 
GROOVE
...Are You Feeling It?
Interview with Writer/Director Greg Harrison by Ms. E
What a landmark to witness the unfolding of this truly authentic portrayal of the colorful, emotional,electronically-charged nocturnal journey of rave culture. Groove is an independently made film that is taking North America by storm this summer. Amongst a sea of negative propaganda against rave culture in the media, Groove is a blessing. It was unveiled at the Sundance Film Festival in January followed by a flood of positive reviews, and was bought by Sony for worldwide distribution.
The music, the people…they are all real. It takes place over one magical night in San Francisco, a global hotspot where the continuum of counter-cultural movements twists and turns yet again through expressions of love, light and music. Here we are in the middle of the brew, deep in the Mission District on a hot Friday afternoon in May, set to enter the 415 Productions studio to meet the man whose vision made this possible. Ready? Set? Go!
 3-2-1 CONTACT! COUNTDOWN TO THE MOVIE LAUNCH
It’s been crazy since Sundance. You’d figure you sell a movie at Sundance and then you go to Hawaii but instead you come back and work 14 hour days. We’ve been doing a number of things. One of the first things we did was work on selling the contract rights, so we just closed the deal with Kinetic for the worldwide release for the soundtrack. A very technical thing we’ve been doing is just delivering the film to Sony which is kind of boring, it doesn’t have to do with any creative aspect of the film. It’s like preparing for the foreign dubs, transcribing it for the subtitles, it goes on and on and on. We are also preparing a lot of stuff for the DVD which will have a lot of bonus material, deleted scenes, the directors commentary. So it’s really fun being able to do the full 9 yards. That ultimately is our responsibility as a production company. We deliver that all to Sony. The third thing which is really fun is we’ve been doing a lot of press. It’s exciting because people have been really into the idea of film, the few people that have seen it at the press screenings have been giving a lot of good response, so that momentum is really starting to happen.
THIS TIME, IT’S PERSONAL…A VISION OF RAVE CULTURE
Bottomline it’s a personal film. I didn’t want to be the voice of the scene, I just wanted to say in the film what the scene meant to me and the kinds of experiences and the people that surrounded me. I definitely wanted it to ring authentic to  anyone who had been in the scene but ultimately I made the choices in the film based on my personal experiences. Some people I know and other companies that were trying to make a film on this subject matter often took the take,"I want to be the voice of the scene" or "This is techno, this is raving". One of the definitions of the scene is that it can’t be distilled like that. That’s why the press gets it wrong and you get words like Electronica coming up and really broad stroked descriptions of what it is that people do at raves. One of the things that I found is that it’s filled with lots of gradations, there all kinds of different raves, all kinds of different people and all kinds of different music.
| “I’m taking a snapshot of a much larger continuum...” |
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When I was making the film I had only really thought about how the media had portrayed the scene. I really wanted to make sure my film was authentic and didn’t play into the sensationalized aspects of the scene as you see in the press — drug overdoses, gang violence, someone brings a gun to a rave — those are the kinds of things that Hollywood companies really wanted me to add.
INSPIRED BY THE THE WEST COAST UNDERGROUND
| “I based the script on my personal experiences in the San Francisco underground scene, specifically with parties thrown by Friends & Family and Cloud Factory.” |
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I definitely based the script on my personal experiences in the San Francisco underground scene, specifically with parties thrown by Friends & Family and Cloud Factory. The script’s layout, the actual physical location as it appears in the film is inspired by a film called "WoMo A GoGo" which took place in an office space on Mission & 8th and was a collaboration between a lot of different collectives. It happed right around the time I was creating the script and that party really inspired me. In my mind I kept that space as the location even though we didn’t ultimately shoot there.
 It’s kind of fun to look back, I looked in my diaries — I have a journal of every rave I ever went to and I have a complete description of what happened there. The first rave I ever went to was called "Family Groove" which is very appropriate! I had no idea what to expect and it was an amazing experience. I went with a good group of friends in LA and it was all of our first experience at a party and it was right around the time when I was considering moving from LA, I had been living there for three years as a film editor. I didn’t want that to be my career and I was just about to commit to that path. I moved there to make films, so I saved up a bunch of money. The job that I has during that time I wrote and edited a full length documentary on the Christian singer Amy Grant. I took that money and took a year off to write and go to raves up in San Francisco.
