Part 2 of my interview with Bill Bennett film maker and author conducted at the end of 2023. In part 1 we talked about his latest novel, "The Golden Bridge". In part 2 we discuss the transformation that occurred to Bill when walking the Camino de Santiago - from hubris to humility.
Bill Bennett: www.billbennett.com.au
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00:00 Introduction
01:09 The Movie: "The Way, My Way"
03:23 Process as a film-maker
04:48 Working in Hollywood
06:49 Leaving Hollywood
09:25 Choices made to be yourself
11:03 Hubris & how Bill used to be
15:14 "And then I walked the Camino..."
20:44 Transformation through pain
26:49 Working with non-actors
30:52 BJ films
34:25 Bill asks about dowsing
37:04 Non-local connection
The Camino movie Tell me about that.
I'm nearing completion with we're only probably about a week off lopping off the cut the picture cut. So the way it goes is that you complete the picture cut. People think that editing is purely the picture. But in fact, sound post production is even more complicated and more time consuming.
Do you enjoy the post production process?
I love it, Tim. I read somewhere some very famous director once said, there are only two times when as a director, you really own the movie. One is at the writing stage, and the other is at the editing stage. And every other stage of production of a movie, you have to share it with people. And, you know, so. So at the moment, it's all mine. It's all mine, I just love it. But also, you know, every single decision that you make as a director, both in the pre production and in the shooting, comes down to the editing, you have to always keep an eye caught on how it's going to cut together. What shots do you need hash? How should the shots be constructed? The angles, the lighting, all of these things? And if you've done your job right, then coming into the editing room, it's an absolute pure joy. If circumstances haven't gone your way, then it can be hellish.
Yeah, I believe from from my limited experience of low, very innovative, very different sort of production is obvious that the any movie is made in the edit. One of the things that really surprised me some years ago, when I was properly involved in production there, as I say, on a different level to you was how some of the really good directors, I think I was reading about Woody Allen, for example, at that stage, so this would have been the late 90s. How much additional shooting they did once they put a picture cut together, when went back, did the shots that they needed to make that edit really surprised me? Do you find yourself ever having to do that sort of thing?
Not really, because, you know, in an independent production, I guess Woody Allen to an extent is in independent production, that we're the kind of budgets that we work on. It doesn't really allow us that. You know, that, that luxury. But the other thing too, Tim, I gotta say is this. There have been occasions when I've done Bigger, bigger budgets, biggest studio films and things like that with the asset. And, you know, it's so hard to go back and recreate something and get the same tone, get the same energy, you know, you can go back and you can pick up some shots, but it's just never the same. And so I've always avoided doing that. I gotta say,
what would you classify as being the biggest film that you make? Because when you were working in Hollywood, I guess you were doing some interesting stuff over there.
Well, when you work in Hollywood to an extent and obviously this depends upon your status. A director is a cog in a machine that and that machine is designed to make money and you can be a very, very fine director, but if your films don't make money then you very quickly find yourself out of a job. I did a A Warner Brothers movie with Sandra Bullock romantic comedy called to if by sea, co starring Dennis Leary. And it was torturous. It was absolutely torturous. I had this huge amount of money.