Christine Vachon

OD

You came out of Brown in ‘85, went back to New York and started Apparatus Productions with Todd Haynes and Barry Ellesworth. Apparatus became this launchpad for all these really bold films, at a time when there wasn’t much of an infrastructure for that kind of filmmaking. 

CV

Right out of college, New York was a really interesting collision of art and music and film. Part of it was fueled by the fact that MTV had just started in 1981. In those days, it was just a video jukebox. You would turn it on and there would be one after another, and we realized that somebody had to be behind them. Up until that point, there hadn’t been a ton of production in New York City, but the music videos changed that, at least to some degree. Todd and Barry and I started to talk about the idea of starting a company specifically to make short films, because we were all independently making our own. Since I’d come from working in production at that point, I realized how ill-equipped so many filmmakers were when they did their own work. They had no production experience. They just had an idea.

At that time, there were significant grants being given from the National Endowment or New York Foundation for the Arts or NYSCA, New York State Council for the Arts. So people would receive somewhat significant amounts of money, but then not really know how to make that money become a movie. We thought Apparatus could fill that gap. Over the course of two or three years, we became a not-for-profit and we held, for lack of a better word, a sort of “contest.” People would apply with their movies, and then we would produce the movies we liked the best with the filmmakers. But we were a not-for-profit, and operating in the same space as these art foundations. It really wasn’t about making money. They went to film festivals, but we knew that it was unlikely that they would turn a profit.

OD

Did you ever have the urge to direct yourself?

CV

No, I once directed a short outside of Apparatus. We had pretty strict rules that most not-for-profits have that we couldn’t benefit from. But that said, we all got a lot of production experience. Sometimes I would AD, or Todd would DP, or one of us would line produce. We all switched roles.

I think I really knew that I wanted to produce when I worked on Todd’s movie, Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. It was such an extraordinarily strong piece of work that it really inspired me to say to him, “I would like to produce for you. Let me produce your next film.” The one thing I did do was convince Todd that his next film, which was Poison, should not be a short. I was already getting a sense that there was a market for these kinds of movies that were starting to really break out, like She’s Gotta Have It and Stranger Than Paradise. They were these auteur-driven films made by filmmakers who wanted to tell their story on their own terms, that also made money, found an audience and marketplace. So I thought Todd could too.

OD

And you were right about Poison, especially given that it won Sundance that year. Just an aside: Paris is Burning won for documentaries as well, so it was a big year for Queer Cinema. But I think those films and that movement speak to what Killer Films has done so well for 30 years, which is championing director-driven stories. How did the partnership with your co-founder Pamela Koffler come about?

CV

We met through working together. The first movie Pam worked on with me was a film called Postcards From America, where she was the post-production supervisor and then the line producer on Larry Clark’s Kids. We had this great run where we did three movies in a row that she line-produced. The first was Kids, and then the second was Mary Harron’s I shot Andy Warhol, and the third was Nigel Finch’s Stonewall. Those three movies took place over a year of non-stop production and we got very close.

OD

On-set is obviously such an intimate workplace, under so much pressure,  and you rely on people so often. I’m sure on-set with Pam was the same way.

CV

It gave me a real sense of her working style, and the studio a sense of stability. We were working out of the same office, because in film you’re always packing things up and then unpacking them in a different place, which should make us the most inefficient business ever. At the end of Stonewall, I said to her, “We shouldn’t stop. We should keep working together, but let’s be real partners.” And then the first film we did as partners was Office Killer, the Cindy Sherman film.

OD

What was it like producing the Sherman film together?

CV

I don’t know if I thought about it. We don’t think as much as you guys do. We just decided, “We’re making movies.” After Poison, I did Swoon, then I met Rose Troche who directed Go Fish, but I already knew Todd Haynes and Tom Kalin. Then I met Mary Harron, who directed I shot Andy Warhol. We just plainly made the assumption that we were people who were going to do more movies.

Then filmmakers started to come to us and say, “Would you consider doing my film?” We were building a business without even quite knowing that we were. There was a fair amount of activity in New York. At that time, a lot of the independent films that were shooting here didn’t have to be union to work the crew. In fact, most of our early movies were non-union, which offered a lot more freedom in some ways. Killer Films just kind of emerged and became what it was.

OD

The brand was just an extension of what you were already doing. But you’ve resisted the term “independent” for a long time, or at least resisted treating it as a meaningful category. What do you think the term still does—if anything—for filmmakers or audiences?

