Watch This Now: How did the video come about?

Jamil: One of the company’s junior creative directors approached me and told me about the Filmmaking Frenzy competition for “Swedes” based on the Michel Gondry film “Be Kind Rewind” starring Mos Def and Jack Black. The rules were simple. “Swede” a movie as characterized in the movie. He approached me and said hey, do you want to “swede” the movie. I said sure, lets do Back to the Future.

WTN: Why a trilogy?

JR: We were toying with the notion, one, two or three? Then we said, let’s just do all three. We felt that would be more challenging. “Sweding” one is a challenge. But to “swede” all three is definitely a monumental task. We wanted to make it as challenging as possible on us.

WTN: So then what?

JR: Then basically, we wanted to make it and follow the rules as close as possible. So we had to do everything by hand. We set up some guidelines. We could only spend $100 total. We had to cast people from who we knew, our friends basically. They had to play multiple roles. We had to build by hand. And it had to be hand held. No fancy dollies or film gear that we’re real acquainted with.

My first call was to a theater set designer. “We’re going to ask you to make stuff for us on the fly as we make it.” He said “you’re crazy” but did it anyway.

WTN: Tell us about fitting the iconic time machine into your film?

JR: We turned a 1980 Toyota Corolla Wagon into a Delorean. It required a lot of silver paint, spray-painted cardboard, and some gold party trays at a party supply store for $2 each. The gold party trays, we hot glued them on. We also found a lot of spare computer parts and washing machines. Anything spare and junky we could hot glue to the car, we did.

WTN: What about the flux capacitor?

JR: The flux capacitor was built out of a cardboard box, some plastic tubing, and LED lights on key chains purchased for a dollar each. We put the led lights into the tubing and made the Y with some red tape. It’s amazing what we put together.

WTN: Was there a style you were aiming for?

JR: One of the things we were talking about was trying to create the film from memory. We didn’t sit down and watch all the movies. We thought it’d be more fun to try to recreate it and make it our own at the same time. We cast Louie Fattz as Doc Brown. He is a Hip Hop music video director and friend of ours. He said he’d love to be Doc Brown, “but I have to be a pimp.”

WTN: So no script?

JR: I left it up to them to improv. Basically we picked out scenes we remembered from the movie. We gave the actor some guidelines: Here’s the scene, this is the point we’re trying to get across, and let them improv. The film is fun to watch, but it was so much fun to make. We went everywhere, from riding horses at a grocery store for the old west scene to building a hover board with fake legs to creating a fake lightning bolt that would travel down the line to electrocute Doc Brown. It made us feel like we were little kids again. There’s so much footage that we could’ve probably made four or five of these. We just took the choice bit and sort of pieced them together as best we could in constructing a trilogy in six minutes.

WTN: What’s been the response?

JR: It’s been amazing. People like what we’ve put together. Lots of jokes traded in between. We just had a great time. The concept and idea that Michel Gondry put forward is that sometimes the best movies are what we put together ourselves. It’s so fan driven and makes people appreciate the films they love. It doesn’t require a lot of money or special effects to be entertained. I think that’s the message he’s kind of driving at in the film. And everyone’s embraced that. We’ve had lots of comments, people all over the country have sent us e-mails.

WTN: And it hasn’t even hit YouTube yet…

JR: Yeah, and it hasn’t even hit YouTube yet. It’s exclusively on the Filmmaking Frenzy Web site. We’re anticipating quite a rush on YouTube. We think once the movie comes out, and all the “Swedes” in the competition hit the net, it’ll start a “’sweding” frenzy with regular people. You don’t need to be a professional. You just need a camera and some heart and some friends. It’s special because it’s your movie.

WTN: So you felt yourself deliberately holding back as a professional filmmaker?

JR: Our prop guy, he’d say, “I would never do it this way, it looks like crap.” That’s the point! Forget everything you’ve ever learned, and just have fun with doing really simple. We’re going to be crossing the line all over the place.

WTN: Did stepping back help you as a filmmaker?

JR: I definitely learned a lot from filming simply. Sometimes going into budget reports or going into meetings, lots of money on the line and it’s stressful. And you lose sight of why you did it in the beginning. But doing this kind of reaffirmed why I love filmmaking. And with Back to the Future, it was one of those things everybody remembered from the ‘80s. The crew all started reminiscing about being a kid. Afterward, all we could talk about was redoing Indiana Jones or that we should’ve done Blade Runner. Everybody was thinking about a movie they loved.

WTN: Tell us about the Delorean vs. Libyans scene.

JR: We had the Delorean, but we realized we needed another vehicle for the Libyans. There was some discussion, and Marco (the designer) said we could build a Volkswagon box van out of cardboard. We didn’t have a lot off money. So he went to the cardboard recycling center, took theirs, and built and designed a Volkswagon van. He painted it like he remembered it in the movie. Marco had some cheap $1 dome lights from Wal-Mart. And installed those in the front as headlights. So in the video, when the Libyans pull up, it’s him plugging in the lights behind a shrub.

JR: The bazooka was a mailing tube that we had in the office that we had gotten a poster from. We took an Ozarka bottle and painted it the top red and the bottom silver. Someone stood behind me and when I was ready to fire it, he hit the back of it. And it fell really poorly.

WTN: Is Marty not wearing pants during the dance scene?

JR: His girlfriend found purple underwear at American Apparel for $6. He was a little nervous about it. But we were like, “Come on, it’ll be fun.” We did the first scene, and while we were shooting that, we thought instead of Johnny B Goode. We thought he’d do the Steve Miller Band, “Fly like an eagle.” When we were getting ready to shoot that, I said, “Why don’t you put the purple underwear back on? It’ll be great.” He disagreed. We had to argue with him about it. After much fighting, he agreed. So yeah, purple underwear is back! We appreciate his dedication.

WTN: So Doc Brown is the breakout character from your movie?

JR: He’s definitely the most popular. The first scene we shot was at a grocery store. It was very difficult to convince Louie. He’s about 6’5” and 300 pounds. I originally wanted to put them all three of them on the smaller of the carousels out front. Louie took a look, shook his head and said this is not going to happen. We had to shoot it very guerrilla style and quickly. I convinced him to try the other horse alone. He said, “OK, we’ll try it, but if we break it, that’s on you.” We did the smaller guys on the smaller carousel first. We threw in two quarters and just hit it. We couldn’t have scripted anything better than the guy walking by with a cart looking perplexed. We gathered a large crowd watching a very large man wearing a cowboy hat with a white cotton wig and yelling, “Watch out, Marty! Look out, Marty.” That was one of the more defining moments.

WTN: Tell me about something you guys had to cut?

JR: Louie had so many lines. It was so hard to cut everything them, they were so great. One of the things we cut, was one of his responses to being shot in the back over $80. He said, “What kind of bull*** is that? How come in every movie the black guy gotta get shot? **** that, Doc Brown don’t die!”

WTN: So what’s next?

JR: We are hoping to release an extended version that lasts maybe 10 or 20 minutes. Maybe you’ll see it on YouTube.