Fulcrum Conversation: Todd Rohal, September 2009

The Movable Fulcrum is honored to feature an interview with filmmaker Todd Rohal as our inaugural Fulcrum Conversation. Todd's 2006 debut feature film, The Guatemalan Handshake, starred Will Oldham and played at over 30 film festivals in the USA and Europe. His answers are in bold.



Did you do anything interesting this summer?

I don't know if it's interesting, but I moved to Texas. Having only been in the state previously for a total of 6 days, I decided it was time to change the channel and get to a place where I could eat a hamburger while watching 976-EVIL. It's been a very good decision so far. No regrets.

Who are two directors you really respect?

David Byrne made one terrific narrative film, True Stories, and left it at that. I respect that a lot. I like that very much.

David Gordon Green also has all my respect and admiration. David Byrne shot True Stories in David Green's hometown shopping mall. They are connected.

Do you have any strong views about television?

I now have an HD tuner for my TV, so the news is in HD, for free. The CBS Sunday Morning show is also in HD, for free. Otherwise, I don't know what's on like I used to. I had Saturday morning's schedule memorized as a kid as well as the weekday prime time lineups. I have doubts that kids do that anymore. Does anyone under 16 anxiously await getting home at night to see NCIS?

In your life, have you had any that dreams that stand out?

I've woke up laughing 3 or 4 times in my life, but I can not remember what I was dreaming about.

As someone from central Ohio, what is one thing about the Midwest that makes you proud?

No one scoffs at you for eating a fajita in Ohio....that, and no one gives a shit about what's going on in France.

Handshake Related

Was the photo in the film of Ken Byrnes, Willie Mays, and the world’s largest piece of bubblegum real?

You bet. Ken Byrnes was a VP at Topps, who made Bazooka and baseball cards. Our production designers Jim McNamee and Sage Rockermann found that photo hanging on Ken's wall at home.

The Guatemalan Handshake was selected to appear at over 30 film festivals in the US and Europe. Did you get to attend many of them? Where there any surprises there?

I tried to attend as many as possible. I spent a year and a half without an address, just going from place to place, to festivals and screenings navigating the world of self-distribution, which is finally being embraced as a legitimate form of releasing a film. At the time i was doing it...only a few years ago...people at the screenings we booked would still ask who my distributor was -- as I stood in the theater showing it to them.

I understand the desire to have a distributor for your film...it's the same as the desire to have someone write you a check to pay for your film's production up front.

I have always been fascinated by film music theory. What can you tell us about the music in the Guatemalan Handshake?

There's a lot of music in the film -- foreground, background and buried in the cracks of scenes.

For the score, my friend W. Clay composed some music after seeing a rough cut and I worked it into the film. David Wingo composed music for scenes once the film's cut was locked. Gretta Cohn created some tracks on cello this way as well. Everyone lived in different cites and we didn't meet until after the film was complete.

For the other tracks in the film, they came from a lot of different sources. Kongar-ol Ondar is a Tuvan throat singer who's music was documented in a wonderful film called Genghis Blues. I found his music and a track by Huun-Huur Tu by downloading tracks through LimeWire.....doing searches for god knows what at 2am. It was even tougher to track down the rights owners after finding the tracks I liked.

Vollmer is a band out fo Virigina who I had met while working on the DVD for Heavy Metal Parking Lot. You'll see them in one of the bonus features. They're the real deal -- playing metal for years in Virginia. Their guitarists wife is one of the lucky folks captured by Jeff Krulik and John Heyn in that Maryland parking lot.

The Moldy Peaches song was re-written by the actors (Will Oldham and Sheila Scullin) with Kimya Dawson and Adam Green's permission.

What was it like to work with Will Oldham?

He was a lot of fun. I wrote the script while listening to each of his albums, in order. He was cast as a bit of a fluke...asking him to come out for a one-day role, but it turned into a bigger role. Although it's not shown in Guatemalan Handshake as much as it could have been, he'd be able take on a comedy role just as easy as the dramatic roles he's done and in a way very few actors would be able to pull off successfully.

What can you tell us about the process of writing a feature film?

I take a lot of time. I rewrite a lot. I make a big distinction between rewriting and revising. Rewriting means writing the entire script over again, with new ideas, different characters and new scenes -- usually from page one. I don't plan on doing this, no one in their right mind would do this purposefully...but I continue to do it and it's awful while it's happening...but each new draft is always better than the last. New ideas emerge constantly. I've been working on a script for 2 years now and have rewritten it 8 times with multiple revisions between those drafts. Each rewrite barely resembles the last. I like draft 2 as much as I like draft 6, but for whatever reasons, the new drafts keep coming.

Other and New Work

Do you see yourself doing any more acting in the future?

I don't think anyone is calling for that anytime soon.

In approximately ten years since making short films such as Knuckleface Jones and Hillbilly Robot, how have you changed as a director?

I'm asking for more permission and giving more information now.

Can you tell us anything about the film you are currently working on? Does it have a title? I understand it is somewhat autobiographical.

I have two scripts ready to go and currently working on making each happen. One is slightly based on my time in the Boy Scouts, but extremely exaggerated and told from an entirely different POV. The other is a comedy I co-wrote with a friend that resembles nothing referenceable.