“This is a blue collar sci-fi film, a story about how a seismic shift in technology in an alternate present actually affects the underbelly of that boom, the workers themselves. The film imagines a world where quantum computing has taken over, and a booming gig economy has popped up in rural areas where all this new infrastructure needs to be laid. We follow Ray Tincelli, a delivery man from Queens, who is unable to make ends meet for himself and his sick younger brother. Ray heads out into the forest to try his hand at laying cable for quantum transistors, and we discover this strange new world with him. Soon he finds himself wrapped up in a case of mistaken identity and must compete with robot cablers along the way. Ultimately the film is about class struggle and the ways in which science and technology are impacting the lives of working people.” Director Noah Hutton on LAPSIS which screens in the 2020 edition of SxSW Film.
Editor’s Note: While SxSW was officially cancelled on March 6th, 2020, the below interview was one of many that already took place prior to the festival. To respect the creators, all already performed interviews are presented in their unedited entirety below. All of the below works WILL make their way out into the world in one way or another, and we will update this article with updated information when we have it. — JW
I hear you are back at SxSW this year! Tell me about what you have had here in the past, and your favourite aspects of the city.
I was here in 2009 with my first documentary feature CRUDE INDEPENDENCE, in 2015 with my next documentary feature DEEP TIME, and then in 2019 I was here as the editor of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary MACK WRESTLES and the cinematographer of an episodic pilot called HAMMERHEAD. After a tough first year back in 2009 when my allergies got hit hard by a cedar pollen bloom, I have nothing but great things to say about the city through all these years, and it’s wonderful to be back.
So let’s hear more about you and how you got started in the business and what you have worked on in the past?
I got started working in documentaries, first through an educational program at the Jacob Burns Film Center in New York, and then by going out and shooting my first film the summer before my senior year at college, back in 2008. Documentaries were a great way to start making sense of the world through filmmaking. But I always wanted to write and direct, too. Only recently did I begin making narrative shorts, and this is my first narrative feature after I wrote three other features that I discarded after I knew at a certain point in my gut that they weren’t right and there was no path forward. After thirty-odd drafts of this one I still felt in my gut that there was a path, so I kept going.
How did LAPSIS come together?
We wanted to try to create a whole world out in the forest, and it felt like the only way we could make that world feel big and detailed and full of life on our tight indie budget was to prepare as much as we could in advance. I storyboarded every frame of the film in pre-production, which got me thinking about what we actually needed to tell the story in the edit. A big moment for us in pre-production was when we got the Kod*Lab at UPenn to come onboard and provide the robots that appear in the film.
Ultimately it took a group of creative and talented people dropping everything and working on this film for months in upstate New York that made the shoot even possible. Our production designer Alexander Linde in particular was a force of nature– he and his department spent weeks building the sets, staggering their work so things were ready just when our shooting schedule brought us to them. The shoot was a constant balancing act of trying to achieve a certain scale but staying small and nimble enough that we could move at a good pace and stay on budget.
Post-production was relatively smooth because we had shot the film very close to the page and all effects were done practically during the shoot. Because I was serving as editor and composer, our team stayed fairly small. I was surrounded by a wonderful group of producers on this film (Jesse Miller, Joseph Varca, Taylor Hess) and my brother Babe Howard (who also acts in the film) who looked at every cut in post-production and sat in the editing room day after day working on the edit with me.
What keeps you going while making a movie? What drives you?
Zevia™.
What was your biggest challenge with this project, and the moment that was the most rewarding to you?
Our biggest challenge on this project was shooting so much of it outside and about 75% of our time was spent in the woods. This meant constant checking of weather and if we would have been rained out a full day, especially the days we had the robots on set, it would have been really tough for us to handle, budget-wise. Which leads me to the most rewarding moment: realizing we were out of the woods and had been blessed by the weather gods with only a half-day of showers that we were able to work around.
I am about to get technical, but I would love to know about the the visual design of the movie; what camera did you film with, your relationship to the director of photography and how the movie was photographed.
Director of photography Mike Gomes went with Panavision Cooke Xtal Xpress anamorphic primes and a Panavision anamorphic zoom, and shot on a RED Gemini. Panavision NY really helped us out with our indie budget and believed in the project, and the Xtal primes gave us a wonderfully gritty look which Mike Gomes used to great effect in the forest. This was our first time working together, but we hit it off right away in pre-production and talked through every scene in detail before we got into production. Once out in the woods, Gomes used our gear to great effect: for example, the widest lens in the Xtal prime set gave us some warping around the edges, which he used to underscore the disorientation felt when we first enter the forest world and approach these mysterious humming transistor cubes.
What are you looking forward to the most about showing your movie here in Austin?
I feel like this film is right up the alley of the SXSW ethos. Sitting in that theater for the premiere and showing it to a full audience for the first time will be a totally unique thrill.
After the film screens at SxSW, where is the film going to show next? Theatrical, online, more festivals?
Next it will go to the Cleveland International Film Festival in late March, and then onward to more festivals which haven’t been announced yet!
If you could show your movie in any theatre outside of Austin, where would you screen it and why?
My favorite movie theater is the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, NY. I worked there on the theater staff when I was in high school, and have come back through the years to show my work there, so it always feels like a homecoming to screen a new film at the Burns.
What would you say to someone who was being disruptive, like talking and texting through a movie?
I like to give people a thumbs-up when they cut me off in traffic because the positivity is disarming. It’s not what’s expected and it usually mutes the situation. So I would lean over and give them a thumbs-up.
We have a lot of readers on our site looking to make movies or get into the industry somehow. What is the ONE THING you would say to someone who is wanting to get into the filmmaking business?
Believe in your gut.
And final question: what is the greatest movie you have ever seen at a film festival?
Barry Jenkins’ MEDICINE FOR MELANCHOLY at SXSW.
For more information on this film and to follow its progress into the festival world, point your browser to www.sxsw.com/film!