Moderator: Please welcome the writer/director of UNTIL THE NIGHT Gregory Hatanaka, and some of his actors, Kathleen Robertson, Sarah Lassez, Michael T Weiss and Boyd Kestner.

Come on down... (Pause... A minute or so goes by and the actors come down except Boyd Kestner – don't know if he attended. Applause... )

Moderator: Hi, congratulations. (Applause.) (Michael and cast members laugh as they get seated)

Moderator: So, Gregory, this is your first feature, right. And how long did it take you to write and get this film off the ground?

GH: I started writing this script 7 years ago actually, and just for various reasons, mostly laziness, I just never made the film. You know, I'd stop, uh, start it and stop, I even at one time before cast myself as the lead (audience laughter), so there was just an opportunity, yeah, no, yeah, yeah, there was just an opportunity the timing was right. Eventually a company called Untitled Entertainment - Beth Holden Garland [Michael's agent] loved the script. They really supported it and they basically cast the film because we couldn't afford a casting director. That just kind of happened - we got Norman and Kathleen, it was wonderful and we made the movie somehow.

Moderator: That's a good segueway. How did you get the actors to be involved? How did you guys, it's such an ensemble piece, and such sort of like the actors are such a big part of it, how did you all come aboard?

KR: Well, for me it was just, you know, it was kind of a no-brainer when I got sent the script. It was... you know in this day and age I don't really think as an actor you get a ton of opportunity to do a movie that's this sort of focused on character and it's very -- the movie's, is a very challenging, a very slow film in the best sense of the word. I mean to me it reminded me of, you know, well, John Cassavetes movie, where it was very much, you didn't really quite know where it was going to go, and it wasn't always sort of neat and tidy and okay this is, this is where this is and this is what this character is and... It, it's, you know, as an actor it's just a joy to work on stuff like this because it's just all about sort of finding out you know little tiny nuances and details about the relationships and and each relationship is I think very different. And it was just, it was just sort of for me it was just like I just knew I wanted to do it as soon as I read it. I found the character to be very kind of confusing to me and a little bit scary, which I respond to, usually. So yeah. I don't know if I answered the question... but hey.

Moderator: Yeah, yeah, actually it leads to another question. Gregory, how much, how much did the actors, and I'd like to hear your answers as well, you know, how much did the actors perform your written script and how much was scripted or improvised or ??

GH: Well, when I wrote the script it was ridiculously long. It was like a 3 hour movie. It was going to be this total epic on LA so when we started rehearsing, we just cut out scenes left and right and we started rehearsing and each actor developed their own character and we improvised in the emotions and then I would write to that, kind of making more specific so by the time we were actually shooting the actors kind of knew specifically what we had rehearsed.

Moderator: Do you guys want to, actors, weigh in how is that process for you guys?

MTW: Well, my father owns Seagrams... (laughs along with audience) So I figured it was a win-win situation if I did the film. For me, and this was a treat to work on, because I think Greg really captured the underbelly of Los Angeles, the kind of relentless need to find something in your life and everybody's so disappointed because they can't really find that thing that fills them or that person that fills them. And I really think he captured that and to be part of that was really interesting to me. So, that was a treat. And to play characters that aren't... to play characters that are searching, that are trying to get it together and they desperately want to get it together but they can't, to me, that makes for a really interesting characterization. So...

SL: (Laughing) What was the question?

Moderator: What was it like to develop your character in the film?

SL: Well, actually for me, this is going to sound kind of weird to me this was a character... part and I was really nervous about doing it because I had it in my head that she was one of those LA party girls you see maybe at SkyBar or something with like fake boobs and blond and I just thought that wasn't me at all but he offered me the part and I thought, well, I mean he must know what he's doing, so and I wish really I felt so much pressure to be this babe so finally I just said you know what, I'm going to be myself. And so I was. It was fun for me. Usually I have to kill myself or be victimized. This time I got to be a whore and a party girl. It was fun. So...

Moderator: Who were some of your influences that you know that lead you to this kind of project?

GH: Well, I mean, to be honest, I wanted to make a Cassavetes film, you know. I wanted to make intense drama where you look at yourself... [missed about 5 second spot] People weren't making them at this time, so they're not making them, so I kind of wanted to do that. The next one I'm making is a horror film, so I got this out of my system.

