Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/6608
32 LIVEMAGS.NET FEBRUARY>>10 Ana: It is amazing to see the impact The Cove has made around the world. How was the project introduced to you? Louie: Well, I'm a part of the Oceanic Preservation Society and I went to a Marine Network Conference down in San Diego. Rick O'Barry was supposed to be a keynote speaker, but his lecture got cancelled. When his lecture was canceled I sought out Rick and asked him why. He told me that it was because his lecture was on the topic of capturing marine mammals which is quite controversial. He then invited me to go to Taiji with him to witness it firsthand. I felt that I had a moral responsibility. So, I took a three day crash course on how to make a movie and soon left for Tajii. Ana: Your background is doing still photography for National Geographic. How did that contribute to the directing of this documentary? Louie: National Geographic teaches you to be tenacious. You don't stop until you get what you want. That sort of blanket tenaciousness really helps with anything, especially making a movie. Being a director making a movie is like being a fisherman with an army. For The Cove, it was more like a scene from Ocean's Eleven. When you take a still picture, you are usually just by yourself. Here you have twelve people with you and you're working in the middle of the night while being chased by the police people that want to kill you. I don't think anything in the world, other than warfare can prepare someone for making The Cove. Ana: In the way The Cove appears to have been made it seems like you guys had some pretty high tech stuff. Did you have to invent a lot of the stuff you guys used to achieve some of the footage? Louie: Yes. A lot of the stuff we used was off the shelf parts that we put together in a unique way. Some of the stuff was the right technology at the right time. What we were using were prototypes for the first of those types of cameras ever used. So nobody suspected that you could put cameras in rocks and just turn them on and still have them recording four and a half hours later. The technology came at the right time to do a film like The Cove. We couldn't have imagined it. That's what I like about The Cove. Everybody brought something to it. Everybody had his or her own little area of expertise. The feel on the set was that we were all professionals, just not at this. When you do a small production, it is like a family. I love the whole camaraderie in making a movie like The Cove. It was very close and I'm looking forward to doing the next one. Ana: I understand that the film has been really well received and has won quite a few awards in the festival circuit. Louie: Yes, I think we've won over twenty film festival awards. We're still being invited to film festivals a year later. That's extraordinary. Usually, you last a season and then they go onto the new films, but we could be booked into next year if we wanted to. Ana: What is the focus for your next project? Louie: It's interesting. Already people have talked to me about doing a feature film, but I have no desire at all to do that. It would be easy. I could make a couple hundred thousand dollars, but I feel like I don't have time for that kind of stuff. I quit a very successful career as a still photographer and I'd rather work in the "save the world business" than the movie business. We are already in the works on another documentary. Ana: What do you feel has been your greatest reward? Louie: The movie has become a rallying point for people to get involved in other issues and I think that it's terrific. To me, that's what making a movie is about. When I see an action or horror movie, it's like getting on a roller coaster. You get on at point A and you go around on all these loops and then you get off and you're still at point A. You haven't learned anything. You haven't really done anything. It's just a thrill ride. The Cove takes you and drops you off at a completely different place. The Cove gets people laughing, crying, cheering and at the end of the movie people are talking about what they can do to help. Ana: Thank you so much and congratulations to you and The Cove team for your Oscar Nomination! "It's one of the best movies I've seen this year. It's important, entertaining, suspenseful, moving, funny-everything a movie should be" -Ben Stiller "Horrifying and beautiful. A tragic ballet." -Gore Verbinski, director of Pirates of the Caribbean "It sounds like the plot of a Hollywood spy thriller; but in this film the danger is real." -Pierce Brosnan "Incredibly moving, scary, riveting, a terrific film. One of the best documentaries I've seen in years." -Chris Columbus, director of Harry Potter THE COVE AN INTERVIEW WITH DIRECTOR LOUIE PSIHOYOS 2010 Oscar Nominee for Best Feature Documentary