Nick Thompson, filmmaker and photographer in Seattle

Nick Thompson is a filmmaker and photographer in Seattle. His function film, “Skagit,” is an experimental thriller set in Washington, and he’s at the moment growing one other film, “Decade.”

How lengthy have you ever been appearing/filmmaking?

Thompson: My buddies and I began taking pictures stuff on a handycam once we had been 6 years previous. I beloved taking pictures on tape since you may edit within the digital camera — on SD playing cards, all the things’s a separate clip. Our movies had been largely live-action fights or LEGO battles utilizing the digital camera’s frame-record function. But I actually determined I wished to pursue filmmaking after making a zombie film at age 12, a ripoff of the “Evil Dead” involving a number of strawberry syrup, the place my buddies and I dismembered and ate one another. Like lots of people, I grew to become not sure of my path throughout school, however got here again to it in my mid-20s.

Tell us about your course of and the totally different levels that work into it.

The course of for the film I’m at the moment growing, “Decade,” has been actually totally different than it was for my experimental horror function, “Skagit.” “Skagit” was experimental within the literal sense of the phrase. I wished to check out concepts and see what may come to life organically, what may tackle a type of magic as soon as it went by the digital camera lens and the enhancing course of. While writing, I used to be printing out pages of notes, slicing them up, and arranging them on my ground to seek out connections. Some issues definitely did come to life, and others did not! But regardless of its faults, I feel the film turned out mysterious, distinctive, and divisive — all issues I used to be kind of striving for. It’s now streaming on-line!

During the writing of “Skagit,” I used to be attempting very onerous to stay free from filmmaking conventions, or much more so conventions from literature or theater that I felt had been then wrongly connected to cinema. I wished to make a film the place the world it depicts couldn’t be separated from the type of the paintings itself.

I nonetheless maintain lots of those self same convictions, however I knew it was time when writing “Decade,” which is a way more lifelike film primarily based on the lives of my buddies and I post-high faculty, to attempt to sort out a strong narrative construction and story arc within the screenwriting stage and actually flesh out the characters in an hermetic means.

I feel that a part of the issue with how standard screenplay construction is commonly taught is that it is expounded to whole newbies who may take it as gospel. Once you’ve got found nice filmmakers to take from, have extra life expertise to tell your work, and have had time to experiment, then you’ll be able to strategy these concepts with a discerning viewpoint and apply them to one thing private, fairly than utilizing them as a place to begin to fill in, which often leads to boring cliches.

The elements of the method which might be constant throughout each movies is that I write down each thought I’ve, it doesn’t matter what, after which I manage them and step by step pare them down. And hold revising, again and again. The much less inventive a part of the method that is sadly all the time essential is following up on emails to folks. That’s how issues transfer ahead!

Where does your inspiration come from? What different actors or filmmakers have influenced you?

I do not know the place to start out! Music conjures up me simply as a lot as motion pictures do. Oftentimes, photographs will kind first in my head to a track, and it is a matter of holding onto the concepts that may be developed thoughtfully into one thing with substance and letting go of those which might be actually simply music movies.

I feel it is completely essential to take from artists who’re so diversified that a few of them may truly hate one another’s work. You mix that with your individual perspective and expertise, and that is the one means one thing new is created. I actually wished to combine comedy, horror, and different components in “Skagit” that some folks may consider as “high” or “low” artwork and make it unclear the place precisely the road was between what was intentional and what wasn’t. People usually go into what they consider as an “art film” anticipating one thing somber and severe, and assume that what’s not is a mistake. There had been, in fact, some issues that had been unintentionally dangerous, although I will not say which.

The movies of Andrea Arnold and Michelangelo Antonioni strongly encourage me, particularly for “Decade.” Arnold is simply so good at scenes that really feel naturalistic and documentary-like whereas nonetheless being stylized and private. And Antonioni’s potential to speak visually is simply at one other stage — the staging, composition, what characters do not say — his formalism and Arnold’s extra earthy fashion are vital parts of how I’m envisioning “Decade.” Bela Tarr and Krzysztof Kielowski had been each influences on “Skagit,” and so they stay part of “Decade,” notably the ineffable magic in Kielowski’s movies and Tarr’s tangible sense of time passing in particular locations, locations which in “Decade” are sometimes expensive to the hearts of those adrift characters. But now Kogonada’s Columbus and Fellini’s I Vitelloni — actually the unique group of drifting buddies’ film — have been extra on the entrance of my thoughts.

What is the style you like probably the most?