Moderator: Well, it's really amazing because it's really intense like with the very extreme close-ups and the camera work and stuff like that and it really gives you this sort of obsessive feeling about Los Angeles and the way you sort of feel about your emotions, you know. And what? Was that your plan? Like what, you know, where did you come up with that?

GH: No, no I wanted a sense of like here how LA, it's very expansive, right, nobody really talks to you and you feel very claustrophobic in this very expansive land and city so I wanted to do that through the close-up, you know this very obsessive close-up on people.

Moderator: I think it really works. Was that scary for you actors? Like did you know that it was going to be all sort of like intensely close up? And you know I would imagine that it would be like... cause it's so claustrophobic. I may be the only one, I thought it was kind of claustrophobic like that, the intimacy of it.

MTW: I love a good close-up... (laughs with audience) I mean, it really is interesting because I think Greg really captured that that sense of like "I can't get out of myself", and I think that is what is so great about his filmmaking is that you don't, you don't, he doesn't hit you over the head with it, he lets you experience the emotion and ways to get that sometimes is to put the camera right in your face. So it's really interesting how he used the camera I think and he's got a lot of talent with the camera.

Moderator: Does that tailor your acting at all like when you know that that's your sort of space that?

MTW: Oh... We tend to try to ignore the camera even if it's right in our face - we try to pretend it's not there. That's one of the dysfunctions of being an actor, like it's sitting right there but you have to pretend it's not there.

KR: We don't know. I mean I had no idea either until I saw the film for the first time and we don't, I had no idea it was going to be sort of this as isolated and tight as it was. But I think that I think it's shot really beautifully. (Moderator: Absolutely.) Considering I mean I was actually really... I had never done a movie on the DV, you know it's a DV film, and I had never done a DV movie before. And I know when we first met one of the first things I said I said are we all just going to look like shit? Like is this going to be just like totally ugly. You know, but actually I think looks amazingly beautiful. (applause) I mean I really do. I think Yasu [Tanida] is here somewhere, the cinematographer. The cinematographer is here? Yasu... come on down.

Moderator: What camera did you use?

GH: We shot with a relatively new camera at the time, called the Panasonic DVX 100 which uses mini DV tapes and it cost $3000, and Yasu was the first DP who had shot a feature with that film. It was a film called OPEN HOUSE. And so I called him. He was the only one who really knew the camera.

Moderator: So do you want to talk about the camera work?

YT: How's it going here. I just got off the set so I'm filthy dirty. Sorry about that. But yeah, we shot it very... we wanted the claustrophobic feeling. And I don't think they knew we were so close up. But I would light a scene to do a wide shot, and Greg would say zoom in all the way. We would just do these close-ups so I would light up the whole set but would only get these tight close-ups but... Yeah, I mean, 'cause the camera, I shot a film called OPEN HOUSE which premiered here a couple months ago. And that was the first film that I practiced with this camera. And for this one we were initially going back to film, so we did some tests going back to film prints, and that actually looks a lot better zoomed in all the way, the camera, so we did that a lot. It's not, it actually worked well with the close-ups because we were really far away, we were about 10 feet away from close-up for them and I think it helped their performance 'cause we were away from them. It lets them kind of do their stuff.

Moderator: It looks beautiful, that's true. Should we open it up? Does anyone have any questions for our fabulous filmmaker and cast and crew?

Audience Member: How many shooting days did you use on the film and can you give us a rough idea of your budget?

GH: It was 20 days and the budget was zero, basically. (Everyone laughs) No really, it was basically like shooting a student film but we had such great actors you know.

Audience member: Since you were shooting video, it helped the actors to play more, what was your shooting ratio?

YT: We didn't shoot too much. We didn't shoot too much at all. We shot two cameras all the time. But... I don't think we took a lot of takes, maybe 4 at most, really. Cause we just did play the whole scene so we would just find where they, they would actually, we never, we didn't even have marks on the set because they would just let them roll around and we would just find their close-ups. So... but the ratio was... we didn't shoot too much.

