On Location in Rome - Profiling an Italian Filmmaker

Hello everyone. And welcome to media on monuments podcast. I am your host for this episode, Tara Jabari. I was recently in Rome, Italy and was able to speak with the filmmaker Alper till GLP at a cafe in the Monti district.

We spoke about his career, starting out in video games and the transition to working in films, his favorite part of filmmaking and why he calls himself a visual, emotional storyteller. so please enjoy my conversation with Alberto GLP. 

I'm Alberto JLP, I'm a film director and I used to work for future. Movies and a commercial area mainly. And I started my career really, really young when I was 16. So 17. Yeah, a totally different area because I was a 3d graphic designer and I worked for a video game. Oh for motion sequences for video games at the time at the end of 19 D six more, more or less.

Yeah. 3d graphics were wasn't so common. I was one of the. The young boy that did a 3d graphics for video games and so on. And during those years I was lucky cause I started to work also in a post production company and always. And commercial aria, because I started in commercial aria.

Okay. For spot and so on commercials in general. And during those years I started to work with important film directors, just making visual effects, but one of them change it completely. We can call him afraid of. Okay. Yeah. And it was very old at the time and it was a change. Yeah.

Insane by the visual effects I was able to create. But at the same time, I was really fascinated by editing because it was completely a different perspective from visual effects. Editing is just the sequence of the clique visual effects is create a single clip, you know? And so I started to, to spend 

It's more time as a good in the editing room with him. And it was amazing for me. It completely changed my life, my point of view the communication and so on. I was lucky because he, he liked me very much and they bring me on the set when I was shooting. When I was preparing the shooting, the production.

So I became his assistant. He was very old. As I saw, as I told him, he needed some support, physical support in order to help him on. The in preparation. And so, so, it was a big step for me, totally different from my previous years. And also different from my knowledge, because I didn't know how editing works, you know?

So I, I learned by him by other editors leader by leader. So I became assistant editor. Yeah. And fewer few years later I became editor and I started to edit yes, mainly commercials and documentaries branded content for Different companies and so on. And that is how I started my career.

When he died in 2006, more or less, he told me during one one evening in the hospital he told me, I teach you the, I taught you a lot. Now go to the rectum. And so I was really scared, but I think I have to do a step. How, how long, how many years were you with this director? As his assistant editor and assistant?

I was his assistant for three years, three years then. Assistant editor and then 92. Yeah, I think about five years before becoming an editor, right? Yeah. And then the step two directing was hard, but I think I was also prepared. Yeah. Yeah. Cause a director needs to understand the, how. The, the different compartment works and they you need to, to work with different department, speak their language in order to understand each other.

I think it was the, the big, the biggest step that I did. Cause it was totally different. Totally different from a visual effects techniques and so on. And so the director, he was your mentor? Yeah, absolutely. He was. And he taught the, you observed, you knew. Hmm, the graphics, the technical aspects. Then you learned a little bit the visual arts then editing.

What about the other aspects like working with actors or the writers? Yeah. When you are a director, you need to, to collaborate with different point of views. You know, actors was something that was natural for me to direct actors and they really loved to direct actors really about to screenwriters.

I'm not an author. Our director. It is a great difference between a director. Must know how to show what others say Junko to seven days. Okay. I love to collaborate with the screen writers to create screenplays, but I'm a director, you know, the different them. You understand what? I mean, many, many times in particular you need.

Our directors seems that he must know how to write a screenplay and he must be a screen writer, but it's not true. It's not true. I have to show a story then of course I can create together the screenwriters, the story, but I'm not the main. Brain, you know, that create this. I, I noticed in your website, it said I was going to ask you, did you write the films that you wrote, but it says, write a screenwriter so-and-so with help or assistance or writing assistance with you.

So you, you made that clear. I love to work with the screenwriters, but you have to, at the same time, I want to give you my point of view, how the story can develop, how the story can evolve and the. Disease or support. So out of all the different aspects, the visual arts, the graphics, the editing, the directing, which one has been your favorite?

I think I know I was going to say directing. Okay. No editing. Okay. Directing of course is the main one. Directing is the other aspect, because it's the second support to, to, to, to create the story. You can have the same footages, but with a different editing, you can create different emotions, you know, and this is I, when I was young, I really.

Yes, crushed with this idea that having the same pieces, you can create different stories, different ideas, the different moves of your audience. So directing and editing is the main one. Now what have been, so I'm in Italy. So we wanted to speak with an Italian filmmaker. Have you seen personally as an audience member?

Or as a filmmaker, the difference between the different countries and how they make films in your point of view. I dunno, I've worked in other countries, but I live in Italy and I work in more Rome and Milan mainly. Okay. So I can see. Differences in making fields or deodorants, but I can say that in Italy, we are used to, to see movies, but movies, you know, and this is horrible for me because we have a maze in dubbers, but it's not the real voice of the actor.

So when you speak with. Maybe they, the, they say, oh, a great, he's a great doctor because he's great in speaking his voice, but it's not his voice, you know? And I think that people don't understand the deep, the difference with voice and acting. Many times they confuse the dub Bush. So with the reality, yeah, so their audiences are like, oh, this is a great actor, but you're like, you're thinking of the voice actor, the Italian voice actor, dubbing it in the pasta.

I've worked with a one on one. Most important voices. We have VR in Italy and the  for the gladiator. And it was fun because Italian people is used to his voice. When they listen at the real voice of Russer crew, they were confused. You know what I mean? Yeah, I I had read a book about Sophia Loren, so I wanted to watch her films and I, some, some of them are so old.

We only could find the dubbed in English version. And it was such a distraction because it's not her voice. And the way Italians speak is very different from, from English speakers, you know? Her mouth is moving, but the voice isn't coming as clearly, or even recently, you know, it was a huge hit. The Korean show squid game.

Was it popular here? Yep. So squid game it's Korean. I knew Koreans and I sometimes, which watch it in English just to hear all the complaints by the Koreans, because it's a very different, so for that, you, you lose something. Do you think it's really worth just having it in the original language and having it written in subtitles?

Yeah, definitely. I prefer, I understand. It's not. So, th. The easiest to list them back to, to, to watch. But I think it deserves to, to, to, to have regional voices also because on the set, most of the time when you work with international actors on the set to you speak in English, and then they are doubled in post production, but On this, after you create the movies in English and maybe in Italian depends on the rules, but it's not just one language. Yeah. Yeah.

Is there anything that I haven't asked that you'd like to share with. You know, an audience that's primarily based in the United States about filmmaking, about Italian filmmaking storytelling, both in the it's changed duty in the last 10, 15 years because technology's improved but many, many times.

This process caused that the group of people, the group, the group of people that worked together to make a movie became little by little, a smaller and smaller till becoming just maybe one man band, you know, and I hate the IDP hate this side of the technical. Technological evolution because creating a movie is amazing because you can match ideas of different people.

You can work together with cruel. It's not a one man band.

No, but it, it is becoming, it is becoming an and then I don't really like it. So I don't know if in a United States or in England, it's the same that it's happening here in Italy. But this side of the technological evolution is something that I don't know. I told him I liked to work with the crew.

Every person has, is a skill and I love to match all the skills together. Making a movie is not something that one person can do.

I feel is a great choral act, extra. And I deeply think that it is, this is really important. The collaboration with other people matching ideas fighting for your ideas, you know, when you think. So it's good, but also that fighting is good.

Well, thank you very much for this opportunity and to share my experience with UL. Thank you for listening to this episode of media and monuments until next time.