Herzog and Malick both have this very unique naturalist intentionality to their process. It's about creating the mood, creating the focus and having discipline, but not prescribing what the performance was supposed to be. Neither of them are really directing their actors into a performance.
Sam PressmanThere were the classic challenges any tourist faces, like getting lost, getting sick, losing things, getting in a fight... All these things happened numerous times. The only point of the trip that was defiantly challenging was a point that's not actually in our film.
Sam PressmanThe lessons learned on a pure practical production standpoint were immense. It instilled a faith that you can accomplish what you want if you just believe and stick together and continue to work at it. In that sense, it gives me the confidence to go into the next project with the belief that we can do it. This was an experiment in whether you can find a film without a singular conceit.
Sam PressmanAt one point, we were stuck at the border of Peru and Colombia and met this large Haitian population that was stranded there without passports and couldn't move. We had this revelation that, as tourists, we were so free to move, and here was this other population who couldn't cross borders.
Sam Pressman