Sundance Film Festival Weekend
Saturday, Jan. 23, 2016
S.L.A.M. was able to get an
exclusive behind-the scenes
interview with the cast and
crew of Tunnel Vision directed
by the award-winning Sarah
B. Downey that you won’t find
anywhere else! This short film is
sweeping the film festivals right
now. Executive produced by
Antonio Servidio, produced by
Mario Sanchez, Tuffy Williams,
and Ben Guppy, hear what they
have to say about the crazy
process of making a short film
with a musician on the brink
of becoming a world wide
sensation - with three days
(yes three days!) to work with.
SM: Thank you all for taking
time out of your busy weekend
at Sundance, it is definitely
a pleasure of mine to be
able to speak with all of you
guys! Right now I wanted to
introduce everyone that is
here! We have the director,
Sarah B. Downey, and also
we have, we have Ben Guppy.
Who else is in the room with
you? Is Dan Hubbard with
you?
SD: We have Ben Guppy,
we have Tuffy Williams,
the producer and we have
Ethan Kaslow, our production
assistant on the phone.
SM: How’s your weekend at
Sundance been so far?
TV: Awesome!
SM: Did you guys have a crazy
night last night?
BG: Yes we did
SD: It was pretty epic.
SM: One for the Oscars?
SD: Most definitely.
SM: Thank you again for
speaking with me. I did want
to speak with you guys more
about the movie, obviously,
Tunnel Vision. The collaborative
project you guys are getting
ready to release. I want to kind
of go through the back story
of it and how did you guys all
come together to decide that
you wanted to do the story on
Johnny Russo.
SD: I personally was introduced
to Antonio Servidio about
two years ago. I was sitting
at a restaurant and someone
had approached me, knowing
that I was a writer and that
they knew I go for avantgarde material. They said, “I
have a gentleman that basically
has a really radical true life
story and if you would have any
interest in helping make that
become a feature.” Then two
days later, Antonio flew into
Los Angeles and we had a five
hour conversation. He started
telling me stories, and at first
you kind of look at him and
think, “is this true? Is this really
real?” (laughing) After I received
all of the files and the discovery
of his case, it really came into
fruition very fast. The feature
was written about two years
ago and that was conceptually
how it began.
SM:
The
person
that
approached you, were they
familiar with your work
already? They reached out to
you?
SD: They were. They were
familiar in terms with the
content that I do and my award
wins circuit. It was a gentleman
that lived in Vegas for a little
bit. I myself am from Vegas.
They knew that I would be up
to the challenge.
SM: You and Tony actually cowrote the script, right? What
was the process like?
SD: That’s correct. Antonio
wasn’t in Los Angeles when I
wrote the project but I received
tons and tons of discovery files,
FBI files. I would say there
was probably over six years of
material that I went through.
An exuberant amount of
boxes and so on and so forth.
I basically went through all of
the files in discovery. When I
write I generally get a big 9’ x 4’
board and start putting down
like one word of a great story.
When I started picking apart
this; in all reality in terms of its
feature, you only have so many
pages and you are trying to
tell someones entire life story.
So on that board I ended up
getting over 500 mini-stories!
Basically from those, you have
to shave it down to 50, down to
25 and then get the