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CALENDAR
8th February: Side Effects released (US)
15th March: Side Effects released (UK)
THE FANLISTING
There are 445 fans listed in the Steven Soderbergh fanlisting. If you're a Soderbergh fan, add your name to the list!
UPCOMING PROJECTS
LET THEM ALL TALK
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
KILL SWITCH
Information | Photos | Official website
Released: 2020
ADVERTS
NEW & UPCOMING DVDS
Now available from Amazon.com:
 Haywire
Contagion
Now available from Amazon.co.uk:
Contagion
DVDs that include an audio commentary track from Steven:
Clean, Shaven - Criterion Collection
Point Blank
The Graduate (40th Anniversary Collector's Edition)
The Third Man - Criterion Collection
Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
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The Traffic Report With Steven Soderbergh
By Darrell Hope
(DGA Magazine (Vol. 25 - 5), January, 2001) For some cultures, 13 is the
age at which a boy becomes a man. For Steven Soderbergh, 13 was the age at
which he became a filmmaker. The Baton Rouge, Louisiana, native came to
Los Angeles shortly after graduating high school and worked as a freelance
editor before returning home to polish his craft as a director by shooting
documentaries and shorts. Soderbergh's feature debut, sex, lies, & videotape, captured the
prestigious Palme d'Or at the 1989 Cannes Film Festival and catapulted him
to the forefront of American independent film. Since then he has completed
ten feature films including the indie films King of the Hill,
Schizopolis and The Limey, and more mainstream fare like Out
of Sight and Erin Brockovich.
Soderbergh's latest film, Traffic, is the ambitious weaving of
three stories that show the outside, inside and underneath of the drug
trade and is sure to instigate dialogues and debate. The film features a
huge cast that includes Steven Bauer, Don Cheadle, Benicio Del Toro,
Michael Douglas, Albert Finney, Amy Irving, Dennis Quaid and Catherine
Zeta-Jones and settings in Washington, D.C., Ohio, San Diego and Mexico.
The complexity of the film is almost a
metaphor for the director himself, for as he's putting the finishing
touches on Traffic, Soderbergh's also prepping his next feature,
a remake of the Rat Pack classic, Ocean's Eleven, with his Out
of Sight star George Clooney. And he still finds time to devote to
the DGA's Independent Directors Committee which he helped found.
Soderbergh, who recently took top honors at both the New York Film
Critics Circle Awards and the National Board of Review for both Erin
Brockovich and Traffic, revealed to DGA Magazine how he keeps
track of all of this Traffic.
What made you want to do a film about the drug wars?
It was something that I'd been interested in for a while. I didn't want
to make a movie about addicts but I didn't know what form it should
take. Then Laura Bickford, one of our producers, said, "I got the rights
to this miniseries that ran in the U.K. called Traffik." I
remembered it and said, "I think that's a movie; can I jump on?" We
started looking around for a writer and read this script by Steve Gaghan
about upper-class white kids at Palisades High involved with drugs and
gangs. He seemed perfect, but he was writing a drug movie for Ed Zwick.
Gaghan said, "Let's ask Ed if he'll combine the two projects." To his
credit, Ed said, "Let's do that. I'll come on board as a producer with
my partner and you can direct it." Then it was just a very lengthy
process of getting the script together. I remember having conceptual
discussions with Gaghan while I was shooting The Limey in October
of '98. We finished the outline before I went off to shoot Erin
Brockovich. When I got back he had a first draft, then we did just
numerous drafts after that. The draft we shot had 163 pages with 135
speaking parts and featured seven cities that we were shooting nine
cities to represent, all on a 54-day schedule. It was a real scramble.
How was it having two other directors,
Ed Zwick and Marshall Herskovitz, as producers?
It's actually great because they understand when to be close and when to
be far away because they've directed movies and have a very good sense
of when they're needed. So it was great for me. They were just a great
resource and totally supportive. On the couple of things that I've been
involved with as a producer I tried to be the same way, which is, "you
let me know what you need me to do because I want it to be your movie."
How about the studio?
USA totally left us alone. We came in $2 million under budget, which
helps. We moved quickly.
