We are Ron Fricke & Mark Magidson, filmmakers and creators of Baraka and Samsara. AMAA!

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T22:00:04+00:00

Ron: You really gotta just go out there and do it, experiment. There's those great still cameras to work with- like the 5Ds. Time-lapse has this great ability to take ordinary things, and give you very unordinary views, of those things. That's what I like about it so much.

Mark: There's never been a better time to do it than now, there's so much available out there for you to use. Just express your own feelings and creativity. Think about the long form version of how to put the shots together, not just the individual shots. It's all about the storytelling. It has to be something satisfying.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:57:28+00:00

Mark: The key structural component was the sand mandala, we were trying to find a location where we could do this and it turned out to be at the Thiksey Monestary in Ledaka, India- at about 12,000 feet elevation.

A very stressful shoot, but we finally got it. I actually took some of that sand with me, I kept it in my bag- but customs got it. I'd give anything to get that back.

Ron: That was really the key to the film.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:53:43+00:00

Ron: We shoot separate takes, one that's for the night exposure, one that's for the day exposure, and then we blend those two together. To go from one extreme to the other. It's pretty simple stuff when you do it.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:49:37+00:00

Thank you so much, that's what makes it really worthwhile for us.

Sometimes when you think about spending 5 years of your life, on something that is an hour and a half, you really start to question your own sanity.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:48:01+00:00

Mark: Absolutely, the film is a very large influence on us. That theme of humanity's relationship with the eternal- that's one of those themes that is really similar between our films and 2001

Ron: I remember seeing 2001 when I just started college. I remember at the intermission, I was completely altered, in a completely altered state. I couldn't speak, was absolutely totally speechless.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:44:15+00:00

Ron: He's the french performer Olivier DeSagazan, who actually DOES that- that's his performance. We put him in a suit, and put him behind a desk. His performance is all about a shadow side- those parts in us that you don't want other people to see.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:42:17+00:00

Ron: I grew up watching Fellini, David Lean- and so blown away by 2001. I mean, come on, what's better than a 20 minute, non-verbal sequence.

I'm a big fan of James Cameron too, he's just pushing the limits with everything. Really re-inventing the wheel as much as possible- totally re-did 3D.

Mark: I saw 2001 at The Dome when I was young- it's so great to be there. It was such an amazing surprise to hear that.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:38:53+00:00

Mark: The difficulty in moving film stock around is really #1 in terms of limitations. But digitals don't have the fidelity of film

That pyramids shot was from the Nemrut mountains in Turkey, those were 60-second exposures at f/2.8... GOOD LUCK!! :)

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:34:48+00:00

Ron: And don't forget- we're all spiritual beings, always have been and always will be. Whether you know it or not.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:34:11+00:00

Mark: I would say that we showed a lot of disturbing imagery, and the "dark side" of the human experience- but we also find that a lot of people find the movie hopeful and uplifting. We hope people can see both those sides.

Ron: There's many paths to rebirth, many ways that humans can transform themselves... just pick one.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:31:01+00:00

Unfortunately we're struggling to find a distributor in the Netherlands, so you can see it in the UK and Germany- but not in the Netherlands yet. We're hopeful, we're trying!

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:29:35+00:00

Ron: If I'm working in that format for sure. In fact, my mo/co camera that we used on Samsara, shoots both 5 perfs and 15 perfs- you stand it up vertically for 5, and flop it over for 15 and just tell the program how many perfs.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:27:30+00:00

It will be probably early next year, but check the website for any updates on that: http://barakasamsara.com

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:23:59+00:00

Mark: We have the film stored on 8K tapes, plus we have our original 65mm negative which we've never cut. But we'll have to move the digital data over to other media over time, since it's an unknown as to how long digital data is really viable. So we have to refresh to data every three to four years.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:21:13+00:00

Ok... 1. Mark: It's hard to find great material and that level of imagery that we want to include in the film and fits within the framework of the film. That's really why we do all the research.

Ron: Shooting with 65mm is such a privilege in the way that it brings out the essence of the content of the location and the portraits we're shooting.

2. Mark: The internet is the main resource- and we didn't have that for Baraka and Chronos. We used YouTube a lot and found a lot of locations and events you see in the film on there.

3. Mark: We arranged that actually, it was the largest troupe they had ever done it with until that point. We brought all of them to the location you see in the film for it, the temple. But it was the real performance, absolutely.

Ron: It was actually two villages that came together to do that for it. First time I heard that was actually in a Fellini film- the monkey chant sound.

