Filming Brief Encounters Director's Statement
I first met Gregory Crewdson and his work in 2000 when I was commissioned to make a short film about him for PBS. I was immediately struck by the beauty and power of his images, and the care and complexity of the productions that produce the kind of detail that contributes so much to his work.
Brief Encounters was mostly filmed while Crewdson was creating his epic series of photographs, Beneath the Roses. When I proposed making the film, Gregory was completely supportive, as he remained throughout the production. He granted unlimited access, from pre-production location scouting, right through to taking the pictures. I filmed as a solo crew, a few times even from a position in the frame but hidden from his camera by a piece of scenery.
I filmed many of Crewdson’s shoots, unsure how the film would end. Then Crewdson himself provided a conclusion by finishing Beneath the Roses. He also decided he was done with shoots of such hugely elaborate scale. His next body of work, Sanctuary, appears at the end of the film: black and white images of the decaying back-lot of the Cinecitta studios outside Rome. He worked there with a small crew, and apart from spraying some water on the ground, or adding some smoke, captured the abandoned movie sets as they were.
Today, Gregory Crewdson maintains he will never re-create the scale of the shoots seen in Brief Encounters.
He continues to photograph in Western Massachusetts.
Brief Encounters was mostly filmed while Crewdson was creating his epic series of photographs, Beneath the Roses. When I proposed making the film, Gregory was completely supportive, as he remained throughout the production. He granted unlimited access, from pre-production location scouting, right through to taking the pictures. I filmed as a solo crew, a few times even from a position in the frame but hidden from his camera by a piece of scenery.
I filmed many of Crewdson’s shoots, unsure how the film would end. Then Crewdson himself provided a conclusion by finishing Beneath the Roses. He also decided he was done with shoots of such hugely elaborate scale. His next body of work, Sanctuary, appears at the end of the film: black and white images of the decaying back-lot of the Cinecitta studios outside Rome. He worked there with a small crew, and apart from spraying some water on the ground, or adding some smoke, captured the abandoned movie sets as they were.
Today, Gregory Crewdson maintains he will never re-create the scale of the shoots seen in Brief Encounters.
He continues to photograph in Western Massachusetts.
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Ben Shapiro is a New York-based documentary director and cinematographer, and radio producer. His work has appeared theatrically and at major festivals internationally, and museums including the Museum of Modern Art, as well as broadcast (PBS, CBC, HBO, National Geographic). His projects have received awards including Peabody, DuPont, Emmy, and AFI First Prize. He also is a contributor to NPR programs and to RadioDiaries.
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