By Dmitry Popov

Enza Sebastiani is an independent filmmaker and multimedia artist with a passion for nature, theater, music, travel and photography. She produces documentaries, music videos and corporate videos in the United States and in Europe. 

Enza is a former employee of Apple Computers and AutoDesk-Discreet.  She also worked as an independent contractor for other companies in the Silicon Valley.

Her latest project, SFO-FCO-SFO is a cultural progam and vlog soon to be featured on her website www.sfofcosfo.com.  

Enza has great experience in both realms -- art of filmmaking and technical knowledge of digital video and how the two can be combined.

1. You have background in both computer science and filmmaking. What was first? How did you start as a filmmaker and was it helpful to have an experience in digital video industry?

Filmmaking came first... Actually let me step back a bit, then you can edit. My parents gave me a beautiful marionette theater for my 5th Christmas.
I loved it so much that I would organize shows every weekend for family and friends, improvising and later writing my own stories.
I was part of a theater group at my parish in Rome since age 5.  But something was missing: recording those moments, those stories, images, motion and sounds… For many years I dreamed to record them, but never had the means, just my father's still camera and a very old 8mm film camera.  But film was always very expensive to develop.
My main storytelling muse was the radio and the 45 record player of my grandmother.   My father would bring home beautiful fables on a 45 record and I would spend hours drawing and imagining faces of the characters in the fables, place and colors, while listening to the records...

After my studies in foreign languages and business, I did what everyone else did: I found a job and worked behind a desk.  But it did not last very long.  I was like a bird in a cage...

At the beginning of the 90’s, I left everything behind and decided to embrace my dream of making movies.

I landed on this side of the planet, precisely in Los Angeles, at UCLA, studying more English (can’t get enough of it ;o) and improvisational theater.   Then, a year later, I move to San Francisco, where I studied film  at  CCSF, making movies with a small S8 camera and later with a 16 mm camera.  

In 96’ I moved back to Los Angeles, dying to work on the set... So, I pretty much jumped in and worked as an extra (yes! among other gigs, my elbow was featured in Boogie Nights for 3 frames; Vicky Lewis blown smoke on my face from her cigaret on the set of Phil Hartman’s NewsRadio; my Subaru station wagon was digitally blown up a few hundred times in Volcano, while I was shouting “You racist pig!” to George Wallace, played by a terrific Gary Sinise.   I even danced with Ed Bundy!  What a roller-coaster, but it was fun.) 

Then, after getting my feet wet, I started to work in production as PA (aka personal a-slave), script supervisor,  prop assistant, assistant director... Life is interesting in L.A... You have to be flexible.  But I never gave up the hope to shoot my own project. Which I did in fact. My first one was a short fiction, ‘Lost in Limbo’ , shot in 16mm at the Greenwich Observatory park.  It received positive feedback at the only screening in Santa Monica. 

After 3 years in Los Angeles, I moved back to the Bay Area and sort of tripped over Apple. That was just around the time Apple CEO, Steve Jobs was introducing revolutionary digital desktop editing software called iMovie.
The world changed that day for me, suddenly realizing that the digital democratization started there at Apple.
This easy to use software allowed me to complete many stories I wrote in no time, adding music, graphic and effects with a simple drag and drop operation.
Later on, I started to use Final Cut Pro, a more professional editing software that allowed me to do multi-layer video/audio editing and much more.

2. What parts of filmmaking do you like best: cinematography, writing, producing, editing? What is your current project and what is your favorite or most successful project?

Filmmaking is the most complete art form in my opinion, challenging and in continuous development. I can go on forever with it. What I like the best? Creating a movie from concept to completion, which is what the digital "evolution" allows you to do nowadays without having a multimillion-dollar budget or a crew of 600 people.
If I have to choose one single aspect of filmmaking, it is tough, but I think editing is the most addicting, allowing you to bring the best out of the story and leaving the superfluous out.
Editing is like sculpting. Writing the story is preparing the camera to transform words in powerful images. 

My favorite short project I produced is "Swing Dance", a brief homage to love for life and dancing. I shot that in 35mm, then telecined it in digi-beta, then captured a single clip with Final Cut Pro, and finally cut it in iMovie on a Mac. That was the piece that Steve loved so much and that he used at his keynote at MacWorld  in San Francisco, New York and Tokyo.

Ninfa: A Roman Oasis, is my latest documentary. It’s an environmental success story about a beautiful botanical garden, that grew from the original 19 acres to a 5000 acres of protected land, in the outskirts of  Rome, Italy.   

Also, I produced, wrote, directed and cut "Green Island", a music video for the talented singer composer Vienna Teng. The song she sings is a beautiful Mandarin Lullaby, part of her latest album "Warm Strangers".

