Karina on SpoutBlog

Daniel Stamm’s Emerging Visions entry A Necessary Death looks like it has the potential to be one of the more controversial titles on this year’s SXSW Film Festival slate. The documentary-style feature tracks a film student who places an ad on Craig’s List in order to find a determinedly suicidal individual to film in the days leading up to the fatal act. Judging by the trailer (embedded above) and the film’s brief, enigmatic SXSW synopsis, it seems as though Death could be reasonably situated within a trend that Eric Kohn cited last month at Slamdance, of “YouTube generation filmmakers” seeking “to tell fictional stories within a documentary framework.” We shall see when the film premieres in Austin on March 8. In the meantime, watch the trailer above, and see Stamm’s answers to the 4 Questions We’re Asking Everybody below.

Tell us about your movie. Who did you work with, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

The quick and dirty sell is:

“Documentary Filmmaker looking for suicidal individual to follow from first preparation to final act.” Cut from 142 video tapes, this film sheds light on the tragedy following the infamous internet ad.

That may be 31 words but at least they don’t leave anything out, so I am saving words overall. I am also saving words where why I made the movie is concerned. I was fascinated by the story and I saw that others were just as stunned by it. That’s really it.

I worked with an incredible cinematographer, Zoltan Honti, whom we had to wait for every now and then because he was working with Vilmos Zsigmond on Brian dePalma’s or Woody Allen’s sets. Switching back and forth between the glossy look of Black Dahlia and the grittiness of A Necessary Death can’t have been easy. But that is how good he is. Well worth waiting for.

I was lucky enough to get to work with award-winning editor Shilpa K. Sahi and casting director Mali Finn. Mali cast films like Titanic, Matrix, and L.A. Confidential. She was a wonderful woman who sadly passed away last year.

The score was written by Morgan Kibby of the Romanovs and Jonathan Leahy of the Broken Remotes - both of which I couldn’t be a bigger fan of. Leonard Cohen wanted Morgan for his world tour. She said no and set out on her own tour with M83. Kids these days. No respect.
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