Interview: Joel Miller (part 3 of 3)
Former roadie Joel Miller reflects on art and commerce in his debut feature The Still Life. He discusses the making of the film, his thoughts on the business and his police encounters with TheFilmChair.com
FC: In our first interview, you said it just hit a cord with all these different actors and people working in the creative industry. That intersection of art and commerce, everyone who works creatively has a stake in something like this. How much of it is your own reflection on it, from your history with music?
JM: I’ve been doing a lot of interviews. When you do interviews it gives you time to think. You guys ask questions that I don’t get to think about. When you ask questions, I say, “I guess this is how I really felt.” All the characters in The Still Life are my fears, things I didn’t want to become. Jason is an extremely talented individual, but he’s a drunk. By the end of the movie, he’s not a very impressive individual, which is very sad. What he creates and what he has in him is impressive, but he’s not. He got off his path because he “sold out.” I don’t like that term. That usually just means the people you like are now making money, and you don’t want to like them anymore. But this is an evaluation of that. Mr. Fernot. I don’t want to be a manipulative shark who will take everything you got for monetary purposes. Rachel (playing Robin). The poor girl. She’s really trying to understand what she wants in life, and her intentions are good…She’s a girl who is trying to become a woman. She wants the house with the white picket fence. She genuinely cares about the guy, but she just doesn’t know what to do…The most horrible, scariest is the character Stephanie, Holly Fields. Any woman who is attractive and intelligent is lethal. We are screwed! That’s where Stephanie came from…The scariest thing of all is to be old and alone. That’s where Terry found something because she had a husband who passed away. I would assume it’s a difficult thing to have to deal with.
FC: So what was it like trying to sell this movie?
JM: What I had was an independent art movie. That is the most unsellable product you can put out on the market, even though we had very strong actors. We were in 27 film festivals. We had a huge following on the Internet. But it wasn’t easy. I only got one meeting in person, and I’m a good sales guy. I tell people, “If you are a good writer, a good actor, cool. But you need to be a good business person.” You got to pay your bills. Nobody wants to be a struggling artist. Those words are too often next to each other. It’s not the way things are supposed to be. You got to put on that hat. We had one meeting in person and I had a handshake deal when I walked out, and it will be distributed through Warner Bros…Get a meeting in person. It’s worth its weight in gold.
The Still Life DVD and Soundtrack Pack is available Aug. 7 through Amazon.com and other retailers.
For an autographed copy of the DVD, order at TheStillLifeMovie.com. Just ask for Joel to sign it in the notes section of the order form.
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