Moderator: That's really, that's amazing so it was... so there were no marks, and you let them play the entire scene out and then you had two cameras?

GH: It was tough... because you would have like two cameras, one on each side of the frame, and so there would be crossing back and forth and each guy would trade, I would say, I would like run back and forth between each monitor, and say Yasu, zoom in there, and John, go here, you know, and then zoom in and we tried to capture it like a real reality. You know, everything wasn't staged and planned you know you know.

Moderator: Actually, one of the things that you know the way that Robert [Norman Reedus' character] is filming, constantly filming his girlfriend as well so you had the sort of two different levels going on there. How did you achieve that?

YT: Well Norman, I didn't do anything on that. Cause Norman, we gave him the camera and he... he actually liked doing it. (laughter) I think he took over a little bit too much. (louder laughter) But I didn't mind. But he did a lot of stuff. All those close-ups of Missy was Norman behind the camera. And I just showed him how to do the focus and how to zoom. And that's why it looks a little different than my style.

Moderator: How did it affect the editing, Gregory, with the two cameras and the and the??? ... .

GH: Well, I mean, it was certainly tough. My editor is here tonight, she's Chisako Yokoyama. She's wonderful. And fortunately I was able to get her to edit this movie cause she trained under Pietro Scalia who did LITTLE BUDDHA, all the Bertolucci movies, you know, he won an Oscar for a lot of stuff. And so she was able to organize all this footage, and you know being a low budget film we didn't have everything organized, and so she was able to minimize it you know, down to like what we, you know, what was the best footage. The hard part for me was that there was so much good stuff to choose from, so it was hard to narrow it down. So, it took a while to put it together.

Moderator: Right, right. Now I just remembered something. Now, your background is distribution. And so and you distributed a bunch of art house films. Do you want to talk about that? Like about you know sort of switching roles, and going from the distribution to directing?

GH: The whole why I made this movie was because I was getting tired of distribution, it wasn't about any more doing the artistic films, I'd lose money on doing a French movie. You know I had done 200 films, I had distributed 200 films under my belt and I felt this was the time to make this movie then. I had to make a very un-commercial film, but great acting but you know, but yeah, you know...

Moderator: So it's a non-commercial, but the kind of films that you distribute, and so what's on the horizon for the distribution of this film.

GH: For this film? I mean, well, obviously we're screening it for studios and other companies and if somebody wants, or is in love with it and wants to write a check, great. (laughter) If not, you know we have our own distribution situation so we can do theatrical releases, DVD and television, so it will be seen, shortly, hopefully in spring in some form or so.

Moderator: That's a really great thing for a filmmaker.

GH: Oh yeah. Yeah, I'm very lucky in that respect, you know.

Audience Member: You said that you wrote the script and that it was like a 3 hour script. Did you have a reading with the actors before you went ahead and shot the film and did they do like improvisations on the written word?

GH: Yeah, we had several readings, one with rehearsal we would take like the two actors in the hotel would rehearse and just do a read-through and we would know what didn't work you know automatically and I had my co-writer Norith Soth with me, so he would like say well this scene's not working and this is not working and we would shoot it, we'd film the rehearsal and we just kind of like said Michael, well Michael T will just come up with an quick idea and we'd write a new scene and Kathleen would say okay how about this and we would write up a new scene on the spot so it was kind of loose that way.

Audience Member: So they were actually recording all your words or did they do a lot of improvisation on the scene?

GH: There was improv during rehearsal like I say and we were able to adjust that to the script. But on the set, I think, I don't recall a lot of improv. No I think it was pretty specific, yeah.

KR: We improvised a lot in rehearsal, but then once we sort of decided in rehearsal what we were going to do, we pretty much stuck to that. And one of the things I just think was one of the coolest experiences on this movie, and I always tell people this, and I don't know if anyone else finds this interesting, but I found it really interesting, was that when we first started, when I first started working on the film, I started rehearsal, Greg gave me, he sent to my house a package of novels and music, CDs by the likes of Sigur Ros [artist from Iceland] and these just amazing totally beautiful bands and he sent me a ton of really really cool movies I had never seen, like the PIANO TEACHER, and just all these amazing sort of movies to sort of express the world of the film that he was trying to create.