While I was in LA I was watching the rave scene in San Francisco happen through SF-Raves. That was really my introduction,  I was watching the scene from afar, through the lists on email. I would watch Friends & Family organize a party, it would happen, then all the reviews would come up. It really peaked my interest. On that list I saw a posting for a house called the Blue Cube in Noe Valley which F&F used. I sold everything I owned and I just lived there and wrote for a year. I wasn’t writing Groove either, I was writing other scripts. The whole point was to write. It was a time of great personal creativity where I wrote music, short stories, poems, scripts, anything I could do, just to create, I was finding my voice. So, a very personal time in San Francisco that ultimately hatched Groove. I remember writing the line "Capture the underground music scene in San Francisco in a film" in late 96 which slowly turned in to a treatment and an ethnographic treatment that was like 50 pages long, like 2 full pages on how to hook up a sound system…I just went into vast detail. I might publish excerpts on the web site of that original treatment. And then that turned into a first draft. I wanted it to be as detailed as I could because while that doesn’t comprise a script, that sort of immersion as a writer really informs the ultimate, final script. So the first draft happened in May of 97. It’s been a while…
GROOVE FACES THE DARK SIDE
| “I think you have something here, we’ve been looking for a rave script...Youth culture, very hot these days. But, I don’t know how to put this – can we add a gun?” |
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In 97 it was just me and a script. When I finished that first draft I felt it really had a spark, it had something, so I started sending it to production companies in LA. Through my editing contacts I really had some access to people in LA and have them read it.  Very quickly it became apparent that this was not the way to make the film. I would have meetings-- and I’m literally quoting the meeting — it was sitting across from someone from a reputable production company that certainly makes these size films, saying "I think you have something here, we’ve been looking for a rave script…Youth culture, very hot these days. But, I don’t know how to put this — can we add a gun?" I mean, I felt like I was in a movie, it was incredible. It literally looked me in the eyes and said can we have a gun. I was dumbfounded. I left that meeting running for my life–it was just insane! And then the next meeting I had, and again I’m quoting, "We are very interested in the script and the idea, and we’d really like to read it but we have to ask you one question, does someone die?" And I was taken aback, said "No," and they said "Well, we’re not interested." I mean, this actually happened! It’s like right out of The Player or some kind of movie about Hollywood. Very surreal. It probably took 6 months for it to run that course and realize that this was a terrible way to get this film made.
ZEROING IN THE 415 AREA CODE
| “We were able to make this film completely independently completely on private money with complete creative control. Ultimately that’s how it should be done.” |
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It was clear it had to make it independently so I had creative control. It should be made in San Francisco, it’s about San Francisco. That’s around the time that I hooked up with 415 Productions here. They are a web solutions company started by a couple of guys, one was a good friend of mine since college. Jeff worked in film in LA offered 415 to be the first investor in my new company, They invested all the office infrastructure — the desks, computers, the email and that sort of thing, so that was the beginning. We had a place, we had this meeting room, we could move forward like a real company. So I wrote a business plan, very detailed, just like an entrepranureal web start up, saying here is our product, here is why our product could work, here is the market, here’s how much it’s going to cost. Exhaustive business plan. We went out and essentially started getting VC money, very similar kind of approach. We went to independent investors, we didn’t want to affiliate with a company, and really we were able to make this film completely independently completely on private money with complete creative control. Ultimately that’s how it should be done.
It took about a year to raise the money to shoot which wasn’t all the money we needed. But once we shot and edited and got into Sundance. It took 10 months to raise the first half the budget and two weeks to raise the other half. So once you have a tape and you play it, and it really captured the scene, we had Internet people come in and see it, young people who knew the rave scene, had money to invest. It really took off.
THE HUMAN MOVEMENT
| “Why do people listen to this music, want to be on the dancefloor, take drugs? That was the core question I wanted to explore. So it was important to show all aspects, both shallow and deep, both good and bad – to explore the gray area.” |
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I interviewed a lot of people, I talked a lot of DJs and people in the rave scene, really asking questions like, what have you experienced, why do you do it? I think that’s a really good thing to hit on, I wanted to ask the question is why. Why do people listen to this music, want to be on the dancefloor, take drugs? That was the core question I wanted to explore.  I don’t think I really intended for the film to be a complete answer to that question, but certainly it inspired a lot of content of the film. I wanted to put a human face on the scene, because I don’t think any mass media has ever attempted to address the question of why. When you ask why, you are considering the human being, you are considering the person. That’s what I tried to do.
