EI: Are you a Hitchcock fan?

SB: Huge.

EI: I got that impression from the commentary track on "Pep Squad." One thing that impressed me on the commentary track was that you stated that you didn't shoot any coverage.

At Cannes with Roger Corman and Troma's Lloyd Kaufman

SB: Well, I've always believed that you couldn't just put the camera anywhere. It has to be where you perceive it should be. When I close my eyes and look at a scene, I look at it in my own way. If you and I were both looking at the same object, we would never see it the same way. You will always see it the way you are looking at it, and I will always see it the way I am looking at it. As long as you follow that rule and say "OK, I'm looking at it this way," then you will never fail. It will only turn into a failure when other people's perceptions come in and you start cluttering you own perception. You aren't sure whether you're looking at it that way or whether they are. Then you say "Is that right or is that wrong. Am I looking at it bad and stuff like that." But I process everything entirely visually. When I just hear a story, I picture the story happening in my mind. If I picture myself standing close to the characters, then I translate that into a close-up. If I picture myself moving to the center of the room when something is happening, then that translates into a dolly shot or a stedi-cam shot. When I picture these things, that's all I record and write down on paper. If that section of the scene, in my mind, is pictured close-up then there's no reason to shoot it far away, because that would not be part of my vision. So, I shot exactly what I needed for the vision to happen. And then, when it comes together, it works. The man who was the technical editor for "Pep Squad" didn't have my perception and didn't understand what I was doing. I would deliver the scenes and he would say "What the hell is this? These don't go together!" He would always try to rearrange the shot, which would then butcher the scene. It wouldn't make any sense. When I would say "No, No, No. Follow the plan because it is already edited for you. All you need to do is put the shots in." He said "Really." And put the shots together. He said "Oh my God, this is the easiest job in the world. I think that the only reason a lot of people don't do that is because they wait to conceive their vision in the editing room. Which is fine. It's just a different way of doing it. I acted in a scene in Sean Penn's movie "The Crossing Guard." It was just a walk on. I didn't have any lines or anything, but I was there for 2 ½ days. When I saw the film none of this was used except for like two shots. I knew all the time they were just getting a lot of stuff which I guess they call coverage. Just to decide later on to use it in the editing however they wanted to. That was one thing about Kubrick that I could not understand. Because I thought "If he's such a visionary, and he's seriously, this brilliant, why on earth doesn't he know what he wants to use?" I though that didn't make any sense. I mean, anyone can deliver something that matches if they spend two years doing it. Because they'll have absolutely every perception under the sky!

EI: I interviewed Ann Gillis once. She played Becky Thatcher in "Tom Sawyer" back in the 30s. She was the voice of Bambi's mother. She retired in the 40s and came out of retirement when she was living in England in the 60s. They needed some American actors for "2001: A Space Oddessy." She played one of the astronauts mothers during the scene where the astronauts get a televised phone call from their parents. She said they did 28 takes, 30 takes. They kept going and going and going. The other actor kept improvising and Stanley would say "sure, try it." This was all for 4 seconds of screen time. She finally got up and said "You have enough footage of me. I'm going back into retirement. Ms. Gillis had the same impression you did. "This guy is a genius? This is chaos!"

