 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
 printable version
DIRECTOR INTERVIEW
Marc Singer, the English director of Dark Days talks about the difficulties of living and filming underground and how he ended up collobrating with the much-acclaimed DJ Shadow.
|
|
|
| |
BBC4: The background to Dark Days is almost as incredible as the film itself. How did you first come to the story of people living in the tunnels?
Marc Singer: Where I lived at the time there were homeless everywhere. I'd see the same people on the street all the time. Out of curiosity I just started hanging out and making friends in my neighbourhood. I met one guy who mentioned the tunnels. He heard that you could build a house down there and live somewhat normally but still be homeless. And that just fascinated me so I went exploring.
BBC Four: Did you go with him?
MS: No, by myself. I went into almost every tunnel I could get into until I found the one that we ended up making the film in.
BBC Four: What made you want to make this documentary after you'd been down there?
MS: I was in the tunnels and on the streets all day and all night. I soon realised the people were absolutely nothing as how I had expected them to be. Whenever you see anything about homelessness you always see the same thing - a man or woman sitting on the street feeling sorry for themselves. But what I saw were people who weren't feeling sorry for themselves. They had made the best out of a very bad situation. So I had a lot of respect for everybody and didn't want to see them living in the tunnel - they deserved better.
One day we were sitting around the fire and I think Ralph said, "Somebody should be making a film about this." And I said, "Why don't we do it?" We reckoned we could make this film, sell it, and the money we made would get everybody out. At the same time they would be the whole film crew because that way they're helping themselves get out of the tunnel.
BBC4: How difficult was it to film in the dark and underground?
MS: You just said it - it's dark and it's underground! You can't see yourself most of the time. We had to rig the tunnel for filming - we tapped into electricity and ran nearly 40 blocks of wire up and down the tunnel. We had little difficulties that are funny to look back on now - you'd put your hand into the changing bag and there'd be a rat in there. What do you do - change the film or kill the rat?
At the same time you're living on the street. All of us were starving. We had to search through the garbage for food while we were making the film. But you have to be really creative just to survive on the street so when it came to making the film there was nothing that was out of reach.
continued: "DJ Shadow was amazing to work with."
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
