Floria Sigismondi Talks About Making The Runaways

The Runaways, the feature film about the first all-girl rock 'n' roll band of the same name, is in stores on DVD and Blu-Ray on Tuesday (July 20).

The film stars Kristen Stewart (Twilight, Adventureland) and Dakota Fanning (Twilight, I Am Sam) as Joan Jett and Cherie Currie, respectively, two of the band's members. It follows their short-lived career from their formation in 1975 to their break-up four years later.

The Runaways is based on Currie's Neon Angel: A Memoir Of A Runaway book, and was written and directed by Canada's Floria Sigismondi. She's become well-known for her music video work, including Marilyn Manson's infamous clip for "The Beautiful People."

CHARTattack recently spoke with Sigismondi about what it was like to make her first feature film, working with Jett and Currie, and why she thinks films are "little miracles."

CHARTattack: Your background is in music videos, and everyone's familiar with that Marilyn Manson video [for "The Beautiful People"]. When you were making the movie, did you find it difficult to go from shooting and directing music videos to go to directing and shooting a feature film, or was it relatively easy?
Floria Sigismondi: The thing that I think was the most challenging was the short amount of prep time. I almost had more prep time in doing a music video than I did for the film. That was really kind of intense. I think I had four weeks prep and I normally would have two weeks on a music video, so, I mean, do the math. It was really tight 'cause a music video's about four minutes, three minutes.

I actually didn't know how I was going to like — well, not like, but how that experience was going to be for me. But as soon as I got on set, it was just... I stepped into my own shoes and I felt really great and super-confident because I loved being on set, and that's the thing I kind of get off on. That felt really good. I'd been wanting to do a feature for a long time, and because I wrote the script, I actually had all these things set in my head about what I wanted to do, so.

Did your experience with photography help you at all? When you go through and watch it, you can definitely tell, just by the way some of the shots are set up, that you have that background.
I think it's definitely added — I definitely rely on it and it's added to my career a sense of composition, the mere fact that I do it all the time and I'm working with those parametres in that box, you know? So it's very important to me, and the biggest difference between shooting photographs and a film is that you get to explore that, you get to move it and people get to move through the frame. How do you make something look great in the beginning and at the end, you know? How does that move through a phase. So I've always been kind of interested in that, so it's kind of a big thing for me.

How did you get to make the film? Was it offered to you, did you have to bid for it?
My manager, Brian, he had me read Cherie's [Currie, singer] book and brought me in to meet Art and John Linson [producers], who had the rights at the time. I just told them what I didn't want to do and what intrigued me about the project, and they basically gave me a chance to direct it and write it... I thought it really needed to be directed by a woman because of the subject matter, and we just kind of gelled. I mean, they'd obviously met other people, but something about it worked and it just sort of happened like that. I didn't have to go in with a presentation or anything like that... we talked about the feel and we really kind of liked each other and it just sort of happened like that.

What was it like with Cherie and Joan on set?
It was fine. A lot of people ask me that, and they were really supportive of the project from the beginning. Joan was — I mean, Cherie didn't show up all the time, but she showed up on her moments, and Joan is the executive producer, so it was only natural that she'd be there all the time.

I think it was good for the actors, you know. It just kind of felt like if they needed that support it was there, you know? Like I know that Kristen always said that she'd feel like she was a fake if Joan wasn't there. I mean, Joan wasn't telling her what to do, but she could feed off her. I mean, it was important. She really picked up her mannerisms. It was amazing to see. Kristen and I met for the very first time while we were shooting and she'd kind of got the hunchback, she'd got her posture, she'd got the hands hanging there, she'd really got her swagger... it was amazing to watch that happen.

What was it like working with Dakota and Kristen?
I was really blessed. They're obviously amazingly talented girls, and really, really committed. They brought a lot to their parts, I think, and they both have never played real people, so I think that was really exciting and obviously nervous for them, but really exciting because they have this real life character to base their character on. That must be exciting for an actor. It was a really great experience.

Was there anything about making it that kind of surprised you or that was different than what you thought it was going to be going into it?
Some technical things. How long the whole experience turned out to be. You know, I'm used to working on shorts, month projects, so it kind of spanned two to four years, you know. So it was like, "One shooting tomorrow! What's going on? How are we going to get the money?" That was a little bit hard to get used to, but also to maintain faith that it's going to happen because once you do a film, you think, "OK, I'm going to be less harsh on films because they are like little miracles when they happen."

It is a miracle that all the things come together. There are so many aspects to making a film and so many things can go wrong that, you know, it's amazing when they happen. But for me, I guess I was pleasantly surprised that when it started and the train left the station, it all kind of came together. I had such a short period of prep time that you kind of get nervous. If one person messes up, if the set's not right, anything, one of those things go wrong, you've lost the day. T

he mere fact that the film being kind of on the road and the location changing all the time — I was in a location a day, and that's kind of unheard of. You usually stay weeks in one location, and I was literally moving — I think the most we fit in a place was two days, three days max and everything was moving. So when you work like that, when you are behind, I wouldn't have got it and it would have had to be omitted. That's kind of really nervewracking for me.

So we were kind of moving at lightning speed, and when you move at that speed you hope that you give yourself and the actors enough time to go there. So that was actually kind of amazing how it all kind of worked. Because of my script I know that one, or any of those things could go wrong and it's like a bomb. It's like when the stars align. It's either going to happen or it's not going to happen, and thankfully it worked out.

What drew you to the story? What made you want to do this movie?
You know, I love the fact that Joan has had to fight to get where she's at and her perserverance and her strength got her there.

I love the fact that for Cherie, it's OK not to be the singer in a rock band even though a lot of people would think that that's what's successful, you know? A successful thing to do for her was living and she knew when to get out, and she had very different choices.

Also that they're very kind of polar opposites in terms of what, you know, drew them to the band. Cherie — and I love bringing things together, pole opposites — and Cherie running away from home and her parents abandoning her and her struggle for identity from her twin sister, trying to get her own persona, and Joan is, you know, she had to do it. This is what she wants to do; this is her dream. So they come together for different reasons and the band means different things to them. That was interesting to me, and being the first all-girl rock band, I mean, drew on my heart strings.