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Julie Rubio: A Delicate Balancing Act
by Doniphan Blair
Filmmaker and film activist Julie Rubio displays her sense of balance. photo: D. Blair PLEASE support our GoFundMe campaign to cover research expenses for our articles and rebuilding the cineSOURCE site.
JULIE RUBIO LOOKS LIKE SHE COULD
be a model, which she was, or suburban mother, which she is, or a metropolitan thirty-something, which she certainly is. But you might not immediately suspect that she is also an accomplished filmmaker who recently completed "Six Sex Scenes and a Murder", an intricate and stylish noir feature, which she wrote, directed and produced.
You might also doubt that she is well versed in “Matriarchy as Deconstructed through the Art of Cinema,” to put it in academese. Nevertheless, not only does she serve up a surprisingly complex mafia quadruple-cross, it suddenly switches, with full motivation, from macho murder mystery to a female-driven narrative, ending up in some almost Proustian, certainly tragic and romantic reminiscences, the eponymous six sex scenes.
I met up with Julie at her tastefully-decorated, command central home and studio in Orinda, California.
Rubio in her nicely appointed home and studio. photo: D. Blair cineSOURCE: What are some of the directors or movies that influenced you?
Julie Rubio: Well, Laura by Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt from 1943. You know, Scorcese, Taxi Driver, Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Henry and June by Philip Kaufman, 9½ Weeks by Adrian Lyne. And most recently, I really liked Rian Johnson’s Brick.
About your film – shall we start at the beginning?
I started out as an actress. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to acting school in Los Angeles, New York, then London. I went to Lee Strasberg’s school in London and Manhattan. Produced nightclubs, did some off-Broadway, and then came to San Francisco, where I produced and acted in plays: Shakespeare and local theatre.
I realized that living in San Francisco I was not going to become a famous actress, so I better start doing things myself. I have been writing my whole life. I have an ex who went to Tisch (NYU Film School) and, when I was living in New York, I was kind of his muse.
It was a natural progression: if you’re not going to make it, you’d better to move to the other side, take your destiny or your creative process into your own hands, and make something tangible. I’m lucky; not everyone can do that.
I decided to start writing. I wrote a screenplay called 'Impression' about Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cassatt and their lives, their friendships and their intertwinings. I worked on this epic for four years, then decided to do a short film, a dramatization of Degas’ painting 'The Interior' (also known as 'The Rape'), which created some controversy about his morals.
But my first short film was a period film and I realized that no one would give me $20 million to make my first feature. I was like, “Whoa, what am I going to do now?” So I wrote 'Six Sex Scenes and a Murder'. This guy down in LA said he wanted to make the movie, but he didn’t want to do the sex scenes – he knew they’d be cheesy, so he threw them out.
I didn’t know it then, but he was basically blowing a lot of smoke up my skirt. He was actually a real filmmaker, but he wasn’t telling me the truth. So I had 60-odd pages done, and I thought, “Why not go ahead and make the film – we’ll just work around it.” Because of that, some of the film’s kind of like a house was thrown into it.
I just decided to make it with a very low budget, make it entertaining, somewhat based on a true story from my younger days. Incorporate all of it but make a marketable piece of film that was actually entertaining. It’s not going to win an academy award or cure cancer, but film can sometimes just be entertaining. Before that I started producing locally, working on other people’s films, and I made another short called Del Cielo and got my muscles strong filmmaking-wise.
A scene from 'Six Sex Scenes' shot at the Uptown in Oakland. photo: D. Blair And the financing?
We were really very lucky there – we were at the Crown Plaza Hotel in San Francisco, having a very small production meeting. I’d decided to fund a couple of scenes myself to have something to show, kind of the Robert Rodriguez thing. I really do believe that footage is money. You can talk all day long and hand people scripts, but if the people investing in you can’t see it, it’s not tangible. And they don’t know your angle on the story, the look of the film, who your crew is. But make it real and you’re halfway there.
So I decided to hire my entire crew, shoot the footage and get it done – I’d show that it would get done, be polished and look good, and the acting would be great. My DP was Marty Rosenberg and my editor was Anthony Lucero, who had just won the Sundance audience award for 'One Week and a Month'. And I asked some great local people and flew some people in from Los Angeles, and we had this production meeting at the Crown Plaza, but we had only a little burlesque we’d shot and one unedited scene.
Afterwards, as we were leaving, we walked by this seminar of young entrepreneurs, and I said to my co-producer Ramona Maramonte, “Look at that.” She said, “That’s the meeting we should have been in. You want to go in?” So I said, “Come on Lucy – she is always saying she’s my Lucy and I am her Ethyl.” They were closing up shop but they said, "Let’s go have a drink." So we went down and I set up my computer and said, “I’m going to pitch my project, in case anyone is interested in perhaps investing in an independent film.”
