.