EXCLUSIVE: WAMG Talks To JOE DANTE – Mammoth Lakes Film Festival

The 2nd Annual MAMMOTH LAKES FILM FESTIVAL is underway here in beautiful, Mammoth Lakes, California, and this year, they continue to impress with an incredible film selection. They are also introducing the Sierra Spirit Award, which they are presenting to legendary filmmaker Joe Dante tomorrow night after they screen his hit comedy INNERSPACE. Robert Picardo will also be joining Dante in a Q&A following the film. I spoke with Mr. Dante on the phone earlier this week. Check it out below!

First off, I have to say that I covered the Mammoth Lakes Film Festival for their first year last year, and I was very excited to see that you were on the list this year.

JOE DANTE: What is it like? What should I expect?

Oh, it’s beautiful. The mountains are incredible, the people are beyond friendly, and the programming is amazing. I’m curious , how were you made aware of the festival?

JOE DANTE: Honestly, they simply sent me an email and said ‘we would like you to come to our festival one night.’ I’ll be honest and say that I was not particularly with the festival. I know Mammoth Lakes, but I haven’t been there in 20 years. People have told me that it hasn’t changed much… But they were very cordial and nice and I thought ‘Gee, I’d love to see Mammoth Lakes!’

Not too far back, I went to the Egyptian Theater to see their tribute to Dick Miller. He and Rick Baker did a Q&A, and they happened to show GREMLINS and GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH. What has your experience been working with Dick Miller, since he has been in just about all of your films?

JOE DANTE: I would have been there, but I was out of town. Dick is someone who… I won’t say I grew up watching… but I was certainly a lot younger when I saw him in the Roger Corman movies. He was always a favorite actor of mine, so when I came out to Hollywood and I worked with Roger Corman, I determined that I would make a film with Dick Miller in it. So, I wrote a part for him in my first picture. We hit it off so well that I thought ‘here’s a guy that I just like to see on screen. So, if I’m going to get more jobs, and make more movies, I’d like to see more of Dick!’ I basically put him in every picture that I made. There was one movie that he got cut out of, [laughs] but otherwise, he’s like my talisman! [Laughs]

It’s amazing to see the amount of credits he has under his belt!

JOE DANTE: Well, you know… You gotta keep working! You gotta feed your kids! [laughs]

Speaking of Roger Corman you don’t see the types of relationships where a producer takes on a director the way Corman did with you, and so many others. Would you ever consider mentoring someone in a more indie fashion, the way Corman did with you?

JOE DANTE: I have considered it, and have done it on occasion. I have a film that just came out called DARK by director Nick Basile, which I am an executive producer on because I wanted to see him get the picture made. That does happen, but the opportunities are limited because of the way the business is. When I was working with Corman, there was a non-stop flow of movies that were at the drive-in, so they’re a lot more opportunities to mentor young people. We were cheap to hire, and we really didn’t know what we were doing, so we would look to him. He was the professional. He would help us, and guide us so that we could get the movie finished.

There was a revolving door at Cormans, with many different people who got their first breaks working for him. Unfortunately, that spicket his turned off. There is certainly no one like him anymore, and there’s no business like that anymore. There is no flow of movies going to drive-ins anymore. Even, really, to theaters. Independent films now almost always bypass theaters and go straight to video on-demand. It’s a whole different paradigm. You just really don’t have a lot of opportunities for mentoring.

I kind of feel as though the middle budget films have it the hardest right now, because it seems like studios are gravitating to the independent film that will gain them an award, or the big summer blockbuster. That being said, there are so many options for distribution now. You have theaters, Hulu Netflix, iTunes… Television has even become a major competitor. Has the evolution of the market changed how you approach the market, and do you have a preference?

JOE DANTE: Feature people used to look down on television because it was a lesser medium, they thought. It was a small screen, and they had certain restrictions on how they shot because the screen was so small. That’s all gone now, obviously. Some people have home theater systems that are better than their local theater. There’s really no difference in the aesthetic anymore. What’s happened in the last decade is the rise of the mini-series, and they have allowed people to do the whole book… and not have to cut it down to just 90 minutes. They can now develop sub-plots for all these characters. That’s why a lot of directors are gravitating towards television now as a storytelling medium… and now the theatrical has become a spectacle business. People go because they want to see stories on big screens… superheroes, and movies with 12 climaxes… with special-effects, and all that that’s one kind of movie. It used to be one of many kinds of movies, but now it’s the kind of movie that only gets made for theaters. Of course you have your dramas, and your romantic movies… your thrillers… but they just don’t do that well theatrically. There’s no market anymore. it’s syndication. They used to show a lot more on local stations, but now it’s all infomercials. Your revenue streams cut off. The idea of making an independent film and having it be seen. There might be more places for independent films to be seen, but not paying. If you want to put it out on VOD, like my last movie… if I type in the title the first five sites to come up are pirate site so people can watch your movies for free. The chances of people making money by putting their films on video on demand is greatly deduced.

One of the things that I really respect is the amount of practical effects that you’ve used over the years. It’s sad to see practical effects being used less and less with the rise of CGI quality.

JOE DANTE: I was brought up on practical effects, because that’s what was state-of-the-art when I was working. And also because you’re doing it on the set and you have something for the actors to relate to instead of telling them to stare into the corner and pretend that there’s a monster there. CGI has taken over to a degree that most people don’t even understand. When they go to see a movie like GRAVITY they don’t realize that besides the actors faces there was nothing to photograph. There are a few practical scenes, but for the most part it’s all done on computer, and very cleverly done. It’s very convincing. All the beautiful, mundane things like the sky, or the mountains in a shot are manipulated somehow. It’s far beyond any photographic manipulation that we could ever do. We had a hard time trying to move the TV Ariel out of the shot in a period piece because there was nothing we could really do to erase it without scratching the movie and then you have to figure out a way to try and de-scratch it. We had very limited tools and now you can push a button and do just about anything. Literally anything you could think of to do you can do. It really is great, but I do think that there is something to be said about the old way of doing it… of the practical effects that are actually photographed and in the scene with the people. They’re not standing on a green screen. They’re standing on a set. They know where the chairs are. They know where the other actors are. I’m old-fashioned I guess, but I prefer that. There’s no way were going to be able to turn our back on the computer generated stuff. It’s the future, and I think that once the virtual reality stuff comes in the play, which I think is right around the corner, it’s almost all gonna be virtual reality.

Speaking of practical effects I was reading somewhere that you have kept props from a lot of your movies. What are some of your more prized pieces?

JOE DANTE: I don’t know about prized, because they’re from my own movies. I have a Rosebud sled, original… that I take pride in, because it’s a great movie. Mostly I have all of the inventions from GREMLINS, the spaceships from EXPLORERS, miniatures from INNERSPACE…things like that that are dotted around my house in various places. It’s not exactly a museum.

That’s wonderful! I actually have a life-sized Gremlin in my house…

JOE DANTE: Really? Where did you get that?

There’s a company called Neca that makes…

JOE DANTE: Oh, Neca! They do great stuff!

Yeah, he’s pretty neat. They’re made from the original stunt puppets so I have a Flasher Gremlin just hanging around, amongst other things… He definitely gets a look whenever I have people over!

JOE DANTE: [Laughs]

Check out A NIGHT WITH JOE DANTE : Centerpiece Sierra Spirit Award Presentation and screening of INNERSPACE Saturday Night, May 28th, at the U.S. Forrest Service Theater in Mammoth Lakes, California. You can buy your tickets before they sell out HERE.