I had also made a yoga video years before, so I had a nice DVD that sells in stores. I handed them that and pitched my project. One guy said, “You aren’t to believe who is sitting next to you.” Turns out that he’s the top sex therapist in the country, writes for Vogue and Harpers – and he happens to own mypleasure.com. Very smart guy who also happens to be a sex toy manufacturer, but no porno.
So because the original guy wanted to pull out the sex scenes, is that why the film’s chronology is jumbled?
No, it was already written that way. I think like that: that’s my brain, I’m all over the map. The next film I’m doing – it’s written and we have distribution, we’re going to shoot as soon as this one sells – is more chronological. I understand that people need that (laughs) even though it’s definitely more accepted now in film to flash forward, back, in-between. That’s how I naturally write, so with "Six Sex Scenes" I just went where I naturally wanted to go.
Even so, editing always gives you something different from your original screenplay. You go out and shoot, you expect this particular shot a certain way – but at the end of the day it’s raining and you have to work around it. That’s what’s great about independent film. You don’t get to throw money at it. You have to be creative, smart, and really think your way through it. You are dealing with real life. Therefore a lot of magic happens, all day long.
Speaking of rain, was your rain scene by chance?
That was just the one heinous, horrible day that we actually had rain. Even so, we had unbelievable luck making this film, we didn’t have many problems. Well, we lost one of our cameras – it blew over – and I crashed the Land Rover. It was just storming, just absolutely incredibly storming, and we worked ’til four in the morning. It was downright rude – no shelter, no place for us to go.
But it was beautiful. You ask anyone on the crew – everybody’s favorite night was when we were in the rain and it was really hard-core indie filmmaking with guns hanging out the window. We had permits and police officers for a certain time. We did everything legal – sure (laughs) – we did what we could, but it was nuts.
Was that in Oakland?
No, that was on Third Street in San Francisco, in front of the ball park. We were really fortunate it rained that night. Actually we had some rain in front of the Uptown Club in Oakland. It was glorious, it rained to get the streets wet, and make them look pretty and shiny – what Hollywood pays thousands of dollars for! – then it stopped and it was perfect. We were really blessed. We had a 20-day shoot: brilliant, really nice, no problems at all.
Rubio gets voluble when relaxed. photo: D. Blair Were the Oakland and San Francisco Film Commissions receptive to helping you shoot?
Ami Zins of the Oakland Film Office is just a doll: spot-on and super smart. She realizes that Oakland needs to be represented in a positive way, and our film is contributing to that. She really helped us. "Six Sex Scenes" sounds like porno, and it’s really hard to convince people that it’s not. And it isn’t necessarily a positive thing when you are asking to film. Originally, we weren’t sure we were going to go with that name. Ami said, “If you aren’t sure, if you are not really sure, then don’t say.” But we were making a legitimate movie, so we did use it.
The title is a little postmodern – descriptive of a narrative – did that tie in?
It definitely wasn’t a marketing tool at the time. It was just a true blue idea; I really wanted to call my movie this.
Why?
I think sexuality takes on a lot of different faces and scenes, like the punk scene or the rap scene. I think there are all different types of sexuality, and I wanted to portray that. So that’s why we have the six sex scenes. Then the murder is more a description of something I went through in my life when I was dating someone who ended up being killed. He was involved in trading in counterfeit money and stealing. I wanted to incorporate my experiences with that. The murder part is more emotional – a trippy flashback, when I think back on it.
I feel bad that someone passed away and I made a movie about it, but as an artist that is my way of exorcizing it.
Making a film about my life – and looking at my life –changed me permanently. And having an entire crew of people 42 people who I respect and love and 72 actors – it was just amazing to have all these people come out and interpret my life. Watching all these people I just said, “Oh my god, this is unbelievable,” and I think there was a metamorphosis just watching my life interpreted by art. I’m really happy I did it, and I’m ready to make my next one – just chewing at the bit, dying to make the next film.
You want to tell us a bit about it?
It is called "Masked Pleasures", and it’s a psychological thriller that’s very sexual as well. Not pornographic in any way, but definitely something you have to wrap your brain around. It takes place in Honolulu, but we’ll be cheating a lot of it here.
Getting back to Six Sex Scenes – In the beginning it was quite male, with the female secondary, but then it changed. I found the structure becoming quite female, and the story pulled together in quite a beautiful way. It reminded me of Russian filmmaking.
You are totally right. Hollywood has this open secret: they don’t want women to be the lead, so most films are male-driven. A lot of this film is about me. I made it about the leading man but it’s really all about her, and in the end it’s about both of them. So it does tie in, and there’s that family-thing, fixing old problems from their past. It’s my story; it’s all about me.
You say that but you created a very complicated narrative. The resolution of your narrative is a trick to enable a female solution rather than a killing solution.
(Laughs) No one was going to get blown up.
He was rather unsympathetic for much of the film and then the ending had a great reveal.
