How to Get Jim Jarmusch to EP Your Debut Film

Getting badass rocker directorJim Jarmuschon board for your directorial debut film is no easy task even when youalready knowthe dude. Explicit Ills directorMark Webberrevealed the secret to nabbing Jarmusch as executive producer: the cellphone pound key’s ability to give a voicemail redo.

“Jim doesn’t do the Internet. He has someone who does email for him. He does have a cell phone number, but he never answers it,” Webber told us at a screening after party of the film at the Mangusta Productions suite in Manhattan Friday night.

“It always goes straight to voicemail so my thing was that I would leave him very, very good voicemail messages. They are very passionate and very well thought out. Oh, and very long. I am known for leaving the two-minute voicemail. I leave these very spur of the moment, train of thought messages. I did a couple of takes. That is my secret. I will hit pound and would review the message. If it didn’t sound the way I wanted it to, I would erase it and record it again.”

We then strolled over to theawesomely coiffedJarmusch and revealed Webber’s secret. “Yeah, I don’t do email. That’s not my thing,” he agreed.

“In general I’m very hesitant to do that (executive produce). It’s not my thing. But Mark, after working with him, we became friends. I really respected him and his enthusiasm, his ideas and the amazing people he’d lined up made me want to support him somehow. I wanted to protect him and help him get money without people interfering. I just wanted to watch his back. He asked me and he gave me the script and we met and he told me his ideas for realizing it and I was like, ‘Man, how can I help? I want to help in anyway.’ This film is not like a first time directors film. The acting is really beautiful, the structure, and where he places the camera. It’s not easy to intertwine stories like that. It’s not a film I would have made and that’s why I wanted to support him."

So there you have it budding directors. Want Jim Jarmusch to EP your film? Familiarize yourself with the genius of the cell phone pound key, and oh yeah, come up with a really, really, really good and timely idea with a star studded cast already on board.

Check out what else Webber and Jarmusch had to say:

You tackle health care in your film head on, if you were the health czar how would you fix things?

Webber: My hardcore answer is there needs to be a revolution in this country. That’s historically how things change. I think its starting now with mass consciousness. When there is a consciousness like that then people will look within themselves to see what they can do…a mass awareness of what is going on and then getting together as people to make change. I’m happy Obama was elected President, but I also feel like its up to the people to fix things. It’s impossible for one man in a very corrupt system to do anything. People are going to see that and hopefully they will realize at that point that they need to do something about it. What’s great about Obama is that is why he was elected. He is instilling in people the idea that they need to do something about their fellow man.

Do you see a racial divide in healthcare for the poor in Philly?

Webber: To be honest, class issues usually unite different people racially and I found that in Philadelphia. Poor blacks and whites see each other in solidarity on these issues–that’s the beautiful thing that has come out of this. That’s been my experience my whole life. I was raised color blind and surrounded by people who didn’t have shit and we connected like that. I think people more often than not they being the powers that be want to keep us divided and they are responsible for playing the race card more often than the reality of the situation. Racism still exists but people are united more and more especially during this economic crisis.

Could you relate to Mark’s own struggle growing up and how he shared it in the film?

Jarmusch: I’m from a middle class, generic Akron, Ohio background but there was a time when my father was laid off for a couple of years. But I didn’t grow up in poverty and didn’t know that [world]. I’ve lived with no money as an adult.

Do you feel the effects of our economic recession?

Jarmusch: It doesn’t effect me because money doesn’t mean anything to me. I don’t live for it. It’s not my religion. I don’t work for it. I don’t care. I’m bored with this religion of money so part of me says bring it down but no onto the backs of people who get kicked out of their houses because the bank tricked them. I don’t worship money. That whole system is arbitrary and its not something i follow or live for. The money world is not my thing. At the same time I am not stupid. I own my own films. I am careful. If someone is going to make money off my shit, they are going to give me some of it. But I am not in this for the money. It’s what I do, it’s my job to express myself and not to make money. Otherwise, I would live in Hollywood and try to make those kind of films where you actually get paid.

What do you think?