Filmmaking Stories by Alex Cox

 

 

Production Note

 

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Offscreen Film Festival, 3rd edition, March 2010, Brussels, Belgium. British writer / director / actor Alex Cox was invited as a Guest of Honor. Providing various lectures and introductions to a retrospective of his own work, as well as hosting the festival's thematic module on Spaghetti Westerns, his presence throughout the festival was prominently felt.

 

'Shoot If You Live: Filmmaking Stories by Alex Cox' is a portrait of Alex Cox – not the director or writer, but the storyteller – written & directed by Gert Verbeeck. The basic setup was a half hour interview session, filmed simultaneously with four dv-cameras, shot on one location, all in one take. With Alex Cox documenting highlights of his career as a filmmaker through stories and anecdotes.

 

Using a thematic script as a guideline for the interview, the multi-cam footage helped shaping the content during editing into a cohesive 25 minutes long piece of docu-film. For the small crew on location, this was a 'shoot first, ask questions later' experience. As much as the shoot was planned and directorial guidelines were determined beforehand, it also resulted in an organic collaboration of people working together creatively on the spot. Not in the least fueled by Alex Cox's spontaneous attitude and wonderful stories while participating in this little project.

 

Or, like Cox humorously commented afterwards on the apparant overkill of small cameras present during the shoot: “Overkill is good!”

And it ensured us to rig this little interview together in a fashionable manner.

 

Shot on the 18th of March 2010, at the Cinema Nova theater, Brussels.