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KIRBY DICK, DIRECTOR - Kirby's highly-regarded film, "Derrida", premiered at the 2002 Sundance Film Festival and won the Golden Gate Award at the San Francisco Film Festival. The prior year, he directed "Chain Camera", a riveting portrayal of contemporary teenage life, which also premiered at the Sundance Film Festival. In 1997, he directed the internationally acclaimed "Sick: The Life and Death of Bob Flanagan, Supermasochist, which won the Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and the Grand Prize at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The film earned an IFP/West Spirit Award Nomination and an International Documentary Association Nomination for Best Feature Documentary of 1998. He is currently in postproduction on "The End", a moving and profound chronicle of dying patients and their families in a Los Angeles hospice program. He is also in production on another film for HBO's "America Undercover" series.
EDDIE SCHMIDT, PRODUCER - Eddie Schmidt's work encompasses a broad range of
documentary and narrative projects in both film and television. After
collaborating with director Kirby Dick on his groundbreaking documentary "Sick,"
Schmidt went on to produce Dick's next feature, the Sundance favorite "Chain
Camera." In addition, Schmidt has lent his producing talents to the TV series
"Blind Date" and "The Competition," as well as DVD supplements for dozens of
films including "Boogie Nights" and "Seven." Schmidt also co-wrote & directed the award-winning short "Happenstance" and penned the popular humor book,
"The Finger: A Comprehensive Guide To Flipping Off." Currently, Schmidt and
Kirby Dick are in post-production on "The End," a raw and intimate look at the
patients and families in a Los Angeles hospice program, for HBO/Cinemax. They
are also in production on another film for "America Undercover."
INTERVIEW WITH KIRBY DICK AND EDDIE SCHMIDT
HBO: What drew you to this project?
KIRBY: We saw this as an opportunity to show how a new Las Vegas production gets
mounted, from start to finish, with all the collaborative struggles that come
with that endeavor. It was also a chance to examine the lives of the performers, who are meant to be seen as larger than life icons, and show them in closeup as individuals, as real working women. Dancing as a showgirl is very
athletic and difficult to do, and at the same time they're expected to stay beautiful
and feminized. And then we wanted to juxtapose these glossy musical numbers with the grit of the backstage world and their home lives. The film is very much like a classic movie musical, where everyone is struggling with very real personal problems but every night they still get up on stage and perform.
EDDIE: Having done some theatre work (and having performed non-dancing roles in musicals), I was interested in the mechanics of putting on a big production with people who can dance. But I was also really curious to see how the personal
clashes with the professional when you're under the gun in such a short period of time. Like, how do you put life's chaos and baggage behind you, come out on stage, work your ass off, and still be sexy with a smile? When you're a
comic or an actor, you can infuse your performance with whatever's been dealt to
you that day. You can't really get up in Vegas and be an angry showgirl. You can be angry, but you can't show it.
HBO: Were the girls open to your film idea or was there some hesitancy?
KIRBY: For the most part, the cast was really great about it. Everybody knew going
in that we were going to be there day in and day out. A lot of them actually forgot about the cameras during rehearsals, because they had to work so hard just to learn their parts. The dressing room material was a little harder to
get, but we sort of eased into that. We weren't running into the dressing rooms on day one and when we did, we primarily used a female cameraperson,which helped put everybody at ease. A few of the girls were less enthusiastic about
dropping their stage personas to reveal the details of their personal lives. However, the girls who chose to open up really embraced it and had a tremendous amount to say. And of course, we're grateful to them.
HBO: What was the most surprising thing you discovered orlearned from making this
film?
EDDIE: That no matter what you see here, the film business is still probably crazier, and the music industry may be even crazier than that.
Honestly, the most surprising thing may be Inna, the showgirl who's studying to be a nuclear physicist. The conversation she has about physics with the show's producer, while standing onstage topless, is one of those great
documentary moments you just can't plan.
HBO: Where did the idea of giving the girls the cameras come from?
KIRBY: In our previous film, "Chain Camera", we gave Los Angeles high school
students video cameras and asked them to record their lives. Since that film was entirely comprised of footage shot by the students, it gave the audience an immediate insider's perspective. You got to see teenagers being real teenagers, without an adult in the room. We used the same technique in this film, giving cameras to all of the showgirls. We liked incorporating their very personal footage with the behind-the-scenes footage we shot showing the production coming together. It gives audiences another perspective, a kind of "behind the scenes of the behind the scenes." And it meant we were able to capture the lives of Vegas dancers in a more
intimate way than has ever been shown.
HBO: Is one of the four showgirls your favorite?
EDDIE: Aw, that's not fair! How could I possibly choose just ONE? Actually, the truth is that I like them all. I think each one has a really interesting story and a unique perspective that complements the other three. In fact, I kind of think it wouldn't work any other way, because all four represent distinct sides of Vegas show life, from Stephanie, who's exuberant and thrilled to be a part of it all, to Kat, who's a veteran performer with a family of her own.
HBO: What do you want viewers to get out of this film?
KIRBY: That it's a miracle ANY creative collaboration--including film, by the
way--which involves multiple opinions, egos, and personal dramas, actually comes together in the end. In Las Vegas especially, you rarely get to pull back the curtain and see how the product gets put together. Most media coverage of Vegas
reinforces the image of a place to indulge your fantasies, but this film is about the people who work to produce that fantasy. Yes, they're putting on a show, but it's work, and like any workplace, there are fights, mistakes, people
get hurt, etc, but there's a lot of humor and camaraderie along the way.
With respect to the dancers, I'd like audiences to understand how hard their jobs are, but I also hope they realize that, interestingly enough, these women are more attractive offstage, much sexier, in 'reality' than they are onstage, where they're made up to be gazed at from a hundred feet away. And that extends to Las Vegas itself. My producer and I were always much more excited about some secret backstage activity or weird little detail than, say, some overblown attraction on the Strip. If you're not normally allowed to see it, it's probably worth seeing, and putting in a film.
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