Many talented filmmakers have contributed their work to RIFF 2010. Fortunately for us, I was able to catch up with Sean Christensen the director of one of our amazing animated entries, The Sandwich Movie. He was most generous with his time. Enjoy!

TINA: If my memory serves, I believe Fan Mail was a student entry last year. Have you graduated from film school or what is your status?

SEAN: I am proud to say that I have since graduated film school. I walked this past May in 2010 at San Francisco State University. Fan Mail was my last official student short.

TINA: This year’s RIFF entry, The Sandwich Movie, made me laugh. It’s definitely a unique tale. What inspired you to make a movie about this subject? Was it your favorite family story or did you make it up?

SEAN: It may sound simplistic to a fault, but I’ve always found inspiration in daily life because so much of it is spent counting the minutes in-between: You’re either waiting for something to happen or praying that something doesn’t. Alfred Hitchcock once famously quipped that “Drama is life with the dull bits cut out.” In my work, I’ve found that I’ve mined those exact same “dull bits” to produce stories that have resonated on an emotional/dramatic level with my audiences. It’s in those moments of reflection, those dead spaces, where the mind naturally spins around and around to keep itself busy – examining the texture of the popcorn ceiling, or noticing a fly crawling on the rim of a coffee cup; Before long, it starts to create stories and imagines worlds to either find deep meaning or to simply entertain itself while passing the time.

With my film The Sandwich Movie, it came from one of those family stories that just always stuck around. One of those bizarre details of life that just gets stuck in your head: “Do you remember the time when…” That sort of thing. When production began, I made sure to remind my sister, who narrated the story, to just tell it. No acting, just straight – that way the audience would feel as if they were truly listening in. The film then naturally took on the shape of a warm memory, as if the audience becomes a part of my family for that moment in time – like we’re all gathered around a campfire or on a road trip, passing the time with a silly story. It’s that childlike fascination that never goes away, the same type that I’ve tried to capture in The Sandwich Movie. And it’s all real too, 100%.

TINA: You have a clever knack for taking a simple subject and turning it into an interesting tale. What inspired you to write? Have you been writing long?

SEAN: Writing is something that’s just always come naturally to me. I don’t know where it comes from, but I find myself constantly talking to myself or writing sentences or descriptions about the things that I see around me every day. It’s like my heartbeat; it has its own rhythm that steadily works on its own. In terms of what “inspires” me, I can never tell because my mind is fed so much information on a daily basis, I can never tell what’s going to come out. I can only aspire to tell the types of stories that I would want to engage with – stories that are identifiable, natural and respectful of the audience’s intelligence and life experience. I would much rather spend time with a story that challenges and compels me to search for the answers within myself than to have them served to me as nicely-wrapped and packaged.

TINA: I think it would be cool to know which famous filmmakers inspire you.

SEAN: Honestly, I’ve seen so many movies it’s hard to pull one out of memory as defining. I think I’m more inspired by the fact that movies actually get made! I can tell you my favorite film of 2010 so far: Toy Story 3. Absolutely amazing. I’m also really looking forward to seeing what the Coen Brothers do with True Grit later on this year.

TINA: Even a short takes a lot of work and animation is no walk in the park. Please tell us a little about making The Sandwich Movie.

SEAN: Since I was a little boy I’ve always drawn, constantly doodling and sketching. My sister and I would make picture books for our parents and create our own cast of cartoon characters that inhabited them, and funny enough, looking back I can see that those were the first “films” that I ever made. Instead of comic books, which traditionally utilize panels and sections within the same page to divide and tell a story, I would instead use the entire sheet of paper for each drawing, or “shot.” When I go back and flip through them today, I can see that I was trying to create a string of single images that you absorb one at a time, which constitutes the basic grammar of filmmaking and animation.

The Sandwich Movie was the first film that I animated completely on my own from the ground-up. Every single element was either cut out from magazines and newspapers or hand-drawn and scanned in one-at-a-time to create this world. It was a wonderful, complex challenge – like being that same little boy again making picture books with his sister. Now, that’s not to say that the experience was without stress and anxiety, it had plenty of that, but the process of re-discovering your childhood instincts of storytelling and fascination with shapes and colors was exhilarating and very revealing to me as a filmmaker.

TINA: Thank you, Sean. You have definitely given us a nice insight to the mind of a filmmaker. Can you give us a little scoop on what you are working on right now? What is your next venture?

 SEAN: All of my projects are keep a secret from the press until they’re released, nothing personal!

TINA: O.K. That’s understandable. Your fans though would like to follow you work and I understand that you won’t be able to make it to RIFF 2010 so I’d like to pass on some vital information. If a fan wanted a copy of say, Fan Mail or The Sandwich Movie, how would they do that?

SEAN: I’m still learning about promoting and getting my work out there the best I can. Technology is moving so fast and influencing the way people receive information and media at an even faster rate, so it’s just a matter of keeping up and learning how to change. I’ve always loved showcasing my films at festivals and art museums in front of live audiences, nothing beats that. For now, people can visit www.squareonecinema.com to learn more about my work, watch some of it online, and contact me. Don’t be shy!

~Peace,

Tina