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Los Angeles 4/97
by Sarah Jacobson
I met Kristine Peterson at the Sundance Film Festival this year. She was
there with her film, Slaves to the Underground, a story of an all-girl rock band in Seattle. There were some really great scenes in Slaves with girl power going in full force, and it was a nice change to recognize elements of my own life in a film without being embarrassed. When we finally met and talked, I discovered that Kristine worked her way up
through Roger Corman, instead of via the usual film school route. Read on for talk about B movies, girl filmmakers, and Wendy O. Williams...
Sarah Jacobson: Let's talk about your background. You were saying that you built Francis Ford Coppola's mix studio. You were a sound person before?
Kristine Peterson: No, I was an administrative person. In 1979 Francis was in the Philippines and I was hired to work at his company for three months. Six years later I was still there. I was hired to send telexes (before faxes) because they were on such a different time. I would come late, stay late, and send telexes back and forth.
SJ: Was this when he was doing Apocalypse Now?
KP: He was shooting Apocalypse Now. I was doing that and helping out the accounting department and running errands. It was total entry level. I had been fooling around doing video stuff, this woman's video group called Just Us Video. It was really fun. I started working at Zoetrope. I used to build the film set-ups and built six-tier racks, I drilled holes and installed the rewinds. I must have projected the different versions of Apocalypse a hundred times.
SJ: Do you feel you learned a lot from watching him — or even what not to do?
KP: What I learned from him, which I'm not sure I carried into my own life, is how to be daring. He really risks all, all the time. He is a visionary. He's kind of the Barnum and Bailey of films and I really loved that about him. When my parents came to town he was really nice to them.
SJ: It all comes down to that!
KP: Mom and Dad were in town and he had a little restaurant and he gave them his table. When they were eating, he came in and introduced himself and said nice things about me to them.
SJ: Were you a troublemaker kid or a good kid?
KP: I'm kind of schizophrenic. I come from a military family which gives you an odd mix. You're very outgoing because you get thrown into all these different situations all the time, and you kind of learn how to turn it on, even if that is not your nature. Then you go quiet again.
SJ: Which mode are you in on the set, being a director?
KP: Being out there. Everything you're doing is in front of sixty people. I keep telling myself, "You have all the time in the world." In order to see if there is a good performance or not, you have to go into this laid-back Zen state. Then you have to go into this turbo-charged mode. I find when I'm shooting I'm completely putting out. That's why you are so exhausted by the end of the shoot. That's why editing is so relaxing for me.
SJ: People don't realize how tiring it is, being on the set and having everyone looking at you. Do you ever feel self-conscious?
KP: I was an AD (assistant director) for a long time. I knew how much could be done in a certain amount of time. When I started directing, it really shocked me the first time I was like, "Okay, take one, scene one." You call action and they do what they do and then you call cut and suddenly every head on the set swivels and looks at you.
SJ: When you came down to L.A., how did you get your start?
KP: I didn't want to do studio work or facility work, which is what I had been doing — I simply had to start over. I wanted to learn what goes on on a set, so I thought what I should do is AD.
SJ: How did you get your first job?
KP: I did one of those freebies on a film that was about a plane crash in a desert — a cannibal movie.
SJ: Was it for Corman?
KP: No, it was for an independent guy. We went off to the desert for one of those eighteen-day shoots. I was second AD. I didn't know what that was but I learned. When I came back a friend hired me to be a second second, so I did that. Then I started first AD-ing. I did Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Nightmare on Elm Street Part 5, and Search for Intelligent Signs of the Universe with Lily Tomlin. I told my mom my résumé reads like a lurid novel. Violated was another film, and the secretaries would answer the phone and say, "Violated!" They'd be so cheery. (Imitates in a cheerleader voice) "Violated!"
SJ: You were first AD on Reform School Girls, right?
KP: I was. That was another one.
SJ: Can you talk about working with Wendy O. Williams?
