Past Filmmakers

Marty Hardin
Vigil
(Premieres November 1, 2003, at 11 PM)

Interview Questions:

1. How did you come up with the idea for the film?

I was attending a film festival where they were screening a collection of my work.  Two of the pieces screening there used archival film and audio gathered from various resources such as NASA and the Library of Congress.  Another filmmaker saw the work and told me about the Prelinger Collection of public domain, archival film that’s available online.

About the same time I started researching the Prelinger collection, the Bush administration was starting to make noises about Iraq, Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction. That was about the same time I re-discovered the classic cold war film “Duck and Cover.” The parallels were too hard to ignore. The rest of the piece came from that starting point.

2. How long did the production process take?

This particular piece is unusual. I had gathered various digitized films from the Prelinger Collection, but I knew I wanted the project to specifically start with the “Duck and Cover” opening. It was several weeks of viewing digitized film on my computer and listening for the sound clips that I used. One thing that was really helpful was the music base. My stepson, Bradley Matthews, created all of the music. It helped me establish the editorial pace. After the video cuts were streamlined and the rhythm was established, I had a rough-cut in about a week. I added the introduction and the second section with the atomic bomb test footage from the Department of Energy, about a week later. Audio editing and credits added about another week. So, all in all, I’d say it took about 2 months from start to finish.

Another unusual factor is that I edit on a laptop computer, so my work takes a good bit longer than it would take when working with a more “high-powered” editing system. I also had to do some extra work to get the MPEG video files to work with my editing software.

3. What challenges did you experience in the creation of the film?

As I stated earlier, the equipment was the biggest challenge in the process. What made this piece extremely difficult to work with was dividing the screen into 4 quadrants. Basically, it quadrupled the rendering time. And, if there were a mistake or a problem, I would have to make the change and then start the render process again. More often than not, I would start a render and go to bed. I would get up in the morning make notes and corrections and then start the render process again before I left for work.

4. What is your favorite memory from creating this film?

Since the body of my work as a filmmaker is experimental in nature, I don’t have “war” or “victory” stories from the making of the work itself usually. All of my battles are internal. For me, with every piece, it’s seeing the entire project together for the first time—from the opening credits to the to the final copyright frame. It’s the end of an internal journey that’s been placed out there for the world to see. Most of the time I come away having struggled to arrive at a very personal statement, and in the end, I feel like I have said what I needed to say.

5. When someone has finished watching the film, what do you hope they take away from the experience?

I’m not anti-war nor am I anti-American. Many people throughout the history of this nation have died to give me the freedom to express myself artistically. So, I feel that we have a responsibility to everyone who has struggled for our basic freedoms to question and hold accountable those who are in power. I consider that being a patriot.

My day job is in advertising, so sometimes when key words or phrases begin to get hammered into every message from an administration, it causes me to want to question what the aggregate impression is that they are trying to achieve. The McCarthy era cold war propaganda was a prime example of building paranoia within the general population. I hope that viewers will draw their own parallels and conclusions between that period in history and our government’s current tactics for creating and reinforcing public perception.

6. What type of reaction has your film received from viewers?

It’s funny, but there are two camps. The first is people from the generation that actually lived through the cold war and remember being shown the “Duck and Cover” film in school. Fortunately, they see the absurdity and find the dark humor.  The second group is people who only know of the cold war from history classes. They usually see it as a reflection of an era of ignorance and they seem to sense the echoes in our current administration’s perception strategy. Overall, the project has been very well received.

7. What advice would you give aspiring young filmmakers?

It used to aggravate me, but the best advice I got was “just do it.” Every year at the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington, I talk to high school students about how to get started making film or videos. Basically, if you have access to a video camera and a VCR, you can do a lot. Figure out what equipment you can get your hands on and go. 95% of the battle in “getting started” is taking that first step. If you’ll just start, you will have done more than most ever will. So get out there and do something. Don’t be afraid to make mistakes, because sometimes it’s in the mistakes that our greatest discoveries made.

8. Please tell us about the next film you plan to work on.

I’m happy to say that I’m pretty busy.

• I’m working on another experimental piece about the internal struggle of good and evil that we all face. The working title is “Virtues and Vices”.
• I’ve just finished casting my first narrative piece, but I’m in the most difficult stage of all: financing that puppy.
• I’m planning a documentary about a physically challenged friend of mine, who, despite losing both legs, an arm and having been burnt over 90% of his body in an accident several years ago, has one of the most amazingly wonderful outlooks on life I have ever known. It really is a story that needs to be told.
• I’ve got 3 scripts in various stages that I am working on.

Since, I have a “real world” job in advertising, my biggest project is finding time to sleep.

9. What are your thoughts on the film industry in NC?

I love this state. I was born in Forest City, NC. I grew up in the shadows of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I went to college in Greenville, NC at East Carolina and I live in Wilmington, NC. There isn’t a square inch of this state that isn’t beautiful to me from a cinematic standpoint. So shooting here is a “no brainer.” But, due to the tax breaks and incentives that major filmmakers and production companies get in Canada, we are losing a vital part of our state’s economy. What’s more, the extremely talented people who work in the film industry here have to choose between living in a state they love, or going where the work is. It’s tragic. It’s those people who have given me the greatest help and advice along the way. There are future generations of filmmakers who need these people here to help them get their start. If we keep losing those valuable people, many potential visions won’t have a chance to even start.