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Nickolas Rossi
186 Plays5 years ago
Nickolas Rossi is a New York City based director & cinematographer. He attended Columbia College in Chicago for fine art photography and graduated from Portland State University with a degree in Sociology. Following university he lived and worked in Montréal, London, Prague and Los Angeles.
With nearly 20 years experience behind the camera, Nickolas has worked extensively across the world shooting narrative, documentary, commercial, and branded content projects. As a DOP / director, his work has screened at top-tier festivals including AFI DOCS, Melbourne International, IDFA, CPH:DOX, SFIFF, Sundance, and DOC NYC, as well as broadcast and VOD platforms such as PBS Independent Lens, The Sundance Channel, IFC, Amazon, Netflix, and MTV/ LOGO.
His non-fiction film work includes the award-winning feature documentaries, “ADJUST YOUR COLOR"(2008) by Loren Mendell, "THE SHERIFF" (2020) by Grace Sweeney, Netflix’s “MERCURY 13” (2018) by David Sington & Heather Walsh, and “THE POWER OF TWO"(2011), the directorial debut of Academy Award® nominated producer, Marc Smolowitz. Nickolas’ cinematography has also been featured in John Maloof's 2013 Oscar nominated documentary, “FINDING VIVIAN MAIER", “THE FEAR OF 13" (2015) by David Sington, “UPSTAIRS INFERNO” (2014) by Robert L. Camina, and Lance Bang’s “INSIDE PORTLANDIA” (2012)for IFC.
His directorial debut 'Heaven Adores You' (2015) about musician Elliott Smith, made its premiere in 2014 and screened at over 40 festivals across 5 continents.
http://heavenadoresyou.com/
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Transcript
Introduction of Ken Volante and Peter Bauer
00:00:01
Speaker
You are listening to Something Rather Than Nothing. Creator and host, Ken Volante. Editor and producer, Peter Bauer.
Introducing Nicholas Rossi
00:00:17
Speaker
This is Ken Volante with Something Rather Than Nothing podcast. And today we're speaking with Nicholas Rossi, director, cinematographer. I encountered his work. I haven't adored you.
00:00:31
Speaker
a beautiful, well done, researched documentary on somewhat of a Portland saint, Elliot Smith, a beautiful documentary. I contacted Nicholas. We got Nicholas here to learn about him as an artist and to talk a little bit about Portland and his documentary, Nicholas Rossi. Great pleasure
Nicholas's Early Artistic Journey
00:00:53
Speaker
to have you on something rather than nothing. Awesome. Thanks for having me again. Absolutely.
00:01:00
Speaker
So Nicholas, you're a director, cinematographer. Were you an artist when you were born? Was I an artist when I was born? Probably. It really seemed to be something that started early and that I just was interested in at a very, very early age and started sort of doing things that other people, like teachers and whatnot in school
00:01:29
Speaker
other adults seem to sort of notice at an early age. And I had pretty supportive parents around that kind of stuff. So it seemed like this natural sort of just let him just let Nicholas do what he's going to do. And I tried to explore everything. I was really curious about everything. I was really affected by things really empathic at a young age by
00:01:58
Speaker
just affected by music, really emotionally attached to music at an early age, really into expressing myself, art. I think the film stuff came a little bit later, but before that, really influenced by photography, imagery. Even as a young kid, I was interested in theater, but never really made any sort of strides with
00:02:28
Speaker
being in school played or anything like that, that just didn't seem to my thing. But writing definitely was a thing that I was encouraged to sort of explore at a very early age. Yeah. And Nicholas, I'm going to jump ahead based on something you said. I just wanted to follow up with what you said about your kind of connecting to music emotionally, because I think if you watch the documentary and just learn a little bit about you, obviously,
00:02:56
Speaker
to do an homage to Elliot Smith and the music there and the deep emotional content of that music. You mentioned about how much it affects you. What was your journey like? Because Elliot Smith's music and getting that intimate with him as an artist and all those emotions and all that's in his song, what was that journey like for you going through that as an artist creating something in connection to emotions?
00:03:25
Speaker
You mean going into the making of Heaven and the Zoo? Yeah, into the film itself. Into the film itself.
Life in Portland and Discovering Elliot Smith
00:03:35
Speaker
Well, so I was living in Portland post, you know, growing up in Chicago. I just sort of landed in Portland in 1994.
00:03:50
Speaker
And so between 94 and 1999, I lived in the Portland area, spent a little bit of time up in Washington State, but mostly in Portland. And Elliot Smith was just, he was a guy in a band called Heatmizer, and he was part of a sort of a scene that was happening. There was this beautiful, amazing, creative music scene that was happening before I got there by many years. And then while I was there, it was just sort of, it was really blossoming.
00:04:21
Speaker
And Elliot's music just sort of was one of those things that became part of the scenery. Heatmizer was definitely this band that you would go out and see. And I was able to turn 21 in Portland and go to bars then and see the bands that were playing.