KP: She's really lived a full life, so I think her body was weathered beyond that. Nonetheless, underneath the façade she was in incredible shape. All she did was eat carrots. She did all her own stunts. She did one scene where she's driving a bus and she is supposed to kick the window out and jump on top of the bus wearing stiletto boots, a G-string, and a little black leather bra. The first thing she says is, as she's driving the bus going forty miles an hour, "Do I have to use my feet? Can I knock the window out with my head?" And the director goes "Great idea!" She busted out with her head, jumped out in front, and climbed out on top in stiletto heels. She jumps off into an air bag wearing nothing protective. She was the first nude wind walker. They shot it in Playboy, down in Florida!
SJ: Had you worked with people like her before?
KP: She was quite unique. We did make this one mistake. It probably doesn't sound as hair-raising as it was. It had to do with that school bus. She was supposed to go towards a brick wall. We were shooting over her shoulder, all the crew hops on the bus. She hit the gas, like pedal to the metal. I thought, "I'm on a bus that is suppose to hit a brick wall being driven by Wendy O. Williams. Am I insane?" She went fast and then hit the brakes. She missed the wall by an inch. All the crew was literally on the floor. I thought, "We have to be more careful."
SJ: What facilitated moving to Corman?
KP: He opens doors. He is the only place where you can go in and get a job. I had AD-ed on one of his shows. After I did Bill and Ted, which had been a really hard shoot — especially for an AD, cause there were so many people — I thought, "Man, I can't keep doing this. If I'm going to direct I really got to try it now." So I went to Corman's and they took me in. I did two second unit shoots and then I got a film.
SJ: What was the first film you got from them?
KP: Deadly Dreams. It was about a guy —. is he crazy, are these dreams? Or is this really happening?
SJ: What are the disadvantages to coming up that way?
KP: For AD-ing there are no disadvantages. You really learn how to scramble, to figure things out, to fly by the seat of your pants if you have to. You learn the entire business. The disadvantage is, and it's major, is that when you are done that's what you have and it's a product no one really respects very much. But it's very good for the experience.
SJ: How long did it take you to go from Corman to Slaves to the Underground?
KP: Slaves is my seventh film. I consider Slaves to be my first personal film. The other films I'm actually very proud of, but as a director-for-hire, they are different. The Hard Truth, which I did with Eric Roberts and Michael Rooker, is an action adventure. Lower Level I did with Miss America 1989. She was wonderful, and David Bradley, he's a marshal arts guy. That was an erotic thriller. Then I did a Marshall arts Kung-Fu movie with Mark Decoscos that we shot in Africa.
SJ: They sent you to Africa?
KP: Yeah, I loved it.
SJ: It was a Corman production that sent you there?
KP: No. The first two I did for Corman. I did Critters III for New Line — the debut of Leonardo DiCaprio.
SJ: Did you see a lot of people come up through the ranks?
KP: Well, Critters IV, we were casting that the same time as Critters III. Angela Bassett was in that. She came in and she auditioned and they didn't have a part for a black women. But we said, "This women is so awesome, you really should change that part and cast her." And they did.
SJ: The whole time were you trying to get your own personal stuff together?
KP: No, I wasn't. I just wanted to learn. I cared about those movies and I really did what I could with them, but I thought I had to do something I really care about. I read Slaves to the Underground and I thought, "I have to do this." We spent six months spinning wheels, giving it to one person here, one person there. I said to Bill, who was the writer and my coproducer, "We should just go to Seattle and do it." I said, "Let's shoot it between Thanksgiving and Christmas." We rented offices in Seattle. I thought it was going to fall apart. I went to First Look (production company) twice. They said, "We are really intrigued, but this is happening so fast. What if we give you $125,000 to get it to final cut?"
SJ: Were you able to do that?
KP: That's what we did. We paid people and it was great.
SJ: I love that scene where she says, "Jerk off for me," and he is like jerking off right there. He's so open and sincere and vulnerable.
