By Other Voices voices@moviecitynews.com
Filmmaker’s Corner With Jared and Brandon Drake (Visioneers)
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The majority of us have had a moment (or possibly several of them) where we confront the possibility that our lives are essentially meaningless. That moment is seized upon by the filmmaking brothers Drake – Jared directs and Brandon writes – in their debut film, Visioneers. Office drone George Washington Winsterhammerman (played knowingly by Zach Galifianakis) and his wife (with an equally vivid, yet lived in performance by Judy Greer) live in a world where 1984 meetsOffice Space. But the Orwell/Mike Judge mashup doesn’t simply coast on bizzaro funny ideas like co-workers casually flipping each other off as a matter-of-fact greeting or having a corporate ladder system where your success is marked by what level “tunt”, you are. They actually have the ambition to challenge us to consider a world where people’s dreams – just the fact that they actually have dreams – could be so unsettling and disconcerting that they would actually explode. Literally.
WHERE DID THE IDEA FOR THE FILM COME FROM?
From the world around us, from wanting to achieve our dream of making movies while being faced with the alternative. We know how it feels to almost explode, just as people stuck in jobs, stressed about the economy, stressed about relationships, stressed about their boss, etc…also know. In many ways, this is a true story. In fact, we often thought about putting that at the beginning of the film.
YOU HAVE SAID THAT WATCHING THE WAY ZACH GALIFIANAKIS SHIFTED IN HIS SEAT DURING YOUR INITIAL MEETING WITH HIM LET HIM KNOW THAT HE WAS PERFECT FOR THE ROLE. SO WHAT EXACTLY DID HE DO WHEN HE SHIFTED AROUND IN HIS SEAT?
He shifted, then blew us a kiss and said we could touch his beard, and that about did it. We were sold. He also has a lot going on beneath the surface. You can’t miss it. He can do nothing and still be very interesting and conflicted. But really it was his beard.
SO WHAT DID JUDY GREER DO?
She shifted, then blew us a kiss and said we could touch her beard. She’s a very unique person with lots of quirks and a big heart. You can’t do better than Judy for a role like this. She was our number one all along. Unfortunately, we had to shave her beard for the role. She wasn’t happy about that.
GIVE AN HONEST ASSESSMENT – WHAT LEVEL TUNT WOULD YOU BE?
Level Seven. Most people don’t even know it exists. It’s kind of like the fourth dimension, and is really hard to explain to normal people.
SERIOUSLY, THE JEFFERS SALUTE. IS THAT JUST AN EXCUSE TO FLIP PEOPLE OFF REPEATEDLY ON CAMERA?
For the most part. Anybody who has waved good morning to their boss or their co-worker who just can’t avoid smelling like fish every morning — and really didn’t mean good morning — knows where we are coming from.
IF YOU HAD TO PICK ANOTHER PRESIDENTS NAME TO BUILD ZACH’S CHARACTER’S NAME AROUND, WHAT WOULD THAT NEW NAME BE?
Grover Cleveland. Cleveland had these really messed up dreams, according to his unofficial biography, of which we have a copy. Cleveland lived in the 19th Century, but dreamed of flying cars where passengers served drinks and had to stand in line to use the bathroom. Visions of the future — much like Zach in the movie.
LETS JUST SAY THAT YOU HAD A PRE-EXPLOSION DREAM. WHAT DO YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN IN THAT DREAM?
We would make a movie called Visioneers that would screen at the Arclight on November 1st and 3rd at AFI Fest presented by Audi and everyone would come and cheer it on and some Tunt that doesn’t like it would explode in the back before he has a chance to write a bad review. Then someone would hire us to make another movie, but we would hit our heads and forget all our story ideas. Kind of like the character in that Simpson’s episode who drives around and
bitches about the traffic, only to realize he has nowhere to go.
VISIONEERS screens 9:45PM November 1 @ ArcLight 10 and 12:30PM November 3 @ ArcLight 14. Jared and Brandon Drake will attend both first screenings and participate in a Q&A afterwards.