SB: There's planned chaos too. I bet he probably did know exactly what he would use in the beginning. I bet he just did it. I can't speculate because I never met the man, but I can't conceive of shooting something that way. That would be like admitting to myself that I didn't have a clear vision. Of course my vision isn't absolutely 100% in the clarity realm, but it's real close because I'm certain of what I see in my head. I can't imagine going against myself, going against my interpretation to make sure I have everything I might need. I think the other extreme from Kubrick is David Lynch. Lynch has a vision, but it is so disjointed that it always looks like a dream. Not just "Mulholland Drive" or "Lost Highway" but all his work. It is always like a dream. If you look at a dream which is maybe steps 1 through 10 and the only things you capture are steps 1, 3, 4, 7, 8 and 10 and your mind makes sense of those missing steps. You could look back on it and say "Oh, I make sense of this." It goes from one point to the next and by the end of the dream you say "Oh well, this happened even though you might not have dreamt it at all. I think his work is like that. I think that is deliberate on his part. I think it is the absolute opposite of what Kubrick did. David Lynch will take half as much footage and be completely satisfied because it makes sense afterwards, when you go back and relive the movie. The problem with that is I don't think the audience gets the change. Either they don't want to analyze it or think about it. They don't let themselves enjoy it. I love Hitchcock because he did, he was a fine middle ground. He was able to take things, ideas and stories that were made from collaborative committees, stories that weren't coming from him, but he was able to take his vision and apply it to that. That's what I think I'll do. I hope I do. Take something that everyone can enjoy, be it the stupid people who just want entertainment or can't let themselves want something they can think about all the way to the people that are very analytical and really read into everything. Every color, every shape and the geometry of the structure of the frame and all these things. If you can do an image that has all of those things covered, then you are right down the middle. I think Hitchcock did that. I think I took to doing those things when I was in college. I had a mentor, Hartmut Bitomsky. He encouraged me with an independent study program. He had me go and review each of Hitchcock's films. I would do scene structures and over view diagrams and art layouts for all of the sets and take it back to him and we would talk about it. It was completely outside of my schooling. It had nothing to do with grades or anything like that. I got more education out of that than from anything else I did. Just watching Hitchcock's films. Because they are so obvious, what he's doing. If you stop and watch it three times, you know, that one scene and you say "OK, why is he doing that? Why is the camera there?" Well, because that's where he saw it!

If you look at my storyboards, it reads like a comic book. Like a graphic novel. It's in editing form. You can turn the pages and there's the script right next to the sketches. The movie is completely finished. I edited it and it's all done in my head. All we have to do now is make it.

EI: Hitchcock always said that he actually hated the process of making the movie because by the time the cameras started rolling the movie was finished for him. He had done what you did, the storyboard was already laid out. Did you have those feelings?

SB: Well, I'm having it now. I did have in "Pep Squad." But it was another shape. When we got on the set and I was shooting my sister and it was the very first shot of celluloid that I would ever make in my entire life, it was a shot of my sister being photographed in my mother's house. It was the moment where everything fit. Brooke did her lines. It was so powerful that I nearly fainted. There was such an energy, a charge in the room. She peeked her vocals, so that the person doing the sound said she went off the vocal range, wherever it was. There was no way they could capture her voice. It was weird. There was some supernatural stuff going on. The sound man asked if we could do it again. I said "No, we can never do that again." I was talking mostly from experience and not necessarily from the actual making of it. When that happened and it became a reality, then where do you go from there? You can go back and relive it. It became so magical because all those pictures and all those drawings and all those words were real. They became something that was in this world and not just in my brain. It was so relieving to get them out of there. And get them off the papers and now there're moving and people can experience them. On "Firecracker," I did the same thing. I did it more animated this time. If you look at my storyboards, it reads like a comic book. Like a graphic novel. It's in editing form. You can turn the pages and there's the script right next to the sketches. The movie is completely finished. I edited it and it's all done in my head. All we have to do now is make it. When the new producer's development guy calls me with script notes, I panic. "What the hell do you mean? The movie is already finished!" What do you mean you have to have me explain this? I was really up set for a while. We fought about it for a while. He could not understand how I conceived this visually. People that are more verbal or auditory have a problem understanding necessarily that people are visual and not auditory. For me, basically I can make a film without using a script. I think the script is worthless. If you're visual director and visual storyteller, it first comes in pictures. The whole process of "Firecracker" came to me in pictures long before I sat down and wrote the script. The words on the papers were descriptions of my storyboards. It was almost done in reverse of the way a lot of people are use to. It's frustration for me because they won't see that. That's just me being reactionary. I keep saying "well of course they won't see it because usually people go down the path walking forward instead of backward, like me. It's not their fault that they don't get it." I stop reacting. It is kind of tough to do that much preparation before hand. When you change one thing, then all the shots on the other side of it have to be restructured.

EI: Like a jig-saw puzzle, let's cut this corner, let's round this corner off that would affect five other pieces.

SB: Yes, exactly. It's certainly been a challenge. I can't wait until I do something that is not from, like I'm in line to direct the "Museum Guard" which is the film based on the book by Howard Norman. I really think I'm going to do it. The only problem is I think David Mamet wants to do it too. I don't want to be going up against him. I really want to do that because it didn't come from me and it didn't come from my soul. It's already been conceived by someone else. It might be kind of fun to envision a story that I have no connection to. It's like I'm sort of the surrogate mother but it's not really my child.