KP: We kept saying Jason, you got to play the big V — vulnerable Jimmy.
SJ: I've never seen anything like that before. It was such a truthful moment. Are you comfortable shooting sex scenes?
KP: I find them completely unnerving. I think I am usually shyer than the actors. That is one of the most vulnerable places in your life. The idea that you're enacting it for the world. Now certainly it's been scripted, but you know in every scene there is a little bit of yourself there. It's embarrassing.
SJ: Did you work a lot with the music scene in Seattle?
KP: Bill was more in that world. I'm a little bit older and definitely looking in. What happened was we go to do this movie and it's another one of those functions of being from a military family when you learn to step into a different environment and kind of take it in. Joan Jett saw the movie last weekend and really liked it. Her manager said he thought it absolutely captured that milieu.
SJ: So Joan Jett is a fan of the film?
KP: Yeah, she gave us two songs. There was Red Five, Jenny and Beth. Jenny read the script and Women's Zoneote the song, the opening song "I Want To Fuck You Up." That was based on the movie. Mike Mart, who has been playing in Low and Sweet Orchestra, he Women's Zoneote "Sometimes the Truth Is All You Get" and he came in as composer for the film. Then he Women's Zoneote the song "Downtown Lights." It's Shelley's last night with Jimmy. Suzi Gardner from L7 sings it. It's a great song. When we were in Sundance she was in Seattle touring, and she called me and said, "I just wanted you to know I was thinking about you and wishing you good luck." She was really great. Ani DiFranco gave us a song, too.
SJ: Are you getting a soundtrack?
KP: That is what we're trying to do now.
SJ: Sundance was the first place you showed it?
KP: Yeah.
SJ: Do you feel part of a larger community as a filmmaker?
KP: I didn't for a really long time. Some of that comes from my own need to have a body of work behind me. I've met a lot of people who have never directed and call themselves a director. I had to do three films before I said I'm really a director. I've started doing some teaching things. I taught at USC a couple of times. Geoff Gilmore just invited me to teach at his class at UCLA. I have these students who are coming in and I've actually seen how much I've learned. I'm starting now to reach out. Sundance was a great experience. I got to meet you. I made it a point of going up to a lot of the other directors, especially after you came down and introduced yourself to me. That was really great. I wish that I had done that a long time ago.
SJ: That is my favorite part about festivals. Okay, now let's bring this up: It almost seems like in genre films it's easier for women than in the indie world.
KP: Genre films are a very known quantity to salesmen and they can sell it. The audience is pre-made. It's a very good place to start. The danger is that it's hard to get out of.
SJ: What kind of stuff do you want to work on in the future? What direction do you want to go?
KP: I'm like any director, I like really good stories. The ones that I've been working on seem to be romantic comedies and caper films. I love caper films.
SJ: Are you one of those directors where you have a million projects trying to get going at once?
KP: I have four or five things that I'm sort of nursing along. One or two of them are close to being sent out. Three or four of them are nowhere near being ready to be sent out.
SJ: You're working with writers?
KP: Yeah. I love it. I like that part of it. What sets the whole thing up is you have to be responding to the material in the first place. In some ways what you're trying to do is to help them get to where they want to get to. As a director when you're doing somebody else's work and suddenly you're an interpreter. You're interpreting that work. You also feel like you can bring something to it, you can make it come alive. So I really enjoy that a lot.
back to Where the Girls Are index
Sarah Jacobson, 25, has made two films with virtually no budget. Her infamous San Francisco Art Institute student film, the 1993 black-and-white short I Was a Teenage Serial Killer, makes boys squirm and girls churn as it wields a deadly lashing on sexist pigs. This year, Sarah made her first full-length feature, Mary Jane's Not a Virgin Anymore. For more on Sarah, check out the Women's Zone interview with her from earlier this year and the Sarah Jane Web site. Or e-mail [email protected].
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