Van Maximilian Carlson – The Troll

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Interview by Briege McGarrity

Van Maximilian Carlson is an award-winning filmmaker with an impressive number of completed projects under his belt, including, several original films, documentaries, commercials and trailers.  His documentary, Bhopali, has won seven awards, including the “Best Documentary” award at the 2011 Slamdance Film Festival, and has been broadcast in over 20 countries.  Carlson’s work has garnered over 15 awards and his short film, Ninth November Night, was called “one of the outstanding documentaries of 2004″ by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Most recently, his dramatic/fantasy short, The Troll, won “Best Short Film” at the 2013 Los Angeles Independent Film Quarterly  (IFQ) Festival.

The film which stars up-and-coming actress Petra Wright, Patrick Saxon, and Tony Abatemarco, tells the unusual story of a troll, who lives underneath a bridge in Los Angeles and falls in love with a human woman. IFQ’s Briege McGarrity caught up with Max for a chat about The Troll and to learn more about his boutique production company, Odd Box Films, headquartered in Los Angeles.

Independent Film Quarterly (IFQ): Congrats on your award at the IFQ festival. Where did you get the inspiration for The Troll?

Van Maximilian Carlson (MC): The inspiration for The Troll came from growing up near the Shakespeare Bridge, which is a gothic style bridge a couple blocks from my childhood home in Los Angeles.  I used to play under the bridge as a child and I always imagined strange creatures living underneath it.  The idea stuck with me and over the years the story took shape and became what it is today.

IFQ: Is it a very different experience directing a short compared to your usual medium of documentaries?

VMC: Yes. The experience of directing a short narrative film vs. that of a documentary is very different.  When I made Bhopali, I spent 3 months in India shooting hours and hours of footage, trying to capture personal stories in ways that would be engaging for an audience.  To me, documentaries are more of an investigative work and you never quite know where you’ll end up.  With a short narrative film, you have a script, so you pretty much precisely know where you’ll end up.  As I was writing the script I could visualize how I wanted scenes to feel, in terms of pacing, visual storytelling, mood, etc.  And with those ideas in mind, you try to craft the scenes from scratch, but with an entire team of people to help you.  As opposed to the documentary, which was just myself and producer Kirk Palayan, this short film had a crew of approximately 20 people.  The pre-production stage took about two months of planning, primarily creating the look of the Troll, working with the prosthetic artist Jeff Farley.  The actual filming process only took about 4 days, and the edit was done within a week.  With scripted work vs. that of documentary work, you can plan and execute projects in a much more timely manner.

 IFQ: Where did filming take place and what were some of the challenges on the shoot?

VMC: Filming took place in Los Angeles.  The bridge we used was the 6th street bridge, which is an iconic and beautiful bridge in Downtown Los Angeles. We shot underneath the bridge, on the Los Angeles River, which has a very lonely, industrial, yet visually beautiful look to it.  The main challenge was figuring out how to light the bridge at night.  Luckily, my DP, John Simmons, is a master at lighting, so it came together relatively smoothly.  I think the only hiccup came from not having enough helium to inflate the light balloon, which we had rented.  The other challenge came from trying to fit a lot of scenes into a short amount of time.  We only had enough of a budget to shoot at the bridge for 2 days so we had to move rather quickly and I had to be very specific in the shots that I wanted to get.

 IFQ: I loved how the troll left hearts in various places. Can you see yourself making a romantic film?

 VMC: The hearts left in various places was something I took from a personal story of my aunt Madalene.  Her partner, Page Hodel, would leave hearts on Madalene’s doorstep every Monday.  They were always very creative and beautiful and she’s since created hundreds of hearts, even published a book and postcard set of the hearts in a series called “Monday hearts for Madalene.”   I would say that I can definitely see myself making a romantic film. I consider The Troll to be a romantic film already, although perhaps a little darker than most.

IFQ: Tell us about the actress Petra Wright who played the female lead Andrea.

 VMC: Petra was a neighbor of mine who lived in the same building as me in Downtown Los Angeles.  We had met through our dogs, who are best friends and would play together frequently.  I found out Petra was an actress and before I started to write the script for The Troll, I had an idea that she might be the perfect quality of character for the lead female role, so while writing, I was actually picturing her in the role, so essentially I wrote it with her in mind.  She was a great joy to work with, extremely easy going, and when it came to the finale scene, with her in the hospital, she delivered an emotional depth that I was very moved by.  We hadn’t discussed too much about the final scene, in terms of how emotional she should get, and I remember on the first take she teared up, which I wasn’t expecting, and so I teared up and the set got very quiet, it was quite a moving experience.

IFQ: You seem to have a successful partnership with Kirk Palayan at Odd Box Films. What kinds of projects are you most interested in investing your time?

 VMC: From a documentary standpoint, I’m interested in stories that move me, which usually happen to include some form of social justice message or perhaps they’re political in nature.  I generally feel better dedicating my time to a cause that I believe in and since documentaries can be very long endeavors, keeping yourself motivating becomes a major factor in getting a project completed, so the more powerful the subject of the documentary is, the more keen I am on pushing the project forward to its completion.

 IFQ: How was The Troll financed?

VMC: The film was co-financed by myself and Christopher Folino.  I used the money from my day-job as an editor to pay for the film. Chris owns a production company called Sideshow productions, which creates commercials, so luckily for me he was able to invest some of his money in The Troll.

 IFQ: Well done, you managed to make the film professional!

VMC: Thank you.  It was a total collaboration and everyone in the cast and crew who contributed, really elevated the film and made it special.  I’d also like to give a big thank you to John Simmons, who is an ASC cinematographer, who kindly donated his time as DP on my film.

IFQ: Any other films ready for viewing?

 VMC: I’m currently working on 2 documentaries at the moment. One is about the Chinatown area of Los Angeles and the Chinese shop owners, who in some cases have been here since the early 40s.  The other is about Navy sonar testing in our oceans and its harmful effects on marine life.  I’m also developing two scripts at the moment, one is a drama/martial arts film set in Chinatown, the second, is a film loosely about racism.