Mademoiselle Robot loves Jaffe Zinn

I am working on my first feature film, Magic Valley (formerly Buhl).

I first wrote the script about 4 years ago

I have been focused almost entirely on the film since June 2009, we shot it in October/November and since then I have been editing.

I usually start off with images of things I’d like to see in a movie.

With this film, there were a couple of images I had in mind that would be neat in a movie so I tried to figure out how to include them.

The movie itself involves a lot of characters and stories intertwined. It takes place over the course of one day and it follows four different sets of characters. It took a while to figure out how to connect them all.

The initial draft took me about 3 months and then after that another year trying to make it as interesting as possible. I sent it off to a lot of people, producer friends, people in the industry and they gave me notes. Most of them said it was a really well written script.

I emailed cinematographer Sean Kirby (Zoo) to know if he’d be interested in shooting the movie. He read the script and liked it so we met, talked about shots, influences etc.

I shot all my shorts myself, I had never worked with a cinematographer before, but I never really liked how my shorts looked, so it was good to work with someone who could make my vision better.

I am completely involved in everything. The only aspect I am not involved in is the music. Steve (Damstra) and Mads ( Heldtberg) are doing it.

I am a little bit more involved than the average director I guess, but people like Vincent Gallo are also pretty involved.

I had to change the name because Rezo (the worldwide distributor) found “Buhl” would be awkward for people to say.

Magic Valley is an interesting name because it is misleading.

It is the area where Buhl is, in Southern Idaho which is why we went with that.

At the same time it is interesting as it does carry certain connotations for people who are not familiar with the area. Hopefully people won’t think about magic anymore when they think about Magic Valley.

Four stories intertwined around the disappearance of a young girl.

Edward Gorey and Henry Darger are the two biggest influences for my drawings.

My films influences are different, I am less interested in the fantastical. I like my films to be more grounded in reality. I am a big Werner Herzog fan, I like Ingmar Bergman, Gus Van Sant, P.T. Anderson, Wong Kar Wai.

I also love horror movies, westerns. My favourite movies are The Goonies and The Neverending Story!

My musical tastes are all over the place. What we do with Folded Light is one particular sort of thing, but both Steve and I are into lots of different stuff. I am a big metal fan, but I also like classical, hip hop, or country stuff. Music informs my movies as well.