a SIFF 2008 interview

Not Another Teen Movie
Director Nanette Burstein Tries to Keep it Real

If you’ve read my recent review, chances are you already know I loved director Nanette Burstein’s American Teen. One of the richest, most mesmerizing and highly entertaining documentaries I’ve had the pleasure to see this year, this examination of a year in the life of a group of Indiana High School Seniors has to be one of the most pleasing discoveries I’ve come across this year. This is a movie that speaks about who we are, where we come from and what it took to get where we’re at now, all through the eyes of some youngsters on the cusp of adulthood desperately trying to find away to, if not stand out, at least fit in.

Director Nanette Burstein filming Paramount Vantage's American Teen

I had the chance to speak with an extremely pregnant Burstein a couple of weeks into the Summer during the Seattle International Film Festival. Our delightful 20-minute conversation ran the gamut of topics, the two of us rambling here and there like a couple of old (if instant) friends recollecting about our own school days while still trying to unravel just what it took for the acclaimed director to get her latest feature made. Here are some of the highlights.

Sara Michelle Fetters: Your last film, the Robert Evans documentary The Kid Stays in the Picture, was a real inside Hollywood piece, an almost delicious slice of contemporary movie star sensationalism grounded in real human emotion and hardship. What in the world made you decide to focus upon a bunch of High School Seniors for an entire year as a follow-up?

Nanette Burstein: Long before I ever entertained the Hollywood elite world of Robert Evans I wanted to make this High School film because [that] was such a formative and tough in my life. I mean, I changed a lot [as a teenager]. I started very much wanting to be a part of the popular crowd and that didn’t make me happy at all so I ended up with a pink Mohawk by the time I was 16 and that’s when I started to figure out who I was.

From there it was fairly typical, I guess. I didn’t get along with my parents at that point in my life at all and they weren’t thrilled with my wanting to pursue a life in film. But, you know, ultimately I figured out my identity and the path I wanted to take so [this] was a really important time in my life, and I think that is a very universal thing. Despite all the pressures from your peers and your parents you still get to a place where you’re kind of figuring things out. That was the movie I was hoping I’d get a chance to make and what interested me about the project.

Sara Michelle: And that was the thing that surprised me about the film. Every time I kept hearing about it, even with the great buzz surrounding it and the awards at Sundance, I just couldn’t get that vibe that this was going to be some “The Hills” meets “The Real World” meets “Big Brother” meet Hoosiers glossy faux realistic piece of pop filmmaking. Instead, I found real truth here, and I was struck by how much I understood and related to these kids. And, based on your statements, I’m sure you felt that same. That had to be somewhat remarkable?

Nanette: Yes, it was, in both good and bad ways, you know? It was definitely enlightening. You could see where certain feelings you have in your present life still go back to those times in High School. Dealing with Megan [Krizmanich] and her friends I felt at times they were trying to manipulate me and I remember what it was like back in school with other girls trying to do the same with our teachers and peers.

And then, you know, High School kids spread vicious rumors about each other that are completely untrue and thy spread like wildfire. Then, after a while, they would start to spread rumors about the camera crew that were outrageous. After a while, one thing can’t help but build upon the other I would start to feel the injustice of it all, feeling just like I did when I was back in High School! [laughing] It was pretty enlightening.

Sara Michelle: It had to be kind of crazy and difficult, though, to keep your objectivity and not step in and get involved sometimes.

Nanette: Well, I did become good friends [with the kids] and would give them advice. You know, first of all I picked people that I liked because I was going to spending a lot of time with them and I want to film people that I think, even though they’re complex and they’re flawed and they don’t always do the right thing, the audience will ultimately root for.

Megan Krizmanich (center) in Paramount Vantage's American Teen

So, I become good friends with them [which] I think is an important part of the filmmaking process – at least for me it is – because they’re your good friend they start feel comfortable, they trust you and trust what you are going to do with the footage. If they really know you as a person then they feel more open to expose themselves and you can get more or that honesty and that authenticity.

Sara Michelle: And you got some really raw footage of these kids going through some serious times. I mean, talk about authenticity. Did it surprise you just how intimate they let you get?

Nanette: Sometimes it did. Yes. Absolutely.

Sara Michelle: And how difficult was it to get that intimate? I mean, it seemed almost like there was nowhere you couldn’t go. It looked like, at least in the film, that there were no barriers.