EI: I would think that would be the most challenging thing to do. I've done some screenwriting. I had an uncle in the record business, he optioned "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and sent me like an 8-page treatment and asked me to do the screenplay for it. To me that was challenging because up to that point everything I had written came from my own experience or issues or whatever. Collaborating back and forth with someone else, it was very educational. To me that was a challenge. I had no emotional chip, like in a poker game, other than this thing might sell and I might get my other stuff done. That would be a challenge.

SB: But, I think a fun one.

SB: Well, thank you. I think that sometimes, I used to have a self-confidence that was really in your face and unflattering. I didn't like it. I didn't like who I was. I can't understand now who that person was. When I was younger and just getting ready to go the College and I was still in High School and just making all these feature videos, I was doing them for completely the wrong reasons. I didn't like myself. I didn't like the messages that the world was telling me that I had to do this. I had to be this way. I had to look this way. It was really shallow and superficial and really gross. I would make these videos just so that I can be in the papers. Just so I could get this acclaim and all this other stuff. When I was in school, I woke up on April 23, 1995 or 1996, I sat down at my computer and I wrote "Pep Squad" in 4 days. I got up. I looked in the mirror. I was me. I actually felt really good about me for the first time in my life. I realize, you know, I can follow my dream and do what I need to do from my own backyard in Kansas and not have to feel these things and not have to live up to them. Who am I'm living up to, the neighbors or myself? I took the same self-confidence that I had before but then I focused it for the right reasons. Those were well I'm here on earth to do this. I love my family. I love people. I love helping people but I also have some vision to share with them. Hopefully they will encourage other people to things differently. And hopefully they will like the journey I take them on. That's pretty much it. When I look out on the world now, I say, why wouldn't I. I don't feel threaten by what people think of me because I understand that everyone's perception is different. If they look at me and see one thing. They may look at someone else and see another. It had nothing to do with me. It only had to do with them and their vision, as well as mine. When I got the understanding of perception and how no two people on earth see the same thing in the same way. I think it just really allowed me to focus more. Which is weird for me to say that out loud.

EI: No, it makes sense. It's, you know, as you grow part of you…I can tie it into what I read on your Web-site today about you shedding your skin.

SB: Oh, my God, that's right.

EI: Tell me about you shedding your skin?

SB: Yeah, that was weird. I had to have been ten or eleven. I woke up one day. I always had eczema, very dry skin. Now it's completely different than when I was really younger. It's not noticeable. When I was younger, I would be playing in the back yard and get dirty and all that stuff. It would get aggravated. I thought that's what it was. So, I went to the school. I didn't think about it, the next day my whole skin started, you know, it was very scaly, real scaly, like weird scaly. I went to school again, I was sitting in the classroom, it had to have been third grade, no fourth grade, I'm trying to remember exactly, I was in the fourth grade. I took my left arm and I remember getting my hand under my skin and peeling it off. Like "V: The Mini-Series." Underneath was fresh new skin. It was the weirdest thing. I did it all over my body. Everywhere on my body except my face shed. My fingernails grew out. I had a ridge in my fingernail that marked when it happened. My fingernail grew out much stronger on the other side of this ridge than what it was before. So now I have these little knives for my fingernails. We went to the doctors and stuff. I never had a fever the entire time. They didn't know what it was.

EI: It just struck me, as to how you were trying to do everything for the wrong reason in high school. When you woke up. It's like you are mature. In one of your E-mails you said "I'm a different person then the guy who made "Pep Squad."

