Debbie Isitt Confetti Interview

by Paul Fischer at the Toronto Film Festival.

'CONFETTI' POKES NEW FUN AT THE WEDDING GAME. Ever since Christopher Guest attained such popularity, the mock documentary has become a genre in itself, aided by the success of reality TV. The latest addition to the comic genre is from Britain, and director Debbie Isitt, which charts the journey of three couples as they battle it out to win the title of Most Original Wedding of the Year. Like her film, the gregarious Ms Isitt is a bundle of energy, even as she ploughs her away through a string of interviews during the Toronto Film Festival. She spoke to Paul Fischer.

Paul Fischer: Why do you think the mocumentary, which has now become a genre on its own, has become so popular, and how much do you owe to the American mocumentaries that have become so successful?

Debbie Isitt: I owe everything to that - my life.


Paul Fischer: How much was a structure?

Debbie Isitt: Well there was an idea.


Paul Fischer: Well all the Guest movies that they make are similar, I think they're written down.

Debbie Isitt: Theirs are but ours wasn't. No, they do write a story. They say we have to write the story.


Paul Fischer: They write the story but they let the actors...

Debbie Isitt: Improvise the dialogue then, but we didn't do that.


Paul Fischer: You had a complete free-for-all?

Debbie Isitt: No, we had a competition and we made sure that everyone entered the competition, signed a contract to enter the competition and do it for real. So we just did it all for real. It wasn't a free-for-all, it was a very clear thing that we were doing.


Paul Fischer: So how much leeway do you give your cast as a director in trying to keep within that framework at the same time?

Debbie Isitt: Well it was just easy because once you say to the actors just for six weeks pretend to be a real person, and just for six weeks pretend you've entered this competition, and just for six weeks really plan a wedding for real: Make the phone calls, get the dresses, with the help of the wedding planners, then have a wedding and I'm going to film you all day everyday, there's no acting involved, no big discussions, you just get on with it and actually do the job, choose the cakes, everything. You've got to do it all and you haven't got long, get on with it. It's that simple.


Paul Fischer: I mean what would have happened if any of these people would have been lousy?

Debbie Isitt: Well that would have been the film.


Paul Fischer: So you were prepared for that?

Debbie Isitt: I was prepared for Lost in La Mancha. Yeah, I was gearing up for that.
[Laughter]
Debbie Isitt: That's what I was expecting actually. I was amazed that they pulled it off.


Paul Fischer: Why do you think they pulled it off?...

Debbie Isitt: Because those wedding planners were so committed it was ridiculous, and they kind of metamorphasized into wedding planners - stopped being actors weeks before we even started, they just started researching wedding planning. They'd never met, those two men, and suddenly they just took it so seriously that they found things, they did deals, they got it up and I didn't think they would. You know, I thought they'd be disasters. I thought it would be a disaster movie, that's what I thought it would be.


Paul Fischer: So a disaster movie and a Lost in La Mancha type movie?

Debbie Isitt: Yeah, with comedy but yeah - all about it all going wrong, and they went and did it right.


Paul Fischer: But it was still funny.

Debbie Isitt: Yeah, it was still funny.


Paul Fischer: Why do you think that was? I mean were you in some ways satirizing... wedding planning or were you satirizing reality TV?

Debbie Isitt: I suppose I just wanted to see what would happen if you flipped it round a bit more, because we watch on reality TV people kind of acting up now. You know, it's almost like real people have become actors. So I thought well let's get the actors to become real people and see what happens. It was just an experiment really.


Paul Fischer: Now to what extent do you direct actors' performances to tone it down, as it were, so that they do exemplify that reality?

Debbie Isitt: Because it's about creating the conditions to ensure that they have to do that really by making it very grueling for them. It's a kind of process of torture so that they don't have to think about their acting, so you kind of make them get there really early and you make them arrive in character and they're not allowed to break out of it so that by the time you turn over, they're so tired already that they don't even think about what they're doing. They just behave instinctively, and that's what you need if you're going to do reality...


Paul Fischer: When you were thinking about doing this in the first place, was the idea of wedding planning your original idea, or do you just simply want to explore this reality?

Debbie Isitt: I wanted to explore the reality I think, and the idea of a wedding competition, because there are bridal competitions left, right and center was appealing.


Paul Fischer: Is it a very British thing?

Debbie Isitt: Maybe it is. But not where you're wedding is judged so much, but send in your picture and if you've got a nice dress you might win a honeymoon. That kind of thing happens. So it's kind of extending that, developing it to its logical conclusion if you think Simon Cowell will probably be producing Wedding Idol. So I thought I'd get there first and see what happened, but also, weddings are kind of competitions anyway I think - you know, in that we judge weddings.


Paul Fischer: Do you think this could have been a very different kind of film had it not been directed by a woman?

Debbie Isitt: I don't know, but I think I am a bit of a man in female clothes.


Paul Fischer: Really?

Debbie Isitt: Well that's what everyone has always told me.


Paul Fischer: How does that manifest itself?

Debbie Isitt: In my aggression.

Paul Fischer: Do you have to be aggressive to be a filmmaker, to be a female filmmaker?


Debbie Isitt: No, I think I was born that way. I think it's a family trait. I don't want to be aggressive, but that's what everyone says. I mean when the cast were interviewed for the electronic press thing I was horrified...


Paul Fischer: About what?

Debbie Isitt: The way they talked about me.


Paul Fischer: Really?

Debbie Isitt: I was mortified. I thought... I consider myself a really nice easy-going kind of person.


Paul Fischer: What did they say?

Debbie Isitt: They said I was really rude and really blunt, was often quite hurtful - stuff like that.
[Laughter]


Paul Fischer: And I'm sure they were saying that with such seriousness...

Debbie Isitt: But they were.


Paul Fischer: Really?

Debbie Isitt: Talk to any of them they would say things like "we would improvise for hours and at the end of it we'd look at her hopefully and she'd go 'that was shit'".


Paul Fischer: And did you?

Debbie Isitt: Yeah, but I...
[Laughter]
Debbie Isitt: ...I thought that was the way we wanted to make things good.


Paul Fischer: Do you prepare stuff for the DVD? When you do a movie like this you're supposed to be mindful of the fact that that's an alternative medium?

Debbie Isitt: Let's hope. I mean we shot three endings. Shot each couple winning.


Paul Fischer: Would you like to do another mocumentary?

Debbie Isitt: Yeah, I would. I love that process. ...


Paul Fischer: Any ideas what topic would be the perfect one?

Debbie Isitt: Well I'm a massive fan of the Eurovision Song Contest...


Paul Fischer: ABBA came out of that ...

Debbie Isitt: ABBA came out of it, and I went to the final of this year's in Athens and it was up there with the birth of my child. It was fantastic. I love musicals.
[Laughter].
I love the costumes as well. That would be great. And there are other ideas floating around.