Nanette: And there were barriers so it never felt like I had the access you describe. There were certain locations I couldn’t film at, there was definitely other kids that were jealous who didn’t like the idea of the film crew and worried that we were going to make this [film] what you original expectations were, like some glossy reality series meets Hoosiers crap. And there were certain parties and certain big events that we couldn’t shoot at because the other kids just didn’t want us there. We had to take all that into consideration while we were making the picture.

But I did a really massive search to find the right High School to be at and then the right kids inside of it, and one of the criteria was that it had to be a school that really wanted me to be there and would give me [solid] access upfront before we even started rolling the camera. In the end I think we were very lucky to find exactly what we were looking for. Was it perfect? No. Were we able to capture everything – more or less – that I wanted to? Yes, definitely, and if the school hadn’t been onboard from the very beginning we wouldn’t have been able to do that.

Sara Michelle: Once you knew that this was the school, what was the – for lack of a better word – casting process like on this? How did you know when you found the right group of kids to follow around?

Nanette: It was complicated. What happened was I ended up finding ten schools in the Midwest that were economically mixed and had only one High School in their town that were willing to give me the kind of access we needed to [make the picture]. We went to all ten and they were in four different states, and I interviewed all the incoming Seniors that were interested.

At that point, the kids that I found were going to dictate were I was going to be shooting. Warsaw, Indiana had the most compelling stories and kids, so I started casting [them] and the town at the very same time. I was looking for a couple of different things. I was looking for kids that surprised me and that seemed one way on the surface but were in fact a lot more complicated, that they defied the stereotypes they were labeled as.

Hannah Bailey (center, seated) in Paramount Vantage's American Teen

At the same time, you’re not just casting the person you’re casting [their] story, so they all had to have a need that the needed to accomplish by the end of the year. You had to be able to follow that story and the ups and downs of it along the way. You had the basketball player [Colin Clemens] who needed a scholarship so he could get into college otherwise he’d have to go into the Army, you had Hannah [Bailey] who had to get out or she was going to be a fish out of water her entire life, you had Jake [Tusing] who needed to find a girlfriend in order to find acceptance and companionship, and you had Megan who had to get into a certain college in order to fulfill her family’s tradition.

So, they all had this certain thing they needed to accomplish. While I couldn’t know the details along the way I did know that there was going to be an arc to their stories. Without those arcs I don’t think I could have made the film.

Sara Michelle: I admit, watching some of this stuff, I couldn’t help but want to scream at the screen and ask them all what the heck they thought they were doing. Megan, in particular, drove me nuts more than a few times. There had to be moments where you were filming her do some of this – like the text messaging and the vandalism pranks – where you just wanted to wring her neck asking yourself what the heck was going on?

Nanette: Yes, I was. [hesitant laughter] Admittedly, some of what happened was really hard to film. But it’s what happened, it’s what they did. I don’t think I could have made any of this up had I tried.

Sara Michelle: What is your responsibility as a filmmaker to these kids?

Nanette: Well, it’s to tell their story honestly. If there are certain things that they have a huge problem with me putting in the movie then that needs to be discussed upfront because if that’s a problem than I probably shouldn’t be shooting them at all. I mean, there were certain issues like drinking, drug experimentation, so on, that they didn’t want to be the focus of the film. But, then I didn’t really want that either. I wanted it to focus on them and their emotional stories, not the volume of their partying.

If anything, they were all so much tamer than my own High School experiences. [laughs] But, you know, it’s not like it didn’t exist. I put a little of it just so I could show this really was just like a normal High School. But that [alcohol, drugs] was like their biggest concern, and so we kind of made a compromise. It might be around but I’m not going to focus on it, but if I’m never around when it’s going on then I’m never going to film you and that would be a problem. So, I think in the end it’s just a responsibility to film them in a way that isn’t going to damage their lives, especially in a way that they see as damaging their lives, yet still shows them for whom they are.

Sara Michelle: With that in mind, then, how has this film played for other High School kids? How have they been responding?

Nanette: It plays really well. We’ve been screening it at a ton of High Schools, just to get that word of mouth out. The problem is, as you’ve already said, people [question] how this is different than “The Hills” or “Laguna Beach” or some of these one dimensional fiction films I’ve seen the last couple of years, and it’s hard to communicate that fully until you’ve already seen it, or you have a friend who has seen it, or you read an article describes it for what it really is.

So, we’ve been playing it for a lot of High School kids so they can tell their friends that it’s different, so they can tell them what it is really like. And, it’s been playing great. They really love it. They’ve even been tracking [the stars] down on Facebook and becoming their friends, almost stalking them. [chuckling]

Colin Clemens in Paramount Vantage's American Teen

Sara Michelle: And what’s that been like for the four of them?