It was really important for me to take all the aspects of rave culture and try to represent it in the film honestly with a human pathos without making fun of it. I did want to show there is good there is bad, there are some really profound aspects, some funny aspects. I thought it was important to have a cynical character to kind of be the foil, to really look at all sides. As a filmmaker I didn’t want to make a statement rather than to present the scene. So it was important to show all aspects, both shallow and deep, both good and bad — to explore the gray area. With the drug issue that was certainly the case, I wanted to do something that I really don’t think has been done before which is to show a positive drug experience. If you are ever going to get to the bottom of why people do drugs you’ve got to ask -- there’s got to be something good about it, I mean, people aren’t going to do it if they don’t get something out of it -- at least once. I didn’t want to condone it in the film but there’s something compelling about the experience that has to be explored if you are going to talk about it. It says a lot about the drug problem in America, the Just Say No thing. If no one is asking why all these people are doing it or what are they after — whether it’s successful or not — it’s usually characterized as normal people are being taken over by drugs. Like the people are passive and the drugs are coming in and destroying them like some kind of monster. I really wanted to show that gray area. There are all these reasons why people go, all different things people are after. It’s all human, really. It’s people trying to figure out their lives and figure out a way to live and understand themselves and connect with other people no matter how successful or unsuccessful they are.
Once I had an edit the film and we had been screening it for press, it’s really interesting to think about the cultural context of the scene. First I made the film as a film and I wanted the film to work as a piece of emotional entertainment. But if it does have cultural relevance I think it’s a representation of a timeless way of life that has always been present in American culture, and globally, if you look at a lot of different cultures. The subculture of the lost generation of the 20s, or the beat generation or if you look at hippie culture, I think it’s on this same continuum, and certainly San Francisco has always been the epicenter of subcultures in America, a lot of the large subculture movements. I think it’s only natural that you have a very specific scene in San Francisco that is an extension of that. Certainly it was part of what was going on with the beat generation here as well. I think I’m taking a snapshot of a much larger continuum. I think if you look at the different subcultures at various points in time in history, it’s really just an extension of that.
FREE YOUR MIND AND YOUR ASS WILL FOLLOW
Strangely, it’s been the most radical notion that there was no moral play on the drugs at all. The production companies that read the script thought it was so radical. I wasn’t attempting to do that, I didn’t want to provoke anybody, or shove it in their face but it was amazing how people reacted to just no moral play. It’s such a volatile issue because it’s a lot safer to assume they are bad so you have to figure out a way to control them. When you open it up and ask why it becomes a lot more scary for people.
At the bottom of it all I wanted to capture what I thought was the joy of the scene. For whatever variations and permutations of the scene and for whatever bad things have come out of it, ultimately everybody has been after experiencing joy with other people — which you don’t really find in modern day society that’s not sponsored by Coke or something. There is really no place to have that kind of experience, that’s something I set out to capture in the film. The John Digweed sequence at the end when it goes into slow-motion, I tried to capture a visual representation of what everyone was after, which is that moment where the dancefloor fuses and everyone is lost in the music and it goes into that white. On the flipside, that’s also the danger of the scene because people want to live in that place too which is not realistic. Through the characters of Harmony & Colin, I tried to show what I think happens which is more dangerous than the drugs overdoses, which is this subtle trap where you want to believe so much in this joy that you don’t look at the ret of your life.
 LAST NIGHT A DJ SAVED MY LIFE
Since the early drafts I knew the music was really important to have [the music] correct in the film. I wanted to capture the kind of music I heard at these small parties, these obscure records and really try and capture the authentic sound of these underground parties. I hired Wade Hampton & Stephanie Smiley from Domestic Recordings and La Belle Epoque in January of 99. I was still re-writing the script and they were giving me tracks that I would rewrite to. He had picked the opening and closing songs back in January of 99 and they never changed. We knew it was really important to start laying the groundwork and creating the film from the ground up with the music in mind. A lot of times films are created, you edit the film and then a musician comes in and scores music to the film. But for this we had music in the re-writing stage, on the set I had music from the very first cut, trying to fuse the pace of the picture and the emotional pace of the story with the music at all stages, really making it one thing. In terms of picking the tracks, Wade would bring hundreds and hundreds of tracks, I had stacks of one-off CDs from obscure bands, people that don’t even have a name just make tracks in their bedroom. We listened to everything we could, trying to balance the smaller unknown acts with acts that people would recognize and allow the film to get a wider distribution. Wade was instrumental in picking those and helping me there.
