SXSWorld
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3 4 S X S W o r l d | F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6 | S X S W. C O M hank goodness Oprah Winfrey has popularized a way to describe when a life-changing moment happens, or else we'd have difficulty describing producer Sarah Green's "Aha Moment." Two years into her engineering degree at Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, Green needed an arts elective and chose a Super 8 filmmaking class to balance out all the science and tech- nology she was immersed in. "I completely loved it," says Green, a Massachusetts native, who grew up in Rockport and now has her home base in Gloucester when she's not on set with Terrence Malick or Jeff Nichols. "There was nothing I wanted to do more than go make Super 8 movies. I looked around the lecture halls of my engineering classes and thought: 'These aren't my people.' " Green started spending hours at Cinema 733, a hole-in-the-wall movie theater on Boylston Street known for its revolving calendar of double features. It was also a lively time for independent film—the French New Wave was emerging; Scorsese, Spielberg and Coppola were blossoming. So she dropped out of college and joined a now- defunct organization called Film Women of Boston. "I went to that first meeting just to see what it was like," she recalls. "And I ended up getting elected treasurer because no one else could do math." Her involvement grew quickly, and she met many other filmmakers in the area, eventually returning to finish her degree in cinematog- raphy at Emerson University. Afterwards, she moved to New York City, where she linked up with Nancy Schreiber, ASC—the first woman gaffer in the NY film local union and not long after, the fourth woman admitted into the prestigious American Society of Cinematographers. Green apprenticed under Schreiber for a few years and worked as an electrician. Then came her second "Aha Moment." Thank you again, Oprah. "I realized I didn't have the eye of somebody like Nancy," she admits. "It was devastating. I'd decided that [cinematography] was my way in ... I had an affinity for the math and science side of the brain, so I figured my way in was through technology, which in the world of movies merges with art." Green knew then that she would never be more than a technician, which she still believes is an admi- rable job, but her goal was to be an artist. She jumped in any where she could. She pulled focus, recorded sound, drove trucks and even made food. Then she got a produc- tion managing position, which is where the rest of her career began to unfold. Production managing evolved into line producing, which rolled into producing, melting away from nuts-and-bolts production tasks and into the creative side of the job. Now, she has one Oscar nomination for The Tree of Life and has worked with some of this generation's most highly respected film- makers, including Malick and Nichols, as well as Julie Taymor, David Mamet and John Sayles. "I do feel a little bad for my line producers though," she jokes, "because my production managing side of my brain never really does turn off." The fact that Green has ended up as a producer for incredibly tal- ented writers and directors is by her definition a little bit choice and a little bit luck. She'd first met producer Peggy Rajski socially. Rajski mentored Green as a production manager and then invited her to be assistant production manager on a couple of John Sayles films, whom Rajski had worked with many times, starting with his second film: 1983's Lianna. When Rajski moved on, Maggie Renzi, her producing partner (and Sayles' longtime domestic and creative partner), invited Green to join her. "I couldn't have anticipated this," she says. "It was very lucky. Maggie and I worked together for a number of years and really had fun. Then we reached a point where we both had the same set of skills, and we decided to move on." In the early '90s, Green had met David Mamet though a college friend and stayed on with him for five of his next films, including State and Main and The Winslow Boy. "Again someone whose work I admired tremendously," she explains about Mamet. "It's always a combination—a personal connection and my admiration for their work and vision. I can't say really how it works. I'm very good at recognizing really skilled writers and direc- tors, and then all I want to do is support them because I admire those skills so much. I just want to get into a position where I can help them make a movie." As she continues work with her tried and trues—two of Nichols' films in the bag and three of Malick's in the last two years alone—Green is getting working with new talent as well, including Julio Quintana's The Vessel and Kat Candler's Hellion. "There are so many screenplays around and there's not so many good ones," Green concludes. "So when I see a good one—and my standards are pretty high—I can't write it to make it better, but I have come up with some of the best writers in the business. I know it when it's working and I know it when it isn't." T Sarah Green will be a featured speaker at the 2016 SXSW Film Conference. For details, visit schedule.sxsw.com. Sarah Green: Veteran Producer Recalls Life-Changing Moments by Valentina i. Valentini T S a r a h G re e n