I have seen my father cry twice in my lifetime. Once, at the wake of a relative and then, 17 years later, while watching this week’s Staff Pick Premiere, “The Procedure.” He claims that he was crying because I was crying, which is true. Even though I had already seen this film multiple times, I still laughed until I cried in a way I’d never heard myself laugh before: like a hysterical banshee witch with zero inhibitions.
Partly inspired by an “X-Files” episode, the gist of “The Procedure” simply landed directly into director Calvin Reeder’s head one day. After sharing the idea with his girlfriend and getting a laugh, he rounded up a skeleton crew in Seattle and decided to make this dramatic mystery movie into the beautiful shot of weirdness that it is today.
At 13, I declared that I would not marry anyone who thought Harold and Maude were gross, but today my requirements have changed –if you don’t think “The Procedure” is funny, then I feel bad for you. If you’ve never seen it, I am jealous of you. Please enjoy and let us know what you think!
NOTE: This film contains graphic images some may find disturbing. You’ve been warned!
* * Warning: Big spoilers within! * *
Vimeo: Where did the idea of “The Procedure” come from?
Yeah, this isn’t something that comes premeditated, it just clicked. I just told [my girlfriend] and she was…appalled but also laughing and then it just kinda continued into the next day. Y’know, just the idea. And I said “Hey, what if…?” and then I wrote it as a couple page script. Then, I started sending it to my friends and they responded to it really well just on the naked page. I was pretty excited by their reactions because I knew we had something.
What was the skeleton of the original idea? Did your friends add to it as time went on?
No, no – it was always the original idea, no more no less.
Is the actual fart in it real or CGI?
It’s real!
At no point is the actual actor beneath the man being lowered down, right?
No, he’s totally under it all the time! That’s a wild assumption! Where did you get that from?
Everyone who has watched it with me assumed this.
No, that is not a composite. Oh my god, no – that is how we got that performance [from Christian Palmer].
Did you guys rehearse this or was it the first time he’d been in that position?
Yeah first time, first day… one day or two. Probably a seven-hour shoot. Just like… go! There is nothing composite about it – it’s all there. The camera is right next to him as this butt is being lowered.
It seems that the way this film was shot was completely straightforward, with different camera shots instead of takes, so I’m curious if you had any other scenes in mind or alternate endings?
No – nope, that’s all that it was supposed to be.
We know that “The Procedure” won the Short Film Jury Award for U.S Fiction at Sundance. Among particular audiences you’ve seen, what has the reception to the short been like and what have you found is the usual reaction? Also, has your family seen this video?
The audience reactions that I’ve seen have been very positive. Some audiences are different though – some audiences are very verbal and I don’t know what sets that off but it’s amazing to watch. There’s a lot of gasping, almost doing exactly what our hero is doing, saying “NOOO STOP” and the audience members are saying the same thing or just being like “Holy shit” or whatever. It’s almost more interesting in a quiet audience because we can hear the little reactions from around the room. Some people take it in very silently, some people are very loud about it.
Some places you go and everybody is exploding with laughter after the setup is revealed, and others take it real quietly like it’s a drama – which it also is – and they don’t start laughing until the end and maybe they’ll start laughing into the next film.
In the Q&A’s everybody seems to have the same question – it’s common for someone to raise their hand and say “What the fuck?” I don’t know what I’m supposed to say to that. I don’t know how to answer but I get that question a lot.
Yeah, my family has seen it and they all seem to like it. But I’ve broken them in because I’ve had a bunch of films at Sundance and they’re all pretty dirty and strange in their own way. This is not their introduction to me by any means. This is something new but they were well prepped for it so they all liked it a lot.
Have you had any negative reactions to the film? I have yet to hear a bad review of it.
Oh, I certainly hope so.
You certainly hope there are negative reactions?
I certainly hope so, yes!
What are you hoping that people walk away with after experiencing your film?
I like to set up mysteries for the audience to ponder. There are a lot of different things you can point to in order to find meaning and I hope people find it on their own. I don’t want to point anyone in a specific direction, I just want them to experience it on their own and talk about it with each other. I love it that that happens. I just don’t make the kind of films that bear much explanation, even though I might inspire the most questions. I a guy like me makes this movie and then I start explaining every little detail, I could ruin it for people who prefer the mystery. I hate it when mysteries are ruined, when people just tell me stuff. When I see a great mysterious comical moment, I don’t want it explained by the creator, I just want it to be explored by the audience. That’s where I’m coming from with all of my other work as well.
Even the A Clockwork Orange-like eye contraption? That was part of the idea?
He had to have his eye open, that way he couldn’t resist it. It all came in a flash!