CV

Here’s the thing: we’re selling films to Sony Pictures Classics. We’re selling films to Miramax. I think it’s important to understand that it’s not really different. When I say an independent film, I mean a film that is the result of a singular vision; it’s auteur-driven, director-driven. Aside from that, the distinction of a film being independent is really vague. I did an interview years ago for The New York Times where they put me together with Larry Gordon, who’s a giant producer. He had just produced Waterworld. One of the first things he said to me was, “What is an independent film?” And then he said, “I always thought that when you said an independent film, what you meant was that you financed it with independent money, then took it to the market and sold it.” And I said, “That’s as good an explanation as any.”

These days, it’s very difficult to draw a distinction. There’s certainly studio movies like Marvel movies, which aren’t really in my universe, that are very obviously from a studio. But we make movies with A24. Are they not a studio? What happens if you have a movie that has an equity financier against North America, but you sold the worldwide rights to Sony or Universal Focus? Getting into that parsing of what makes a film independent can become unproductive. At that point, I think, “let’s focus on the movie and the vision.”

There are some films that certainly benefit from the filmmaker not having to listen to studio notes, but financiers of independent films have notes too, and anybody who’s putting their money up against a movie is doing it with the intention of getting it back. Maybe the financier invested because they also believe in the script, or they believe in the director, or they love this actress, or this is a story that is incredibly meaningful to them. All of this might be true. But you don’t put your money in unless you’re expecting to get it back at a profit. That’s really what it is. A film being “independent” doesn’t automatically exempt it from the same creative struggles as studio films.

OD

Did you feel that line between independent and studio blur? Did Hollywood just become more collaborative?

CV

It’s less a cause of the industry being more collaborative than it is a function of the fact that producer credits are handed out like lollipops. A lot of financiers demand producer credits in exchange for putting up their money. Usually when you see an independent film that has a dozen producers, a dozen executive producers, and three co-producers, it’s very unregulated. It probably means that there were a lot of people who stepped up to provide something essential and this is what they got. Usually what’s essential is money, but sometimes it’s a talent relationship. It’s a delicate issue. There’s a lot of very passionate opinions about that. I have my own.

I’m a pragmatist first and foremost, and the fact is that producers are simply not protected. We’re not protected the way writers and directors are. If I said to you, “I’m gonna put up 50% of your budget for your movie,” you’d say, “Great.” And then I’d say, “But I want a co-director credit,” you’d say, “Well, that’s ridiculous. You didn’t do that. You didn’t direct the movie.” As a writer or director, your guild would protect you. The director’s guild would say, “That’s ridiculous. Go away.” The writers guild would say, “No way.” However, if I said, “I'm going to put up half the money and I want a producer credit.” You as the actual producer would probably feel like it was something you had to agree to. It devalues the craft of producing, but it has unfortunately become part of the ecosystem. There’s a group that I belong to called Producers United, which is working hard to change this. I would really like it to change. I also understand that on really small movies, we need to incentivize people to support them in some way. It is a tough issue. There’s a lot of different ways that a movie gets made, and a lot of different ways in which somebody has provided an essential service anyway. It’s a question that goes round and round.

OD

That makes me wonder how that pragmatism factors into the creative side of what you do. In identifying the films you choose to make, that you’re going to live with for months, how do you know when the project is right for you and for Killer?

CV

The obvious things, of course, are, “Do we love the script? Do we think the director has it?” And then there’s a sort of a harder thing to describe, which is, “Do I see its path to makeability?” That’s something we talk about all the time. We get a lot of beautiful scripts. Well, that’s not true. We don’t get a ton of beautiful scripts, but we do get a handful of really impeccably written, wonderful scripts. You want to start there, but then the next question we have to ask is how would we get it made. What’s the path? Is there a lead role that will appeal to an actor of a certain stature? Even if they’re not super experienced, is the director somebody who will be able to convince an actor of a certain caliber to be in their film? Is the story something that feels zeitgeisty? Does it feel like it’s tapping into something of the moment? Is there something about the film that appeals to this kind of person or that kind of person? We just have to find our way into that path, and sometimes we just don’t see it. Sometimes I’m like, “This is great. I don’t know how to get this made.” And what I would say to the writer or director is basically, “I think you did a great job. But I don’t see the path forward, and  I hope I’m wrong. Good luck with it.”

OD

And a lot of the stories you’ve championed don’t exactly follow the typical commercial formula. The path to making movies with unique stories has so much to do with whether or not the audience is there. Did you ever doubt the marketability of your projects?

CV

We didn’t think about the marketability because in those days, that wasn’t our problem. You sold a movie to distributors and it was their problem. We sold Kids to Miramax, we sold SAFE to Sony Pictures Classics, Poison to Zeitgeist. Presumably, if they bought it, they knew how to market it.

