Mike talks AMERICAN TEEN with writer/director Nanette Burstein

With American Teen coming out on DVD, we had the chance to catch up with director Nanette Burstein to chat about the trials and tribulations of teenage film subjects, as well as hear a bit about her forthcoming rom-com Going the Distance, with Drew Barrymore... Q: What is it about American teenagers that makes them such great subject matter for filmmakers like yourself?

NB: Well I think, and I don't know if this is American teenagers, but I think that it is a unique time in your life where you're just starting to figure out who you are and your peers and your family have a very different idea of what that is and impose that on you, and then of course your hormones are raging and very often you're going through a very awkward physical time in your life and so all of these elements converge to make you completely batty.

Q: What was the hardest thing about being a teenager for you personally?

NB: For me personally it was that I really clashed with my parents, and was very rebellious and got in a lot of trouble. It became very difficult at home during that period.

Q: It sounds like you'd have been fun subject matter for a documentary.

NB: Oh my God! Yes, I would've...

Q: How did you go about choosing the school that you eventually filmed in?

NB: There were certain elements I was really looking for. It had to be in a town with only one High School to really capture that fishbowl aspect of High Scool where that's your only social reality. I wanted it to be economically mixed because I thought that would inform their experiences, and it needed to be a High School where it would co-operate and give me the access I was looking for, and that was the hard part. So I called hundreds of High Schools in the middle of the country and found ten and went to each of them and interviewed all in the incoming seniors that were interested and let that really dictate which High School we ended up at - where I found the most compelling kids and stories.

Q: Were you faced with a lot of difficulties when you got there and started filming?

NB: Yes (laughs), I was. I thought I had these certain stories I was filming, and I had interviewed these kids in the Summer and in the Fall their lives had completely changed. I forgot how quickly life changes in High School. And then they were kind of all weirded out, they'd signed on in theory to the idea of being filmed in intimate situations and the reality of it was different and they weren't that excited about it once it started happening. So, you know, it took a lot of getting used to for all of us, getting to know one another and feeling comfortable and all of that. But for the first couple of months I felt it was completely doomed, and was a horrible idea that'd never work out, but it all did work out.

Q: Once you'd been through this difficult process of bonding and getting to know one another was it difficult to leave?

NB: It was actually! I formed really close relationships with them. Because when you're making a film you have no other life, your life just becomes observing other people, so on the one hand it was nice to say I'm going to have a life of my own again but on the other hand I was really going to miss them a lot. We kept in touch and we visit each other, but you never have that close bond you had then.

Q: Yeah, it sounds like a short, intense period to come out of.

NB: Not that short! A year of your life is not that short!

Q: I suppose it's especially long for them, and formative too. Did you ever worry about how filming would affect the rest of their lives?

NB: Yeah, I mean I never imagined that the film would blow up into this huge, monumental thing that would alter there lives in that way. And I think it was probably a good thing that... I do think we had a very close relationship and I'd like to think that I was a very positive influence on them and the fact that we're still good friends today means I like to think that's true. So I don't think there was any negativity. Not one of them, or their parents, was unhappy with the film at all, I mean they really all appreciated it. Even showing their flaws, warts-and-all, they appreciated it and were really comfortable with it and totally got behind supporting the movie and going to screenings and helping with the press. So I think it was good.

Q: That sounds like an unusual ending for a documentary! Is it rare that it ends so amicably?

NB: (Laughs) I've actually never had a bad experience!.. Actually that's not true, I did a TV series once and some people, not the main characters, but some people got mad at me.

Q: But we won't go too far into that side of things!

NB: No...

Q: You're doing a rom-com with Drew Barrymore next I understand, are you excited about that?

NB: Yes! I'm very excited. It's been fun, it's a totally different animal and it's all very new to me. But at the end of the day it's still storytelling, visual storytelling, and it's a different approach. But even though it's a rom-com and they're often fantasies, just like High School movies are often fantasies, and I've tried to inject this with as much reality as possible. It's like, here's a constructed story and how can I make it as real as possible, whereas with a documentary it's like, or at least my approach is like, here's reality and how do I mould it into as entertaining a narrative and story as I can.

Q: I was going to ask actually if this was part of a gradual switch away from documentaries, but it sounds like your way of storytelling is just evolving...

NB: Yeah I'm just trying something new and trying to ultimately get to the same goal but from a different approach. Constructing it and trying to make it feel real rather than taking reality and ultimately, in the editing room, constructing it.

Q: Would you mind telling me a bit about your new project?

NB: It's about a long-distance relationship, it's about two people that have big dreams that are difficult to achieve in today's economy. And they fall in love in New York and then she has to go back to California, where she's from, for work and they try to maintain this relationship across the country and in order to be together one of them really has to give up their career issues. So ultimately it's about that conflict.

Q: It sounds like you're dealing with some serious issues there, are you concerned about the difference between watching and interpreting people's actions and actively directing how you think they would act in certain situations?

NB: Well I think that having spent so long studying real people and how they act I hope that that will help inform my ability in the directing of actors; and certainly I have so much respect for actors and especially of this calibre, and they've been doing this far longer than I've been directing them. So I feel I can learn a lot from them, and don't pretend to be a know-it-all! I just think movie-making is so collaborative that, at the end of the day you have to make all these choices but for me it's also about learning from all of these people around me who are all so talented. I can't pretend to know more than they do.

Q: That sounds like a really positive approach, I look forward to seeing the results.

NB: Yeah, me too! (Laughs)

Q: Thanks very much for your time Nanette. Good luck with the movie!

NB: Thank you.

American Teen is out on DVD in the UK on Monday 29th June.