DGA Monthly

4 0 I D G A M O N T H L Y photo by Shane Karns photo by Marcie Revens Photos Directors David Siegel & Scott McGehee with moderators Gail Mancuso in Los Angeles on April 13 and Ira Sachs in New York on April 19. Membership Screenings Q&As listed in alphabetical order by Director. See more detailed descriptions, additional photos & podcasts online at www.dga.org. DGA Screenings Q&As In Director Ryan Coogler's fusion of Gothic horror and history, Sinners, two brothers return to their Mississippi hometown to open a juke joint but find themselves confronted by not only the dangers of Jim Crow-era southern life but also an undead menace. Coogler discussed the making of the film with Director Rachel Morrison and spoke about why he made certain decisions about the aspect ratio. "The Mississippi Delta has a very defining physical characteristic in that it is very flat. If you go there, you feel like you can see the earth bending. Another thing about the south, specifically Mississippi, is this idea of isolation. You can drive miles and miles and miles and not see another car. You'll just see fields where there's cotton or pecans or tobacco. And then you'll slowly happen upon another house or something like that. That isolation is peaceful but also very frightening because if something was to go wrong... So, I thought that we'd need that width to capture the feeling of the flat landscape and the feeling of supreme isolation that exists down in the south. When we want it to be tall, we just looked at it as where are moments of heightened situations: heightened emotions, heightened musicality, heightened spirituality, or heightened horrific image and when do we want audiences to have that visceral experience?" Ryan Coogler discusses Sinners photo by Quintin Lundy Photo: Directors Ryan Coogler (right) and Rachel Morrison (moderator) discuss the making of Sinners following the Los Angeles DGA screening on May 10. photo by Shane Karns photo by Ryan Jensen Photos Director Ami Canaan Mann with moderators Brad Silberling in LA on April 13 and Sarah Pirozek in NY on April 27. Directors Scott McGehee & David Siegel's drama, The Friend, follows the story of Iris, whose life is disrupted when her friend and mentor Walter dies and leaves her his Great Dane, Apollo. They discussed the making of the film in conversations with Director Gail Mancuso in Los Angeles and Director Ira Sachs in New York and during the Los Angeles conversation, they shared a funny story about the difficulty of directing dogs. "So, the dachshunds had a very simple job to do," said Siegel. "One was supposed to be calm and one was supposed to be happy. Their job was to sit on the sofa while we shot some long shots. These dachshunds were so wound up by being on set that or so like whatever that they couldn't sit on the sofa. As soon as the trainer would turn around and leave the set, the dachshunds would follow her." McGehee continued, "And [dog trainer] Bill Berloni had arranged for these dachshunds, so he felt sort of responsible and had his head in his hands about this. And this went on — we could not get the dachshunds to just simply sit on the sofa. At one point, Bill Murray could see that we were just tearing our hair out. Bill stood up and said, 'I refuse to allow you to euthanize these dogs!' Because it was so, so frustrating. But we figured it out." Siegel concluded, "We just decided they could stay on the chair. The chair we couldn't see from our camera angle. That's where the dog was." Scott McGehee & David Siegel discuss The Friend Director Ami Canaan Mann's biographical drama, Audrey's Children, reveals the untold true story of Dr. Audrey Evans, who in 1969 joined a world-renowned children's hospital and used her tender bedside manner and fierce determination to help establish the Ronald McDonald House Charities and changed the lives of millions of patients and their families. She discussed the making of the film in conversations with Directors Brad Silberling in Los Angeles and Sarah Pirozek in New York, and during the LA conversation, spoke about visual techniques she employed to depict the main conflict in the film. "I had to fight for cars and extras to tell that story visually — that here are families that are sleeping on the floor. Going to the line producer and being like, 'Look there are families on the floor. I gotta have fifteen more extras. I gotta have it sort of telling that story.' So that quiet moment where she puts that blanket over the woman was again something that was not necessarily scripted. That was just reality. This is the world she's walking through. That was ever present. So once we got the actual narrative logistics of telling the story about the housing and place it towards the end almost like a coda, you wouldn't wonder where that came from because you're aware of the problem visually the entire length of the film." Ami Canaan Mann discusses Audrey's Children

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