Independent Lens . Inside Indies . Inside Filmmaking

What inspires indie filmmakers to persevere? Go inside the making of independent film. Come back for new articles, interviews, journals and more.

Volume 2

FILMMAKER INTERVIEW

A smiling father holds young, yawning baby.

Tracy Droz Tragos

BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY

An intimate and personal documentary, BE GOOD, SMILE PRETTY chronicles the filmmaker's struggle to know and grieve for the father she never knew, a soldier who died in Vietnam when she was a baby.

In a candid Q & A, Tracy Droz Tragos reflects on the “emotional, physical and logistical challenges” of dual roles: the grieving daughter and the dedicated filmmaker trying to get the story told.

"It was an emotional, physical and logistical challenge to be both my father’s daughter—in the moment, learning the details of his death, talking to the men who rescued his body, hearing the stories of his life—and a filmmaker —thinking about the shot, making sure we had ample batteries and tapes, turning a camera on my mother and myself, despite our intense grief."

ANIMATION, WIT & WISDOM

Drawing of a seated dog looking quizzically at the camera.

Paul Fierlinger

STILL LIFE WITH ANIMATED DOGS

In the autobiographical STILL LIFE WITH ANIMATED DOGS, we meet the canine companions who helped shape Paul Fierlinger's evolution as an artist and as a man.

The fiercely independent Fierlinger eschews dancing teapots and the Disney-esque anthropomorphizing of animals as “damage to the public's perception of the arts—namely the art of animation.”

"The onslaught of commercial television's talking animals and dancing teapots has molded the viewer's senses into the pliability and sparkle of Elmer's Glue. I'm reverberating with frustration and dying to counteract, because I've been trying to animate real dogs and real people for close to 40 years."

FILMMAKER Q&A

A man standing with folded arms smiling. A saturated colored background:
blue sky with clouds and an autumnal tree behind him.

Jason Orans

COSMOPOLITAN

Starring Carol Kane and Roshan Seth, this romantic comedy tells the tale of an East Indian immigrant who turns to pop culture as he tries to reinvent his life and woo the girl next door.

Co-producer Jason Orans talks about the clash of American and Indian pop culture, the challenges of turning a short story into a film and the barriers that face Indian talent in the West.

"For sure it’s most difficult for actors. There is supposed to be crossover so that an Indian actor can play someone from another ethnic group, but it is very rare. The fact is, there are few decent roles, and people have trouble seeing beyond the surface."

Inside Filmmaking:
Volume 6
Volume 5
Volume 4
Volume 3
Volume 2
Volume 1


	indie icon: Alexander Payne "When you're a filmmaker, your films aren't just for you. They're there as an example to other filmmakers and studios. If Sideways makes money, other studios will be able to point to it and say, 'Sideways didn't have a gun or car chase, and it didn't have stars, and it made money'."

My filmmaking is motivated by social activism. I love the opportunity to change people's belief systems, or to reveal that something that seems clear-cut is, in fact, quite complex…
—Johnny Symons, DADDY & PAPA

As my editor says, ‘you can buy help, you can hire an editor, a writer, a shooter but there is no agency that rents out tenacity.’
—Stephanie Slewka, ON THIS ISLAND

[The Tao Te Ching says:] 'He who knows that enough is enough will always have enough.' Especially in shooting and editing!
—Martha Burr, SHAOLIN ULYSSES: Kungfu Monks in America