Nanette: They’re loving it. They get a kick out of it.

Sara Michelle: And you still check in with them and see how they’re doing?

Nanette: Yeah, I check in with them a lot.

The studio is actually going to pay for them to be in Los Angeles this Summer, give them a stipend and have them work as interns. They’re going to be working a lot on the promotion of the film, not just doing interviews but the actual day-to-day grind of promoting a motion picture. I mean, they’ll actually get to go a few places doing press, but that won’t be their primary responsibilities.

Sara Michelle: When you’re looking at these kinds of films, these year-in-the-life sorts of projects, how do you keep the truth of what it is you’ve photographed and not change things to the point in the editing room that the reality is gone and you just as well might have made a fictional narrative feature?

Nanette: It’s hard. I spent a year editing this one because people don’t always speak in perfect sound bites. You might shoot something for an hour and then edit it down to two minutes but you still want to get to the truth of the moment. I try to edit in a way that’s not boring for the viewer to watch but still stays true to what they’re saying and what they’re doing. It just takes time. Lots of patience and time.

Jake Tusing in Paramount Vantage's American Teen

And judgment. You have to use your best judgment. While it’s ultimately subjective what decisions and choices you make, you have to have faith in your own judgment that whatever choices you make are still going to best reflect the ultimate truth of the scene and the story. Good, honest judgment on your part might be the most important thing of all.

Sara Michelle: And how difficult are those choices? I mean, you must have had tons of footage, and yet you still managed to whittle it all down to just over 90-minutes of film.

Nanette: It’s tough. I had over a thousand hours of film. But, you know, people have a lot of the same repetitive [nuances] and you just have to pick the best way they said it. In a conversation they’re having, they’ll repeat themselves a lot, so if you just edit it down to the core of what is being said you’re not changing it you’re just making it more concise.

I mean, it would be really boring to watch in real time, because there is a repetition to the way we communicate and talk. Like, just now, the way I’m speaking, the way I’m describing this, I’m sure I’ve repeated myself five times, so this definitely exists universally for all of us. So you just try to find that one sentence that says it all for that entire paragraph or monologue they were trying to say.

Sara Michelle: In this day and age where it is popular to say kids are living in an in-demand world putting them increasingly out of touch and filled with deep-rooted materialistic selfishness, I find it interesting that, at least based on this film, a lot of these kids aren’t all that different than I was when I was in High School a little over a decade ago. I imagine if I were to show it to my parents they would look at it and think they were like that, too. So, is that mentality then wrong that we as a society and culture have about are youth? Are we the out of touch ones?

Nanette: I think so. I mean, technology and culture is affecting them in some ways and you see it in the movie, what with the picture being sent around and the text messaging, that there is maybe a bit more of an intensity to some of the cruelty that is going on or some of the miscommunication that is going on or the rumors that spread. But, at the core of all that, I think it is still just the same emotional issues of High School that we all can understand and relate to.

Burstein follows the action in Paramount Vantage's American Teen

Okay, so technology might make a bit more intense at times. But that’s not drastically altering what those emotions are, the feelings of insecurity or the heartbreak or the identity crisis and needing to fit in, that’s not being changed by the immediacy of technology. [Those] are just human things, not digital things, you know what I mean? And, I think we tend to over-dramatize what effect we think whatever new invention is having on the world and on our kids.

I mean, [they] are having an effect, just maybe not as dramatically as we might like to think.

Sara Michelle: We’re all just still people trying to deal with our emotions and figure out who we are in the world?

Nanette: Exactly. I hope people can relate it to their own High School experiences and that they can enjoy it as pure entertainment, but also that they can find maybe a few deeper meanings. If they’re teens they can [see] that they’re not alone in their problems, if they’re in their 20’s and 30’s they can see [the places] where all that pent-up insecurity they still have immerges from and that they get a deeper understanding of themselves, and if they’re parents they get to see it’s not so different than what it was for them when they were in High School and that the discover they actually can relate to their kids and not assume the worst.

That’s what I hope they see. I mean, in reality, I just hope they like the movie. We worked really hard on it and I feel like we made a good one. If nothing else, I want people to be entertained. If they learn something about themselves or about their kids, too, then that’s just great.

Additional Links:

-  American Teen review by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 SIFF Blog by Sara Michelle Fetters
-  2008 Seattle International Film Festival Home Page
-  American Teen Theatrical Trailer