A suicidal grump has his outlook on life challenged in Director Marc Forster’s comedic drama, A Man Called Otto.
Forster’s film tells the story of Otto, a cantankerous grouch who's given up on life following the loss of his wife and wants to end it all. When a new family moves in nearby, he meets his match in Marisol, a quick-witted young woman who challenges him to see life differently, leading to an unlikely friendship that turns his world around.
On December 3, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Forster discussed the making of A Man Called Otto during a Q&A moderated by DGA Past President Taylor Hackford.
During the conversation, Forster spoke about how he balances the structure provided by storyboarding with the need to be flexible.
“Through the more traditional sequence of scenes, I like to use storyboards so everybody can understand where my mind is at but for the traditional coverage of conversation, I like to keep it loose because then you can get stuck with a storyboard, and you lose the magic. I’m trying to keep the magic going and once you get too locked into storyboards, I feel like I would lose that.”
Forster’s other directorial credits include the feature films Christopher Robin, World War Z, Quantum of Solace, The Kite Runner, Stranger Than Fiction, Monster’s Ball and episodes of the series Hand of God. He was nominated for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for his 2004 feature, Finding Neverland.
Forster has been a DGA member since 2002.
You can listen to Forster's Q&A by clicking the podcast episode embedded below. You can find more DGA podcast episodes here.