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“Every single movie I’ve made has basically been about a bunch of young men making a movie,” said Johnson, this week’s guest on the Filmmaker Toolkit podcast. “Whether that’s the kitchen at the Flagship (‘Tony’), or it is the engineers at Research In Motion (‘BlackBerry’), or Matt and Owen in ‘The Dirties,’ or our CIA crew embedded at NASA in ‘Operation Avalanche,’ or Matt and Jay trying to get a show at the Rivoli (‘Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie’), I’m constantly just reliving the feeling of being in film school, trying to figure out how to create myself and become an adult.”
This article is a companion piece to Why Do Most Biopics Stink? ‘Tony’ and ‘BlackBerry’ Director Matt Johnson Explains, taken from the interview in Indiewire’s Filmmaker Toolkit Podcast.
Interview with Matt starts an hour in. Video available for Spotify Premium members.
Nick: Tony begins his time at The Flagship by washing dishes. He’s low on the food chain, so to say. I’m curious to know what were the jobs you were doing where you had to cut your teeth before working your way into this industry?
Jay McCarroll: You know, I didn’t have particularly normal jobs when I was around that age. Like, I was a tennis instructor at a kids camp! In the winter, I learned how to snowboard pretty well, so I got certified and I would teach people snowboarding. But I was never like a hardcore coach. These were just summer jobs or winter jobs. Then I was a librarian, putting books back in the Dewey decimal system and sitting in complete quiet. I always made little mistakes and had embarrassing moments here and there. And I remember being 19 and having a short fuse, so I feel like I have a lot of empathy for anyone that age. You’re just going through a formative time where you’re still wrestling with inner angst and anger and frustration and whatever your inner demons are.
Nick: […]What I liked about Tony as a person is his acute observation of things which often leads to him learning something about cooking, or more often allowing him to build his lies even more. It’s almost like observation is his superpower. How has the art of observation helped when you do as editors?
Curt Lobb: For me, it’s all about being tuned into human faces and the little nuances that change in someone’s face, especially if they’re a really good actor and it’s not something overt. But, you need to be able to catch it, and if you catch it and put it on the screen, all humans can read it as well. It’s just about being the first one to make sure we’re bringing in all the best moments of nuance, I guess.
Robert Upchurch: I’ve noticed when I’m editing, it’ll be like late at night, I’m by myself looking at a screen in a dark room, and I’ve caught myself mimicking the faces that the actors are making, or responding without meaning to. But, I think that’s a good sign that you’re into it and feeling what the actors are giving, you know? That’s what is so great about editing, so much of it is just responding to what you’ve been given. And we were lucky with this movie and the performances we got.
No full video for this interview, but some snippets were released on social media (under the cut)