I contacted Michael Howard a bit after seeing the premiere of his debut film, “Reality of Life” (Official site).   I try and see the upcoming films around Colorado and the word of mouth was a bit higher on this film than others I’ve come across.  Michael had already started establishing a name for himself among filmmakers and audiences with some of his short films that screened at local festivals.  Upon watching the film, it was clear that this young man did a lot with a little.  On practically no budget, he made a touching film about friendships and relationships that revolve around a secret that throws everything into a cluster.  But even the secret ends up being secondary to the real heart of the film.  “Reality of Life” focuses so much on the characters and dialogue, and does it so well, that the budget doesn’t even matter.  Though even with a small budget, the film is visually striking and Michael and his cinematographer, Justin Bull, create some wonderful images throughout that make the film look like it was made for much more.

            The Q&A session after his premiere showed an intelligent, energetic young man opening himself up to hundreds of audience members about anything asked of him.  I was eager to meet him personally and get to know more.

            Rather than make me travel all the way to Colorado Springs for the interview, he kindly agreed to meet me a bit closer to my residence and we got together in Denver.  He arrived early and I was still setting up my recorder and getting my notes together.  “You’re lucky, I hate to drive long distances.” he joked as he walked in and introduced himself.  Although getting here was only an hour and a half drive for him, he says “anything is really too much, I guess.  I’d rather be at the destination doing something than just be in route.”  Wearing a blue snowboarding shirt and tan baggy pants, he looked more like High School skater than a 24-year-old who had just premiered his first feature film and recently finished work on yet another professional cinematography job. 

            Michael has a unique personality and it’s easy to talk to him. He's down to Earth and his humor shines through immediately and it’s easy to see why people are so happy to work with this young man.  Besides having some powerful work under his belt that others want to be a part of, he’s simply a joy to have around.

            Growing up mainly in Europe, Colorado, and Montana, Michael has seen quite a bit.  After graduating High School in Great Falls, Montana, he moved to Alaska where he attended school, studied Medicine, played amateur soccer, competed in semi-pro snowboarding, and worked for the Air Force.  A few years later, after accomplishing himself in those areas, he decided to settle into filmmaking.  He says, “I’d always loved movies but it was around that time that I started to truly appreciate them.  When I was little, I watched “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and thought, ‘this is the best ever.’  I wasn’t even aware of the technicalities of filmmaking.  I had no idea what went into a movie.  But one day I started noticing the visuals in different ways.  I started reading up on the process of filmmaking and was floored.  I looked at films in an entirely different way and I haven’t stopped since.  It was so incredible and I instantly knew that’s what I wanted to do.”

Nicolas: So you quit Medicine to make films?

Michael: Well, that was one reason I stopped pursuing it as a career.  I have so many interests and it was either give everything up for Medicine or give Medicine up for everything else.  Medicine didn’t have a chance in the long run.

So was that the time that you first started writing?

No, I had written little stories and such when I was young and especially in High School.  I had appreciated character and dialogue before anything else in film so I started with that. I read and reviewed screenplays for a company named American Zoetrope and I had written my first feature length screenplay around the time. I’d really started noticing film more and just after that is when I first started studying filmmaking.

You made this feature before doing anything else, didn’t you?

Yeah, I did it totally backwards.  By the time I’d started pre-production for my film, I’d only done a bit of camerawork for various things.  And I was a script-supervisor for a feature film that ended just as my actual shooting began.  So “Reality of Life” was basically the first time I’d really done anything outside of researching and studying.  Most people start with smaller things and work their way up.  Because of this, some people thought that jumping in and making a feature was kinda foolish.

You documented the learning process on your site.  You had a journal you’d update throughout your shoot.

Yeah, I was hoping it would be more informative than it turned out to be but a lot of people have commented on how helpful it was so I’m glad I did it.  I basically wanted to write something for those who were just starting or thinking about starting in the career of filmmaking.  A “learn from my mistakes” type of thing, I guess, where people could see what was going on and get an idea of the process. It may at least be an interesting read for people who like that behind-the-scenes stuff. I may update it with post-production material as well if anything comes about.  Updates now will basically be about future screenings.  Oh, and I plan to put a soundtrack listing up so people can seek out the bands that were used.

I don’t know if you could hear the audible response from your place on the stage, but when the question of the soundtrack came up at the premiere, there was quite a bit of positive whispering at that point.

Yeah, I could hear some of the response which was great.  At the very beginning of pre-production, I tried making a list of all of the songs by bigger bands I wanted to use but most of them never answered us and the ones that did wanted too much money, of course.  After that didn’t work out, I started focusing on smaller, unknown bands.  I spent countless hours listening to bands on mp3.com trying to find music that fit the film properly.  Most of it didn’t fit the mood of the film but for every fifty bands or songs that didn’t work, one would.  The bands wanted to make names for themselves and so that was the best bet for finding great, free music.  Plus, the music was practically unknown so people aren’t taken out of the moment in the film because the same song was playing on their radio when they broke up with their significant other or something.  So there weren’t prior feelings already attached to the music, it was all fresh and new.  I’d get in touch with the bands, explain the “low budget” situation, and go from there.  They help me by giving music for the film and I hopefully help them by opening their work up to a larger audience.  If anything, they get to say their music was used in a feature film and hopefully that helps them out a little. I'm very pleased with the music in the film. 

How have comparisons come with other films or filmmakers?  Have you even run into that yet?

Yeah, one review I got for “Reality” said I didn’t achieve the indy film quality that Kevin Smith did nor did my actors have the intensity of Ben Affleck or Jason Lee.  Well, we did our best with what we had. I think people at times, have, um, troubles looking at a film within its limits...at its level.  That’s like watching “Star Wars” and saying “It’s a good movie but the graphics are pretty shitty.”  They have to look at it when it was made and/or what the film had to work with.  That goes for all films no matter what the content. Most of our already-tiny budget went to equipment for shooting and editing.  We tried to put as much production value into it with the visuals that we could and, you know, everything else we just went for it.  Besides the cinematographer, no other crewmember had previous experience and most of the cast was inexperienced. Finding people in a non-film town that can work for free for 20 days is kinda limiting. But this film was made to show what we could do with nothing and hopefully that would lead to something bigger. Regardless of everything, I’m proud of the work everyone did to make it happen as well as the end result of the film itself.

So talk a bit about your film on your level.