I’m so happy you think so. We are all copying each other but I would hope I can make something a little different. I appreciate having structure to keep from going crazy, but I also want to do something different, to go with my heart, my art, my way. That said, I had to fight for a lot things people told me, “You just can’t do it that way. It doesn’t make sense that way.”
But I knew what I was doing, I knew there was going to a hundred different layers here, and that this one was going to tie in with that one – if you watched really carefully. This is the kind of movie you can watch five or six times, and each time you’ll figure out something else. There are lots of little subplots.
I had to fight tooth and nail – “This doesn’t make sense!!” – from my DP to my editor. But, at the end of the day, this brilliant script supervisor continuity person – Kelly Kelly, she’s really good – she went through the whole script and put all her little stick-ums and, at the end, she said, “Wow, this is like an old movie.” But I said, “Does it make sense?”
It wasn't easy for Rubio to do this shot in 6 inch stilettos but she's calm under pressure and athletic. photo: D. Blair At some point you think, “You are nuts!” because you have so many people telling you things. But she said, “Oh, it makes sense.” And I said, “Oh thank god!” I trusted her. After a while they all came around, and my editor said, “Yeah, that makes sense.” Everyone came around.
It is kind of like with the name. You get tons of people telling you, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You are going to kill yourself.” And you listen, listen, listen and, at the end of it, you have someone like Sean Penn tell you, “I love the name! What a great name.” And you are like, “You do? Are you serious? OK, cool.” Trying to hold on to what you believe in is hard but it is such a gift from the indie world. You don’t have to answer to the studios and, thank god, I didn’t have to answer to my investor. I had one, he was awesome; he was out of the country a lot. And he’s super smart and he understood it, and he believed in me.
I was really lucky. I just had a really talented team behind me. I had a lot of people question me – therefore I questioned myself – a lot. I am a new filmmaker. I am definitely learning everyday. I am by no means thinking, “I am a great director... great screen writer.” I have so much to learn. But I am a damn good producer. I am going to produce a lot more films and give people jobs in the Bay Area. I don’t want to go down to Los Angeles; I want to stay here and make movies.
As a startup indie filmmaker, is there any advice you might offer others on how do stick to your own guns while taking people have to offer?
I think that you have to have your vision down completely. You have to see every single shot before you go in there to make your film. Do your storyboards and know what you want. You’ll know what battles are worth fighting, because a lot of them aren’t. And you have to just let them go.
The DP wants the shot this way, and I really want it the other way – well, we’re going to get both. The guy’s going to let me use this five-story building or this airplane, but he really wants his nephew in the background? OK, fine: his nephew gets to be in the background.
But there are somethings, “Hell, no, this is the way. This is why. It only makes sense if it is this way, I’m sorry; I am not budging, unh-unh. Know what your battles are going in. Also know that you are not always going to win those battles. Hello? But you can’t make everyone happy, so just have your shot list down, have your story board set, and just be committed and don’t take no for an answer. Because everyone is going to question you, everyone’s going to tell you, “No, no, no.” And you just have be strong and follow that voice inside of you, and just keep going.
To get back to the doctor who manufactured the sex toys – was he your investor?
He was going to be, but he had some unexpected business to take care of, so he introduced me to Rob Meadows. Rob sold his ring-tone company to a big cell phone carrier – so he made quite a bit of money, and from there he has a venture capital electronics company where people come in and pitch ideas. He also has a clothing company called Thrive.
He just believes in making people’s dreams come true. He’s young and super-super-Einstein smart and no nonsense. He doesn’t just do people favors – he really wants to make sure a deal is good for him, too. That’s why we went with Panorama Entertainment. I flew out to New York and met this man, rented the Tribeca Grand — just for a day — just to meet with him. I asked around town, “Is he a good person?” Distributors don’t always have the best reputations. That was one of Rob’s first questions, “What’s his reputation?”
I feel pretty honored that he took on the project. I sometimes look at my co-producer Ramona and say, “We got funding, we got major funding!!!!” To have someone believe in your feature and give you a chunk of money is unbelievable! And I can’t wait for him to give me more money to make my next movie. And I can’t wait to give him back his money, so he’ll be happy he is giving me more. You don’t want to just take, you want to give. Give back. It’s nice to give other people jobs. Especially up here. There are so many talented people up here and they don’t get to work. I hate loosing all my friends to LA. I was raised there so I kind of feel good about being here.
What do you think it would take to stimulate more film, particularly indie narrative, in the Bay Area?
Lending us police officers for free, instead of charging $600 for a few hours. It gets expensive. We obviously need police.
While we were filming at the Uptown someone had their purse stolen — but our behind the scenes camera guy got it on camera! You want to be safe.
There could be incentives for filmmakers to San Francisco – it’s the most beautiful city in our country. It is clean, it is brilliant, and it blows New York away. I love New York; I lived there for years, but San Francisco has the water, the bridges, the people, and the mentality. We should be filming here and we are not.
