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Rian Johnson is the writer and director of Brick, one of the more enjoyable, unusual independent films to come out recently. A noir detective mystery set among the studentry of a modern-day high school, the film follows an outsider (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) as he tries to solve the murder of his ex-girlfriend.

Shot on a small budget of about $500,000, Johnson edited the film on his personal Macintosh in his bedroom.

Applelinks contributing editor Bill Stiteler recently interviewed Johnson about life as an independent filmmaker, and the tools he uses.

Applelinks: What kind of computer do you use?

Rian Johnson: Right now I use a 12" PowerBook as my laptop (mostly for writing and Snood) and a dual 2.5 G5 as my desktop. I cut Brick on a dual 1.4 G4.

AL: You shot Brick on film though, right?

RJ: Yeah, we shot it on 35mm then had it transferred to DV, so we could just dig it into FCP without any additional video cards or hardware, and also could just use regular Firewire 400 drives.

AL: About how much space did the whole thing end up taking?

RJ: Surprisingly little. If memory serves, the media was just over 200 gigs, so we did the whole thing with two 250 Firewire drives.

AL: Forgive my ignorance, but when you're done with the digital editing, do you use that for a guide for editing the 35mm film, or is that digital version transferred to a print?

RJ: During the film to video transfer, they keep track of the key code markings on the film, and how they match with the time code on the tape. They give you a file with that info, which you feed into FCP when you digitize the tape. Then, when you're done cutting, it puts out a "cut list," and men in little white rooms use that to conform the film negative to your digital cut.

AL: So how did you, as a first time writer-director of a feature, go about putting the resources for Brick together?

RJ: It took awhile. I wrote the script in '97, right out of film school, and spent the next six years failing to get the money to make it. There's an old saying: "Everyone wants something different until they see something different." This is what you butt up against when you've got an odd script and are a first time filmmaker; it's just very hard to find people who are willing to open their checkbooks and take a chance. Eventually we figured out the lowest amount we could shoot it for on 35mm, which was just under $500,000, and scraped it together from friends and family, Blood Simple style.

AL: And then you have to find a distributor...

RJ: Yes, and that's where our six year unlucky streak ended and we suddenly won the lottery. We were accepted into the competition section at Sundance 2005, and it was at the festival that Focus Features picked us up for worldwide distribution.

AL: Now, about Brick itself; you've mentioned Blood Simple, and I've read that Hammett was a big inspiration for the film. One of the things I thought was amazing about the film was the way that it walks a tightrope of treating the situation with absolute sincerity (as opposed to doing a parody of noir films), but at the same time there are moments where humor comes out of the mix of hard boiled and high school.

RJ: We knew the big danger of the movie was it turning goofy, turning into parody. At the same time, it was important that we didn't swing to the other extreme and make it humorless. For me the key was to make sure we stayed honest in creating a very believable world (albeit a stylistically heightened, unrealistic one.) As long as everyone in the cast and crew was approaching their job not as an interpretation or homage to past movies, but making their own fresh creative decisions to bring this world to life, I knew we could let it get funny without worrying about the world falling apart.

AL: You mentioned a six year unlucky streak. Unlucky in what way?

RJ: I guess less "unlucky" than "indie." Between when I wrote the film in '97 and made it in '03, it was just the same experience anyone who tries to get a small movie financed shares—lots of "nos," lots of "maybes" that take up a lot of your time before turning into "nos," lots of almost getting it together then seeing it all fall apart. Actually, I guess you can even scratch the "indie" part out; it's the same experience trying to get a movie together at any level.

AL: Was it worth it?

RJ: No amount of font manipulation can make the word "yes" big enough.

AL: I enjoyed your excerpts from bad DVD commentaries on your site. Are you going to do a commentary on the Brick DVD?

RJ: We tried one, yeah. The ones on my site aren't from particularly bad ones per se, I personally just think commentary tracks tend to not be that interesting, they're a fundamentally flawed concept, and it's not really the filmmaker's fault. Think about how long a professional performer or comedian works to build up enough material to be entertaining for two hours and you see the problem with plunking a filmmaker (even a great one like Gilliam or the Coens) in front of a mic and telling them to start talking. It's just hard to improv for two hours while there's a movie playing in front of you. I tried my best to counteract that by planning out topics, interspersing one on one interviews with cast and crew, and (most importantly) ignoring the movie and not being scene-specific, but I still fully expect to be adding a clip or two from it to my "why DVD commentary tracks should not exist" page on my site.

AL: Speaking of DVDs, Brick is currently in limited release; about 45 screens. There's a lot of talk about how subscription services like Netflix are popular with people who like indie films and documentaries. And yet, there seems to be a lot of talk coming from the studios about the importance of movie theaters, and how DVDs are an ancillary (even inferior) business. What are your feelings on DVD vs. the theater experience?

RJ: Naturally, as a filmmaker, the best environment for people to see your work in is one where you've got their undivided attention, the screen is huge, the image quality is great, and the sound is perfect. You're more likely to get that in a theater than on a DVD, so I'd much prefer people see Brick on the big screen. Still, as a DVD addict myself, I don't know that I'd discount it as an inferior experience. DVD has the advantage of intimacy. Having and owning a movie, being able to put it on whenever you like, there's something important in that which can't be brushed off. All my very favorite movies in life I mostly know from watching over and over and over again on DVD.

AL: Two parter: what are you working on now, and, having completed Brick, does the experience make working on your next project easier, or do you feel like you're starting over from square one?

RJ: Next up is a con man movie, and every single aspect of it is going to be easier for me because of Brick. Not only getting the project rolling, but also everything I learned from the actors and crew while making Brick will hopefully give me a head start on the next one. I just hope the experience of making it will be as fun and meaningful as Brick was; everyone on the shoot really bonded together like a family, and there's nothing quite like that feeling.
  

Brick is currently in limited release in America and the U.K.

Bill's been using Macs since the late 80s. When he's not making smartass remarks to amuse Kirk Hiner, he enjoys fighting for the user.