“RED HEAVEN tells the story of six people who live for an entire year on “Mars” in a NASA experiment that studies what happens to humans when they are isolated from Earth. The film was shot by the subjects themselves; we gave them cameras when they entered their small geodesic dome and directed remotely, so it is a vivid and intimate experience that explores our most fundamental needs as human beings.” Filmmakers Katherine Gorringe and Lauren DeFilippo on RED HEAVEN which screens at 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
Welcome to SxSW! Is your first time here and are you planning to attend your screenings?
This is our first time at SXSW! We will definitely be at our first three screenings, but we will miss the fourth because we will be heading off to Copenhagen for our international premiere at CPH:DOX.
So let’s hear more about you and how you got started in the business and what you have worked on in the past?
We both attended Stanford’s Documentary Film and Video M.F.A. program together. During the winter quarter of our first year, we co-directed a short film together called DETROIT PARTY MARCHING BAND about a group of musicians who spontaneously play around Detroit bringing music and joy to the city. We had a natural collaborative connection and when we graduated decided to launch a feature together. Lauren has previously produced Nat Geo’s INTO THE CANYON and directed the NY Times Op-Doc DRIVE-IN JESUS. Katherine was recently co-editor on Netflix’ SAVING CAPITALISM and has edited several other documentary shorts.
How did this doc come together?
We were coming out of graduate school at Stanford, studying documentary film, in the heart of Silicon Valley at a time when space exploration and traveling to Mars had reemerged in the public consciousness. It was also the moment when climate change was becoming a more prominent threat to the future of humanity. We wanted to interrogate this new fascination with sending humans to Mars. What does this dream of living on Mars say about our culture, about human beings?
We had seen a lot of films that either looked at the technical challenges of getting humans to Mars, or simply glorified the idea. We were interested in the complex, human side of the story– the intensity of living in a place that is totally inhospitable to us as a species all the while being completely isolated from everything you’ve ever known. We felt that was the most fascinating part, yet it was being repeatedly overlooked in the race to get to Mars.
Then began researching possible stories that spoke to this question and we quickly learned about the Hawai’i Space Exploration Analogue and Simulation, where six people would soon be entering a small dome where they would live isolated from the rest of the world for an entire year as if they were on Mars. We immediately knew this was our story.
Both of us contacted the project’s lead researchers, who right away told us that a documentary would be impossible and that many other producers and broadcasters had already tried to get access. The researchers made clear that this is a real science experiment, funded by NASA, where they are collecting data on the experience of living on Mars — we can’t just show up and starting shooting in the middle of it! But they agreed to let us come and shoot while the crew was spending their last days on Earth. We flew to Hawai’i and got to know the crew, where we came up with the idea to give them cameras to film their own experience. When the doors shut, the crew had our cameras and agreed to capture their experience, and we directed from afar, sending shot lists and interview questions during the mission.
When the crew came out of the dome a year later, we were there with a film crew to shoot their exit a reemergence into the world. Then we followed up with the crew members in their lives back on “Earth” in the following two years.
We edited for just over a year and we really found this film in the edit. Our original idea was to incorporate outside interviews and archival footage that explored ideas about Mars exploration and human nature. The more we edited, however, the more we realized we had to focus in on the story of these six people in the dome and that their intimate experience revealed everything we wanted the film to speak to. At one point in the edit we got some very good advice from an experienced editor who told us the best thing we could do was to impose limitations on ourselves. So we decided to do an experiment: restrict ourselves to only working with the footage that the crew had shot themselves – no outside shots or interviews – and that’s when we really started to discover the film.
We were invited to screen at SXSW a few months ago, and since then we have been full speed ahead perfecting the edit and going into final post. We did our mix and color at Gigantic Studios, and the incredibly talented William Ryan Fritch composed our score, and played all the instruments!
What keeps you going while making a movie? What drives you?
The two of us produced and directed this film together, and we definitely carried each other through the hardest points of this process, when we were struggling to raise money or trying to find the film in the edit or waiting to hear from film festivals. We were able to lean on one another when it mattered most.
We were simply committed to bringing this film to life. That original spark of an idea that gave us chills when we first talked about this project five years ago – we were driven by that feeling and wanting an audience to feel that with us. And we are both deeply passionate about documentary as an art form. Being able to experiment with nonfiction storytelling and push ourselves creatively has been very inspiring.
What was your biggest challenge with this project, and the moment that was the most rewarding to you?
In a way this film is a casting nightmare for a documentary. You need drama to make a film, and the people chosen for mock and real space missions are by definition low drama, because that’s what you need to survive this stressful lifestyle. So we found ourselves trying to tell a story about the least dramatic people you can find. But as we got to know these six wonderful people, we realized that they contained a multitude of experience, emotion, and thoughtful reflection.
Our most rewarding moment was probably getting access to this story. The researchers and the crew were very committed to science and not at all interested in compromising that to participate in a documentary. It took building relationships with each person involved and matching their commitment to the project to be able to make the film.
This was also the first time either of us have produced a film independently, so there have been many lessons learned about pitching, fundraising from scratch, and putting together the right team to create an environment for a successful film to be made. Being invited to premiere the film at SXSW is incredibly rewarding as first-time indie director/producers.
I am about to get technical, but I would love to know about the the visual design of the movie and how it was brought to the screen visually.
The production of this film was very unique because essentially what we made is a found footage-style film, but we didn’t “find” it, we collaborated in the filming. So in the first few months of the mission, it was just one crew member who captured all the footage for us. She would dropbox clips for us from time to time, but we soon realized that as the discord amongst the crew started to build, we were seeing only footage of her and one other crewmate who she was closest to in the dome. We asked the others to start filming more of themselves, and that opened everything up. They began to use the cameras as a way of expressing the intense challenges they were going through in isolation. It became an emotional outlet for me, and we soon started to see their distinct experiences.
We also worked with the amazingly talented cinematographer David Alvarado for the landscape photography as well as the footage of the crew exiting the dome and getting back to life on Earth. Through this collaboration we came up with this wide, planetary look to our landscapes and the intimate, soulful style of capturing the crew back with their family on planet Earth. We tried to channel Terrence Malik in shooting our landscape shots particularly. His films were a huge inspiration for us.
As far as the technical aspects, this film was shot with every camera imaginable. Inside the dome they were shooting with point-and-shoot cameras, GoPros, DSLRS, phone cameras…you name it! And we shot landscape photography in 4K with C300s and drones. So basically we run the gamut of technical approaches.
What are you looking forward to the most about showing your movie here in Austin?
After months of editing alone in a room, we are so looking forward to sharing this with a large audience and seeing and hearing their reactions to the film! And it will be a dream come true for us to see it on the big screen.
After the film screens at SxSW, where is the film going to show next? Theatrical, online, more festivals?
After SXSW we are headed to Copenhagen for our international premiere at CPH:DOX.
If you could show your movie in any theatre outside of Austin, where would you screen it and why?
Mars! Aside from that, we love screening at beautiful historic movie palaces.
What would you both give as advice to any aspiring filmmaker wishing to make movies?
Go make a film. Nothing can get you into the film industry better than finding a story you want to tell and doing everything you can to tell it.
And final question: what is the greatest movie you have ever seen at a film festival?
We went to the Festival International de Programmes Audiovisuels in Biarritz, France several years ago where we saw this incredible French musical-documentary that told the stories of a few young people coming of age. It featured songs co-written and performed by the subjects. It was incredibly inventive and heartwarming, and we’ve never seen or heard of it again!
For more information on this film and to follow its progress into the festival world, point your browser to www.sxsw.com/film!