Michael Langan is an American experimental filmmaker and commercial director. His works have screened at over a hundred film festivals worldwide garnering top awards, including a Student Academy Award nomination for his 2007 film Doxology, which screened as part of the International Showcase at Ffresh 2009. In 2010 he was named an “IFC Icon” for innovation in film and video, featured in the Saatchi New Directors Showcase at the Cannes Lions, and selected as one of “10 animators poised to become household names” by Variety Magazine. We caught up with Michael to see what he’s been working since bursting onto the international scene with the brilliant Doxology.
How did studying at Rhode Island School of Design shape your love of combining performance, photography, and music?
I arrived at RISD with the intention of becoming a graphic designer. I already had some background in theatre, photography, music, and design, but hadn’t really explored film as much as these other art forms. Luckily, I ended up with this incredible teacher during my freshman foundation year: Lee Dejasu, who ostensibly taught “two-dimensional art” but really taught free creative expression. I ended up doing these mixed media performances for his 2-D assignments, which were a lot more fun to me than just drawing or graphic design. Lee suggested that I look into the film/animation/video department when I chose my major through film, I would be able to combine all the media I already loved into one powerful medium.
There’s a lot been written about creative agencies “being inspired” from ideas found on the web and turning them into a commercial products. In light of this, how did it feel for the production company Puente Aereo to approach you directly to adapt the car tango scene, from your award winning graduation film Doxology, for Skoda?
It was wonderful, and terrifying: in addition to the common occurrence of ad folks directly ripping off artists, there are horror stories of artists who have been approached to lend their style to a production, then cut out of the process only to discover later that their style was integral to the success of that production from which they were cut. Legal advice confirmed that, even in this scenario, my idea could be legally used even without my permission. I adopted a carefully balanced approach, protecting myself from a similar outcome, but not so much that I lose the job entirely. In the end, my fears were unfounded: both the ad agency and production company involved were fantastic people and had no intention of cutting me out of my own idea. I’m extremely grateful that they were willing to entrust the production to such a young director as myself.
We love your quote about experiment and discovery being synonymous, but how willing have your commercial clients been to go on that journey of discovery?
I’ve been so fortunate to have been hired commercially to do the kind of crazy work I normally do independently. That said, I can’t make a commercial with the kind of open-ended process with which I sometimes make short films – a client wants to know ahead of time what the hell we’re making with their money! But I have discovered that there’s still room for the beautifully unexpected to pop up during the pitching process: for many commercials, we’re afforded a budget to experiment on motion tests, one of which may dictate the style of the finished commercial.
Intelligent Life HD. from Animation Block on Vimeo.
Your short films are very clever and elaborate, but also have a wonderful simplicity about them making them almost like visual poems. How far do you think you can take this style and do you have ambitions to make a feature similar maybe to some of Godfrey Reggio’s work?
I would love to make a feature film. Step One is breaking my current production rate of one minute a month! I suppose that a feature I make will be similarly slow-paced, in order to eat up time and reach that arbitrary 90-minute mark. Which is a tragedy: no film should ever be shorter or longer than it needs to be. Should a museum exhibit paintings no smaller than 6×6′? I have a feeling that my first feature-length film will be a video installation instead of a theatrical experience, so that an audience can enjoy it on their own terms without having to stick around for the whole damn thing. Experimental work asks a lot of a theatrical audience, and I’m not interested in making work that can’t sustain an audience’s fascination.
Since graduating you’ve been a visiting artist at numerous schools and colleges. What are some of the main bits of advice you’ve been sharing with the students?
The biggest thing for me is reminding folks that a film can be absolutely anything you want it to be. So long as you accept that audiences often bring into the theatre a pretty specific idea of what a film is supposed to be, and therefore requires some amount of familiarity to sustain interest, a film can be absolutely anything that the filmmaker dreams up. This is as important to remember in experimental film as anywhere else: an experimental film is truly experimental only if it hasn’t been done before.
To watch more of Michael’s work go to http://langanfilms.com
