Mike Figgis hit Hollywood’s radar with Leaving Las Vegas, which generated an Academy Award for Nicolas Cage and nominations for Figgis’s screenplay and direction. Evincing no real fascination with the mainstream, he soon made the real-time, single-take Timecode, with a four-way split screen accommodating the footage from four different handheld DV cameras. His follow-up DV feature, Hotel, arrived on DVD in July. Film & Video interviewed him on the subject of digital cinema, but Figgis says he may yet return to 16mm filmmaking – he plans to shoot Going Down in New York with the same Aaton Super 16 kit he used for Leaving Las Vegas.
  • Writer/director/cinematographer
  • Recent Project: Hotel
  • On: The future of digital cinema
F&V: What have your experiences making Timecode and Hotel on DV taught you about filmmaking?
That there is life in the beast yet. New technology can in itself be a source of inspiration because it changes the structure of filmmaking – less crew, more improvisation, more control of the image in house, etc. It’s also easier to design and modify equipment based on a personal need for a film. Everything becomes more personal.
F&V: Have you seen anyone else’s DV films that you found particularly groundbreaking, evocative or inspiring?
I don’t see so much cinema myself – sometimes at festivals if I am on the jury, and at film schools as well. I see a lot of sloppy camerawork and lazy work and realize that filmmaking is just as difficult on DVCAM as it was on 35mm. It’s more difficult in some ways because the filmmaker has to do so much more herself or himself.
F&V: What’s your take on digital cinema cameras like the Sony CineAlta and the Grass Valley Viper?
They’re interesting, of course. But the technology is evolving so fast that I prefer to stick with a couple of older types of camera – the Sony PD100 and the Panasonics. I know them well and they do pretty much what I ask of them. I think this familiarity is important as in still camera work.
F&V: How do you see the nature of film distribution changing?
The circuit of distribution as it is now is useless for the new generation of films shot on video. It is too inextricably linked to the economic structure of the studios and big budgets and huge budgets for prints and advertising. We need a good indie alternative that utilizes the portability of projectors and sound systems and recognizes that a cinema is a space that can be used for a period of time and then the cinema moves on to another space. It doesn’t have to be permanent.
F&V: You recently taught a master class at the European Film Academy that culminated in the creation of a 90-minute feature film. Why is it important to be active in educating young filmmakers?
Well, it’s important to inspire and to pass on information and knowledge. The hardest lesson to pass on seems to be that filmmaking is really hard work and that there are no short cuts and that if you are not driven to make a film it will never happen.