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Jon Shear, director of "Urbania"

"Urbania" is one of the most poignant and amazing films I've ever seen. I was fortunate enough to view this masterpiece during the Agliff 2000 Film Festival in Austin. The film was to be distributed by Unipix in the fall but the company ran into some financial trouble. Lion's Gate stepped in, picked up the film, and stuck to the original release schedule. And while a few critics have been lukewarm to the film, the majority have been overwhelming in their praise, including myself.

"Urbania" is the kind of film that should be seen cold. The less you know about it the more spectacular it's playing. Therefore, I urge you to see the film and then return to read this interview. While Mr. Shear and myself have been cautious to not spoil anything about the film, this interview does contain tidbits of information that may spoil the film's wondrous surprises for you.

And now, 13 Questions with Lodger and John Shear:

Most of my professional experience has been as an actor. While much has been in film and TV - Heathers, Independence Day, And the Band Played On - the most satisfying work has been in theater - the premiere of Angels in America, the Broadway productions of Six Degrees of Separation and Runaways, in particular. The vitality of the experience has been the most satisfying aspect. The work tended to be quite emotional and provocative. Being the conduit of energy between the creators and the audience. Tapping into the center of energy at the heart of a piece, funneling it out to the audience and having them funnel it back to the actor and building back and forth from there is a blast. Being the guide for the audience through unexpected territories. Letting them feel safe enough to continue moving through more unusual terrain. It's all so satisfying.

The biggest difference between acting and directing is control. The job, satisfaction, and danger of acting is rooted in surrender to the director. Directing is the opposite. You need to corral the energies and talents of everyone else to build a unified vision. The difference between film and theater directing is primarily technical. The goal and task is the same. But the means are somewhat different. Different tools to get your vision across. Editing, color timing, etc. So many more decisions to be made in film. The audience member is tied more to your way of seeing. The ground is different. On stage, you build from a black void. There's a street scene: you put in the fewest, most essential elements needed to give the sense of what's needed. On film, the starting point is the opposite. You start with reality and strip away until you have only the elements necessary. Not just from a budget standpoint, but from getting the biggest bang from the fewest elements - again to give the most impact.

Daniel knew I was interested not merely in "opening up" the play but transforming it, using it as the jumping off point to a very different experience. He was extraordinarily generous and open-minded in making changes to a piece which had been successful in its original state. After a year of our working together, he stepped down after he decided that he couldn't get the original piece sufficiently out of his head to take it into this different world. I took over the script from there and continued working on it for the next two years, to create a structure and content which would reflect the view of a man whose perception has shifted in response to his experience. The legends and the love story were added in this phase. Daniel's criticisms were invited and welcomed. His notes I think were absorbed to his satisfaction. When he saw the first cut, he asked only that the gerbil story be dropped. We agreed to cut it. I fear speaking for him, but I think he's quite happy with the film.

I was a bit concerned about the Urban Legend flicks, but that audience and our intended audience I think have little overlap. I didn't have to do much research, because I'd heard so many of them, or experienced them: my dad's kidney was taken - though not by a luscious babe, but a mistaken doctor who'd been given the wrong chart for my dad. I read a few books and visited some websites to fill in the film, using snippets of stories for some of the passersby in the film, to add more surreal texture to the film. The tales were only told a few times in the play. For the film, I wanted them to come to life around Charlie, so the film would operate at the same juncture between reality and surrealism that legends themselves occupy. When I've experienced trauma, this is the way the world has seemed to me. I have felt separated from the world around me and from myself as well. I was also interested in using the legends to bring to the fore what was in the play - namely, the myths we have about each other and ourselves.