And if a movie doesn’t have an audience, then what’s the point? Sometimes I believe there’s an audience, and it’s hard for me to convince investors that there is. A lot of our movies are what gets called “execution dependent”, meaning no one really knows how valuable the movie’s gonna be until it’s done. Even May December was like that. Even though Todd Haynes directed it and it starred Natalie Portman and Julianne Moore, because the subject matter was icky, if it wasn’t handled absolutely perfectly, the audience wouldn’t enjoy the film, they would just be anxious. But we knew Todd was going to handle it absolutely perfectly, and he did, and we made a very good sale to Netflix.

All a commercial film means is that it made its money back. You could make an experimental film about butterflies, but if you made it for the right budget and it returned on its investment, then it’s a commercial film, right? When you make a disaster, something that makes a fraction of its budget back, do you say that that is a non-commercial film or you just say that was a misfire? When investors say to me, “I’m looking for more commercial films,” I’m a little like, “But what exactly do you mean?”

OD

There’s always a sense of larger, more stereotypically commercial films wanting to take less risks and be more appealing to investors. But in reality, at least in my generation, I think there’s an overwhelming sentiment of, “If you want return on investment, make a really great movie that people haven’t seen before.”

CV

That’s it. At the end of the day, when you’re talking about the distinction between independent films and studio films, I suppose you could say, now more than ever, an independent film has to feel like a truly original voice. It has to feel like a real alternative.

I was shocked last year when I went to see All of Us Strangers, the Andrew Haig film. When you go see a movie, the trailers tend to be curated to the movie that you’re seeing. But the trailers before All Of Us Strangers were a mishmash. They were superhero movies, kids movies. What they weren’t was character driven-drama, which is what All of Us Strangers is. But the theater was packed! It was in its third or fourth week of release and it was packed with a lot of young people. The fact that there were no character-driven drama trailers made me realize it’s because there aren’t any movies.

We have a movie theater in New York, the Metrograph, and it’s very curated screenings. It’s very similar in some ways to the Film Forum, except the audience is really young, and yet they’re showing up for a John Ford film or for three Altman films in a row, or Darren Aronofsky, or Todd. So, I feel like we’re at an inflection point, shifting to those smaller character-driven films. How do they find their audience? Audiences are claiming that they want them, but very few seem to be able to break through. So I’m not sure how the films will make it. I tend to be very optimistic about everything all the time. I also really do believe that the film business changes. We don’t shoot on film anymore, the movie going experience is different, streaming has had an impact. I don’t cry about those things. I try to find opportunity in those things.

But when I step back simply as myself, as a consumer of media, I have that experience that I’m sure you have, of looking to see what’s playing this weekend and there really isn’t anything. We’re in New York, so I can go to the Quad and see a foreign language film. I can see an old movie at the Film Forum or at the Metrograph. That’s a luxury these days. My daughter, who’s 25, would go to the movies every week if she could see another Anora or Emelia Perez or just something new.

OD

Absolutely. As someone young, who’s grown up being bombarded with media that’s now mostly short-form, all the short-form content becomes a complete blur. It fades into nothing. People so often talk about the death of independent movies and film in general. But these movies are what I love. These are the pieces of media that will stick around, stories people can talk about and relate to. Young people want things that will stick around, not reboots of movies that are already here. It feels like larger budget studios haven't caught up to that.

CV

Yeah, but at the end of the day, I always remember something Todd said. Somebody asked him if Hollywood was homophobic. Todd said, “Well, it might be, but money isn’t.” That’s true. The fact is, it comes back to capitalism. If people go see movies that are character-driven dramas, more character-driven dramas will get made. It’s as simple as that. Every time a movie comes out that’s centered around an older woman and does well, the press acts like that’s never happened before. In fact, almost every movie that’s about an older woman does well, because older women go to the movies—or at least they did pre-pandemic. Hopefully they are again now.

OD

The question to Todd—I think it speaks to potentially an early struggle. Over the course of your 11 movies with him, have the challenges that you guys tackle together shifted?

CV

Not really. Todd faces less challenges than a lot of other filmmakers, obviously, because virtually every actor in the world is anxious to work with him. He has his own kind of cult that he deserves. He’s an extraordinary filmmaker. I would say the challenges are about the subject matter sometimes. Getting investors on board with May December was more challenging than I anticipated. But Todd has had a very interesting career. He made a children’s movie, he made a paranoid ’70s thriller with Dark Waters. He’s gotten to make a lot of interesting things. I’ve known him for 35 years. We’re the same age, we have a lot of commonality of experience, we both lived through the AIDS crisis. We are very close friends. That doesn’t mean that we don’t sometimes butt heads, we absolutely do. But there’s a kind of trust that’s just built into that.

