Here You Are You Here
A man obsessively tracks a spirit who haunts him and leads him from one uninhabited locale to another on a Sisyphean scavenger hunt.
Interview with Writer/Director Masa Gibson
Watch Here You Are You Here on the director’s website.
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
My artistic partner-in-crime and I were planning a vacation to Iceland, and we decided a couple of weeks before to shoot a short film on her phone while we were there, and to let that film serve as our vacation photos. I threw together a script, we bought some accessories, and we gave ourselves a crash course on using the phone's camera (neither of us had formally DPed before) in the days leading up to the trip. Once we landed in Iceland, life paralleled art as we roamed the country looking for the most evocative locations, often chasing good weather and racing against time (dying batteries, setting sun, etc.). Inevitably, many things did not go as planned, and I believe the seat-of-our-pants nature of the shoot lends a visceral, surrealistic energy to the final product.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
This short is part narrative film and part visual poem. It immerses the audience in a dream-like world of stark, desolate beauty.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
The film is only very loosely narrative, but it hits on themes of one-on-one relationships and co-dependence.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The script (such as it was) was thrown together in a matter of days leading up to the shoot. It was more of an outline than a proper script. Many of the locations and actions were just indicated as vague placeholders, leaving open the possibility of rolling with whatever locations we stumbled into and incorporating them into the "story". All the dialogue was done as voice-over in post, and much of it was conceived during the post-production process.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
People generally seem to enjoy it, though there's a range in terms of the narrative "clues" that people pick up on. Some people project a very concrete story onto it, while others resign themselves to just experiencing it as a purely aesthetic work, which is just as valid. People are usually surprised to learn that the whole thing was shot on a smartphone.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
Because of the film's experimental nature, there is of course a lot of room for interpretation. It's been so interesting to hear some people's interpretations of certain elements in the film, especially when multiple unrelated viewers have converged on an interpretation that we as filmmakers never thought of ourselves. One viewer had the strong feeling that the protagonist was a character in a real-life video game; another viewer said that the film basically told her life story.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
The film has been a bit difficult to categorize in terms of genre; I hope that promoting it on WAMS will help it find an audience that is open to exploring works that are out of the mainstream and that resist pigeonholing!
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We would love to hear from any distributors or film festival directors that are interested in showcasing slightly more experimental works.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We're not aiming for any particular reaction with this one; we just want people to experience it.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
I think it's fun to watch it with people you know and then discuss what you think "happened" in it afterwards. It reveals the different kinds of cues to which different people are sensitive.
Would you like to add anything else?
Almost everyone we've screened this for has missed at least one or two details that have a big impact on the possible interpretations of the film; if one has the means to watch it more than once, I would recommend doing so!
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
The COVID 19 pandemic hit not long after we released this film. When we went into lockdown, we decided to use the equipment (mobile phone and accessories) and skills we had garnered during the production of this film to shoot another mobile phone film, again with just the two of us as crew. But instead of gallivanting around to various striking locations in a remote country, we headed to the roof of our NYC apartment building. The film, called "Rooftop Intermission", was recently finished and is starting to make the festival rounds now.
Interview: August 2021
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Here You Are You Here
Length:
14:51
Writer/Director
MASA GIBSON (they/them) holds a BA in Music from Rutgers University and a PhD in Linguistics from Cornell University. They are a classically trained singer and a Meisner-trained actor. After spending time on set as an actor, they migrated over to the other side of the camera to try their hand at filmmaking, co-founding Marked Pictures (markedpictures.com) with Abby J. Smith in 2013.
Key cast:
Looking for:
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/hereyouareyouhere
More info:
https://www.masagibson.com/here-you-are-you-here
Where can I watch it now?
It is currently being hosted by the Fantasy Film Festival's Vimeo channel (https://vimeo.com/channels/fantasyfilmfestival/videos/page:4), which was put together during the pandemic while the festival was unable to be held in person. Films on that channel can be viewed for a small fee. There are plans for the in-person version of the festival to be held in November (dates TBD) in Paris, France. The film has also been accepted into a festival local to the NYC area, which is slated to take place in late September/early October, but we have been asked by the festival's organizers to hold off on announcing anything about the film's selection status until plans for the festival become more firm.