Fortunately, I had autonomy concerning everything but the budget... Josh was the only actor I knew before shooting. I knew of everyone else, except for Samuel Ball... Sam was the only actor who auditioned. He got his SAG card doing this and has since filmed four movies. So he's doing fine. Our fantastic and tireless casting director suggested Dan Futterman and Barbara Sukowa. I had Alan Cumming, Matt Keeslar, Josh Hamilton, and Bill Sage in mind during the last draft. Knowing our budgetary limitations, my lack of experience, and the edgy sexuality of the script, I felt that by making offers without asking for an audition would both go a long way to balancing out those challenges and give them a confidence that would help if they agreed to take part. I wanted actors who were fearless with their bodies and their emotions. This movie would work in its attempt to take the audience somewhere they haven't been only if the guides were actors that the audience would want to follow. The major differences between working with actors on film as opposed to theater have to do with pacing and vulnerability. You've got a month on stage and basically just a few hours on film to craft the perfect moment. They each require a different approach. Much of the stage work has to do with the momentum of the performance. On film, the concentration is more on the moment itself. Your job as director is to know the complete shape of the performance before hand. On stage, the shape comes into focus as the month progresses. This is why I can understand not having a hand in the play script, but believe you have to have processed the film script through your head countless times, so you already see it played out before you start. Also, actors are more vulnerable to the uses their image may be put to after shooting, so there's a bit more heat around the hotter moments. During the masturbation scene, Danny stopped and asked to look at the monitor to see just how much of him we were seeing. When he saw that his worst fears being answered, he said, "I can't believe my mother is going to see this."

I've become more aware of the influences since completing the film. I didn't watch certain movies over and over. I felt that I had to make my limitation regarding experience an asset and just work from my imagination. But now I can see the mark of Atom Egoyan (especially Exotica regarding our title, Hitchcock (the subjectivity of Vertigo), and Fearless (the use of music, a central character who isn't always easy to identify with). I wanted the film to look simultaneously surreal and naturalistic. Super 16 gave that to us without any manipulation. The colors are super-saturated and the grain is slightly heightened. The post process we helped invent enabled us to keep those qualities to an unparalleled extent. We didn't build any sets, but we didn't leave any interior untouched. The production designer was amazing. Every sequence has its own color, so there was much to be changed in each location and she had a total of 3K, including salaries, but she enabled us to do everything we wanted.

Working with Stephanie (Golden) in particular was bliss. We've been working together on this and watched each other learn a tremendous amount, sometimes by screwing up, over a long period of time, and I've never felt that we didn't want the same thing. We trust each other and that seems to be at the heart of so much of this process. You agree to collaborate, especially with the team of creative people you build around you, and you have to believe you chosen each other for the right reasons, so that when things don't go according to your plan, you have to consider whether the difference is for the good.

While the general structure and many of the transitions were planned out in detail, the film changed much during the shoot and then in post. That's what's exciting about film. The making of the film was very similar to the experience of the lead character: you may want to gain control over your life, but it ain't ever going to happen. His life, like the film, is shaped as much by accident and circumstance as will power. (Editors) Randy (Bricker) and Ed (Marx) and the other editors who came on for a week at a time when Ed and Randy were working on other projects all left were extremely patient in going through each frame with me time and again so that the film stayed rooted in Charlie's skewed vision of the world. It's a complicated structure and without a traditional plot to keep things moving forward, we depended so much on rhythm to keep the audience inside the flow. Ed and Randy had opposite approaches to the film and I appreciated that. Ed was most excited about the heart pumping a mile a minute quality of the filmmaking. Randy was most interested in the actors dictating where we went. Both were essential, so together it was a perfect blend. We spent half the entire edit on the first ten minutes and the final fifteen. Setting up all the disparate issues and then bringing them together in one woosh took time. The task was always staying grounded inside Charlie's emotion so that the audience stayed inside the film.

This only happened at Sundance. Since then, we've not said boo about what to write about. At Sundance, I just wanted the audience to see it with no filter. I wanted one experience where it was the film and not the advance that the audience was responding to. Audiences have been most excited about the twists and turns that the film takes. At Sundance when Charlie revealed his sexuality, someone gasped. I appreciate it much when people say I've never seen anything like this; I've never felt anything like this. The less the audience knows the more likely they'll feel this way.

I'm working on three projects. One even more provocative, in dealing with teen sexuality from their point of view, another inspired by Henry James, so a bit more upscale. Hopefully, we'll be shooting by summer.

We hope so as well, Jon! "Urbania" is not only the best film of the year, it's one of the best films ever made. You must see it, if you already have not. Whatever Jon Shear does next, one can only imagine it will be hard to follow up his debut.