I imagine that's where your DGA team
came in very handy. Tell us about them.
My 1st AD, Greg Jacobs, has been with me since King of the Hill.
He's a key part of this and it's like having another filmmaker there for
me. Our second was Trey Bachelor, who we've also worked with before. And
we had a couple of new people who I liked a lot who I think we're going
to keep with us. With
all of the moves and all of the characters, it was very, very
labor-intensive for the AD crews. Shooting on the streets in Mexico,
control is an illusion. You need people who are well prepared enough to
be able to improvise, and also who know me. Greg's got backup plans on
top of backup plans because he knows I'm going to get there and say, "I
changed my mind. I want to shoot this direction," or "Pull that vendor
from over there, pay him $50 and get him in the shot." He's always ready
for that. Basti Van
Der Woude, our 2nd 2nd AD, who was new to our crew and has worked on a
lot of big budget studio Hollywood movies, said, "I cannot believe how
fast you guys move and how quickly you accommodate radical changes. I've
never seen anything like it." We try to be really light on our feet.
What made you decide to shoot this movie
yourself?
It was something that I had been working toward. I shot my short films
and Schizopolis myself. Then I started operating on The Limey
and on Erin and was really leaning in that direction. I knew
Traffic was going to be a real run-and-gun movie. It's all part of
just trying to get as close to the movie as I can. But I had
underestimated the luxury of being able to walk away from the set for
ten minutes and just clear my head. You can't leave the epicenter of
whatever you're shooting for an instant. It was relentless, but so
satisfying. How
did that affect the way you worked with the actors?
I think they really like the proximity. I stopped using video taps some
time ago because I felt it was creating a distance between the
performers and myself. I think they like my operating the camera because
two things happen. One is, subconsciously, it becomes harder to lie
because you know that you're being seen and if you show up with
something that's not true you're going to get busted. The other is, that
same proximity results in a trust and if we shoot something and I put
the camera down and give a note, it's a lot different than making the
march from video village to come give a note, or worse yet, giving it
over a megaphone or God knows what. It just makes them feel more
comfortable and when I go, "We got it," they know that we got it.
Michael Douglas said that he likes the
way that you work because you keep the cameras out of the acting space.
How do you figure out that boundary?
A lot of it's instinctual. I watched a lot of Ken Loach stuff because
his movies have that real vérité aesthetic and you believe it. I looked
at how he would frame, how far away he would be, what the length of the
lens was, how tight the eyelines would be, depending on where the
characters were. I noticed that there's a space that's inviolate, that
if you get within something, you cross the edge into a more theatrical
aesthetic as opposed to a documentary aesthetic. I was very conscious of
that when we would set up stuff and I would start looking as to how I
wanted to shoot it. I would tell the assistant cameramen all the time,
"This is not about perfection, I don't want to give people marks; I
don't want them thinking about that stuff." You don't want them
thinking. You want them being.
What kind of camera were you using for
the hand-helds?
We used the new Millennium XLs, which are extraordinary. They're even
smaller and lighter than the new high-def cameras that Panavision and
Sony created. With their lightweight zooms and a small mag, there wasn't
anyplace I couldn't get with that camera.
What other techniques did you use to
assist the story with the camera?
The issue of how to distinguish the three stories visually arose about
and I decided for the East Coast stuff, tungsten film with no filter on
it so that we get that really cold, monochrome blue feel. For San Diego,
diffusion filters, flashing the film, overexposure for a warmer blossomy
feel. And for Mexico, tobacco filters, 45-degree shutter angle whenever
possible to give it a strobelike sharp feel. Hopefully those
distinctions would be enough to bring you back into each story line
after you cut to somewhere else and come back. Then we took the entire
film through an Ektachrome step, which increases the contrast and the
grain enormously. I'm going through a phase where I'm in love with
degraded grainy contrasty imagery, stuff that I think you'd have
difficulty talking some cameraman into doing. When the film reaches its
release print stage, it will have gone through seven generations.
This must have been a bear to color
time.
