What has inspired you to write “The Truck”?
This is a tough one to answer for me, because unfortunately what inspired me was not something I enjoyed. Years ago, after the earthquake in Van there were images of aid trucks that were sent from the Western Cities of Turkey being looted. To be honest, this was a very sad and heartbreaking situation. First, I wrote a story about this affair. But when the story was complete, it seemed very unpleasant and dark to me; also, it was not possible to include dark humor that I wanted to add in the story. A while later I realized the actual problem was selfishness and miscommunication. So, once I made the film all about communication in miscommunication, I was able to get the flavor I was looking for.
Could you tell us about the shooting location of the film?
Anatolian prairies are quite a dominant profile. I have incredible admiration to Anatolia’s interesting barrenness, endless yellow and brown colors. Central Anatolia has both calm and rough and harsh temperament at the same time. So, we decided to shoot our film at Mihalıççık, Polatlı, at the borders of Eskişehir, in order to get the images from the geographical areas of Anatolia that I’ve mentioned. By the way, we shot our film in extremely difficult conditions. Not a single tree, not a single shade in an area of 20 km. Only the shade of our truck, and the temperature got as hot as 44 degrees. The tents we setup for the movie set were used to rest and protect the sheep from the strong rays of the sun and the dry heat. During the 3 days shoot we had to do everything we can to control Tansu Biçer’s tan color from changing. It was extremely difficult conditions for the crew and the actors as well. It’s mesmerizing to look at. Even though, nothing beautiful on paper geographically, all yellow and flatlands; but on camera it looks wonderful. I don’t know, I’m just a huge fan of Anatolia.
Do you have any memories from the set?
Of course, we have a lot of memories, but what really stuck in my mind was the sheep giving birth to her lamb right before our eyes. Just when we were shooting a long sequence, not concerned that we’re all there, and almost right in the shot, she gave birth, licked her baby clean and walked away. When it happened, we took it as a good omen, and maybe it really was.
The film was shown in a lot of international festivals, even won an award. What type of reactions did you get for the film?
During the filming we discussed an issue a lot: Would ‘The Truck’ be understood abroad or not. The Truck is directly related to our culture, I mean it’s totally regional, a film with a lot of dialogue. It was a very difficult story to have shown at international film festivals, to comprehend for people who doesn’t know our geographical culture, and to be able to communicate it internationally. Also, as a category it was not listed in many festivals. Even with all these disadvantages; a language they never heard, an unusual story, having it shown abroad, knowing people watched it and had it accepted in their festivals and winning an award, made me so proud and happy. I guess right from the beginning I was a little stubborn about the film being just the way it is. Actually, The Truck was a trial for the films I will produce in the future, just to find out if they will be accepted universally. I found out they will be accepted. Of course, this is quite pleasing.
What do you think about consistency as a director? Do you believe a director should continue with the same type of films?
I believe it’s wrong to think of this as a career plan. I think being a director requires to be instinctive and impulsive. In my opinion I don’t think there are any directors that believe ‘I need to be consistent’, directors will have stories they would enjoy telling, there will be images they’d like to show, and directors could be a little or a lot stubborn on choosing the language and story they would use. So, in my opinion “Being consistent will ruin art, consistency is repeating yourself.”, these philosophical sides of the issue will depend on the person. There are those who succeeded being strict and consistent throughout their careers, and on the other hand there are those successful artists who tried so many different things.I don’t think it’s pragmatic to be consistent as a commercial director. I can show you two main reasons for this. Product or Service, whatever the topic is, could be wafer commercial today, and it could be a commercial for car tires on the road tomorrow. It would be far-fetched to try to find consistency between them. I believe the right thing to do is to use your own judgment on what idea is needed, and what the film requires.The second thing is that how we love labeling in the film sector. For example, “This guy is great at shooting cars.”, once a director is labeled with these words, he could be stuck with only shooting car commercials. But filming advertising is like being in an amazing lab where a director could experiment on so many different things. Well, if you think about it, restricting yourself to one area feels like being suffocated to me. Of course, you could enjoy just shooting car advertising, but I believe to be able to try different ideas, to be able to shoot advertising for different products will broaden your horizon.
Do you think the director’s crew could affect his performance?
Of course, it would, directing is a job that strongly depends on the people. It’s one of those rare jobs where you have to go in the kitchen and be in control of every little detail. And this requires extensive communication from a to z of the crew. It’s impossible to stay apart from any part of the crew. That’s why I believe friendship is very important at this point, I have a lot of friends in the crew where I socialize with outside the set. The director has to be in total control on the set, and I believe this is possible by surrounding yourself with friends. Not only this will allow the film to be good, but it actually allows the film to be “produced”. For example, if I didn’t have these friends that I’ve mentioned I never could’ve filmed “The Truck”. To be honest, for me the crew is more than just performance, they’re the essence, they’re my comrades in my journey. I affect them, and they affect me in every way.
What was the easiest commercial set you ever had?
Unfortunately, I don’t have any easy sets, I’m an anxious person, I can’t sleep the night before the shoot even with the easiest set, I stress myself out with thoughts like, “How’s it going to be? Would it work?”. Of course, this makes it impossible for me to call any of my sets easy. But naturally there are clients and agencies that we got used to each other, I’m more at ease when I’m working on their films; the experiences we gained together with all the work we did together allows us to trust each other and work freely. I believe this is reflected in the beautiful films we produce together.
Your writing language is pretty strong, does this have any advantages in directing?
Honestly, not much advantages when it comes to directing commercials. But of course, in order to broaden our horizon, to have better vision, get better cultural knowledge and experiences of other countries in the world, reading and writing feeds us intellectually in a positive way. Also, it would be a shame to reduce the power of literature only as a positive affect in directing; reading and writing belongs to all humanity, all sorts of jobs; literature has positive affects in a lot of people.As for the movie industry, even though I’m still a beginner, I believe vocationally it’s extremely important. While it is discussed if movie scripts are literary outputs, it’s obvious how important interest and ability in writing is for movies; especially for directors who want to shoot their own movies and tell stories that were filtered out of their own worlds.
In your opinion, do you think digital media will take over in advertising?
It already took over :) Recently every single one of my colleagues tried to shoot in vertical frame for Instagram Story. Even this is a weird situation; a social media application dictates how the movie frames should be shot. Take traditional TV broadcasting, they started using TVs that use online platforms. Whatever changes or advancements you talk about, it’s impossible to prevent them. I guess, our job is to ensure the adaption of all these changes in new areas where there is a demand in technical and implicit changes, and to make sure they don’t affect the movie’s essence, and not to leave the movie’s essence behind in this fast-changing world.
I know you like the world of games, do you use twitch?
ı I do. As an observer. I don’t have much time anymore like I used to; I just can’t waist time on learning and mastering a game. And honestly, as a newbie I don’t think my twitch broadcast will ever be watched :)
Finally, what are the 3 books that left a mark on you?
Steinbeck – East of Eden
Dostoyevsky – Notes from Underground
J.M. Coetzee – Waiting for the Barbarians