Phil I knew, but Pat I was introduced to through a mutual friend. I know I wanted Phil Burgers and Pat Healy in this. Honestly it was a breeze! I tried to anticipate any unknown issues in performance during the casting process. I also did a lot of scaling in the edit, which brought out a lot more artifacts.ĭirecting the reenactments must have been difficult. This combination created the “unearthed from a damp basement” look we were going for. We shot on 16mm and chose a very fast stock, then we “push-processed” it a couple of stops, which is when you purposefully underexpose it and then increase exposure in the development process.
What did you use to film the reenactments to help give it that aged look? Then, I went back in and tried to set the whole thing up with just enough expositional information as needed to clue the audience in on the specifics without getting too lost in the weeds. I also tried to sporadically use the interview questions whenever I felt like he would be addressing concerns that the viewing audience might be asking themselves. I really wanted to stick to the facts of what happened to him and make it feel subjective to his experience. I focused mainly on those portions of the interview and tried to re-edit it for narrative flow and shape. I was most interested in Gene’s interpretation of the events on the day of his ordeal. The whole interview was about 40 minutes, but it was pretty clear to me what was going to work for my use of it. How did you go about shaping this interview into a 10-minute film? What interested you the most about it? Later on, when I made contact with Gene Church, he told me more about the exact circumstances of the interview and I felt like it was safe to proceed with his blessing. Basically, I posed as a sympathetic and curious student of the founder William Penn Patrick and was able to get a hold of it that way. I found the interview from a past-participant of Leadership Dynamics that I met on an unrelated forum that is now defunct. How did you find this interview? What more can you tell me about it? It’s the only time at the Chicago Critics Film Festival when I had to give the audience a trigger warning beforehand. “You Have Never Been Completely Honest” is a strong piece of work that really gets under your skin. Pat Healy, who plays the “lead instructor,” looks like he would be perfect for the role if they ever did a feature-length dramatization he is creepy, charismatic and piercing.
Burgers, a brave actor for doing this, gives the film's central, wordless performance and carries it well. It’s a consistent mix and with just the right rhythm so that the transitions look seamless. The film never lingers too long on one visual element or the other. Obviously, the interview in and of itself is compelling enough, but Izzo smartly mixes between grainy, 16mm reenactment and animation that does just enough to convey some of the more disgusting acts that took place. Izzo’s film leaves a lot for the viewer to decide, but the film is a hypnotic retelling of this insanity. What happens to Gene at the end might have been a breakthrough (we never know), but at what cost? How much of this will end up haunting him in the long run? My guess: All of it. The kinds of fraudulent people who profit from sadistic means of self-awakening would rather you not see their practices ahead of time before they get your money. The interview we are hearing is not meant for public ears and Gene is very matter-of-fact about his involvement as well as his own torturous experience. What is the point, you ask? That’s what Izzo saves for last, but suffice to say, such self-improvement seminars like this still exist today and that this may have been the start of it all. Many of them are forced to be nude and to commit unspeakable acts of violence and degradation to one another. One man spends the night in the coffin while the other men take turns watching over him. The seminar did not take place in a conference room of the hotel, but rather in a dark basement where the men saw a coffin, animal cages, and a cross to hang on. The man giving his testimony is named Gene Church (played in the reenactments by Phil Burgers), who was told that if he wanted to move up into management he and a few other gentlemen had to complete a four-day self-improvement seminar, completely unaware of what it entailed.
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