It's really hard to predict what the Ektachrome will do to a given image
because what we're doing is we're going camera-negative, timed answer
print, then Ektachrome dupe of that answer print. Because that's a
positive Ektachrome, negative I.P., inter-negative release print, it's
really hard to look at a first generation, extrapolate the five steps
and go, "I think that's bright enough." There'll be stuff that you
think, "Oh, there's no way I'll see it in the shot." Then it comes back
and you take it through all the steps, you go, "Ah, it's not bad." I've
seen the film a lot in the Ektachrome stage and I like the way that
looks. Then I go back and I look at the answer print and it's completely
different and I have to remember, "OK, is that just what the Ektachrome
is doing or did we brighten that since the work print stage?" So the
Ektachrome is reflective of the work print but not the answer print. It
was really complicated.
After having done all this to the film
stock did you still edit it on AVID?
Yes. AVID is such a great tool. For a movie like this, where we did
a lot of restructuring in the editing room, it's a dream. We were
trying, I remember very late in the process we were starting to get the
movie down to a manageable length. The first cut was 3:10 and what you
saw was 2:20. There's 45 minutes of complete scenes that I liked that
just had to go. I kept watching the movie over and over in its entirety,
which, believe me, gets boring. But I found that if I reached a section
of the film that I didn't look forward to seeing again, it meant
something was wrong. Either the pacing was off or the scene itself was
not cut properly.
How long were you editing?
We wrapped at the end of June and we locked the first week in
October. I kept going back and tweaking stuff. I went back and reshot
things like the scene with Catherine visiting her husband in jail
because it wasn't emotional enough. A couple of the action-oriented
sequences were missing key pieces of coverage, what I would call
geography shots, so that you were clear exactly where you were at a
given moment like the scene where Frankie Flowers gets killed in the
parking lot. There are some key shots there of the guy in the window
that were new to the version you saw that I'd just shot the weekend
before. Now you understood the layout clearly and you understood why he
couldn't kill him until that moment. Before that, the scene was a little
iffy. I thought, I've got to watch this thing for 20 years so let's run
down to San Diego and get it over with.
Although Traffic is rated R, I
understand you were prepared to release it as an NC-17.
In the midst of all this discussion about the ratings there was some
concern on our part that the film might get an NC-17. We were resolved
to take the rating if we got it and not recut. But as it turned out, we
got an R. I was surprised.
Do you agree with the DGA's stance that
the MPAA rating system needs to be overhauled?
Yes. A group of us from the DGA's Independent Directors Committee
met with [MPAA President Jack] Valenti a month before this whole FCC
thing came down, because it affects independent filmmakers a lot more
than studio filmmakers. Independent movies tend to get rated more
harshly for reasons that we can't determine.
We said, "There needs to be a legitimate
adult rating that doesn't have a stigma attached to it. The filmmakers
want it; the public needs it." We discussed ways in which that could
take place. Then this whole thing broke in a big way publicly with that
FCC report. There's no question in my mind that the ratings system needs
to be updated. Things are different now. You've got to be sensitive to
the culture and the issues that are in the air for parents. Personally,
I was glad this whole thing blew up because it has nothing to do with
censorship; it has to do with responsibility. We need to take some
responsibility, so do the studios, so does the MPAA. Everybody has got
to get together and go, "This is the right thing to do for the
community, to have a rating system that is more accurate and
successfully keeps children from seeing films they should not see." I'm
glad it came to a head because now something is starting to happen.
You joined the Guild in 1993. Since that
time the presence of independent directors within the DGA has gotten a
lot stronger through programs like the Low Budget Agreements. Legend has
it that you were a factor in the creation of that program.
I doubt the cause and effect was that clear, but I called the DGA
before I went to make Schizopolis and Gray's Anatomy and
said, "I think I'm going to have to resign from the Guild because I'm
making these two movies for this amount of money and there is no way I
can make them under current Guild policy." The Guild said, "There is.
You send us two documents, one for each film, describing exactly what
you're doing, what the budget is, what the crew is, and who's doing
what. We will find a way to make this work."
We were able to come up with an agreement
that if I ever got paid anything for either of these films, that money
would be subject to pension and health, and I went and made the movies.