Last year, great effort was made to organize a project that embraces behind my creative artists network, 1000 Hearts (www.onethousandhearts.com): A multimedia art and video exhibit hosted by the Coyote Point Museum in San Mateo, California.  I worked to gather a bunch of great artists from the US, Asia, Europe and Africa who displayed their awesome paintings, photos, sculptures, poetries and movies on peace, people and nature. The show included an experimental display of 16 films in digital format from filmmakers in the Bay Area and Europe.

3. Describe your typical day when you are doing film.

After writing the script, I will scout for location and check the natural lighting at different time of the day, bringing my digital still camera and taking shots of angles I am visualizing of the story.
Then I prepare the storyboard with both sketches and stills and I shoot based on it. Flexibility is very important though, you might miss the best shot if you do not follow your own instinct or the instinct of your actors.

4. Who are the people you are working with? What is entailed in this collaboration?

I usually work on my own, but when I need a multi-camera shooting, I work with friends of mine from film school, particularly with Philip Safarik, also an indie-filmmaker. Philip would be on one of the cameras and I would direct. Sometime, when his schedule allows him, Victor Marino, my husband, also a very talented filmmaker, will contribute with his expertise as a cameraman, sound technician and editor.

Also, I work with artists on the 1000 Hearts network and constantly search for emerging figures from all walk of life in the US and Italy.

5. Tell me about your work environment, was it tough to start? Or it is still tough?

Yes and no.
You can be very creative, creating great stuff, pull together very creative people, but the tough part is to be seen. Unless you were born and raised in the film business...
It's good to have connections, but often it is not the key.
You have to be creative and keep doing what you love doing... Persistence is the key, I believe.


6. How often are you doing your projects and how many hours are you usually working on one?

It depends on the projects and how busy I am. I sometimes find myself booked for a month, then nothing to do for the following one. That's the time to catch up with your own projects...
I just finished to cut a 30 min. documentary that we shot in Rome, for a group of artists, GAM (Gruppo Artisti di Monteverde). I was cutting for 6 hours on Final Cut Pro HD, polishing audio and color correcting for 3 and transferring to DVD for 4...

7. The next question is about funding and pay basis issues. Let me formulate this question this way: is a contract what you are usually looking for or you prefer permanent position in the industry?

Nothing is really permanent, even if you have a contract with Pixar or Lucas. Once the film is done, it is done. Then it's up to you to find something creative to do.
I like to work independently, but I don't exclude the possibility of working for creative minds like Alexander Payne (Sideways), M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs, The Village), Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie), Sergio Arau (A Day Without a Mexican), or Woody Allen (all of them), to name a few. Too bad no female name came to mind...
But as you see, most of them are both the writers, producers and directors of their own movies....

8. What unions, clubs or communities are you affiliate? What are the benefits to be, for example, a member of a MacFilmmakers?

I belong to different users groups, i.e. Bay Area Women in Film and Television (BAWIFT), as well as the SF Cutters.
When I have the time, I enjoy attending their seminars and interviews with people who work in the industry.
Also, it is interesting to meet people with similar interests but completely different styles.
Macfimmakers allowed me to meet filmmakers like Terry Benedict who worked many years to realize a full length documentary, The Conscientious Objector, on a WWII hero, Desmond Doss. If you have a chance you should see that one. A very touching story of a soldier who would not bear arms and would fight to save lives in the battle field.

9. Will this job exists in 5 years, how has new technology affected this job? Will it change the future? How one should be prepared for it?

I was at MacWorld San Francisco, at Steve Job's keynote and I agree with what he was saying. We are quickly moving towards HD, because technology is always moving forward.. HD resolution is astonishing.
A few years back we were amazed by the difference between the High 8 analogue video and digital DV...we are moving forward. That's the only way to stay in business, right? Technology is influencing the industry no doubt, but there are still people shooting S8, 16 mm and 35 mm... I think the transition might take longer.


10. What is the satisfaction/dissatisfaction with your work? Will you remain in this position?

I have one mission in my life: make movies that speak the language of people. I hope these movies can be seen, appreciated and understood. The only dissatisfaction is that with the democratization of moviemaking, you encounter supply and demand issues. Clients requesting the services often don’t discern good quality. They think all video looks alike. So, what you see out there is an army of people who stop at Good Guys, buy a camera and the very same day they are directors/producers. The result is that people with real skills and experience are forced to reduce their prices to the point that they can’t survive.

A metaphore is buy a word processor and everyone is a writer and a book publisher... nothing new here.

11. If somebody asks you a 3 rules to become a good filmmaker, what are they? What would you suggest to somebody who wants to start filmmaking?

1. Have a clear vision of who you are and what you know.
2. Tell what you know, what you experience and feel.
3. Don't compromise. Stick to your vision.

If I may add one more: don't sell yourself so cheap that next time they will go for the next fresh intern and get what they need for free.

Picture in your mind filmmaking as the work of an artist who's pouring his soul into film or digital tape instead of a canvas. Would you sell that canvas at the $0.99 c store?