Interview: Matt McCormick Discusses Music's Role in New Film

Part of Portland indie film darling Matt McCormick's heart has always belonged to the music scene. In between creating and screening his own experimental film projects, managing international film label Peripheral Produce and directing the PDX Film Festival, he's found time through the years to collaborate with musicians, compose soundtracks for some of his own short films, and direct music videos for The Shins, Sleater-Kinney, YACHT and other acts.

So it's not surprising that McCormick recruited some musically-minded friends to collaborate in his first full-length feature film. James Mercer of the Shins and Carrie Brownstein of the recently disbanded Sleater-Kinney play the lead roles in Some Days are Better Than Others, and Portland-based Matthew Cooper, better known as Eluvium, is scoring the film. The trailer was released this week. Watch it below for a taste of the four Portlanders' collaborative work.

Matt was kind enough to answer a few of our questions about the roles that music--and musicians--play in Some Days are Better than Others.

How did you decide James and Carrie were right for the two lead roles?

There were a lot of factors. The storyline of James' character actually derives from a music video I made for the Shins a long time ago ("The Past and Pending") and throughout the writing process I sort of had his image as that character. I also had worked with him on a couple other video projects and knew he was good in front of the camera, so when the time came to cast the film I gave him a shot to audition and he nailed it. Carrie originally came in to audition for a smaller role, but she asked if she could also read for the bigger role (Katrina) which she also nailed. The character Carrie plays works at a local dog shelter, and in real life Carrie works at the Oregon Humane Society, so she had a very acute understanding of the story line.

What did they bring to the table as musicians that made them interesting to work with, or different from actors without that background?

I have worked with so few actors that it's hard to say, but Carrie and James are both very smart, creative people who I think were able to bring a larger artistic sense to the process. It really just felt like one big artistic collaboration.

You've scored some of your own short films in the past - how did you approach the scoring of this film, and how did you decide to work with Matthew Cooper?

Matthew Cooper (who performs under the name Eluvium) is kind of a hero of mine. I recently met him and we realized we were mutual fans of each other's work, and it almost seemed like we were just destined to do this project together.

Several other local musicians appear in the film as well. How did that evolve?

There are some little bit parts that musician friends of mine played, but nothing too serious. I guess a lot of it comes down to the fact that I just have a lot of friends who are musicians, and it's always fun to work with them in one way or another.

Watch the just-released trailer for Some Days are Better Than Others here, find out more on the Some Days are Better than Others site, and check out more of Matt McCormick's work (including music videos for the Shin's "The Past and Pending" and "Australia," as well as Sleater Kinney's "Jumpers") on Matt McCormick's site.

Some Days are Better than Others (trailer) from matt mccormick on Vimeo.

-- Courtney Powell

Comments

[internal hard drive on September 24, 2009 at 09:17 PM]

YAA its sounds great and as am big fan of him Matt McCormick's.Thanks for giving me his life stuffs.