SB: I enjoy growing as person. Today the feelings I have, I'm able to have adult relationships. I think that's the biggest thing. Growing from the party kid from College, who enjoyed watching TV and making movies like "Pep-Squad." I couldn't have an adult relationship. I was a different person. Now that I spent a little more time with my family, I bought a house in Wamego. I'm a homeowner and suddenly I'm almost 30. Well not really, I'm just 26 but it's coming quickly, my adulthood. I look at life in a less bitter way that when I was younger; than when I made "Pep Squad." I don't see the world that way anymore. I'm not that jaded about it. Like when Cherry (from "Pep Squad") had barriers, her way was to shoot them. I wanted to do that. Brook is playing me in that movie. That's what I felt like when I was in school. Like, you can't make a movie from Kansas. I'm like, fuck you, I can too. I would kick them in the face and shoot them. That's how I felt. Now when I look back, I say God you must be miserable. I look at someone and say like why are you so mean to people? You know to the barriers that stood in my way. I just don't even give them the time to react to them. I just focus on what I need to and I deal with that in a good way. I think that's really beneficial to "Firecracker." I don't think I would have been prepared to do it then. I had the story in my head long before I made "Pep Squad" because I knew it had happened. My family always talked about it since it was the true story that happen. My aunt was actually there in alley when the dug up the body. I've always known of this story and I always was addicted to it and I loved it. But I think the emotion that I have learn, like, I experienced some emotions in the last 2 1/2 years that I never knew existed. I think I had to go through that in order to deliver the emotion on this film. It's highly emotional and highly mature or adult like. I don't think I would have been able to otherwise. I like changing. Who knows, in a few more years I may out grown that and I be learning or focusing on new things and broadening my education.

EI: On your Web-site you give a lot of factual background information about the case "Firecracker" is based on. You have a lot of documentation and interviews. Are you afraid that you may be giving away too much to the public so that when the movie comes out, people might say "Well I know what happens because I read the Web-site"?

SB: No, but I'm also structuring it (the web-site) in such a way that it's not that I'm leaving everything important out, but I'm leaving a hell of a lot out.

EI: OK.

SB: Well there are elements in the movie that I fictionalized slightly. Most of it has to do with time. In real life we span a time difference that, maybe lasted three month between the time when he disappeared to when they dug up the body. In the film, I shorten that to about, well I don't put time in my work, I keep it sort of timeless. The days are irrelevant. The year is irrelevant. I think it only spans two weeks in my fictional way.

EI: Talk a little more about perception and trust?

SB: I'm learning how to trust these people with my vision. I know they get it. I know they somewhat see it. I don't think they see it to the degree that I do. But that's OK, I understand that no one will until they see it. You can't believe what someone tells you until you see it on the screen. Truth be told, a lot of people find it hard to believe that Karen Black is gorgeous. They continually photograph her in scary ways. When I tell people, no, no, no, it's like Marlene Dietrich in "Touch of Evil." Picture that and put Karen Black in your mind. It's real hard to do that. I think you have to just wait and see it. And live it. In order to say, "oh you're right."

EI: I see what you are saying. There are a couple of movies she was dropped dead gorgeous in them.

SB: I think after she did "Trilogy of Terror" other people have wanted her to be insane and crazy looking. They forgot that she's actually attractive, in real life.

I loved Lost Highway. I went to the première. I remember when I went to the bathroom, Kevin Spacey was at the urinal saying "What the hell was that movie about?"

EI: You have Debbie Harry also. I'm just totally amazed by her in "Videodrome." It's such a totally bizarre movie. With one of those images that you can't shake from your head: her putting a cigarette out on her breast. She's brave.

SB: Yes, she's neat. I really liked her in "Heavy."

EI: I didn't see that.

SB: Oh, it's good. It's really weird, with Liz Tyler and Shelly Winters.

EI: That's a dynamic trio.

SB: It was a really low budge like Sundance hit or something. It's real sad. Debbie plays this small town waitress that has the look of how I want her to look in "Firecracker." Just sort of plain looking even though she is Debbie Harry and gorgeous. It's a real interesting movie.

EI: I have to check that one out. Well while we are on this subject, one of the columns on Einsiders is called "Video Risks." We pick some of our favorite films and bring them to a new audience. Do you have some films you would like to recommend? That you think have not reached the audience they should have.

SB: It's weird with movies, the first thing that comes to mind, I really enjoyed, but it's really ridiculous, it's the movie "Clue" from the 80's. With Tim Curry as the butler, the timing in that movie is brilliant. "Paper Moon" is always a good one, with Tatum and Ryan O'Neal. I think a lot of people don't remember that one.

EI: I love Madeline Kahn in that. "Scoot on over and let Mommy sit up front with her big breasts." You mentioned "Lost Highway," when I interviewed Curtis Harrington that was the one he really recommended.