I think my movie was the only feature that came out of San Francisco last year – I could stand corrected on that. We were turned down by the San Francisco International Film Festival, which was also shocking to me. Here we have a film — that I believe is polished and I have seen non-polished stuff at film festivals — it can’t be seen at a local film festival? 42 crew and 72 actors from the Bay Area? I don’t understand, we shot all over, we are bringing it home.
I was just on the set of "Milk", and it was amazing to watch a major picture being made in such a non-Hollywood way. It just seemed calmer, more San Francisco, less stuffy. I think we need to be more supportive of our local filmmakers and make sure they are safe to film here. So making it not so expensive and making it safer would be a step in the right direction.
And are there any particular narratives suited to the Bay Area – edgy stuff, sexual or alternative?
Every genre known can be made here. This is where life is being lived. You have got Oakland, Boys in the Hood, these beautiful and amazing parts of Oakland where you can go Tango dancing into the night. When I think of San Francisco, I think of noir right off the bat, all the shadows and all. Every kind of genre can be made here – and such a gorgeous palette from Monterey up to Napa! I’ve lived in Hawaii, London, LA, and there is more culture here. It’s a rich array – we have our Chinatown and Japantown, we have everything to be utilized, especially in an independent or guerilla filmmaking.
You started by just deciding to shoot some scenes—
We filmed three different sex scenes: the cybersex scene, the dance scene, and the interrogation. I spent my own money on that shoot, about ten grand. The whole film took a total of 26 shooting days, and 20 of those days came after the funding. But you have to get it started. We knew what medium we’d use and what camera, so we knew we could could piece it together later. That alone gave us power and momentum.
If I’m going to invest in something, I don’t want to invest in pages. Everyone has a script – it’s kind of scary to me, you get into a cab — the cabby! But not everyone has polished footage. That footage represents money spent, and it allows someone to be comfortable in giving more money. Someone told me the other day, “We have the whole thing shot and we don’t have the funding.” I can’t believe that – if you have the footage, you can get funding. And there are so many cameras, that no matter where you go, people say “Oh, I have a 35 camera. I even have some film.” I just want to drool.
What did you shoot on?
Two Panasonic HD 200s. I was shocked by the cards – you don’t have tape. Romona had to transfer everything. You have hard drive after hard drive after hard drive, and eventually you go to the big master tape. Actually, we had one go crazy and we were scared we were going to lose a lot – we had parts of a hard drive erased. But you say, “That is not going to happen again.”
That was the great thing about this project: everyone wanted to make a feature, everyone was hungry and dedicated. For a lot of people, it was their first feature, so people cared more passionately, making sure the project got done. Of course Marty Rosenberg has made hundreds of films, from Field of Dreams to Jurassic Park and the recent Clint Eastwood film, but you’d have thought from his dedication that it was his first movie. He’d fight me on things, and he really cared. Marty is one of those super-sick adrenalin junkies, addicted to film – and I will use Marty on my next film. I will use everyone.
Sounds like a hybrid of indie and industry?
Yes, and Marty doubted that we were going to be able to pull it off – but now he wants me to produce his film. You know, when you do a film together, you respect each other. We’re a family now, there is that love now – we’ll be opening "Six Sex Scenes and a Murder" at the Embarcadero (from May 30th to June 5th), and I know everyone will be bringing their uncle, cousin, and dog. We’re going to have that theater filled.
People say, “Seven days – how are you going to do that?” And I say, “Watch us.” You can’t have this many people work on a film locally and not have everyone show up. We are also probably going to show at the Napa film festival – they showed "Impressions" and "Del Cielo". We’ll let that our premiere, then do a theatrical release at the Embarcadero to prove we can sell tickets. Maybe generate some interest with NetFlicks and through our distributor.
We’re looking for an international distributor, just beginning that phase – making that next step so it can be sold, so the thing doesn’t sit in the garage. I want to make sure that it gets birthed properly and has a life. Everyone who makes a movie wants people to watch and enjoy, or to hate it – but at least for it to be seen.
What if a big studio wanted you to make a ‘big film’? What do you think might change and what would stay the same in your process?
God, having money? Because that’s all that means, money... I’d hire all the people that I know and trust again, so I wouldn’t do it that differently. I’d love to bring in new talent and learn from them, and to have the money to do that would be fantastic – but I’d still be very cheap, making sure our dollar is going a long way.
I have seen on other productions how many people are being fed, how many people are on set, how many lights are lit. The money being spent! And when I see that, I say, “This is my fricking entire budget.” So I’d still be very conservative with my movie, but I’d just make sure people were fed way better and I’d pay them good salaries. And I’d make sure they were taken care of. I’d love to have a pool of actors to hire from, because I started as an actress and I have a lot of respect for that craft.
I’d love to meet some great talent and be able to choose from that pool, although I was thrilled with San Francisco talent. We did the casting ourselves, so it would great to have a casting agent, actually have some big names come in and look at them. Some money could go towards that. That would be fantastic because there are some great talents that I would really love to work with.