I love working with young directors. I love working with first time directors. Most first time directors are telling a story they’ve waited their whole lives to tell. You can’t be cynical in the face of that. You just can’t be. It reignites the passion that you have for storytelling every single time. And directors never get to see other directors direct, and I get to see a lot of directors direct, and that’s great.

OD

The thing that impresses me maybe the most about your work is how good every first time director's movie has been. But as you mentioned, the stories are so often execution dependent. Given the margin of error, how do you assure that the film is going to be good, while also letting this first-time director take the reins?

CV

It’s interesting. A financier on a film once asked us, “What will happen if we don’t all agree on the cut?” And I was like, “We just keep talking about it.” Usually the most important part of the process is at the beginning before everybody gets into business together: you make sure you’re all making the same movie. That’s not as easy as it sounds. The financier has to understand that it’s going to be long, or that the director’s not leaning into the comedy. A script can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. That goes for the actors, too. If you’re really clear on that, then most of the discussions and disagreements tend to be fairly minor. The movie isn’t going to live or die by cutting a scene down by a few seconds. The big conflicts happen when somehow everyone’s like, “This isn’t what I thought it would be.”

OD

You said these young directors have waited their whole lives to tell this story—their story is inherently very specific. How do you build that trust between you and the director?

CV

It’s just talking. Our reputation kind of precedes us, but there have certainly been situations where I’ve read a script, met with the director, and about 10 minutes in I realize they’re not a good match. Then we just politely decline.

OD

What gives you that sense? Not to put anybody on blast.

CV

Just the way they comport themselves, the way they talk about their work, the way they talk about their process. I’m not saying they’re bad directors. Sometimes I can just tell we’re not a good fit.

OD

It feels to me like it’s a lot about taste, which I want to talk about. You went to Brown with Ira Glass, then eventually produced This American Life. Was that a similar process to producing features?

CV

We were actually very close friends at Brown. This American Life was our first television show, so I really didn’t know what I was doing, and we worked with a production company. They were the ones who really worked with Ira to find the show. We’ve since produced a fair amount of television, and the biggest difference, especially in episodic television, was that it was all about the writer and less about the director. That’s changed somewhat. When we did Mildred Pierce, Todd was essentially the showrunner. He was the writer and the director. We treated Mildred like it was one big, long film. We’ve done episodic since then. We did Z for Amazon and really learned from that.

OD

Ira coined the idea of the taste gap: what gets you into creative work is that you have good taste. But when you start trying to make things you love, in the first couple of years, everything you make falls short of what you want it to be; there’s a gap between what your taste is and what you’re making.

As a producer, do you feel like you’ve ever fell short of your vision of what you were trying to accomplish, whether that was on screen, or facilitating the creative process?

CV

I just don’t think about it that much. I have a very good sense of what has to happen to move something forward. That’s 90% of producing, having a sense of how to keep the ball rolling, what is the next thing you have to do, and how to constantly add value. And I just know that I have good taste. I know that I can recognize a good script.

OD

Do you feel like your taste has changed over your career?

CV

Probably. I don’t think there’s any movies I’ve made that I wouldn’t make now. There might be some movies that I’d make now that I wouldn’t have made when I was in my 20s or 30s. My taste might have been a little different.

OD

How about taste in people? In the young filmmakers that you’ve worked with, what stands out about them?

CV

Usually they’ve made a great short and they come in with a great script. That’s what makes them special. Then we talk about the process. I get a sense of who they are and how they like to work. We see if we align. The big thing for me is really, do they understand the story they’re trying to tell? Can they articulate it to me effectively? If they can articulate it to me, presumably they will also be able to articulate it to their DP, to the production designer, to all the people on the film set that need to understand the vision.

OD

Looking at these younger filmmakers, what excites you?

CV

I’m always excited.  At Cannes, there were a lot of great titles. I didn’t see anything, so don’t ask me what I like, but I’m excited to see what’s coming out of there. In terms of the industry, I don’t think anyone has a clue what’s to come. The 2023 strike was disastrous and essentially moved production offshore, which is terrible for people starting out, and people who want to work on film crews, but it’ll right itself eventually I’m sure. These more challenging moments always force people to innovate and invent new ways of working. And I guess I just don’t think that way about the future. I just move forward.