 | About the film . . . |
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| a. What do you think is the most unique aspect of your film? |
"The most unique aspect of Requiem is the visual story telling. It doesn't use a lot of verbal language; it's all told in imagery. And I think that's why it's been so successful on an international level. It's played all over the world--Germany, Chile, Spain--and it's played there, I think, mainly because it's so visual."
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| b. What was difficult in putting it all together? |
"Short film is all difficult. I think the most difficult thing in any short film is, number one, getting the money, and then creating something that is high quality"
Roy was directing karaoke videos for Toshiba when he proposed his idea for Requiem as a treatment for a video. Toshiba loved the treatment and paid him to create the video. Using his own cash and the money that Toshiba paid him to produce the video, Roy shot the video with two cameras--one 16 mm camera for Toshiba and one 35 mm camera for his own project. The karaoke video was edited to Toshiba's liking for use with the Mister Mister song "Broken Wings", and Roy maintained total creative control of his own 35 mm film, Requiem.
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| c. Talk about some unexpected surprises that arose |
Roy will never work with animals again--not after the experience he had working with the rat in Requiem.
The rat was a last minute addition to the cast. He wasn't a trained rat; he was just the ugliest rat that Roy's sister could find at their local pet store. Roy decided to shoot the rat's scenes in his basement, and poured some water on the floor to recreate the mood of the prison cell.
"As soon as we turned on the camera, the rat took off. . . . The rat was scared, and we found out rats do not like water." The solution: tortilla. "We put a piece of tortilla down for the rat to eat, and he came over and sat on it. So we found out that we could get the rat to sit on one piece of tortilla and eat another piece of tortilla and not move at all. So eventually we got the rat shots."
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| d. Talk about the reception your film has had a previous screenings |
"Requiem has had a really great response at the festivals. What I did the film for initially was to move from being a director of photography to being a director. It was a calling card piece, and really nothing more than that."
Requiem was rejected by the first ten festivals that Roy submitted it for, but it went on to win at its first festival screening at the Houston World Fest. Its success has continued, domestically and internationally.
"I'd never had attention as a director before, and even though it was as short, I was being taken seriously as somebody who had something to say."
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