I don’t think the money would change much besides better food – the craft services would rock! We’d all have chocolate; there would be so much chocolate. Posted on Apr 03, 2008 - 09:38 PM
by Doniphan Blair
Filmmaker and film activist Julie Rubio displays her sense of balance. photo: D. Blair JULIE RUBIO LOOKS LIKE SHE COULD
be a model, which she was, or suburban mother, which she is, or a metropolitan thirty-something, which she certainly is. But you might not immediately suspect that she is also an accomplished filmmaker who recently completed "Six Sex Scenes and a Murder", an intricate and stylish noir feature, which she wrote, directed and produced.
You might also doubt that she is well versed in “Matriarchy as Deconstructed through the Art of Cinema,” to put it in academese. Nevertheless, not only does she serve up a surprisingly complex mafia quadruple-cross, it suddenly switches, with full motivation, from macho murder mystery to a female-driven narrative, ending up in some almost Proustian, certainly tragic and romantic reminiscences, the eponymous six sex scenes.
I met up with Julie at her tastefully-decorated, command central home and studio in Orinda, California.
Rubio in her nicely appointed home and studio. photo: D. Blair Julie Rubio: Well, Laura by Otto Preminger, Alfred Hitchcock’s Shadow of a Doubt from 1943. You know, Scorcese, Taxi Driver, Hanson’s L.A. Confidential, Henry and June by Philip Kaufman, 9½ Weeks by Adrian Lyne. And most recently, I really liked Rian Johnson’s Brick.
About your film – shall we start at the beginning?
I started out as an actress. I grew up in Los Angeles and went to acting school in Los Angeles, New York, then London. I went to Lee Strasberg’s school in London and Manhattan. Produced nightclubs, did some off-Broadway, and then came to San Francisco, where I produced and acted in plays: Shakespeare and local theatre.
I realized that living in San Francisco I was not going to become a famous actress, so I better start doing things myself. I have been writing my whole life. I have an ex who went to Tisch (NYU Film School) and, when I was living in New York, I was kind of his muse.
It was a natural progression: if you’re not going to make it, you’d better to move to the other side, take your destiny or your creative process into your own hands, and make something tangible. I’m lucky; not everyone can do that.
I decided to start writing. I wrote a screenplay called 'Impression' about Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cassatt and their lives, their friendships and their intertwinings. I worked on this epic for four years, then decided to do a short film, a dramatization of Degas’ painting 'The Interior' (also known as 'The Rape'), which created some controversy about his morals.
But my first short film was a period film and I realized that no one would give me $20 million to make my first feature. I was like, “Whoa, what am I going to do now?” So I wrote 'Six Sex Scenes and a Murder'. This guy down in LA said he wanted to make the movie, but he didn’t want to do the sex scenes – he knew they’d be cheesy, so he threw them out.
I didn’t know it then, but he was basically blowing a lot of smoke up my skirt. He was actually a real filmmaker, but he wasn’t telling me the truth. So I had 60-odd pages done, and I thought, “Why not go ahead and make the film – we’ll just work around it.” Because of that, some of the film’s kind of like a house was thrown into it.
I just decided to make it with a very low budget, make it entertaining, somewhat based on a true story from my younger days. Incorporate all of it but make a marketable piece of film that was actually entertaining. It’s not going to win an academy award or cure cancer, but film can sometimes just be entertaining. Before that I started producing locally, working on other people’s films, and I made another short called Del Cielo and got my muscles strong filmmaking-wise.
A scene from 'Six Sex Scenes' shot at the Uptown in Oakland. photo: D. Blair We were really very lucky there – we were at the Crown Plaza Hotel in San Francisco, having a very small production meeting. I’d decided to fund a couple of scenes myself to have something to show, kind of the Robert Rodriguez thing. I really do believe that footage is money. You can talk all day long and hand people scripts, but if the people investing in you can’t see it, it’s not tangible. And they don’t know your angle on the story, the look of the film, who your crew is. But make it real and you’re halfway there.
So I decided to hire my entire crew, shoot the footage and get it done – I’d show that it would get done, be polished and look good, and the acting would be great. My DP was Marty Rosenberg and my editor was Anthony Lucero, who had just won the Sundance audience award for 'One Week and a Month'. And I asked some great local people and flew some people in from Los Angeles, and we had this production meeting at the Crown Plaza, but we had only a little burlesque we’d shot and one unedited scene.
Afterwards, as we were leaving, we walked by this seminar of young entrepreneurs, and I said to my co-producer Ramona Maramonte, “Look at that.” She said, “That’s the meeting we should have been in. You want to go in?” So I said, “Come on Lucy – she is always saying she’s my Lucy and I am her Ethyl.” They were closing up shop but they said, "Let’s go have a drink." So we went down and I set up my computer and said, “I’m going to pitch my project, in case anyone is interested in perhaps investing in an independent film.”