MTW: I, I never got that Greg... (laughter) (Missing banter)

KR: Anyway, I just thought that was very, it was very... cool. Anyway, enough...

Audience Member: Where did you come up with the name UNTIL THE NIGHT.

GH: It was actually not that hard. It was a Billy Joel song that I like... a lot. No, no, no, no. It was a Billy Joel song. And I felt that it would be great as a Fitzgerald novel, you know like the STILL OF NIGHT. Cause this movie is very Fitzgeraldian, there's always bickering back and forth. And I wanted that feeling in the title. The original title was NO REGRETS actually, yeah.

Audience Member: There's a lot of film about Hollywood that really focuses on the glamorous side of acting and you know art in LA. And I was wondering just what inspired you to really focus on what is more of the majority of LA by showing you artists that you know and for the actors, how did it feel, was this close to what you have experienced or know people that experienced this.

MTW: Well, I've never watched a bad movie that I've done ... in the dark (audience laughing)... with a cocktail. (Michael laughs) It is... it's intense for a lot of the work that we do sometimes it's out there and isn't about something that we're necessarily we're proud of. It's interesting to play an artist searching to be an artist and not achieving his goals. And that's probably the majority of people that live in Hollywood. And I thought it was really interesting to capture that, that person.

GH: For me, you know, it was seeing like my close friends, my close circle of friends like they were becoming like these characters you're seeing, and at some point I even felt that way, you know, I was going through very difficult situations, and so that's kind of, it came naturally. I was able to just draw from people I knew, my friends and stuff, and I wanted to kind of capture that, you know, what made them unhappy with their jobs, their lives, their relationships, you know what made them try to self-destruct themselves you know.

Moderator: Yeah, it's interesting, because I mean obviously, living in Hollywood is our day-to-day life, you know, it's not like a glamorous thing all the time and I think you really captured that essence there.

Audience member: Question for Greg and then the actors if they're willing to answer this question? What was the most painful part of the process for you, the moment that was the most difficult.

(Audience member: Hot tub... )

GH: I think for me writing it, trying to put dialogue together, then pulling up like maybe memories I had, or memories of friends. That... That was difficult. The shooting wasn't that, wasn't the really painful experience for me.

MTW: It was kind of a treat. I mean, for an actor to play all those hard core emotions, is a treat. And to be able to dabble (?) down on the dark side is a treat. So it may look dark, but as an actor, but for an actor that's the stuff we live for. So it wasn't really painful, it was fun.

SL: For me the hardest part was dancing... (laughing) because Greg gave me the music and I listened to it and it was like boom, boom, boom, I was like I cannot dance to this. And then I get to the club, and we didn't have enough money for extras, so there was like 3 people around me, (laughter) exactly... and I was dancing and all these men, it was just so embarrassing in the world. But it actually... (laughing) That was very painful for me. I had to practice at home to that music and it was really stressful. So I'm glad that Yasu shot it so well.

Audience member: You all did a beautiful job, I want to start with that, and it's a beautiful movie. You said that you had zero budget. I was wondering if you could be more specific and (laughter) what kind of advice can you give for producing a movie without a big budget?

GH: Well, I mean, first of all, I could never have gotten such a terrific cast if the script wasn't there, you know, even if maybe the script wasn't great to start with, but it attracted, so we had something to work upon. Especially the best thing is the script when you're doing this kind of drama, you know. And the budget was well, well, well, well way under a million, I mean, it was just you know, you would just be shocked. Yeah, I don't think anybody of the cast has ever worked on such a low budget film, actually. Even they don't even know the budget.

Moderator: Did you guys, how did that affect you as actors working on a lower budget film? I mean, did you guys have the normal, you know, makeup, snacks, you know, what was the ?? How was it different for you?

KR: We had nothing. (audience laughter) We had some turkey jerky. (more laughter) But, you know, I did my own makeup and, yeah, it was, I mean, to answer your question specifically, for me, I'm sure it's the same for you guys, but like the only reason, you know, for an actor to do a movie, a tiny little movie, where you get paid zero, the only reason you do it is if it's a character that you are excited about doing. I mean, you get signed a movie that's you know $400,000 budget and it's obviously something that they're trying to make a sort of genre piece, and they're trying to make like MY BIG FAT GREEK WEDDING, or something and make money off of it, and make it sort of a chintzy shitty little version of a studio movie, it's just you're not going to do it. But if it's something like this, where it's, this to me clearly was not trying to be anything other than what it was. It was clearly like very specifically trying to express these characters and this un-commercial sort of story. That's... I don't know if that answers that but...

