Filmmaker Interview: Paul Lingas, “Wide Awake in Nothing”
One of my favorite shorts on the film is Wide Awake in Nothing. Paul Lingas, the filmmaker, was kind enough to answer some questions about the film:
Q: How did you come up with the idea for Wide Awake in Nothing?
A: The idea was actually based on another short film that I’d written but which was never made. I had been really busy at the time so my roommate wrote the initial story for Wide Awake in Nothing (WAIN) and then we ended up co-writing the rest of the way, with me adding a few things at the end for my director’s polish. The other short idea was about a man who was trying to figure out what had happened to him. He finds himself at work in a place he finds familiar, but while everyone else seems to know and, in fact, fear him, he cannot recall anyone or anything. The rest of it follows him as he tries to unlock his own secrets. WAIN takes some elements of that structured, uncomfortable world and adds to it.
Q: Tell me a few stories about the making of the movie…
A: We shot everything in the same place, an old meatpacking plant. Some members of the crew insisted the hallways were haunted by the souls of dead animals because there were always weird sounds. There were also rooms that would lock mysteriously and then be open hours later. Bad smells were always around the corner but the location was great and allowed us to shoot every hour of our workdays because we had everything pre-rigged. Also, it allowed us to finish ahead of schedule.
Another good story was the day we had 20 extras show up and only 12 of them stayed. Apparently the casting director had told them it was a police movie and they would be playing tough cops. When they showed up to set and were told that wasn’t the case at all, over half of them wanted to leave. We managed to persuade most of them to stay, but that was a tense morning.
Q: What was the most difficult part of making the movie?
A: Postproduction as a whole was a big pain, mostly because it took so long. When you’re dealing with a limited budget and a university, there are a lot of hoops to jump through and a lot of time spent waiting. Getting mixes and other things donated was a boon but we were also always at the mercy of the paying customers. Our Dolby Digital mixdown got bumped twice because other shows went long. The fact that the film took almost two years to make, from first ink on the page to the final copying to DVD, was the hardest part. This was not so much trying to stay focused, but simply having to wait for things to get done.
Q: What was your most triumphant moment as you were filming?
A: That’s hard to say. Every day had its moments and because I had such a great crew, there was never a time when I felt that things were out of control or not going the way we’d planned. There were a few hiccups here and there but nothing to write home about. The best thing was that everyone told me that it was one of the most professional and well run sets they’d ever been on. Many of us are still friends and many of us continue to work together. That to me, besides the fact that we made a great movie, was the most triumphant part of the process.
Q: What would you tell filmmakers just getting started with filmmaking? Like, gimme some gems of wisdom for the fans.
A: Filmmaking is simply a form of storytelling, so read a lot, talk to as many people as you can (not about film but about everything else in life), watch lots of movies but not too many, travel, learn to appreciate other forms of art, music, opera, etc. If you don’t experience life then you can’t say anything particularly interesting in your films. Above all, keep going. Do it because you love it and things will work out.
