Joule P. Voelz: I usually start thinking about films from images, so I was just really intrigued by a movie about someone who’s working in some sort of bureaucracy that’s never explained, but then having their own agenda. From there I just imagined what kind of characters I might find there, what they might do.

THC: Why did you choose a post office to be this bureaucracy?

JPV: Thinking back to when I was a kid, the post office was always a symbol of bureaucracy that moves really slowly and seems nonsensical. I was drawn to the idea of cutting off letters without any explanation of why this is happening, yet we accept it.

THC: Is there a message that the film tries to convey?

JPV: I was most interested in the idea of lack of communication, and at the same time also the idea of sending a message by an interesting medium, or having someone else send the message for you, which is kind of how the film ends. I’m interested in the different ways people communicate, and how things are translated and interpreted.

THC: It’s fascinating that the message that gets through in the film is one of hatred.

JPV: I think I’m interested in it because that’s not what you expect to see, and that’s the kind of message that often gets gobbled. I think it’s really funny if the only message that gets communicated is abject hatred.

THC: When you had the script ready, how did you envision the visuals of the film?

JPV: I wanted it to seem really clinical, and sort of lifeless in a bureaucratic way, so I was drawn to greens and yellows and not too much lighting. I was somewhat drawn to the images in “The Lives of Others.”

THC: Here on campus you are very involved in theater. Do you think your film is influenced by it?

JPV: I think so. I mostly do Harvard College Opera. When I direct a show and when I direct a movie, visual elements call out to me most. One day I really hope to have dialogues in my movies, but I’ve always been thinking about how to communicate information based on how things are placed, and how things are lit, and what’s the relationship.

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Maryssa R. Barron ’17 - Entertaining with Fire (VES 158BR: Sensory Ethnography 2)

The film focuses on two hunting guides and a hunting client as they go hunting together.

THC: What drew you to your subject?