MTW: And it's amazing if you if you know Greg, and from the outside you would never think he's as twisted and fucked up as he is. (everyone laughs)

Audience Member: Talk about the songs used in the film.

GH: Well, the ending is the Eagles' I Can't Tell You Why. I don't know what else I used. There's the nightclub. Colin Chin, who is our music composer, actually was here also. I would play music for him, like Brian Eno or Sigur Ros, and Colin would try to score to that, I would say I love this piece by Brian Eno, can you score it or how about this Vangelis piece, how about Tangerine Dream? He would try to score it, and adapt it. And it was a long process. He had to go through 9 times until I was satisfied. (laughs)

Audience member: I was wondering, on some of the scenes, you would kind of recut them so they kind of appear differently. Do you kind of know what I'm talking about? (GH: yeah, yeah) And I was just wondering what made you decide to do that rather than do kind of a more formal job of editing it?

GH: Well, there's only one scene that is repeated, basically, that's when Kathleen's fighting with Michael, when she comes home and he's moving the furniture, and I basically repeated it so you get the sense of her life what she faces every single day when she come home, just over and over the same thing again, and that leads to the degradation of her mindset, if you understand that, her repetitious life.

Audience member: I think, I think it happened more than once. Like I think at the beach... I think it happened... ? Maybe I just was hallucinating or something?

GH: Not that I know of. We shot a lot of the same shots. Where I would just cut in almost exactly the same shot next to another one. But, no, no we didn't repeat except for the one scene.

Moderator: Are you referring to the jump-cutting, that's what Yasu said.

Audience member: Maybe, yeah, maybe yeah, jump-cut, yeah, sure. (uncertain)

GH: Unless you mean stuff like flashbacks where he keeps thinking of Sarah in his mind, I mean stuff like that.

Audience member: For example, she is sitting in the chair, and she's just kind of talking about her day, "oh I'm just tired", how you randomly cut to her - when she's moving back in the chair. She's sitting in the chair and (?) are moving back. Something like that also.

GH: It wasn't really repeated. Again, she had different lines. I mean, it was shot many different times and then like pulled together, but it wasn't really repeated, yeah...

Audience member: Okay, well, alright... (sounding unconvinced)

Audience member: I'm curious getting back to the characters and their self-destruction, what your cause and effect was in terms of the alcoholism. Did their life fall apart first and then they became alcoholics or the other way around.

MTW: For my character it was like managing disappointment. When you get to a certain place in your life where you didn't achieve what you wanted to achieve, I think he just numbed the pain of that. I think he really set out to achieve great things and he never got there. And he didn't have the power, the know, uh, wherewithal to keep things together, his marriage, his career, and it just all started slipping away from him and I think that helped medicate himself so he didn't have to feel that kind of pain.

GH: I mean I think, I know when I wrote it, it was basically that you get they're in this kind of high pressured kind of society or life and so they tend to self medicate themselves basically, you know, to hide from what the reality is. And then that self medication makes it worse, you know to them, for them.

Audience member: Why was the cat put to sleep? (everyone laughs [you have to see the movie to know why that was funny])

GH: Because that's my cat and I wanted to give him like a debut performance. (everyone laughs and claps) Yeah, no, I mean that was just one more thing, it was there to signify the end of Robert's and Mina's relationship, by the death of that cat. You know ‘cause she's always complaining. Plus the cat was dying, too. My cat was really healthy. But it supposed to be a cat that was supposed to be dying of feline aids basically, you know.

Audience member: Just really quickly: What was the name of the Eagles song?

GH: I Can't Tell You Why

Audience: No, no, no what's the name of the song?

GH: I Can't Tell You Why (audience is laughing while GH gets the pun)

End of the Q&A session

(© Kelly DeWitt, 2004; with additions by Gregory Hatanaka)