I had also made a yoga video years before, so I had a nice DVD that sells in stores. I handed them that and pitched my project. One guy said, “You aren’t to believe who is sitting next to you.” Turns out that he’s the top sex therapist in the country, writes for Vogue and Harpers – and he happens to own mypleasure.com. Very smart guy who also happens to be a sex toy manufacturer, but no porno.
So because the original guy wanted to pull out the sex scenes, is that why the film’s chronology is jumbled?
No, it was already written that way. I think like that: that’s my brain, I’m all over the map. The next film I’m doing – it’s written and we have distribution, we’re going to shoot as soon as this one sells – is more chronological. I understand that people need that (laughs) even though it’s definitely more accepted now in film to flash forward, back, in-between. That’s how I naturally write, so with "Six Sex Scenes" I just went where I naturally wanted to go.
Even so, editing always gives you something different from your original screenplay. You go out and shoot, you expect this particular shot a certain way – but at the end of the day it’s raining and you have to work around it. That’s what’s great about independent film. You don’t get to throw money at it. You have to be creative, smart, and really think your way through it. You are dealing with real life. Therefore a lot of magic happens, all day long.
Speaking of rain, was your rain scene by chance?
That was just the one heinous, horrible day that we actually had rain. Even so, we had unbelievable luck making this film, we didn’t have many problems. Well, we lost one of our cameras – it blew over – and I crashed the Land Rover. It was just storming, just absolutely incredibly storming, and we worked ’til four in the morning. It was downright rude – no shelter, no place for us to go.
But it was beautiful. You ask anyone on the crew – everybody’s favorite night was when we were in the rain and it was really hard-core indie filmmaking with guns hanging out the window. We had permits and police officers for a certain time. We did everything legal – sure (laughs) – we did what we could, but it was nuts.
Was that in Oakland?
No, that was on Third Street in San Francisco, in front of the ball park. We were really fortunate it rained that night. Actually we had some rain in front of the Uptown Club in Oakland. It was glorious, it rained to get the streets wet, and make them look pretty and shiny – what Hollywood pays thousands of dollars for! – then it stopped and it was perfect. We were really blessed. We had a 20-day shoot: brilliant, really nice, no problems at all.
Rubio gets voluble when relaxed. photo: D. Blair Ami Zins of the Oakland Film Office is just a doll: spot-on and super smart. She realizes that Oakland needs to be represented in a positive way, and our film is contributing to that. She really helped us. "Six Sex Scenes" sounds like porno, and it’s really hard to convince people that it’s not. And it isn’t necessarily a positive thing when you are asking to film. Originally, we weren’t sure we were going to go with that name. Ami said, “If you aren’t sure, if you are not really sure, then don’t say.” But we were making a legitimate movie, so we did use it.
The title is a little postmodern – descriptive of a narrative – did that tie in?
It definitely wasn’t a marketing tool at the time. It was just a true blue idea; I really wanted to call my movie this.
Why?
I think sexuality takes on a lot of different faces and scenes, like the punk scene or the rap scene. I think there are all different types of sexuality, and I wanted to portray that. So that’s why we have the six sex scenes. Then the murder is more a description of something I went through in my life when I was dating someone who ended up being killed. He was involved in trading in counterfeit money and stealing. I wanted to incorporate my experiences with that. The murder part is more emotional – a trippy flashback, when I think back on it.
I feel bad that someone passed away and I made a movie about it, but as an artist that is my way of exorcizing it.
Making a film about my life – and looking at my life –changed me permanently. And having an entire crew of people 42 people who I respect and love and 72 actors – it was just amazing to have all these people come out and interpret my life. Watching all these people I just said, “Oh my god, this is unbelievable,” and I think there was a metamorphosis just watching my life interpreted by art. I’m really happy I did it, and I’m ready to make my next one – just chewing at the bit, dying to make the next film.
You want to tell us a bit about it?
It is called "Masked Pleasures", and it’s a psychological thriller that’s very sexual as well. Not pornographic in any way, but definitely something you have to wrap your brain around. It takes place in Honolulu, but we’ll be cheating a lot of it here.
Getting back to Six Sex Scenes – In the beginning it was quite male, with the female secondary, but then it changed. I found the structure becoming quite female, and the story pulled together in quite a beautiful way. It reminded me of Russian filmmaking.
You are totally right. Hollywood has this open secret: they don’t want women to be the lead, so most films are male-driven. A lot of this film is about me. I made it about the leading man but it’s really all about her, and in the end it’s about both of them. So it does tie in, and there’s that family-thing, fixing old problems from their past. It’s my story; it’s all about me.
You say that but you created a very complicated narrative. The resolution of your narrative is a trick to enable a female solution rather than a killing solution.
(Laughs) No one was going to get blown up.
He was rather unsympathetic for much of the film and then the ending had a great reveal.
