Interview with James Fox, Director of Singularity

In an interview with James Fox head director and co-visionary for the short film Singularity, E. Lamont Jones PR for Starting Arts was able to get the behind the scenes scoop at the making of the project. The following is an account of their conversation:

SA: What was the goal for the making of Singularity?

James: I think the ultimate goal for the project was to give the youth a chance to work on a real set, gain experience acting and to help push the bounds of the industry. If they want to be actors there’s no better opportunity than working on a real film set to see what it’s all about. When we started the class our original goal was to get fifteen to twenty kids involved in every aspect of making a short film…um but we are glad it worked out to be a little bit smaller for the first one because it was very challenging.

SA: Challenging in what way?

James: Because it was a full-fledged-production. I mean this is something it would take at least 30 or 40 trained professionals to do and we did it with Geoff and me, four of our crew that donated their time, a few other volunteers, and the kids. It was a very small crew and we did fifteen pages ─ people thought we were crazy! But we thought it was really important that the kids get on a real set… a real production ─ they see what its like to really be an actor…where you’re doing the same scene fifty times a day! You know, get behind the camera see how it works ─ see how we interact as a crew!

SA: What was your favorite part of the experience?

James: One of my favorite parts of the experience was the youth getting on set with us. You know we're trying to teach them the lingo/ catch phrases that people use to get everyone’s attention on set, like: QUIET ON THE SET. After the first week the youth were telling us stuff. We’d shout BACK TO ONE and they would all shout BACK TO ONE. They started picking it up really quick and I was just amazed!

SA: How long was your original script?

James: Our original script was thirty pages long and had a cast of twenty and you know we set out to kind of say, “This a real set, with a full script. We’re not messing around here – this is work!”. People were looking at us like we were absolutely insane! Then we would add it’s a sci-fi film and we’re building a ship-set they were saying you’re nuts! But just to reiterate we wanted to give the youth a REAL Hollywood experience.

SA: What is Singularity about?

James: We wanted to do a coming-of-age story, a group of kids getting together trying to overcome obstacles by using their imagination…using their creativity and really kind of setting out on an adventure.

In the story the main character Cassie gets presented with this problem: her dad may be loosing his job because he can’t finish a project. Cassie and her friends have been following her dad’s project for fun. But they decide to get serious and use their imaginations to really push it at great risk and peril to themselves as a way to keep all the friends together. There is a moment where they think of giving up but all the friends are willing to risk it all to stay together.

SA: That’s great! It sounds like in around-about-way “Singularity” was also teaching its young co-stars a few lessons about life.

James: Yeah its saying, “when life hands you obstacles we need each other to help us hurdle over them.

SA: How did your team come up with the idea for the script?

James: When we first started talking about the idea for “Singularity” and the Starting Arts Camp we were saying, “We should do something that is fun, kind of old style kid adventure film ─ with a good message”. As a company we want to specialize in fantasy and sci-fi films. I immediately said, “let’s create something sci- fi ─ kids in space”! Secretly, I think everyone on our crew at sometime wanted to be an astronaut so we started talking about how there has been all this talk in the news lately like the Google Lunar X prize, and it was the 39^th anniversary of the lunar landing the day we started the camp. Serendipitous became a common word throughout the making of the film.

All these events helped us to ask the question: “What would happen if a group of kids put it in their minds to go to space by collecting junk and building a ship out of it?, Could they do it?” We carved the story from that and went back in to make the characters real. We gave the characters a little life instead of just them going to space we wanted the audience to have a feel for what is going on in their lives. So it was kind of a process…but it was a fun one. Once we started building the ship and putting it together we were having tons of fun. We were playing in it and sort of “re-living our childhoods”.

SA: Isn’t it nice how our passions allow us to live vicariously through our own adventurous spirits?

James: Absolutely!

SA: Why should people come out to the premier of “Singularity?" What separates it from other short films?

James: Probably the biggest thing that stands apart from just regular short-films is that this is a film that is made basically in-association with kids. This is not like a big production house doing a film that just involves child actors. They were running the slate…the cameras ─obviously we helped out here and there…you know? We did seventy-five percent of the actual production; but the kids were right there shadowing us helping with lighting, directing some of the scenes. They did all there own character work ─ so this is a film for kids, and by kids!

SA: Describe how the partnership with Starting Arts and Dawnrunner Productions came to be?

James: Well Geoff has worked with Starting Arts for years as one of their technical directors. He spent the last two years working with me and we were peers at the Academy of Art in San Francisco together. I actually wound up helping him do video capture for some of the shows. While he would run the show I would video tape it for him. I was absolutely blown away one time I went to one of the big shows ─ wow these kids can really act! I couldn’t believe that they had memorized like a whole-hour-long show of Aladdin. I got to thinking, “Why doesn’t Starting Arts take it to the next level”. This evolved in to a meeting of the minds with Starting Arts Executive Director, Ann Watts and Artistic Director Mike Boston. Once I met them I was sold. They are just great people and I think that individually they, and Starting Arts as a whole are advancing something that is very near and dear to me ─ art! After that I was totally on board. It was like a general consensus once we put our heads together; we knew it was going to happen ─ what ever it took!

SA: What is the future hold for Dawnrunner Productions?

James: We are negotiating for a feature film somewhere in the United States for a foreign production company right now. We might be showing up in Bangkok; we have been negotiating with a production company there. That is a few years off, but we have been over there and the discussions have been great! We have music videos, commercials, and corporate gigs to keep us busy in the meantime.. So we have a lot of things going on. We should be in full production of this feature film by January.

SA: Future looks really bright for Dawnrunner Productions! Definitely everything you are giving out you are going to see results ─ especially out of the lives of these kids which are the truly the main focus of what we do here at Starting Arts!