Interview with Stingray Sam writer/director/star Cory McAbee

When Cory McAbee’s American Astronaut debuted at Sundance in 2001 critics where all tripping over themselves to attribute superlatives to the genre-bending film whilst struggling to describe exactly what they had just seen. Having made numerous appearances at Sundance for the better part of two decades, McAbee returned earlier this year with Stingray Sam. The David Hyde Pierce narrated sixty minute feature once again baffled but delighted critics. Both features are now available exclusively at Cory McAbee’s web-site and you can also follow him on Twitter. Mr. McAbee generously donated his time to discuss his work.

You’ve made a name for yourself as one of the most original voices on the independent film scene with projects such as American Astronaut and Stingray Sam, both available at your website, across scores of festivals. Both projects are unique in that they blend genres that aren’t seen as natural fits to create whole new paradigms. What inspired you to combine science fiction, western and musicals together? They seem like, but ultimately prove not to be, unnatural bedfellows.

THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT was based on personal experiences. The story was inspired during a three-year period when I didn’t have a place to live and was supporting myself by filling in as security in bars and nightclubs and performing music. I fictionalized my experiences as science fiction and turned it into a musical. The western element formed naturally because I was styling the characters and their surroundings after my family and the environment I was brought up in. It wasn’t called a sci-fi musical space western until after its release. When I wrote STINGRAY SAM I intentionally used themes from THE AMERICAN ASTRONAUT, but treated them very differently. I was intentionally making a film based on how the first film had been described.

One thing that is striking about your biography is the self taught nature of your work. As a teen you taught yourself painting and drawing away from outside influences, later you taught yourself autoharp to compose music with. Similarly you went into film making with no formal training. Your work seems to suggest you are unconcerned with anything but allowing your imagination to express itself and thus hop from medium to medium, from painting to music to film, unrestrained. Was progressing into cinema a long term plan on your behalf or just an organic continuation of your creativity?

My first film was an animated short called BILLY NAYER. At the time there were a lot of animated short festivals touring around. I went to a screening of animated shorts and I was very impressed. I wanted to make one too and I thought it was something I could pull off as a painter and a musician. I made simple choices based on what I knew about animation and spent 3 years painting it. I didn’t know if it would work. I was very excited when it did, but because of the amount of time it took for me to make it I thought my next attempt should be live action.

Does not having a formal background in either film or music allow you to see the two mediums in different lights than if you had been trained? Do you believe this was ultimately beneficial?

For me to have gone to school I would have had to have been a different person from a different background. My first paintings, as well as my first animated short were done with house paint because I knew where to buy it.

American Astronaut was a feature that caused a lot of head scratching. Whilst the film was almost universally praised, critics could not seem to find common ground with anyone artist to compare you to. Names ranging from Aronofsky to Fred Astaire, Kubrick to Ed Wood, Jodorowsky to John Ford and the Three Stooges and Salvador Dali have all been thrown up. Were any of these comparisons valid do you feel? Who, if anyone, consciously inspired your work?

The people closest to me have influenced me. There was a time when I ran security for a nightclub in San Francisco. All of the doormen and most of the staff were musicians and performers. Some of the people that I knew then were my biggest inspirations. I have also been working with drummer/ producer Bobby Lurie since we were kids. The things that we agree or disagree on have been an influence. Beginning musicians and writers wear their influences on their sleeves. If you’re coming from a personal place you’ll quickly get over that.

Stingray Sam, your latest project, was similar to American Astronaut in that it was a critically lauded space-western/musical film. The feature takes on the format of a retro sci-fi serial; was it ever the intention to make Stingray Sam anything other than a sixty minute film comprising of six ten minute episodes?
It was always meant to be a feature film made of six ten minutes segments. It was written and designed for screens of every size. The episodic nature works when seen on 35mm in a theatre or a six files on an iPod. It was written and designed to address how films are being viewed in these modern times.

You’ve been described as an auteur and as Ed Wood like. Do you believe you could only have this creative level in your films by working independently of studios? Could you ever envision a major studio commissioning one of your works?

I like working the way I work and I’m proud of the work we do, but if a studio came to me with an interesting offer I would try to be open minded. I don’t have an agent or anyone out there looking for that kind of thing, so it’s not likely.

You have appeared as an actor in a number of other people’s works including the ill-fated The Onion Movie. How did this appearance come about and what are your thoughts on the final outcome?

That film was shelved after a fifty-minute edit was successfully screened to a test audience. The film’s original director’s names were removed at their request when it was being re-edited for release on DVD. I haven’t seen it yet, but I will.

Werewolf Hunters of the Midwest was to be your next feature but ultimately funding was lost. Is the project likely to be revived and, if not, what can we expect next?

WEREWOLF HUNTERS OF THE MIDWEST was the first feature that I had planned to make. I’ve rewritten it several times over the years. I’m sure it will be my next film.