For this year’s Canon’s Project Imaginat10n, a partnership between Ron Howard and the camera company to bring fan-submitted photographs to life through short films, Academy Award-winning actor Jamie Foxx got the chance to finally direct. His film “…And She Was My Eve” is a bizarre sci-fi romance with a look all its own.
MTV News spoke with Foxx about what it was like to work with only a collection of photos as his inspiration and how directing his first short film will lead to feature-length projects.
MTV: How hard was it turn a bunch of pictures into a short film?
Foxx: I really enjoyed the whole process of picking the pictures. I just came up with the story of it on the spot, when the pictures came through. I wanted it to be weird enough to be a short film… and it turned out great.
MTV: What served as your inspiration for how you approached directing for the first time?
Foxx: I’ve watched over the shoulder of some of the best directors in the world: Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Antoine Fuqua, Taylor Hackford. A lot of those shots that I used in my shot was directly from rubbing up against those guys.
MTV: Was there anything that surprised you about directing?
Foxx:No surprises. What you do have to make sure of is that your crew is the best at what they do too. What you’re asking for is a result. You say, “I want it to look like this.” The first photo jumped it off. There was a girl floating in the air, and I felt she was made by somebody. The story sort of unfolded. I started connecting all the pictures to that genesis.
MTV:Did making this short affect how you want to approach directing features?
Foxx:It gave me the bug. I want to be able to do things with no constraints and really just go at it. I’ve got a couple of comedies I want to make and a thriller I want to direct.
You can watch “…And She Was My Eve” over at Yahoo! Screen.