Nick Singer
Stella for Star, Nick Singer (2019)
Nick Singer is an American screenwriter, film director, and producer. His thesis short film at Wesleyan University, February, premiered in competition at Slamdance—Singer expanded this film, which centers around the travails of an itinerant plumber, into his feature debut Other Months, which premiered at SXSW and BAMcinemafest. His short film Stella for Star was awarded the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation's production grant for science-related material, premiered at Boston and New Orleans, St. Cloud, and won the Hammer-to-Nail Short Film Contest.
Nick Singer participated in an exclusive interview with Filmatique as part of Talents 2020.
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FILMATQUE: Stella for Star portrays Dr. Marcy Later, a nuclear physicist who has traveled with her two children and babysitter to New Orleans for a work conference. As she and her colleagues discuss nuclear fusion, a much-heralded but as-yet-unrealized source of renewable energy, a hurricane gathers force offshore. What was your initial inspiration for this story?
NICK SINGER: I know I'm not alone in being both terrified and apathetic about climate change. It's a very strange way to feel, and a little bit absurd. I had thought for some time that I might like to explore that feeling in a film, but wasn't sure how to go about it. The initial spark came when I read a New Yorker piece by Raffi Khatchadourian about ITER, which is the leading international nuclear fusion project. What they're trying to do at ITER is truly sublime: conjure an artificial star out of thin air that is ten times hotter than the sun, trap it in an invisible magnetic bottle, and use it as a power source. But it's the way in which the piece describes the ITER scientists—their hope to solve the problem that is large-scale nuclear fusion, working in concert with tens of thousands of scientists and engineers around the world, and thereby provide a viable climate change solution; and their hopelessness and gallows humor, given the ways the project is tethered to the petty whims of world politics, not to mention the generations of scientists who have tried and failed to make progress on fusion before them—that really resonated with me. I wondered what it must be like for these scientists, knowing all they know, working up close to this seemingly insurmountable problem, to go to the office everyday, to interact with their colleagues, to raise kids. That was the jumping off point.
FLMTQ: The film, in several ways, renders the threat of climate change immediate, elucidating how drastically it can change our lives, despite humanity's efforts to undo our own damage. Interestingly, the hurricane's destructive force is never seen directly—rather, it is sensed through news reports, a palpable anxiety among Marcy's children, the whipping of wind off-screen. Can you comment on your cinematographic approach to representing the slow disaster of climate change? To what extent do you believe it is our responsibility, in Rob Nixon's words, to devise "arresting stories, images, and symbols adequate to the pervasive but elusive violence of delayed effects?"
NS: It's gratifying to hear that the hurricane, and by extension the climate, felt like an immediate presence. Accomplishing this was a major point of focus throughout both the writing and production of the film. We knew that for the threat to feel palpable, for the most part we could get away with sensing the hurricane off-screen, but that we'd have to show it in the frame at some point. Admittedly, a lot of our decisions were dictated by our budget, which was quite small for a film of any scale, and especially this scale. (My producers, Milo and Catherine, are magicians.) While it's true that the full destructive force of the hurricane is never seen directly—there was no budget, or desire, really, for a "Look! Hurricane!" moment—there are a number of points in the film in which the hurricane appears. It's downplayed, but it's there.
We decided to concentrate on one shot in particular that comes towards the end of the film, looking out of the hotel lobby. The shot doesn't announce itself at all, but was an extraordinarily difficult thing to pull off. Finding the right location, which we had to fully dress, because we couldn't afford a real hotel lobby (notoriously expensive because they're active 24 hours!), which had a view onto the street, with an outside area that we could control, was the first step. Although New Orleans is quite rainy, we couldn't depend on a storm arriving—especially on our one production day in the location, in a specific window of time when the light worked for us, with all of our actors and crew on set—so we hired an SFX team to bring in a rain machine and wind effects. It was very exciting. Again, the audience only sees this in the distant background of the shot, but it's essential to bringing that immediacy. There are other examples throughout the film, all quite subtle in a similar fashion. The only shot that breaks the mold is the film's penultimate image, of the glass ceiling. That was gravy. We got lucky that there was a brief storm forecast for the early morning on the day we had to return equipment. We woke up early, snuck back into the space, and shot that one image as the storm rolled in overhead, before racing over to return our camera package in time. Every once in a while the cinema gods smile down.
I haven't heard that quote before, but I do find it intriguing. Responsibility is tricky. The quote doesn't say so explicitly, but points towards a notion of praxis. I'll admit that I'm a bit skeptical of this line of thinking; or, perhaps a better way to put it is that I feel the jury is out. It's nice to imagine, but I wonder whether artistic expression has the power to change people's behavior. To paraphrase Ben Lerner in an interview somewhere, and he was probably bastardizing someone else—"if art could change human morality or behavior, it should have succeeded a long time ago." Moreover, there's a self-congratulatory aspect to this, artists patting themselves on the back. Organizers, journalists—they are the real political change agents. For art, the effects seem to be sideways, complex, and diffuse. I'm happy to admit that my thinking on this may change, but at the moment, I think it's the artist's job to reflect, and to make room for reflection. It's not activism, and probably shouldn't be confused for it.
Stella for Star, Nick Singer (2019)