mark romanek: making one hour photo
by stephanie jorgl

07.25.03



“i look at it like i’m creating a context, a fully realized, almost immersive, aesthetically controlled world, and then i plop a very charismatic, exciting star, whether it’s an actor like robin williams, or a star icon like madonna, or anthony kiedis of the chili peppers, into this unusual context that redefines them,” he says.

“it’s like i create a vehicle and they’re the charisma engine. the whole thing is running off of their ability to rivet and entertain and astonish people — i enjoy creating those worlds to pop them into,” adds romanek, whose video shoots typically take three to four days.
making short movies

“you’re given creative freedom when you reach a certain point, and a pretty reasonable amount of money to make a short movie,” says romanek. “the smart filmmakers go, ‘i’m just making a short movie,’ and they are really unburdened by the cliches that are on mtv every day — it doesn’t occur to them to go in that direction. they just make this great short film to music.”

romanek regularly immerses himself in the latest media, art, photography, architecture, graphic design, web design and fashion. they often inspire his writing for music videos and film.

“i always have this pool of things that i’ve recently, or not so recently, been exposed to, so that when i hear a song, sometimes i dip into that and go, ‘well, if i take this obscure photograph i remember seeing that was taken in 1934, and i combine it with nine inch nails, well, it’s sort of a new equation,’” he explains.

feature debut

after 10 years of making music videos, romanek finally broke into feature filmmaking with “one hour photo,” starring robin williams, which he wrote, directed and worked closely with editor jeff ford on.

“i realized, ‘i need to make a movie and no one is offering me the kind of movie i want to make, so i guess i’m just going to have to write it myself,’” says romanek. the film premiered — out of competition — at the sundance film festival in january 2002.

a year of editing

“i edited ‘one hour photo’ for more than 12 months. because we were using a non-linear editing system, i felt like we could try every conceivable variation of every conceivable good take, or structural concept, and so we did,” says romanek.

“i can’t write on a typewriter any more. i need to write and edit on a word processor. and i don’t think i could edit a film on film very effectively. it seems like you wouldn’t have had the chance to explore all of your options. the most precious thing in filmmaking is time. if you can do more, or try more things, in less time, then you’re ahead of the game.”

six new horizons

romanek recently completed a music video for linkin park and plans to continue to do a few music videos — but his main focus is now on film. he’s currently developing six different movie projects: a film about a strange san francisco cult phenomenon from the 80s; a smart bank heist movie; a true crime story he’s working on with tom hanks; a turn-of-the-century sports action movie; and one of his favorite novels, “mr. vertigo,” by paul auster.

Apple For Every Stage

“I’ve been on Macs since 1985,” says Romanek. “I get a song, I slip it into my computer, I rip it, then I make a folder that says ‘Nine Inch Nails.’ I type up the lyrics in Word, even if they’re given to me, because it allows me to experience the song through the rote act of typing it out. I get to know the song really well that way. Sometimes I get ideas while I’m doing that.”

Romanek also uses Word on the Mac to write screenplays and concepts, and for developing treatments. He prefers Final Draft 6 software for screenwriting. He also makes good use of his iPod. “I’ll take my iPod and put a song on repeat that I have to write a treatment for, and go take a walk. I’ve also cut rough versions of videos in iMovie for previsualization, or animatics to show someone an idea. Or I’ll go shoot location footage and do a rough version of the scene and then go home and cut it in iMovie, in essence doing video storyboarding.”

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