Production Interviews

The beginnings of production began with videotaping interviews with surviving UPA creatives.  We’d done a few audio interviews for the Filmex Tribute in 1978, and a few others, plus we found existing audio interviews in various places, but the first videotaped interviews we taped were of Alan Zaslove, Barrie Nelson, and Jerry Beck in 2001.  With those three interviews, and a video interview of Steve Bosustow from a television show, the first presentation reel was created for the IFP Film Market in New York City in late September 2001.

Then, with a better camera the bulk of the interviews were videotaped between 2003 and 2007, beginning with Dave Hilberman, who was able to give us the best idea of the very earliest days of UPA.  As the interviews progressed, two important things began to emerge.  First of all it became clear that our documentary couldn’t become a chronological history of UPA, that would take too long and not be nearly as interesting as just highlighting some of the more interesting and lesser known stories inside UPA, and secondly, the interviewees were so passionate and eloquent, that it would be much better to eliminate an uninvolved narrator, as we had planned, but have the interviewees themselves tell the inside stores of UPA at its hight.  The image is of Tee Bosustow and his daughter, Sylvie, conducting the interview with Dutch film collector, Michael Helmerhorst, in Amsterdam, in 2005.

Category: Production