Sundance Film Festival

from Darroch Greer

I‘ve been speaking with several prominent documentary filmmakers over the past several days (see earlier blogs on Jessica Yu and Lynn Hershman Leeson, with more to come) and the interesting thing about them is they all have elements of fictional narrative in their films. Protagonist and Strange Culture both employ actors. They use sets and props and animation. They are a far cry from the Maysles Brothers‘ Grey Gardens, Ken and Ric Burns‘ The Civil War, or Steve James‘ Hoop Dreams. They are about as far from a Michael Moore film as Gone with the Wind.

For several years there has been a growing tendency to bring in new storytelling elements and break with traditional narrative - whether in fiction or non-fiction - that would make Luis Buñuel proud. In a reversal of docs borrowing fiction techniques, along comes JJ Lask with his first feature film, On the Road with Judas. Lask is an editor of commercials and documentaries, but his narrative is anything but straight-ahead..

“On the Road with Judas is based on a book I wrote,” Lask proclaims. “Instead of just adapting it just straight as a narrative, I had an idea that I would take the real characters of the book and then also have actors playing those characters. What we did is we interviewed the characters from the book and actors playing those characters - almost like if you were watching Charlie Rose and Erin Brockovitch was sitting next to Julia Roberts. We have the real person and the actor, and we interview them. Then we edited all that together, and then we went out and shot the scenes that they were talking about and describing from the book.”

In other words, Lask set up his production schedule much like a documentary filmmaker would, laying down the interviews first, then illustrating them. Lask has worked with documentary filmmaker Errol Morris, so it makes sense he would take this approach. “It‘s totally original in its execution,” Lask boasts of his film. “I‘ve never seen a film executed like this. Obviously, what it boils down to, it‘s a love story, but I‘ve never seen a love story presented like this - where you have the real characters, you have the actors playing them, all discussing the events. It‘s totally original. Every time I watch it, I‘m shocked at how different it is and how original. It leaves me in shock and awe.”

Not only is the storytelling original, the filming of Judas was unique as well. Lask and his DP, Ben Starkman, had decided to shoot the film on a 3-perf camera, but when it came time to shoot, none were available. “Ben comes walking in the office one morning and says, ‘Forget 3-perf - 2-perf!‘ We all looked at each other and said, ‘That‘s it! Let‘s get even crazier!‘ We found a camera in Russia. It‘s called a Kinor. It‘s a 2-perf camera. We had it shipped to America. We bought it on-line. They shipped it to us. We found some lenses in Yugoslavia; some old man had some lenses that fit the camera, and we made this movie with that camera.”

I‘ll let JJ explain why this decision made a perfect fit for the profile of an independent filmmaker. “Regular film has four perfs per every frame of negative. Now, when you see film in the movie theater, it‘s 16:9 format. So, the 16:9 is now using only 3-perfs per frame, and the other perf is now being letterboxed out. You‘re not using it, it‘s a waste of film. So, 2-pef takes that even a step further, and uses the 2:35 format and it is now anamorphic. So, basically, if you have a 12-minute reel of film in your camera, now it‘s actually 24 minutes. For independent film it‘s more cost-effective.”

Lask‘s excitement and confidence belie his experience of making On the Road with Judas. “You know, every morning I would wake up and I would just have these dry-heaves, like I was hung-over, like having a really bad hang-over,” Lask admits. “I‘d have to wake up really early. Call times are always early. I‘m and editor. I‘m used to getting there late and working late. But as a director you had to get up early. I was sitting in front of the bathroom dry-heaving, thinking, ‘Everybody hates this film. The crew doesn‘t understand what‘s going on. The actors don‘t understand what‘s going on. Everybody‘s looking at me as if I‘m strange.‘ So, everyday I had to deal with those emotions, saying, ‘Don‘t worry: I‘ll put it together in the editing room. I‘ll get it together.‘ Ben, the DP, I‘ve known him almost my whole life. He‘s seen a lot of my editing; I‘ve done a lot of my editing for him. He kept telling the crew, ‘Don‘t worry! JJ‘s a great editor. He‘ll put it together.‘ So, they were rest-assured, and they really hung by me.”

Not only is Lask‘s first feature film appearing at Sundance, he planned it that way all along. “As we were making it, as I was writing it, as we were casting it, I always had Sundance in mind,” Lask says. “I always thought that this would be a film that Sundance would want to accept. As the deadline was approaching, I started thinking, if we don‘t get in I might just jump off a bridge….I‘m like the strong guy at the carnival hitting the mallet, and I went all the way to the top, and it dinged for me.”

Listen to the full interview between Greer and Lask.

Check out our entire Sundance Podcasts archive.