Interview with Christopher Rejano

Synopsis: An accompaniment to the song “I couldn’t Bear It” by Theo Katsaouini.

IAG: How did you get connected with Theo Katsaouinis? How did this collaboration come about?

CR: Theo and I met in a really great way. We were connected by a friend from film school via an “older” skateboard crew meet up. Basically, a great group of creatives over 30 years old with the crew name "Pardon My Thrashing." Many members are filmmakers, musicians, and artists who are my kind of people. Theo is a film nerd like me and a filmmaker in his own right and he also played with the Chicago band Joan of Arc. Theo had attended many screenings of films I had shot and we talked a lot about our influences and favorite filmmakers. He approached me when he recorded a new solo album and wanted to create a suite of music videos to accompany it. He and Record Label owner Bobby Burg released the videos in a limited VHS version as well.

IAG: How much direction did Theo give you with respect to artistic direction?

CR: The cool thing about having a "hang out and watch movies" relationship is that an automatic shorthand is created early on. We know what aesthetics are similar between us and what we gravitate toward. Theo gave me full freedom to create the piece from concept to final look. I think as a musician and artist himself, it's something that he would appreciate if it were the other way around. Living a life of collaboration and working in such a tight-knit and specific community allows for that freedom to be as free and creative as possible. It's like the ultimate science project “Here, take these beakers and burners and show me what you come up with.” This is a luxury we don’t always get. The only information given was when I said “I think I'm going to shoot in a car wash.”

IAG: Whitney Masters puts forth quite a raw performance. What kind of direction did you give her, and what was her process to get there?

CR: I'm a cinematographer by trade, and I met Whitney on a film project called Pretty Pickle, directed by Jim Vendiola, and I was immediately blown away by not just her performance but her willingness to really dig deep into the role and psyche of a character. As a cinematographer, I react to how the performance is rendered through the lens and not always how a rehearsed performance is captured. That may seem confusing but when I am the Director/DP, I like to connect with the actor through the lens because I'm not a classically trained director or actor. So there are no rehearsals, and with someone like Whitney, who can really get there quickly, it works well. We had a sort of rehearsal in a sense when I was asked to create a piece for Destroy Your Art, a one-night screening in Chicago created by Jack Newell and Rebecca Fons, which is a series of films that are created, shown and destroyed in the theater never to be seen again. My film was similar in theme but more based on the everyday trauma of doomscrolling. It is thematically similar but not nearly as intense as ‘tensile’. As far as the process of direction, we sat in the car wash parking lot, picked out her outfit, ate some gas station snacks and listened to the song once, and Whitney was ready to go. Whitney is also a prolific model and artist’s model so she knows the lens well. She knows how to use her body and face to convey the smallest emotions and also when something may be too much. It's a great middle ground between direction and performance between us.

IAG: I couldn’t help but to try to read into the emotions that she’s going through. Is it rage? Grief? Something else? Are we meant to know?

CR: I’ve always felt that we weren’t meant to know her emotions as we worked through the actual car wash process. But having photographed many portrayals of these emotions with many different actors I rather like the ambiguity. Whitney sort of runs through the range but then comes back immediately, which in my heart and mind feels quite real. Depression, rage and grief seem to me feel like branches of the same tree and to climb from branch to branch from top to bottom seems natural as humans. We’ve all feel it and we all deal in our own ways but we also tend to feel like we have to come out on the other side happy, friendly and grateful for the experience. But I don’t see it as that black and white. I could have really said something different if at the end Whitney drove out of the car wash into the bright sunlight with a smile on her face, perfectly cried out and ready to get back to it. But to me facing, embracing and acknowledging the melancholy is something I’m more interested in portraying...that being said I do still love a happy ending.

IAG: Quick shout-out to the North Shore. From one Chicagoland-born artist to another, what are your thoughts on metro Chicago as a cultural center? Is the arrow pointing up, down, or sideways?

CR: Admittedly, I am a new resident to the North Shore from the city. We only just moved to Highland Park two years ago, and unfortunately it happened to be the day before the mass shooting at the Highland Park Independence Day parade. But that tragedy allowed me and my family to feel a welcoming and united presence amongst the other residents, many of which insisted "that sort of thing doesn’t happen here." I moved to Chicago from the Detroit suburbs to go to Columbia College for film school. It was such a creatively rich time, and I was fortunate to quickly find consistent work in film in Chicago. I didn’t “HAVE” to leave for LA or NYC to make movies. I discovered a very rich and deep community of filmmakers, collaborators, and colleagues some I have known since first arriving. We have so many great filmmakers here and I hope the rest of the industry realizes this. Unique storytelling, dynamic and creative film festivals and a pool of actors that is really second to none. Chicago should be recognized for all that we can do here.

IAG: Lastly, what are three films or filmmakers that have strongly influenced your work?

This is THE most difficult question of all. If you ask me this tomorrow, I’ll have three different answers, and the day after that, three more answers...but here it goes:

Invocation of My Demon Brother by Kenneth Anger: The colors, the music, the imagery. Problematic, irresponsible and fully individualistic. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I can't help but love his films.

Gummo by Harmony Korine: This film could have been about the community where I grew up--for better or worse. Imagery loosely based on the 90s skateboard video Memory Screen by Alien Workshop. When I was in film school, people said "You would love Altman’s Short Cuts.” My response was “You would love Gummo." Same same.

My Own Private Idaho by Gus Van Sant: Structurally unsound, meticulously acted, and heartbreakingly gorgeous imagery. This film is what I imagine it feels like to wake up somewhere you don’t recognize. Very fitting.