Past Filmmakers

Michael Frierson
I Sure Hope The (Bleep) I'm Rolling 9:23

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

I've been working on a documentary film about Clarence John Laughlin for 15 years or so (mostly not working on it when there is no dough), and I had been feeling creatively dead and wanted to do something fun with frame-by-frame digital capture. I love animation and the DV world has opened up all the techniques we always wanted to do in 16mm but rarely had  access to:  freeze frames, reverses, flips, speed changes - basically, the potential to manipulate every pixel of every frame.

2. How long did the production process take?

I shot it all over four or five mornings within a block or two of my house, and I edited it over a year, putting it down for a month here an there to get some distance from it.

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

Trying to sustain interest over the running time.

4. What was your favorite memory from creating the film?

I enjoyed immensely being out of my office shooting on some beautiful fall mornings.

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

I hope people really see the world that is literally at your feet.

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

People respond well to kinesis and to images that sync to a track.  There is something very satisfying about that.

  7. What advice would you give to aspiring young filmmakers?

My advice comes from Maya Deren and it's in the movie:  

"Cameras do not make films; filmmakers make films.  Improve our films not by adding more equipment and personnel but by using what you have to the fullest capacity.  The most important part of your equipment is yourself;  your mobile body, your imaginative mind, your freedom to use both."

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

After I finish the Laughlin documentary, I'm going to plug away on a film about my dad, who was an FBI agent here in NC who worked informants in the Ku Klux Klan and the Black Panthers during the COINTEL program in the 1960s.

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

I feel like my only real involvement in the film industry in NC has been to train filmmakers here for 16 years.  They've done pretty well.  For that experience, I am very grateful.