James Westby

From TownSquared:

https://townsquared.com/ts/resources/the-rebirth-of-the-video-store/

The Rebirth of the Video Store, by Byron Beck, PDX Correspondent

SEPTEMBER 20, 2017

The disappearance of something that once was such a big part of every family’s weekend routine—going to a video store and picking out your favorite film—intrigued James Westby.

Westby is the director of quirky, arthouse favorite films. His most well-known are “Film Geek,” “The Auteur” and “Rid of Me.” What he is perhaps least known for is that he is also the step-brother of rock legend, and Nirvana frontman, Kurt Cobain.

And although he maybe related to rock royalty, and has several films under his belt, Westby grew up just like any other mild-mannered kid in Aberdeen, Washington who had a thing for skating. In fact, it was skateboards and skateboard culture that led him to make his first films.

“It emanated from skate videos,” said Westby. “All I did in high school was skate and watch the same videos over and over—mostly The Bones Brigade stuff —which led to seeing things like “Repo Man” and “Decline of the Western Civilization.” Also, I remember my Mom and I used to read the same Dean R. Koontz novels and have casting sessions together; figuring out who could play all the parts, were it to be made into a film.”

Due to his love of film, and that fact that it’s what a lot of filmmakers of his generation did (think Kevin Smith), it was in the Northwest city that he currently calls home, Portland, and in Los Angeles, that Westby spent many a day and night as an employee behind the counter of a video store reminding customers to “be kind,” and “rewind.”

“(In Portland) I worked at Moyer’s First Stop Video, then later Rocket Video (in L.A.), then (in Portland) again at the Videorama stores.” For Westby there were so much more than just stores. “There were actually more than that,” said Westby. “There was a personal, coming-of-age-connection aspect.”

Besides making his own films, and working at video stores, Westby was hired by Hollywood Video, a large rental chain, to make what turned out to be their final training video, (they went out of biz less than a year later). Snippets from that training video have made it into his current project.

--

From Portland Interview Magazine, June 8, 2011:

http://portlandinterviewmagazine.com/interviews/media/james-westby-...

James, when did you know for sure that you wanted to be a director? And which came first for you—writer, director or editor?

JW: Actually it was all three—it was filmmaker. I was a serious film buff when I was in elementary school. When VHS tapes came out I would rent every horror film I could get my hands on. Watching the making of Michael Jackson’s Thriller was also really huge for me. I watched it over and over. Watching John Landis behind the scenes demystified the process for me when I was in sixth grade.

Still, it was pretty much untouchable so I got into skate boarding and guitar playing. However, I continued to watch movies and obsess about Saturday Night Live and Kids In The Hall, especially around my junior and senior years in high school. And I think Kids In The Hall even more, because they were making little films. It seemed even more doable somehow, to just make people laugh, to do something funny and easy. So, I got a Super 8 camera and set about making little movies and teaching myself how to do it.

Then came the process of applying, not getting in and reapplying to different film schools. During this process I realized that I could just do this on my own. Then, I spent the next twenty years completely struggling.

I remember when I was about nineteen, the Cohen brothers were IT for me. They wrote, directed and edited their own films. They were making these technically perfect films and they did them on their own terms. It was brilliant and exactly what I wanted to at the time.

Since then I’ve kind of shied away from their way of filmmaking and been more inspired by the French New Wave low budget and underground style of filmmaking. Obviously, since all of my films have been budgeted at under a million dollars.

In your process, where do you think your voice is most prevalent—writing, directing or editing?

JW: Sometimes I think my voice comes out in the films more as an editor than a director. Although, I like to mix the three together so that it all becomes one big process. By that I mean, when I’m writing, I’m thinking about the editing. When I’m editing, I’m rewriting the script. And when I’m directing, I’m thinking about editing and rewriting the script as well. It’s still all one for me—Filmmaker.

Are you a film snob, in terms of film stock vs. video?

JW: I was late coming to digital. I was a film snob until I edited a digital project for a friend of mine. I had been living in LA for about three years, just kind of spinning my wheels, when a friend asked me to edit his documentary. That’s the reason I moved back up here. That was 2002 and my first Final Cut Pro project. It was the first time I wasn’t editing on actual film, and that was a film school all in it’s own. That’s when I had to come to terms with not being a film snob.

Digital changed everything. I literally made that movie Film Geek because I had a one-year-old daughter and a terrible job and I knew that I needed to do something. The Panasonic DVX 100 camera had come out and it looked like film. Suddenly, video didn’t look like a bad soap opera anymore. It’s that technology that has allowed me to make these three films in a row, now that the image-capturing device (the camera) has become the cheapest part of a production. It used to be the most expensive.