SB: I loved Lost Highway. I went to the première. I remember when I went to the bathroom, Kevin Spacey was at the urinal saying "What the hell was that movie about?" I didn't know that there was that much more to get. It was so weird, like no one understood what was going on. I though the first 20 minutes of that movie was brilliant, with the video tape.

EI: Kevin Spacey at the urinal?

SB: It was funny.

EI: Gives a new meaning to the word throne.

SB: Exactly.

EI: He's one of my favorite actors. You never know what he's going to do. I still think the best thing he did were the audition tapes on "Saturday Night Live" where Jack Lemmon, Walter Mathau and Christopher Walken was trying out for "Star Wars."

SB: I loved "Nurse Betty."

EI: Yes, nice, demonic, funny and wholesome at the same time.

SB: I would say I was shocked when I saw that movie because the cover of it looked uncanny like the cover of the art work for "Bridget Jone's Diary." When I rented it, I said "Oh, a light headed comedy." When I got home, I see them stabbing this man and shooting him. I'm like, "what the fuck?" Then, I'm addicted to it, I can't believed this just happen. I've got to call every one I know and tell them to watch this movie. Of course, I did and they all had seen it. I was the only one left out on what it was really all about. It was wonderful.

EI: Isn't that a strange feeling? I done that before. Some movie was, in addition of being a great movie a cultural phenomenal and you see it 4 months later on video. You come up to the water cooler, it's like talking about the Super Bowl in May.

SB: And everybody wonders what are you doing with your life.

EI: Yeah, I know. Damn ,I missed it. I'm not hip anymore.

SB: My favorite movie ever was a short film called "Rainbow Wars." I used to always call it "Color Wars." I never knew it was titled "Rainbow Wars." It was maybe ten minutes long and its about the Red World, the Blue World, and the Yellow World. There's no sound in it. There's music and stuff but no dialogue in it. It's about how the colors fights and then when they're shooting the red liquid at the yellow people and it makes orange. They look at the orange and say "What the fuck is that?" Then they start to realize that there is more to life than separating all the colors. It was so neat because it has the same sort of texture of what I think should go into a film and our directions and stuff. I loved that and it's probably really hard to find. That's the movie I always loved. "Gaslight" is great. My favorite movie ever is "Suddenly Last Summer."

EI: I saw that on TV when I was about 6 or 7 and that just about warped me. I just did not get it. As a child, there's no way in the world you would know what it's really about. You know, these cannibal kids at the end. Seeing it as an adult and realizing, or trying to have a better understanding, considering it was Tennessee Williams, what it's really about, the psychologically impact. It's an amazing piece of work that still holds up today.

SB: You know what else does, "Guess Who's Coming To Dinner." When I first watched it, I didn't notice of course all the things I do now. But you know, our culture really hasn't caught up to that. They have with the bi-racial relationships, but I don't think they have in a way that that film confronted in the plain of field of confrontation. They were right up front and honest with their fears. They admitted to each other their fears and confronted it together. I don't think we still do that.

EI: No, that's one of the reasons I love "White Man Can't Jump." It takes a racist white guy and a racist black guy and puts them in a situation where they say exactly what they feel about each other without killing each other. I found that despite the comedy and everything else that's involved, it hit that issue. From that point of view, I think it's a very serious movie in that it allows people to vocalize and get their anger out. Without guns popping out of their waistband and people dead on the playground.

This studio was ready to release "Pep Squad." The weekend we were going to sign the stuff Columbine happen. They said "Sorry, never mind." Everybody just backed away. Then they released their own versions. "Jawbreaker" and "Teaching Mrs. Tingle."

SB: I think confrontation and dialogue are much more powerful than a gun.

EI: That's one thing I hate when I'm watching a movie. Where they build up to something like that. Either the writer or the director did not have the balls to follow through on it. They don't have the conversation. It's like "OK what happened here?"

SB: Well, that goes against everything in "Pep Squad." The person who I was when I thought of that said "OK, well here's confrontation. Now I will deal with it by removing it, instead of really confronting it. I really don't think Cherry confronted her fears in that movie. I think she rid the fears. She shot them. That really wasn't just the brightest idea. Then they came back to haunt her. That's like you denied it. If you deny it and bury it under the rug, one of these days it will come back and haunt you harder. You really have to just hit it straight on.

