SXSW 2009: Andrew Bujalski Minds His “Beeswax”

The "Mutual Appreciation" director on his latest, a real sister act.

So when I’d read descriptions of “Funny Ha Ha,” and they’d say “this is a film about people struggling to communicate,” it was a surprise to me because I hadn’t conceived of that film as being about that. I certainly recognized those elements, but to me, “Funny Ha Ha” was a quite conventional story, a young woman trying to find herself, and all the hesitation and confusion was the mode of these characters’ communication, but it wasn’t the meat.

There’s no question that I had a self-consciousness about it when I was writing and editing this film. It’s a terrible place for a person trying to do something artistic to be, hearing the voices of the bloggers in your head, but certainly there was a bit of trying to lean away from whatever ticks people are pegging you with. Although a lot of them are still there, too.

I was talking with a friend who was praising your use of color to the skies, and I know you almost called the film “Green on Green.” I think “Beeswax” may surprise people who may know only “Mutual Appreciation,” with its long depths of field, the stark black and white. Want to talk a little about your decision to go in the completely opposite direction?

Certainly we were seeking out color, but we also just kept running into it. The gods were giving us a lot of color. A lot of low budget filmmaking is about trying to keep your eyes and ears open to what is around and just trying to accept the gifts you’re given.

For some reason, when I was conceiving the film, I literally had a dream with a lot of yellow in it [laughs]. So I think I’d fantasized about all the yellow that was going to be in the film, and almost none of it’s there. We just kept running into green and into pink, and so, when you see green and pink again, you start thinking “apparently, this film has a lot of green and pink in it.” It’s a low budget film, so we’re not going out there and repainting every wall. But I’m happy to have those walls and I’m glad that people see it and respond to it. Also, a lot of it has to do with Matthias Grunsky‘s eye, the cinematographer. I think he was very happy on this film.

Always in filmmaking, I want to be very careful not to let the technical elements get in the way — get in the actors’ way, certainly, and in my way, as a storyteller. But we definitely gave Matthias more room than we’d had before. We also had a little more money, so we were able to get the nice lenses and really let him use that equipment. I think we went into it knowing that we liked the idea of making a pretty film. I was always on edge that we were going to make it too pretty. So I would sometimes try to kick it a little bit away from symmetry and prettiness.

“Beeswax” makes its North American premiere on March 14th at the SXSW Film Festival.

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