Writer-Director Mike Cahill credits his early fascination with filmmaking to the Fisher-Price Pixelvision, better known as the PXL-2000, a black-and-white toy camcorder from the late 1980s.
“I totally loved it,” he joked. “It was my favorite toy of all time. No one was teaching me how movies or film, or how the medium worked, but I was discovering you hold down the button, it records, and you let go, and it stops recording. Then, there’s a natural edit to the way it works.”
Describing this early experience as “exhilarating,” Cahill said that even though he took many different paths in his life, he always returned to filmmaking. Clearly, the passion has paid off.
Cahill is best known for his work as a writer/director on the documentary Boxers and Ballerinas, and films like Another Earth, I Origins, and Bliss. His latest feature, Bliss, stars Owen Wilson and Salma Hayek.
The description for the Amazon release reads, “ A mind-bending love story following Greg who, after recently being divorced and then fired, meets the mysterious Isabel, a woman living on the streets and convinced that the polluted, broken world around them is a computer simulation.”
In this interview, the writer-director discusses film as a visual language, high-concept ideas about second chances, how filmmaking is like catching an exotic animal, and how he chooses to chase inspiration.
Look for the print version of this interview on Creative Screenwriting’s website, and, if it’s your first time listening, make sure to subscribe and visit my new website for information on the YouTube channel, the blog, this podcast, and my new book ‘Ink by the Barrel’ which takes advice from these 200+ interviews at the link below…
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