EI: I don't know if this was your intention, but in the last scene with the flag burning behind her, the image that was invoked was Gloria Swanson coming down the stairs in "Sunset Blvd." She was totally whacked out. In her own little paradise and she's going to the Rubber Room for the rest of her life but she's happy.

SB: At that moment, there's no where else to go. You are in absolute bliss. Like everything is just gone.

EI: Did you get a lot of grief from folks because of the school violence?

SB: It was weird because we shot it before the rash of school violence happen in our country. The only reason I was able to think of that, besides it had been done in "Heathers" was because of what I was feeling. The kids at Columbine who did that in their trench coats, I know how they felt. I was treated that way. I'm not saying that I agree with them because I think their actions were completely appalling, but I understand their emotional make up. Once you're repeatedly push people down, they're going to get so lost and confused and insane they're not going to know which way is right or wrong. They can't think of anything right because the whole world has been telling them forever that they're freaks and they don't fit in. That's all they have to do. In order for me to deal with that, from what I experienced in High School and in College, I was shunned in College because I was the only normal one. I didn't have purple hair. I didn't wear earrings. I didn't walk around naked. I didn't fornicate in the hallway, which was acceptable by the way. People at that school thought you always have the power to turn around and walk away. You could do drugs. You could have sex in the hallway and run around naked because as long as you're not hurting anyone it's your own life. Since I didn't do any of those things, I was an outcast. In High School in Kansas, I was the freak kid because from the perception, I acted like the kids from College. Then I get the College, finally thinking I can fit in and they call me a moron farm boy. I'm like what? All those emotions in me made me do "Pep Squad" because I had to deal with that or I would have done that in real life. Of course, I knew that was incorrect and wrong and not very good to take someone else's life so I didn't. The school violence thing then started and of course no one would want to touch the movie. In fact, we were in negotiation with one of the majors to release it. This was after a couple of studios had said no because there was no stars. This studio was ready to do it. The weekend we were going to sign the stuff Columbine happen. They said "Sorry, never mind." Everybody just backed away. Then they released their own versions. "Jawbreaker" and "Teaching Mrs. Tingle."

EI: I like the section on your Web page called "Sincerest Form of Flattery."

SB: Well, it's true. Several legal people told us we have enough to sue. I've never really believed in that. I though, "Well, instead of wasting the money because, number one if you sue somebody that huge and they have their own team of legal people, we'll be in court so long we will be bankrupt and then what will we do.

EI: Like, Art Buckwald and " Coming to America." That it was his script idea. He proved they stole his script idea. Paramount claims the movie made no money. Buckwald dies before he sees a penny.

SB: Well anyway, I took that feeling and I said I'm not going to do sue. So, I decided to put all my energy into making more films. I have a friend now who is now the Senior VP at MGM/UA. She said it is no secret in the industry what happened with "Pep Squad." Everybody knows. That's why if I call, everybody, including Harvey Weinstein's office, will call me back within a half hour. It occurred to me, the only thing they don't expect me to do is continue to make movies. That's all I got to do.

EI: That may be a chip you can play too. We will make it up to you seeing how we bent you over without the benefit of a KY. This time well be a little kinder. You're going to get a reach around this time. That's how they are.

SB: That's how it felt. Then only reason I will play the game is so I can expose it later. People don't know about it. It's like this "Project Green Light," I love it because they're so evil and so gross. People don't realize because it like this gorgeous place, Hollywood. The myth is everybody looks like Sharon Stone. Everybody behaves like Madonna. They all get money like Arnold Schwarzenegger. Then you get there its not like that at all. I can't wait to tell world, even though I think they've been told repeatedly. I think that a part of them doesn't want to see how it is.

SB: "Carnival of Souls."

EI: Yeah, it was made in Kansas.

Weblink Those interested in finding out more about Steve Balderson and his work may check out his web site at www.dikenga.com

SB: I don't know if they had cobweb but it was along this line. She was dead the whole way though the movie.

EI: Or, "Dead and Buried" with Jack Albertson, James Farentino, and Robert Englund. Everybody in the town was dead and they didn't realize it out until the end.

Look for the second half of Rusty White's interview with Steve Balderson in the next few weeks...

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Rusty White