Karina on SpoutBlog

Jody Lee Lipes, cinematographer of Antonio Campos‘ Afterschool, makes his feature length directorial debut with the SXSW Emerging Visions selection Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be the Same, a beautifully shot doc about an artist struggling to maintain a somewhat normal domestic relationship while producing a half-baked, largely inscrutable but still vaguely offensive installation for a New York gallery. Below the jump, check out the film’s trailer, as well as Lipes’ answers to The 5 Questions We Ask Everyone.

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.

Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be The Same is like Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse meets American Movie. It’s a verite love story about the emerging artist Brock Enright, and his girlfriend Kirsten Deirup trying to put together the most significant gallery show of his career, and hold onto each other, the family, and the gallery in the process.  The fact that it’s about an artist is secondary, it’s really about someone striving to make it, and how his blind dedication to craft affects the people around him.

Do you have a day job/a non-filmmaking occupation that raises money for your filmmaking efforts? Tell us about it.

My day job is cinematography, so I don’t have an occupation outside the film industry. I’ve been fortunate enough to be able to support myself as a shooter since I finished college, and in the process I’ve had the opportunity to really develop my sensibilities and learn a lot from everyone I’ve collaborated with over the last 8 or 9 years, including this film’s producer, Kyle Martin, and editor, Lance Edmands who were both in my class at NYU.

Being a cameraman can be a little stifling to me at times, but I genuinely feel that I’ve been able to find my own voice because of it, and for that reason Brock Enright: Good Times Will Never Be The Same doesn’t feel like a first time director’s work to me.

Have you been to SXSW before? If so, tell us about your funniest story from the experience. If not, what are you looking forward to re: the festival and/or the city of Austin ?

I haven’t been to SXSW film before, so this is a pretty great introduction.  It’s our world premiere for the Brock Enright film, and another narrative feature that I shot called Afterschool, which premiered at Cannes ‘08, is screening as well.

I’m really looking forward to watching Brock deal with the audience after the film screens, he’s one of the most charismatic human beings I’ve had the pleasure of meeting, and I have a feeling he will defy people’s expectations.

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

My death row double feature would definitely be Barry Lyndon followed by My Cousin Vinny.

There’s been some criticism that the only way to get into SXSW is by being a part of an “incestuous scene where everybody knows everybody.” So who did *you* have to sleep with to get in? (Metaphorically or literally: are there any SXSW filmmaker(s) past or present that you’re close with personally and/or professionally, and how have those relationships helped or hurt the process of producing your film and getting it seen?)

I don’t consider myself part of the SXSW scene, but there are people that have been very supportive of my project, and really gone above and beyond the call of duty to urge programmers all over the world to watch my film.  However, I don’t know what good that does unless the work is on par with the festival’s standards, and program.  I look at the documentary films included in SXSW this year, and I’m honored to be a part of the team in any way shape or form. To me that means nobody is getting in just cause they are fucking someone; the work has to be good.