Interview - Tar : Our Aaron Wolf’s interview

By Mulder, Los Angeles, 02 october 2020

Tar is a new thriller about a family business, that is forced to shut down and move as the city’s subway is expanding under their feet and their office building is slated for demolition. However, something primal is awoken by the underground construction, and a night of somber packing becomes a desperate fight for survival!

Tar is written and directed by Aaron Wolf, starring Timothy Bottoms (Golden Globe Nominee), Graham Greene (Academy Award Nominee) Tifanny Shepis and Max Perlich. The films opens in select Drive-Ins and Theaters beginning on Friday, October 2, and will be available on Digital and On Demand on Tuesday, October 20th.

We have the opportunity to interview his director and co-screenwriter Aaron Wolf.

Q: Hello Aaron, Please can you introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about your background ?

Aaron Wolf : Filmmaking is been my passion my life especially stories. It's usually having fun at the movies and it's always been in my life but I started community theater when I was 7 years old as well as reading Holly reported variety so it's just been something I've always done.

Q : What Can you tell us about your filming ? Where have you shot films in Los Angeles and other places ?

Aaron Wolf : In filling Tar what we want to do is bring to light off balance throwback adventure war movie something where people could go escape and have a good time for a couple hours and it's perfect timing because it's Halloween so really excited to bring the brand targets also life because it's a place I would do as a kid. I have shot multiple films in Los Angeles I've shot so I'm an on the east coast too. but our last film restoring tomorrow I film it in Los Angeles as well that one was a Oscar shortlisted so really proud of it.

Q : What should be for you a good acting direction? What can you tell us about you work with Timothy Bottoms and Graham Green ?

Aaron Wolf : I always like with actors to make sure that they're able to land some of their self to our movie so in working in this field with people like academy award nominee Graham Greene Timothy bottoms these legendary actors I want to make sure that they take from the script what they want and then bring it to life and add whatever they want to the script to the scene so that together we're collaborating is to meet though making could be renamed collaborating.

Q : What can you tell us about your character Zach Greenwood in this movie ?

Aaron Wolf : Zach Greenwood is a typical dude who has a small business grew up with his family business immigrants from Europe to lawsuits to Los Angeles and he wants t,. He's sick of it he's sick of being a part of the family business but he also has push a ball with his dad of what they should do because now they have to close down the business because of the demand of the subway system being built and condos being built so he's always struggling to make sure that you'll see he goes through an arc of the of a learning a bit about himself as he goes through this insane experience.

Q : Do you believe in some Los Angeles urban legends ?

Aaron Wolf : I don't know if I believe in him as much as I love it. I love urban legends in of the idea that a place that I went to as a kid has a story like this behind it. I just think it's fantastic so we really dove into to bring the lord of life and to bring the fun the life of what’s this movie is and what the story is the backstory and so on so that we can show something that people haven't seen before no one 's ever made a movie about this La Brea Tar Pits before.

Q : What were your main sources of inspiration for Tar?

Aaron Wolf : I've always been inspired not so much by gore horror stuff by adventure and story and funded thriller so like Arachnophobia, Indiana Jones, Goonies, movies I used to watch on DVD or Blu ray as a kid I just love those kind of fun adventure horror movies.

Q : What can you tell us about the creature of your movie and how have you created it ?

Aaron Wolf : So the creature we work to use as much practical effects as possible and because I love that. Concept it's not all digital and the creature I don't want to spoil it too much but let's just say it's it's no creature you've ever quite seen.

Q : In this specific time, how is difficult actually to create a movie and found some funds to do it ?

Aaron Wolf : Yet the creating this film was an adventure unto itself we can make a movie about the making of the movie because this film took about a year to film we had to move locations work around different actors and so it took a while to do it because we had you know this is a not a big budget film this isn't transformers this is not a Marvel movie. So we had limitations and we tried to take those limitations and use them as best we can for the creative process to build this story to life.

Q : Which are for you the good ingredients to create a good trailer horror movie ?

Aaron Wolf : To make a trailer for this film and that was all about showing as much as possible no one in the lore in the background and what we're going for with this movie that this movie is a throwback movie that this movie is about having fun at Halloween this movie is about the audience. So the trailer is all about that about showing love come have fun this Halloween and have a ride with us.

Q : After some shorts movies The Walk, Guest House, Imagine Reality, Fourth Time's the Charm and a documentary Restoring tomorrow , Tar is your first movie. How it was difficult to build it ? What have you learned on these short movies and use to direct this one ?