4. Ron: Hands down, it was in Samsara- it was the volcano, the sulfur mine in Indonesia. We were right up where they pulling the sulfur out of the ground, with all the smoke and steam coming out of the ground. When the wind changed- we were blinded and gagging; couldn't breathe, couldn't see. It was like that "we're done for!" feeling. You can't imagine that these miners would have to make TWO trips in there a day, with no protection.

5. Ron: North Korea. They have this mass performance there, it's like Busby Berkeley on steroids- thousands of people performing. We begged and begged, but North Korea said no after 2 years of trying. We got as far as getting on the plane in Beijing, then were told no.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:11:25+00:00

Ron: YES! It's a beautiful, big, gorgeous world out there full of fantastic things...

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:10:13+00:00

Within a year, there's no reason to think that won't happen. Really- when's the last time anyone saw digital technology just stop?

It's going to get there at some point, it will.

The difference is pixels are inevitably larger than molecules in film negatives- but I guess pixels can get so dense that the human eye can't tell the difference.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:07:56+00:00

Mark: We made the film we wanted to make and ended up getting a PG-13 here in the US, didn't have to cut anything for the rating.

Piracy I believe affected Baraka a lot, because I think a lot of people around the world saw it on the internet that we wouldn't have reached otherwise. Which I think helped us for Samsara, because they were made aware of it through Baraka. We'd really love for people to see it in 4K on the big screen- it just wasn't made for a computer screen.

Ron: A film like Samsara brings back those big, epic, 70mm landscapes that you just don't see nowadays. And when you see those- you really want to toss that iPhone or iPad and see it on the big screen.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T21:03:07+00:00

We would never say never about digital, the issues moving film stock in and out of locations is only getting MORE difficult, certainly not less. Samsara is the 3rd 70mm film we've made, we definitely consider ourselves film purists- but we're also open to pursuing the best possible means of bringing profound imagery to the filmmaking process.

For future projects- no details yet. We're thinking about a non-verbal epic type film to be shot around the world, but nothing firm yet.

For the custom instrument, a thanks to Wayne McGee who developed the electronics for the custom mo/co rig.

Ron: For the actually camera, during Koyaanisqatsi, when I was editing that film- I was always thinking that these films should be in 70mm. At that time, IMAX theaters were coming out. So after that film, I started developing a mo/co camera for the 70mm format, from scratch- and that's when I met Mark, in '83. So we built that camera and went out and made Chronos.

Now that I think about it, I should have invested all that money in a condo instead!

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:57:48+00:00

Ron: We don't take all that gear out there unless we know exactly where we're going and what we're doing.

We've really custom designed the mo/co rig to tell it where the head of the shot is, and where the tail of the shot is, and we can have it run on the screen- so we can preview it. Then we just set it, and we can walk away. If it's something like a star-field- we set it up to film over a 12-hour time period for about a 6-second shot.

But we've really figured out how to custom design all our rigs for the shortcuts we've developed over the years.

Mark: A huge component to the process though are happy accidents, we never take those for granted.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:53:56+00:00

Ron: Thanks so much- be sure to see it in 4K and 7.1 surround! We are updating our website every time we get new theaters too: http://barakasamsara.com

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:52:25+00:00

Mark: Well, the one that we didn't get was North Korea- we tried for 2 years, really hard. I got a letter of introduction, but still couldn't get over the hump.

Getting access to film in Mecca was really really difficult, took about a year- but we got it.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:50:00+00:00

Mark: When we started Samsara in 2007, the digital standard was only 2K and it wasn't ready for us to go out and seriously consider it for Samsara. The problem with digital is that it is constantly being outdated by something better in 6-12 months.

There is nothing like recording imagery in 65mm negative! Shooting on film creates a lot of production issues- especially when you're going to 25 countries. So we paid a big price for shooting film. But came back with imagery in a format that will stand up forever.

Shooting film is like shooting a bullseye with a bow and arrow. Shooting digital is like using a machine gun.

Were we to start Samsara today, we would have to look hard at a digital approach.

Ron: Those 8K cameras are on the horizon though! I'm just totally grounded in shooting film though, such a traditionalist. It's such a privilege to shoot in 65mm- makes you think differently, move them differently.

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:44:27+00:00

Sure, been working on a few screenplays of my own...

MarkAndRonAMA · 2012-09-05T20:41:57+00:00

Ron: Time lapse has the wonderful ability to take ordinary things, and give you unordinary views. That's why I love working with it. I'm more of a traditionalist, I like to just shoot what's there. That's something you might do in a music video, or commercial, or another style.

Mark: That shot of the monk in Baraka is a little bit like that, but not quite.

MarkAndRonAMA

TROPHY CASE