 I really wanted to represent the San Francisco scene and have real DJs even if they had speaking roles to be in those parts. I’d seen Pollywog at a bunch of shows and actually just walked up to her at one and said "I’m making this film I want to use you as one of the DJs". And that was great by her, she was on board right away. Wade of course had a spot as the music supervisor, as WISH FM, a very powerful DJ, coming in blank faced. Such a mood…Forrest Green is someone I’ve always loved, with someone out of the Cloud Factory world. She’s such an unassuming DJ that is so talented and so true to what she loves. John Digweed came in through Wade and Stephanie. I met him when he was in town spinning at Ten15, he had read the script. I had actually written all the characters first. I didn’t write the script with actual DJs in mind and then cast the characters. I wrote the superstar DJ as this regular, just really nice guy and I met John and he was that guy! So it was perfect having him just walk right into the role. Monty was in it but he didn’t DJ. His records got melted unfortunately. In this notebook that I had I talked to some DJ who was telling me that 3 years of record collecting had melted, he left it in the car. I wanted to put that in there, some sort of reality — like what a DJ has to go through, whether it be the importance of the records, or the importance of vinyl rather than CDs, and the mechanics of mixing. It was really important for me to capture that aspect. Anyway, Monty came through Friends & Family, he actually came to one of our open casting calls. And the "newbie" DJ, his name is Bing Ching, the actor. He plays the character of DJ Snaz, the "green" DJ who has never DJed a party before. In reality, he had never DJed a party before but he was an aspiring DJ, the first party he actually spun at was the Sundance party that we had. And he didn’t trainwreck which is good to know! It was great because he had aspirations to be an actor and had just started DJing — he really was that character. If you recall the scene when he goes up to John afterwards his set to say "I loved that last track, you are my idol" and John gives him the record. I was in the production office afterward, we wrapped that day and over my shoulder I hear " Can you sign it to Bing Ching?" And there’s John actually signing the record to Bing Ching for real. So he actually has one of John’s records in his crate now. Life imitating art kind of thing.  I really wanted to capture what they did and use real DJs. Besides John and Wade, you know everyone has their own reputation…but I wanted to run the gammit of underground DJs to a guy who tours the world.
WE WANT MORE DIMITRI!!
Dimitri is great. He is the superstar. That guy without opening his mouth says San Francisco to me. His dimeanor, the way he holds himself, his personality. He’s incredible, he’s a great guy. We found him at an open casting call for non-actors, just people out of the scene. He came in and just nailed his part. He was this character, it was amazing to see him. And he’s since become the poster child of Groove, holding the disco ball. I was trying to find an image for the poster which distilled the vibe of the movie and ultimately for me, what the scene feels like. He has this little Mona Lisa smile on the MUNI holding a disco ball. For me, that’s just what it’s all about. He’s a little nervous I think of what’s going to happen because he’s going to start getting recognized a lot. Especially with the poster being everywhere.
SPREADING THE GROOVE VIBE
| “Instead of it just being a product that gets sent out to a thousand theatres, we wanted to make it feel like it was the scene’s movie. That it was an event that could be part of and be proud of.” |
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We are going to do some parties in conjunction with the openings of the party in different cities. Whatever DJs we can get there we will. Certainly for SF it would be great to have the San Francisco DJs play. Even when we open in Chicago or New Orleans we want to involve the scenes there, have them come out and have their local DJs be part of the party too.
 One thing I wanted to make sure was from the script stage all the way through bringing it to Sundance, we wanted to be authentic and we didn’t want anyone to feel like we were exploiting them. We’d get emails from concerned people, "I hear you are doing a movie, I hope it’s not exploitive, I really care about the scene." We really took time to answer them back, answer their questions and see if they want to get involved in some way. When we sold the film to Sony one of the things we put in the contract is that we would be creatively involved in the marketing of it. Because they knew that although they are the professionals at film distribution, we knew the content of the film. So instead of it just being a product that gets sent out to a thousand theatres, we wanted to make it feel like it was the scene’s movie. That it was an event that could be part of and be proud of, have some ownership of the film and that it is theirs.
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