Aaron Wolf : yeah this is the first big narrative movie that I've directed. I've done a bunch of shorts and done all that investible stop it doing this it's just basically that's a quick process that's a you know you shoot it a week and then you're done and this is a long get that over for us a year so it's just a it was just lot of a lot more stress. You try to get it all out get it all happened because there's just so many moving parts and because the budget isn't those massive budgets, we had to work around a lot of pieces to make sure we got what we wanted and also work with the limitations that were given to us.

Q : What were the main difficulties days during the making of this film ?

Aaron Wolf : The most difficult days were days where it was probably the last day of the location and we had to pull off a big effect or a big practical effect, a factor a death or something like that to make sure it worked because we knew there was no second chance so we had to make it work so that was always when I would wake up that they have you like I really hope we pull this off and finished the day with that . If we accomplish that and that day yes and then worry about the next day.

Q : What was the most difficult scene for you to shoot and why ?

Aaron Wolf : The most difficult scene to shoot we're definitely the end. We had like the climax because there's a lot out of that without giving away spoilers there's a lot of moving pieces in the in the last about 10 minutes of the movie and really everyone I think the crew and cast because everyone did their part to make it work because it was very hard to we're also working with Tar. The movies called Tar itself. One thing about a creature that comes up from the low tar are bits of the world around that but Tar also is really sticky. It sticks to you. It's uncomfortable so to be covered in it all day is not very enjoyable and it didn't come off easily so that so doing that let's try to make sure the scenes worked was definitely a challenge for some of those lessons.

Q : Who are your favorite directors and which films are the main driving force behind your artistic creation ?

Aaron Wolf : I love good storytellers. So filmmakers that are going for spectacle that are just going for in order for like gross out stuff and lots of supernatural and in other movies I just love story I love the building the characters so directors like that there's a director named Peter Weir that made so many amazing films. I think pretty obviously Spielberg was is an influence, what he did with Jaws is an influence there anyone making a movie that some jumps and that. Some others filmmakers like Richard Linkletter, people who just I think tell great stories and dive into whether they're the biggest hits are not that doesn't matter to me what matters but this is just my gripped in the storytelling what they brought to the screen.

Q : Do you have any French actors you'd like to work with ?

Aaron Wolf : French actors that I'd like to work with. Well you know I've always thought it would be cool to work with Gerard Depardieu. That's a legend. I just I've always thought they had to work with him would be really cool I don't even know what he's up to right now I just know it's a kid, he was like the king of French film and also big and some some kids movies here that I saw so I just thought man this guy seems larger than life I would love to work.

Q : Which are your currents projects ?

Aaron Wolf : Projects will everything in our industry right now is very slow to be moving forward but are we do have a talk show that is a call The together show on Facebook and on youtube. We're building in that is with during that so we've been doing the talks and our next guest is Alec Baldwin. It's about bringing people together in a time where people are apart. It's show podcast which is a podcast we do every week. it's not all podcast apps and that's the same thing it's about how do we bring people together bring hope when all things are feeling hopeless so we're doing those and we have a bunch of projects for the moment that they were allowed to start filling again.

Synopsis :
For 40,000 years, a long forgotten wetland teemed with ancient creatures, but now all that’s left is a pit of hot, sticky tar surrounded by a vast urban landscape. For Barry Greenwood and his son Zach, there’s not much left of their family business either. With the city’s subway expanding under their feet and their office building slated for demolition, Barry, Zach and their employees are forced to shut down their shop and move out. Three family generations and three lifetimes of hard work to be turned into rubble. But when something primal is awoken by the underground construction, a night of somber packing becomes a desperate fight for survival.

Tar
Directed by Aaron Wolf
Produced by Andrew Kappel and Timoth Nuttall
Written by Timothy Nuttall and Aaron Wolf
Starring Timothy Bottoms, Graham Greene, Aaron Wolf, Emily Peachey, Max Perlich, Nicole Alexandra Shipley, Tiffany Shepis, Stuart Stone, Sandy Danto
Music by Conor Jones
Cinematography : Aashish Gandhi
Edited by Simon Carmody
Distribution : 1091 Pictures
Release date : October 2, 2020 (USA)
Running time : 95 minutes

We would like to thanks Madeline Schwinn and Aaron Wolf for this great interview