You could make a feature about the world of tickling. You could include female ticklers and you could find out why people are ticklish, but I don't think it would be a great documentary, when you're spending 90 minutes just finding out about the physiology and psychology of tickling.
David FarrierEverything in the film [Tickling], which was vetted by lawyers, is perfectly legal. I'm not losing any sleep over what I did.
David FarrierIt's easy to get young gay men to tickle each other, right? Let's come up with a challenge: Let's get heterosexual men. How do we do that? We make it a competition, because then it's not gay. That explains the antipathy behind the gay-journalist comment.
David FarrierIn New Zealand, we have a one-party disclosure system, where if one of you knows you're being recorded, it's completely fine. It doesn't matter if the other person doesn't know. Look, I'm not breaking new ground by recording people who don't want to be recorded.
David FarrierI was tied down in that chair for 10 minutes and experienced what it was like to be completely powerless while someone else has complete dominance. It's sadistic, even though I find Richard to be a really lovely human being. That's what the whole film "Tickled" is about. It's not a film about tickling, but I think tickling offers a really good visual metaphor for the much bigger ideas that we were trying to get at about power and control - by people who have a lot of money - over people without money and who have no power in the relationship.
David Farrier