So to watch that production was just the most insane vision of a filmmaker being unrelenting in his will to create. Learning more about that was what we wanted to do. To find out how in God's name anyone could do that.
Sam PressmanI worked on "Tree of Life." It was just magical. It was like a little family. A fleeting, beautiful alliance to forge something meaningful. It was amazing, like a transcendental experience to be on the set.
Sam PressmanMalick is so far on the other side of the spectrum in terms of his character. Malick is a complete recluse, and not at all driven by ego or championing who he is as an individual. It's all about the art. Whereas Herzog is constantly placing himself into the engine. Malick is such a gentle poet.
Sam PressmanIt was Herzog, the man himself. He was so welcoming and kind and not at all the persona you'd seen in a magazine, or in "Burden of Dreams" for that matter. I'd shot the behind-the-scenes for "Bad Lieutenant." It was a very normal production. Nothing like "Burden of Dreams."
Sam PressmanBecause of Walter, we did it the other way around. We also worked with an awesome sound designer named Will Patterson who just worked for four years on Terrence Malick's films. He did a lot of conceptual work to make the soundscapes in the jungle have this surreal quality, to blend these two films because a lot of the images are about this parallelism between the movies. The sound was very integral to fusing everything.
Sam Pressman