I'm sure I wasn't the only person who made that call to the Guild and
maybe enough of those calls came in to where somebody said, "You know
what, we've got to get on this because some of our younger Guild members
who are going to be the future of the Guild are calling us and saying I
want to work in a way the Guild can't accommodate." So hats off to the
DGA because more than any other organization, it has its ear to the
ground. As far as the
low-budget agreements go, if you call as soon as you start thinking
about a project, the Guild will bend over backward to make it happen.
Considering all the new technologies
that are coming, do you think the DGA is making adequate preparations
for the future? I'm very confident in the Guild's ability to ride all that stuff. I
think [DGA National Executive Director] Jay [Roth] and [DGA Associate
National Executive Director] Warren Adler and [DGA Assistant Executive
Director] Elizabeth Stanley are in the trenches of how do we deal with
these new issues. I think they're really on top of it. They're watching
very closely and listening very closely, which is half of it. I'm really
confident in the Guild's ability to move in whatever direction it needs
to move. Everybody's going to be playing catch-up. The point is that you
don't want to be caught napping when you should be catching up. The DGA
is pretty savvy about that stuff.
One of the things I noticed as a new
alternate to the Western Directors Council, is there's this overwhelming
sense of pragmatism. This is not a place to filibuster; it's a place to
get things done. It doesn't have to be pretty, it doesn't have to be
perfect, it has to work. I really like that energy.
Speaking of energy, are you shooting
Ocean's Eleven yourself?
Yes. I think it'd be hard to go back to insert someone into that
process having now taken someone out of it, or inserted myself into it.
What are you doing differently on
Ocean's Eleven?
I shot Traffic on the fly but I'm going to storyboard
Ocean's Eleven because although there aren't as many characters as
in Traffic, there are several physically complex scenes where a
lot of things are happening with a lot of different people at once and
you need to be very clear where you are at all times. That requires
sitting down and drawing out how you're going to do that so people don't
get confused and we can sell the thing and have it be exciting.
Considering what you learned on
Traffic, is there anything you would change about Erin Brockovich?
I don't think so. If anything, it makes me feel like the choices we
made from the script stage through shooting and finishing the film were
the right choices for that movie. The challenge in Erin was to
restrain myself in certain key areas and to never insert myself between
her and the audience. I'm used to waving my arms a little bit
directorially and it was a really good thing for me to back off. My grip
on that movie was every bit as firm as the movie that follows and the
movie that preceded it, but it was just a different grip, and half of it
was a grip on myself. There was a real pleasure in really servicing the
material and not getting in the way. I respected the real Erin so much
and wanted to have it turn out well, and it taught me for Traffic,
how to find a balance between being entertaining and dealing with a
serious underlying theme. It was a good warm-up.
Although you've done studio films,
you're still perceived as an independent director. In this era where the
studios often operate more like distributors rather than production
entities, what makes someone an independent director?
It's really hard to make those distinctions anymore. Especially
because there are some independent companies and distributors who are
more obsessed with the potential commerciality of a given film, albeit
on a smaller scale, than the studios are. The other day, I saw this
extraordinary new film by Christopher Nolan, Memento. I was
stunned. Every distributor in town had seen it and had not picked it up.
They only just signed a distribution deal with Newmarket Films. I
thought, "That a great movie like this has trouble getting picked up, if
that doesn't signal the death of the so-called independent wave, I don't
know what does." That's depressing. It's harder now for people coming up
than it was when I came up. It was more difficult to get a film made
when I started, but it was easier to get it distributed. Now there are
just so many movies that it's rare. People are not buying that many
finished movies anymore. The great thing about it is how Darwinian it is
and how no matter how bad it seems to get, some filmmaker somewhere
always does something extraordinary, finds a way and somehow the thing
emerges. Right now as we speak, somebody is finishing a movie that six
months from now we're going to be talking about. I find that incredibly
exciting. Anything
you have your eye on beyond Ocean's Eleven?
There are a couple of things that I'm working on, but it's usually
when I'm further along that I figure out what the antidote for the
current film is. After Traffic and Erin I wanted to do
something that had no social value whatsoever, which was Ocean's
Eleven. Maybe
you should do a Star Wars episode.
I'd love to do a Star Wars movie. But it would be like three
guys sitting around talking about what they did.
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