Rid of Me was not only one of four thousand films chosen to be showcased at The Tribeca Film Festival, it has also received glowing accolades from top industry publications (indieWIRE, Variety, Vanity Fair, the LA Times, etc.) and respected film makers alike. For all intents and purposes, one could say it’s truly a hit.

--

From Indiewire of Nov. 17, 2011, 11:48 a.m.

http://www.indiewire.com/2011/11/first-person-james-westby-on-how-h...

First Person: James Westby On How His Black Comedy “Rid of Me” Was Born Out of Pain

James Westby’s black comedy “Rid of Me” follows Meris (Katie O’Grady), a newlywed who moves to Portland with her husband. Rejected by his old high school clique, she goes into a radical personal evolution. The comedy world premiered at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival and won the Founder’s Prize for Best U.S. Fiction Film at the 2011 Traverse City Film Festival. Below writer-director Westby talks with Indiewire about making his black comedy.

Responses courtesy of “Rid of Me” director James Westby.

Inspired by Cassavetes, raised in the Northwest…

I read “Cassavetes on Cassavetes” by Ray Carney when I was fifteen and that was just it for me. I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life…kidding!

I grew up in small towns in the Pacific Northwest and made 8mm movies with my stepbrother when I was a kid, but I was mostly into video games and skateboarding. The Shining was the first film that really made an impression on me, which I saw when I was eight, and Videodrome after that. I did not go to college but read a lot of fiction – Nathaniel West, James Agee, Flannery O’Connor, Shirley Jackson, Patricia Highsmith, J.G. Ballard.

I also worked in retail environments for about a decade. These jobs probably fueled my screenwriting more than anything; the people I came into contact with and the stories I would hear really inspired me to write the movies I write. You can learn a lot in retail! While working in video stores I watched everything – Bunuel, Tati, Mike Leigh, The Double Life of Veronique, Team America: World Police…you name it. I have been making low-budget feature films for about 18 years, first on 16mm, then DV and now HD.

Hating an ex’s friends turns into a film…

A lot of the script for “Rid of Me” came from painful memories of past relationships, really hating my ex’s friends, and also really hating how obsessive I would sometimes get about my ex’s previous relationships. Those things, combined with my own social awkwardness, helped shape a very personal story full of horribly embarrassing situations. But funny!

The whole thing kicked into a higher gear when I cast Katie O’Grady in the lead role. The character of Meris is like all of us in that she has contradictions, which Katie added to immeasurably. Meris is sweet, she’s stupid, she’s smart, she’s funny, she’s annoying, she does awful and wonderful things and never seems to know exactly how she feels about anything.

On making something like a scripted documentary…

Production-wise, “Rid of Me” was sort of approached as if we were making a documentary, only scripted and with a tripod. Then while editing, it became a little dreamier and more stylized, and now I don’t know exactly how to categorize it. It’s kind of a weird narrative home movie, but uplifting and sweet!

My previous film, “The Auteur,” was rigidly pre-planned and I drew out every shot. This was completely the opposite. I shot hundreds of hours of footage, and while the script was followed most of the time, we weren’t afraid to make things up and never quite knew what would happen each day. I loved it. Overall, I tried to make “Rid of Me” not look or feel like a regular movie. It’s kind of split into two parts. The first half is almost a horror film, as Meris is virtually unable to become part of her husband’s group of old high school friends. The second, as Meris starts to find herself, is looser, more playful and a little bit music video-like.

The challenge of editing…

For me the biggest challenge, and the most fun element, is always editing. I love to edit, and it is very much a continuation of the writing and directing. But while doing so – placing music cues, restructuring scenes, literally re-writing the script, shooting inserts in my office and cutting them in to the movie – it can be wearing on the ol’ patience (and the patience of loved ones).

Letting the movie find its way is very important. After a year of editing, I took a two-month hiatus, returned to it fresh and new, and had a ton more ideas. Knowing when a film is done is always tricky.

The “embarrassment” of indie filmmaking…

Theresa Russell has a small role in the film and every time we would cut and I’d move the camera, she’d ask if we were going to change lenses now. Being as we only had the lens that came with the camera, the Sony EX-1 (which doesn’t allow for interchangeable lenses anyway, without an adapter), I would say, “No, not just yet.” Derek (our script supervisor), Morgan (our sound recordist) and I would giggle to each other every time. After all, this is the woman who made so many films with Nicholas Roeg! Oddly, she didn’t say anything about the fact that there were no lights and only five people on the crew. I think maybe she felt sorry for us.

Up next…

The feature we’re shooting next is called “Hot in the Zipper.” It’s a screwball comedy following the bi-sexual adventures of three women in 1947 Manhattan. The whole thing is filmed in five 20-minute takes. The expression “hot in the zipper is hepcat slang for “really horny.” I’m also working on The Menage, a wife-swapping comedy, and The Basement, a horror movie about a disturbed special effects man in 1978 L.A.