I’m so happy you think so. We are all copying each other but I would hope I can make something a little different. I appreciate having structure to keep from going crazy, but I also want to do something different, to go with my heart, my art, my way. That said, I had to fight for a lot things people told me, “You just can’t do it that way. It doesn’t make sense that way.”
But I knew what I was doing, I knew there was going to a hundred different layers here, and that this one was going to tie in with that one – if you watched really carefully. This is the kind of movie you can watch five or six times, and each time you’ll figure out something else. There are lots of little subplots.
I had to fight tooth and nail – “This doesn’t make sense!!” – from my DP to my editor. But, at the end of the day, this brilliant script supervisor continuity person – Kelly Kelly, she’s really good – she went through the whole script and put all her little stick-ums and, at the end, she said, “Wow, this is like an old movie.” But I said, “Does it make sense?”
It wasn't easy for Rubio to do this shot in 6 inch stilettos but she's calm under pressure and athletic. photo: D. Blair It is kind of like with the name. You get tons of people telling you, “Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You are going to kill yourself.” And you listen, listen, listen and, at the end of it, you have someone like Sean Penn tell you, “I love the name! What a great name.” And you are like, “You do? Are you serious? OK, cool.” Trying to hold on to what you believe in is hard but it is such a gift from the indie world. You don’t have to answer to the studios and, thank god, I didn’t have to answer to my investor. I had one, he was awesome; he was out of the country a lot. And he’s super smart and he understood it, and he believed in me.
I was really lucky. I just had a really talented team behind me. I had a lot of people question me – therefore I questioned myself – a lot. I am a new filmmaker. I am definitely learning everyday. I am by no means thinking, “I am a great director... great screen writer.” I have so much to learn. But I am a damn good producer. I am going to produce a lot more films and give people jobs in the Bay Area. I don’t want to go down to Los Angeles; I want to stay here and make movies.
As a startup indie filmmaker, is there any advice you might offer others on how do stick to your own guns while taking people have to offer?
I think that you have to have your vision down completely. You have to see every single shot before you go in there to make your film. Do your storyboards and know what you want. You’ll know what battles are worth fighting, because a lot of them aren’t. And you have to just let them go.
The DP wants the shot this way, and I really want it the other way – well, we’re going to get both. The guy’s going to let me use this five-story building or this airplane, but he really wants his nephew in the background? OK, fine: his nephew gets to be in the background.
But there are somethings, “Hell, no, this is the way. This is why. It only makes sense if it is this way, I’m sorry; I am not budging, unh-unh. Know what your battles are going in. Also know that you are not always going to win those battles. Hello? But you can’t make everyone happy, so just have your shot list down, have your story board set, and just be committed and don’t take no for an answer. Because everyone is going to question you, everyone’s going to tell you, “No, no, no.” And you just have be strong and follow that voice inside of you, and just keep going.
To get back to the doctor who manufactured the sex toys – was he your investor?
He was going to be, but he had some unexpected business to take care of, so he introduced me to Rob Meadows. Rob sold his ring-tone company to a big cell phone carrier – so he made quite a bit of money, and from there he has a venture capital electronics company where people come in and pitch ideas. He also has a clothing company called Thrive.
He just believes in making people’s dreams come true. He’s young and super-super-Einstein smart and no nonsense. He doesn’t just do people favors – he really wants to make sure a deal is good for him, too. That’s why we went with Panorama Entertainment. I flew out to New York and met this man, rented the Tribeca Grand — just for a day — just to meet with him. I asked around town, “Is he a good person?” Distributors don’t always have the best reputations. That was one of Rob’s first questions, “What’s his reputation?”
I feel pretty honored that he took on the project. I sometimes look at my co-producer Ramona and say, “We got funding, we got major funding!!!!” To have someone believe in your feature and give you a chunk of money is unbelievable! And I can’t wait for him to give me more money to make my next movie. And I can’t wait to give him back his money, so he’ll be happy he is giving me more. You don’t want to just take, you want to give. Give back. It’s nice to give other people jobs. Especially up here. There are so many talented people up here and they don’t get to work. I hate loosing all my friends to LA. I was raised there so I kind of feel good about being here.
What do you think it would take to stimulate more film, particularly indie narrative, in the Bay Area?
Lending us police officers for free, instead of charging $600 for a few hours. It gets expensive. We obviously need police.
While we were filming at the Uptown someone had their purse stolen — but our behind the scenes camera guy got it on camera! You want to be safe.
There could be incentives for filmmakers to San Francisco – it’s the most beautiful city in our country. It is clean, it is brilliant, and it blows New York away. I love New York; I lived there for years, but San Francisco has the water, the bridges, the people, and the mentality. We should be filming here and we are not.
I think my movie was the only feature that came out of San Francisco last year – I could stand corrected on that. We were turned down by the San Francisco International Film Festival, which was also shocking to me. Here we have a film — that I believe is polished and I have seen non-polished stuff at film festivals — it can’t be seen at a local film festival? 42 crew and 72 actors from the Bay Area? I don’t understand, we shot all over, we are bringing it home.
