Filmmakers Eschew Convention

Extracted 05APR2012 from http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/mark-duplass-jeff-who-lives-at-home-car...

Duplass Brothers... turned down flawed studio opportunities for an independent, DIY career, and it's paying off big time...

With close ups, extended hand held shots, improvised dialogue and a cast made up of friends, the movie set the template for their filmmaking style and helped define the micro indie genre that came to be known as mumblecore. It cost only $15,000 to make and had no wide release, but the effort caught the attention of major studios, who began offering the brothers lucrative deals to jump aboard their labels...

It was their desire to execute their own vision that kept them from jumping to the studios; they had largely been asked to swoop in and try to rush fixes on troubled projects with $40+ million budgets and a movie star tenuously attached. "Basically everyone understood that the movie was going to be bad but it would probably make money," Duplass remembered. "We believed that making a bad movie is not only bad for your career but bad for your spirit."...

"We love faces and we love personal inter-dynamics and the sort of comedic and tragic that family members and loved ones do to each other," Duplass explained. "That's what we're obsessed with, and even though we have been afforded budgets, we still love our close-ups."...

Susan Sarandon, who plays the brothers' equally confused mother, said that she was plain scared of the improvisation, and both she and Helms told THR that they had to raise their games to make the film work....

It's a busy life, but it's a rare one, too, as Duplass is fully in control of his destiny.