Director and musician Warren Fischer discusses his latest short film “The Serena Variations,” the suspense drama that melds music and mind blowing visuals to explore the artist’s condition. A musician and music aficionado himself, Fischer discusses his short.
For our readers, please introduce yourself.
My name is Warren Fischer and I’m the founder of the art music group FISCHERSPOONER and this is my first film. I was raised in Los Angeles and now live in New York and I’m always fascinated by the confluence of music, art and film.
Where did you get your inspiration for “The Serena Variations”?
I’ve always loved movies that explored dark themes and are psychologically complicated. And being raised by an opera -singer mother, as a violinist, and having lived many years in the classical musical world, I thought it’d be interesting to combine in those two arenas. Additionally, I am curious about how psychedelics are now being used as a clinical tool, and so, I thought it would be interesting to subvert that by having it be a negative event for our hero sending her into a mental collapse. A combination of psychological, musical, and hallucinogenic, I thought would be interesting, sonic and visual.
What inspired your penning of “The Serena Variations”?
Another big inspiration for me with this project was the challenge of writing a score for a musical and visual piece to make it more of a total artwork. And I also liked the idea of trying to bring in elements of my personal history and my relationship with my mother to add depth to the story.
Were there any particular preparations by the cast for the shoot of “The Serena Variations”?
I think casting the film was pretty challenging, of course, when you’re working on a shoestring budget and you don’t really have real fees to entice experience actors, you really have to dig and we did a very long and thorough casting process and ended up with an amazing cast that I couldn’t be more happy with and proud of.
Working with them was pretty easy, we did several rehearsals and a bit of a table read, and then we would sort of go over the scenes each day as we were shooting them. It was filmed over four shoot days, and they were amazing.
Who or what inspired your love for the art of filmmaking?
I don’t know where my passion for movies and music came from, obviously I was a violinist at a young age, I started when I was eight, but I always enjoyed the spectacle of movies and going to theaters as a kid and you know sort of growing up in the shadow of that type of storytelling and for some reason I was always drawn to art house cinema. Godfried Reggio’s “Koyaanisqatsi” was a big influence on me, which is essentially a two-hour music video without a story or a traditional narrative with a music by Philip Glass. And I found it really profound in sort of eye-opening as to what you can do in movies. I have so many favorite movies from “a woman under the influence” to “persona”, to “blue velvet”, to “apocalypse now” to “rivers edge” to “tar.”
Are You Working in any other genres or have aspirations to?
There’s a lot of there’s a lot of genres I would love to work in. In fact, I’m trying to develop an sprawling movie about FDR and his ability to pull us out of a great depression and get us through World War II while suffering from polio that he contracted when he was 42 years old.
So there’s that side of me and it’s really interested I’m a big history buff, but I also love horror and a lot of the genre movies, thrillers, and then also subtle psychological, very naturalistic human dramas I think I would be interested in, I’m really fascinated by how people relate to each other, even their close friends, even their family, even their lovers, and what secrets they keep from them and how they manage their sense of self while also being in dynamics with other people. If there was an interesting sci-fi story, I would definitely be excited as well.
What would you like your legacy to be in the film medium (or elsewhere)?
As far as legacy in the film medium you know I just love making things so legacy I don’t really think too much about I just think if you make interesting things that people will find them and they will cherish them and so I guess that’s what I would hope my legacy to be to make a few things that stand the test of time”
Who are some of the directors or writers that you look up to and who do you want to bring attention to in your field or others?
Well, I’m a huge fan of Yorgos Lanthimos, Denis Villeneuve, Stanley Kubrick, John Cassavetes, Takashi Miike, – I just think there are so many brilliant and interesting filmmakers out there.
What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?
Yeah I’m working on a few projects right now. The main one is that I’m developing this story into a feature and we’re into drafts on a feature script for this. So I’m excited about that. I’m also working as a producer on a four-part film about Philip Glass and Robert Wilson and their development of the opera Einstein on the Beach, which is a real passion of mine. Beyond that, you know, I mentioned the FDR movie that I’m developing and then I also have a series idea that I’ve been writing for a while about John Cale and Lou Reed and their interesting and very productive and influential dynamics. So, you know, I’ve got some stuff going on!
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers or creators?
Make things and good things will happen. Always finish.