Four interconnected stories about the love of music, movies, people, places and memories come together in Directors Ryan Fleck & Anna Boden’s action comedy, Freaky Tales.

Fleck & Boden’s film weaves together the seemingly disparate sagas of an NBA star, a corrupt cop, a female rap duo, teenage punks, neo-Nazis and a debt collector as they embark on a collision course in 1987 Oakland, Calif.

On April 13, after the DGA membership screening in Los Angeles, Fleck spoke about using the cinematography to differentiate chapters of the movie.

“We started thinking about visually how to differentiate the style of the different chapters. The aspect ratio became something we decided upon pretty quickly. The punk story should feel like a 16mm 4 by 3. We should like treat it with grain and shoot it handheld. But then when the fighting comes out it’s sort of magical. Blood spills outside of the aspect ratio, so the graphics and we wanted that to start to feel magical. Like oh this movie isn’t exactly what it’s been set up to be. It’s the first point in the movie where like oh I think things are going to go a little haywire in this movie in a way I didn’t anticipate. That was the goal anyway in terms of the writing and the execution of the storytelling. And then the third and final chapter, the violence in that, we want to feel like the 2.35 aspect ratio to feel more like a Kung Fu movie.”

Boden shared the support they received to make their film authentic to the time period and punk community.

“Everybody came out to help us get it right. Throughout this entire process, people read this script who were in Oakland and just really surrounded it with love and support, particularly the punk community. Tim Armstrong read it and was like, ‘I want Operation Ivy’s music in here. I want you to have the band that I want to represent Operation Ivy and it’s Aphids!’ It just felt like we had all this support to get it right. And the OG Gilman crew met with our actors and talked to them about it.”

Fleck & Boden’s other directorial credits include the feature films Captain Marvel, Mississippi Grind and It’s Kind of a Funny Story; and episodes of Masters of the Air, Mrs. America, Room 104, Billions, The Affair and The Big C.

Fleck has been a DGA member since 2008 and Boden has been a member since 2009. Both serve on the Eastern Independent Directors Committee.