I was just on the set of "Milk", and it was amazing to watch a major picture being made in such a non-Hollywood way. It just seemed calmer, more San Francisco, less stuffy. I think we need to be more supportive of our local filmmakers and make sure they are safe to film here. So making it not so expensive and making it safer would be a step in the right direction.
And are there any particular narratives suited to the Bay Area – edgy stuff, sexual or alternative?
Every genre known can be made here. This is where life is being lived. You have got Oakland, Boys in the Hood, these beautiful and amazing parts of Oakland where you can go Tango dancing into the night. When I think of San Francisco, I think of noir right off the bat, all the shadows and all. Every kind of genre can be made here – and such a gorgeous palette from Monterey up to Napa! I’ve lived in Hawaii, London, LA, and there is more culture here. It’s a rich array – we have our Chinatown and Japantown, we have everything to be utilized, especially in an independent or guerilla filmmaking.
You started by just deciding to shoot some scenes—
We filmed three different sex scenes: the cybersex scene, the dance scene, and the interrogation. I spent my own money on that shoot, about ten grand. The whole film took a total of 26 shooting days, and 20 of those days came after the funding. But you have to get it started. We knew what medium we’d use and what camera, so we knew we could could piece it together later. That alone gave us power and momentum.
If I’m going to invest in something, I don’t want to invest in pages. Everyone has a script – it’s kind of scary to me, you get into a cab — the cabby! But not everyone has polished footage. That footage represents money spent, and it allows someone to be comfortable in giving more money. Someone told me the other day, “We have the whole thing shot and we don’t have the funding.” I can’t believe that – if you have the footage, you can get funding. And there are so many cameras, that no matter where you go, people say “Oh, I have a 35 camera. I even have some film.” I just want to drool.
What did you shoot on?
Two Panasonic HD 200s. I was shocked by the cards – you don’t have tape. Romona had to transfer everything. You have hard drive after hard drive after hard drive, and eventually you go to the big master tape. Actually, we had one go crazy and we were scared we were going to lose a lot – we had parts of a hard drive erased. But you say, “That is not going to happen again.”
That was the great thing about this project: everyone wanted to make a feature, everyone was hungry and dedicated. For a lot of people, it was their first feature, so people cared more passionately, making sure the project got done. Of course Marty Rosenberg has made hundreds of films, from Field of Dreams to Jurassic Park and the recent Clint Eastwood film, but you’d have thought from his dedication that it was his first movie. He’d fight me on things, and he really cared. Marty is one of those super-sick adrenalin junkies, addicted to film – and I will use Marty on my next film. I will use everyone.
Sounds like a hybrid of indie and industry?
Yes, and Marty doubted that we were going to be able to pull it off – but now he wants me to produce his film. You know, when you do a film together, you respect each other. We’re a family now, there is that love now – we’ll be opening "Six Sex Scenes and a Murder" at the Embarcadero (from May 30th to June 5th), and I know everyone will be bringing their uncle, cousin, and dog. We’re going to have that theater filled.
People say, “Seven days – how are you going to do that?” And I say, “Watch us.” You can’t have this many people work on a film locally and not have everyone show up. We are also probably going to show at the Napa film festival – they showed "Impressions" and "Del Cielo". We’ll let that our premiere, then do a theatrical release at the Embarcadero to prove we can sell tickets. Maybe generate some interest with NetFlicks and through our distributor.
We’re looking for an international distributor, just beginning that phase – making that next step so it can be sold, so the thing doesn’t sit in the garage. I want to make sure that it gets birthed properly and has a life. Everyone who makes a movie wants people to watch and enjoy, or to hate it – but at least for it to be seen.
What if a big studio wanted you to make a ‘big film’? What do you think might change and what would stay the same in your process?
God, having money? Because that’s all that means, money... I’d hire all the people that I know and trust again, so I wouldn’t do it that differently. I’d love to bring in new talent and learn from them, and to have the money to do that would be fantastic – but I’d still be very cheap, making sure our dollar is going a long way.
I have seen on other productions how many people are being fed, how many people are on set, how many lights are lit. The money being spent! And when I see that, I say, “This is my fricking entire budget.” So I’d still be very conservative with my movie, but I’d just make sure people were fed way better and I’d pay them good salaries. And I’d make sure they were taken care of. I’d love to have a pool of actors to hire from, because I started as an actress and I have a lot of respect for that craft.
I’d love to meet some great talent and be able to choose from that pool, although I was thrilled with San Francisco talent. We did the casting ourselves, so it would great to have a casting agent, actually have some big names come in and look at them. Some money could go towards that. That would be fantastic because there are some great talents that I would really love to work with.
I don’t think the money would change much besides better food – the craft services would rock! We’d all have chocolate; there would be so much chocolate. Posted on Apr 03, 2008 - 09:38 PM