Something that is very important to me is having the ability to specific totally different sides of myself by totally different genres. It’s particularly invigorating to sort out the identical themes by a wide range of views. But like lots of filmmakers, horror related with me at a younger age. I feel it is usually simpler to grasp as a child how a horror film is working its magic and the place filmmakers are investing their sources, trigger it is in your face, and that makes it really feel like one thing you’ll be able to attempt to do your self. And there’s simply such an amazing custom of DIY filmmaking within the horror style specifically. So whereas I’m not at the moment planning to make one other horror film, it’s going to all the time be near my coronary heart.

Do you’ve got one piece of labor that’s extraordinarily particular to you?

The film I’m growing now might be probably the most particular to me, however for one thing accomplished, I must say my first function movie, “Skagit.”

While residing in New York in 2016, I spotted I wanted to be again within the Northwest to make motion pictures and to make motion pictures set there. I moved to the small city of Port Angeles to put in writing the script for “Skagit,” which is about 4 buddies who go away Seattle for a getaway weekend within the Skagit Valley. As the hours move, the soaked, primeval panorama bears down upon them, and so they step by step lose their minds, getting sucked into their very own alternate realities.

We shot “Skagit” over three muddy weeks at twenty areas across the Skagit Valley, and it was launched on-line all over the world final yr after successful Best Feature at Hastings Rocks Film Festival and Bleedingham, amongst different awards.

I’m additionally a photographer and not too long ago revealed my fourth photograph guide! It’s known as Curveball Karaoke and options portraits of people that sing karaoke at Lottie’s Lounge in Seattle. It was launched in tandem with a solo gallery present. The guide is available on my website.

What experiences in your life have formed your appearing/filmmaking?

My mother and father are each filmmakers and writers and have usually labored collectively as a group. They launched me to so many nice motion pictures and taught me the best way to make them. My sister’s additionally a author, and being surrounded by members of the family who worth making artwork has been a lifeline for me, particularly when that is not the case in so many social {and professional} areas.

Additionally, after I directed my younger grownup “Evil Dead” ripoff, my buddy Eric was the star and he did an unimaginable job appearing for a 12-year-old with zero expertise whose director’s suggestions largely consisted of “be more scared.” Eric, greater than anybody else I knew, taught me the best way to see our personal lives as tales, as dramatic and significant, and pushed me to be extra adventurous.

If we need to see extra of your work, the place ought to we go to seek out it?

You can stream “Skagit” all over the world on many of the important platforms, reminiscent of Amazon and Apple TV, and you could find it by googling it or going to skagitfilm.com. It’s an enormous assist to us if individuals who watch it go away a ranking or assessment on Letterboxd or a special platform, because it’s one of many solely methods to lift visibility of the film on this streaming surroundings! You may also see extra of my images and books on the market on nicktfilms.com. Keep an eye fixed out and comply with me @skagitfilm on Instagram for updates about “Decade”!

What is subsequent for you? Anything you are engaged on proper now that you just’re actually enthusiastic about?

Without a doubt, the challenge I’m most enthusiastic about is the function movie I’m at the moment growing, “Decade.” The film begins in Seattle in 2010, when the departure for school launches three buddies right into a decade of romantic entanglement, onerous partying, and existential strife, forcing them to interrupt and renew their bonds as they resolve what sort of adults they need to be.

When we graduated, we could not have foreseen the modifications coming for us or Seattle. As the years handed, we discovered ourselves drawn again to Seattle and to at least one one other. Our relationships grew to become lifelines, but in addition obstacles as we navigated our shifting identities. I started taking candid pictures of my buddies, which impressed the seeds of a movie.

I feel “Decade” tells a narrative we do not see usually in motion pictures lately — not a couple of lone outlier, however fairly one which depicts a bunch drifting collectively, shaping and reshaping each other as they navigate the messy, ambiguous years between highschool and maturity. It’s all woven by the material of Seattle, a metropolis that’s hardly ever seen in motion pictures, notably by the angle of people that grew up right here.

I not too long ago completed the screenplay and have partnered with a producer named Caleb Jaffe as we collect solid, crew, and funding for the movie. I plan to launch a photograph guide in tandem with the film, that includes movie pictures I took from 2010 to 2019, chronicling the family and friends who impressed the story.

We’re searching for extra folks to come back on board, and I encourage anybody who’s to get in contact with me!

Lastly, how do you’re taking your espresso? We ask everybody!

At dwelling, all the time black. Sometimes, a cappuccino on the cafe.

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