Hole/Head: Man From Earth & Interview

SFist: Please introduce yourself.
RS: I was born and raised in the NYC area; like many other directors, I started making films as a kid. In fact as far as I can remember, all I ever wanted to do is make movies. After college, I started my career at MTV, and then made all sorts of music videos, fashion videos, promos, commercials, you-name-it, on my way to making feature films, which I finally started doing in 1995 with The Pompatus of Love.

SFist: How long have you lived there (city, neighborhood etc.) and why?
RS: I'm currently in Los Angeles. As a kid, I always figured that if I was going to live in LA I'd be on the beach, or in the heart of Hollywood; as happens I'm up the street from Grauman's Chinese theatre. Initially I was bi-coastal for about a decade, not wanting to give up on NY; indeed, my first two movies were shot on location in the city. But about seven years ago, when my wife learned we were going to have a baby, I had to finally drop my NY home in favor of a bigger place in LA. But I still see NY two or three times a year, and last summer I shot a new movie there with Vanessa Williams and Eartha Kitt, among others. That movie ("And Then Came Love") is premiering at a San Francisco film festival a mere six days after "Man From Earth."

(Preview Scheckman's Vanessa Williams movie, "And Then Came Love")

SFist: What's your San Francisco connection, if any?
RS: I have lots of connections to San Francisco. First of all, I've been there many times and truly love the city. Two old, close friends from college have lived there for many years. And I had one of my best commercial shoots ever in San Francisco---a series of live-action and animated spots for Swatch Watch, back in the days when they were also making clothing. A fun fact from those spots is that one featured the commercial debut of a young actress named Lisa Rinna, who went on to have an interesting career in TV.

SFist: What's your favorite movie(s)?
RS: What an incredibly difficult question.... most smart filmmakers have a set answer for this one, whipping out a top three, five, or ten when this question is put to them, but I'm just not smart enough to have worked it out. For me the range is so broad, from silents by Keaton, Chaplin, FW Murnau, Fritz Lang, Harold Lloyd, and Erich von Stroheim, to great comedic classics by Lubitsch and Sturges, plus of course Orson Welles, Stanley Kubrick... I was personally very influenced by the early James Bond movies, Fred Astaire, and Richard Lester's Beatle movies... and like anyone I idolize Sidney Lumet, Norman Jewison, Scorsese, Spielberg... see what I mean? The list is endless.

SFist: Compare "Man from Earth" with some of your prior projects/films:
RS: Hmmm.... well, most of my movies have featured ensemble casts, and "MFE" is very much an ensemble picture. Also, most of my movies are, at the end of the day, mostly about people in rooms, talking. "MFE" features eight people mostly in ONE room, talking. As for themes, or subject matter... I do find that I'm consistently drawn to the issues of friendship, loyalty, honesty, and how we get along with our fellow man.

Having said that, I've written or co-written most of my other films, but on this one I only did some minor tweaking to what was a remarkable script by a legendary writer, so that really sets it apart from the rest. I distinctly remember reading this script for the first time about eight years ago and being totally gripped by the story, as well as the ideas in it, and feeling that I simply HAD to make the movie. It took a while to get the rights and put it all together, but it often takes years of unwavering passion to get a movie made... so in that sense, I guess it's just like most of my other movies!

SFist: What projects are you working on now?
RS: As both producer and director of "MFE", I'm still working on it! This is because the producer, especially, has to stay with the picture until it's been as exploited in the marketplace as it possibly can be. We just closed a great deal for the domestic DVD release, and I'm working with a sales rep to try and make some international sales and hopefully a domestic TV sale as well. But that comes down to some real drudge work, preparing "deliverables" for the distributor, including multiple variations on the sound mix, different video masters, and a pile of paperwork. I'm also helping to promote the Vanessa Williams movie I shot last summer, which opens theatrically next week and comes out on DVD some time in August.

Beyond that, I'm doing rewrites on a couple of scripts I've been trying to perfect for several years. I have to figure out which one might be the next production, depending on whether or not I have to once again, go forward independently, or if I'm able to get one fully funded. Of course, I wouldn't turn down a directing assignment, either on a feature or a TV series. But one way or the other, I'd really like my next movie to be a comedy.

SFist: Where can people see the film?
RS: "Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth" will play twice at the Hole-Head portion of the San Francisco Indie Fest, and it'll play the Rhode Island Int'l Festival (in Providence) in the fall. I'm currently holding my breath, crossing my fingers, waiting to hear from a few more festivals. If this first screening in SF goes well and we get strongly positive reviews, we might try to structure a limited theatrical release in the months leading up to the DVD "street date", which will either happen late this year or very early 2008... I'm waiting to hear about that right now, but our distributor does a great job with "genre" titles (horror, sci-fi, fantasy) so I have every confidence that the movie will get out there.

SFist: What message(s) do you hope this film conveys?
RS: This film has already provoked a number of heated arguments, and I love that. Anything that gets people talking, and thinking, is good in my book. There's no reason to accept conventional wisdom or stick to some party line; people should read, think, discuss, and come to their own decisions -- but they should always be willing to throw out their decisions and re-do the process in light of new evidence! Beyond some of the Big Issues the movie tackles, however, are simple, smaller things, like "don't forget to tell the people you love that you love them."