I wanted to do. At that time as now, it's a great way to make documentaries. It's not a new genre; the making-of has been around forever, but DVD opened up a lot of opportunities for filmmakers. Then I started hawking myself to the studios.

LN: I finally moved to LA in early 2000, and I worked on "Angels Forever" with Jeffrey. That fall I started producing for Automat full time.

LN: Automat did exist, but we didn't have an office. We all worked out of our homes and we did it mostly by phone. But we kept getting more projects so we had to keep adding more staff. At one point, we had five separate people working in separate houses and three people working around Jeffrey's dinner table. We had a PA who ran around to all of our houses delivering videotapes and things. (laughs) It was insane. In fact, that was how we did some really huge projects. We did such titles as Final Destination and The Silence of the Lambs that way. Jeffrey and I co-produced that one. We rented a couple of AVIDs and we would get together and look at cuts. And that is how it went for a very long time.

JS: Laura and I started working together on big projects and she was awesome. She really pushed me to embrace what we could become. She made me get the hell out of my living room!

I've been covering DVD for over four years now, and perhaps the biggest change I've noticed is that DVD supplemental production is now big business. It is not like the laserdisc days, just one guy in his house. Well, we still have those flying solo like Laurent Bouzereau, but most of the independent producers have joined up or formed companies. Do you think you could have thrived in the same way if you had stayed on your own?

JS: No, I couldn't have. I would only have been able to do one or two projects at a time. And there are people who want to do that. I know Laurent (Bouzereau) has no interest at all in starting a company. And he's probably smart, because he can take vacations. (Laughs)

Laura and I wanted to build something, and I feel like we have. We're trying to establish a brand name, and hopefully consumers will start to recognize the label and they'll know they'll be getting something interesting. And hopefully the studios will also recognize that and keep coming back to us to do their stuff. In three years, we've made dozens of documentaries, and independently I couldn't have done that. And to get paid for it and have people see it and actually respond to it is great.

I'm now trying to executive produce more stuff, but even when I EP I still am heavily involved. The studios come to me, and part of the challenge is figuring out what I should do personally and getting the studios to trust us that they will be happy working with people other than myself.

LN: I think a lot of people still work out of their homes. And that's fine if that works for them, it just means you can't work on a ton of projects at one time. We just couldn't figure out how to do that and grow in the direction we wanted to grow in.

Automat as a company wants to start branching out into other areas, such as making documentaries for cable and feature films. Basically continue to do what we do, but not just for DVD, because the budgets are bigger for cable, the audience is bigger and it would give us the chance to develop as filmmakers. But we're never going to stop doing DVD, it's really established our name.

Generally, how do you go about getting work? Do you approach the studios, or do they approach you? And has it changed since when you started?

LN: It's always a little bit of both. Jeffrey was the one that started to go out and get projects, and soon the studios started to come to him. Then it became a much more involved process where we started pitching things. We developed a wish list of titles and we would approach the studios to do something with those.

One of the exciting things recently that has happened at Automat is that we've just hired a Director of Development, David Kleiler, to try and get more projects for us. Because what we've found is that we're so busy creating new

projects that we don't have time to pitch anymore. Sometimes we look up from our desks and go, "Oh, what are we going to do in 2003!?" We'll be working 16-hour days and then we'll realize we haven't even thought about that...

How involved does your staff get in pitching projects?

LN: For a long time, Jeffrey and I had been the only producers at Automat. Now, we have Stephen Altobello in New York who is doing all of our Scorsese projects for us. The Last Waltz has just been released to great acclaim. Michelle Palmer was Jeffrey's associate producer for a long time is now starting to produce her own projects, including Bones. That's it right now, but the bulk of it is still Jeffrey and myself.

As a young company, how do you handle juggling all these multiple projects at the same time?

JS: I work closely with an associate producer and a researcher, and so does Laura, so we have two teams working full time. It's very challenging juggling all these projects and you're switching gears constantly in a given day. It is definitely a challenge, but we've got a solid brain trust.

LN: My associate producers Andy Reznik and Katy Leigh are an incredible resource. I have to work with people that are really flexible. Andy spent a great deal of time on the phone, for example, on John Q speaking with transplant patients doing pre-interviews to determine if they'll be good for the piece, and in the meantime jumping from that phone call to dealing with Rambo.

Just in terms of pure logistics, I would think it would have to be a nightmare...

LN: I just finished producing the Rambo DVD trilogy, where I was supervising nine different documentaries, and directing four of them on this one project alone. While I'm producing two other DVDs at the same time. So, at any given time I'm working on ten or more documentaries. Does it melt my brain? Yes! Especially when, for example, I'll be interviewing the producers of Rambo in the morning, and then have to leave in the afternoon to go to the hospital to interview a patient for John Q.

I love that part of my job, but it is also very challenging to retain focus. I wouldn't trade it for anything, and it is amazing to have a day like that, but there are times when it does become overwhelming.

Are there ever any problems with everyone at Automat wanting and fighting over the same projects? (laughs)

LN: Everyone in this office has to wear many different hats, and by necessity we've built our team with a group of people with a broad range of interests and a very broad film knowledge. You can't just come from one camp. And the people on each team have to balance each other out.

Jeffrey and I really compliment each other. I'm really into International and experimental film, whereas Jeffrey is a complete expert on American horror. When you have a company doing DVD work, you have to hire people with a wide range of knowledge because you need a team that can cover all the bases that can create a wide variety of work.

Do the studios ever help you out with the actual production?

JS: Rarely. They provide a budget and that's about it. It is just us. People sometimes misunderstand this. We are working for the studios, but we don't have the vast resources they have. There are strict budgetary guidelines and we pay for everything. We even have to rent a copy machine. (Laughs)

LN: It is certainly hard for us sometimes to make these features. It's tricky. People sometimes have the false assumption that because we're hired to do a Hollywood project we have a Hollywood-sized budget. (Laughs)

The reason we are able to do it is because we are low-budget filmmakers and we know how to get things done for little money, via all the techniques that low-budget filmmakers use. The model that Automat has taken on is to do many projects at once. And that is not what a lot of DVD producers do, they may have a couple of things going on at once. I've worked with some other producers who do DVD titles, and we have a lot more work here than is typical.

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