00:04:40
Speaker
I think Elliot's solo stuff just sort of snuck up on me that I didn't realize when it was coming out. It hit me maybe a year or two later. And it probably fell into my life at a time that I really needed to listen to, you know, Elliot's music. I think I was probably going through some, you know, hard breakup of being, you know, 23 years old and feeling just like my heart was spilling out of my chest.
00:05:10
Speaker
somebody introduced me to Elliot Smith and his music and that sort of music just fit exactly where it needed to. And it was, you know, it was music as medicine and it was something that just sort of was very comforting to listen to. I didn't really fully understand just, you know, how much of a sort of genius Elliot Smith was when, you know, when you're just listening to it for the
00:05:38
Speaker
medicinal properties of music. And then Elliot Smith sort of, you know, he left, he left Portland. I left Portland, I went on to do other things. And several years later, ended up living in Los Angeles, kind of still trying to, you know, find that filmmaker thing. And that was, you know, during the year that Elliot Smith died, he died not too, not too far away from where I was living. And
00:06:07
Speaker
somebody told me about a solutions wall that was being sort of made up as a makeshift memorial to him. So I
Creating the Documentary 'Heaven Adores You'
00:06:15
Speaker
went down there with a camera and shot some footage and just sort of wanted to pay my respects to Elliot Smith as this person who had had this effect on me as a young kid. And that footage turned into a small short video that was sort of like a tribute and that video got some feedback and that feedback sort of prompted a bigger question of
00:06:37
Speaker
Like, how is it that we're still talking about Elliot Smith? You know, I thought that only people in Portland knew him. I really hadn't tracked his journey post Portland. I knew that when he left, he went to New York, and then I saw him once or twice in a record store in Los Angeles, and then he was dead. And so the question of, like, why is Elliot Smith still a big thing? Why are people still discovering his music? Why did he have this big impact on people became the sort of,
00:07:07
Speaker
the beginning of, well, let's find out, you know, let's, let's find out why Elliot Smith was this bigger thing. Um, and that was the beginning of having the door to you. And it was an interesting journey to kind of start to go back to the Portland days and to kind of look back at what Portland was, you know, this was 10 years after I left. So, um, in Portland's a city that, you know, has definitely changed since, since that movie was made even.
00:07:36
Speaker
Yeah, and changed a lot. Nicholas, I want to follow up a bit more with you in particular about the impact of the music and the Portland music scene and its impact on you as an artist. But first, I want to cut to a clip of your documentary. It's a short clip and just a brief discussion around that.
00:08:03
Speaker
Elliot Smith is a Portland thing, but the cat's starting to get out of the bag. So that's going to be the clip, Nicholas. It was clear that, you know, Elliot had kind of finished playing music that he didn't feel was his anymore. When it went from those shows of, you know, 10 kids, it went from that to big all of a sudden.
00:08:35
Speaker
I remember the upstairs of La Luna being filled, and everyone was sitting down, and everyone was silent, and it was like one of the things, like the cat's out of the bag. And it was such a big part of the story that you're telling in the documentary, I think. Fame. Yeah.
00:08:57
Speaker
becoming big, this kind of guy from Portland singing songs. I want to tell you, Nicholas, one of the things that the documentary did for me, and it connects to some comments you made. So it's like the question of why, why is there still this phenomena? Why are there these...
00:09:17
Speaker
the desire to learn more about Elliot Smith. And when I was listening to and watching your documentary, I realized through some of the clips or maybe seeing him play how truly intricate his songs were. And I've been fooled on some of those songs because they just float to you. But there's such an intricacy and such a depth to the music
00:09:46
Speaker
I think that's a huge part of it. Did you discover that or see the same type of thing within the music itself? Yeah. I mean, I think when you're a spectator of watching Elliot Smith play, you're astounded that somebody can be so great at putting these beautiful words together with this great guitar playing.
00:10:12
Speaker
a vibe, if you will, like being in the same space and watching him perform, because like everybody describes and like Sean Krogan described in that clip, you know, everybody was silent. Everybody was just sort of in awe of this thing that was happening. I think when it came time to, you know, sort of explore Eliot Smith as an artist in this documentary, I, you know, spent
00:10:36
Speaker
months and months and months listening to his music beforehand and then months and months listening to it while we're making the film. And I still spend days listening to Elliot Smith. It's like the kind of stuff that never, you discover something, you know, intricate in it every time you listen to it. So yeah, I mean, it was a gift to sort of start to unpack the genius of Elliot Smith by making a film about him.
00:11:01
Speaker
Yeah, and Nicholas, I want to get into a little bit more about you as an artist. I understand that Heavens Adore you is your first full feature with you as director and you've worked as a cinematographer and you talked about photography.
00:11:18
Speaker
I've worked on a couple very short documentaries. I'm actually struggling on one at present. And I tell you, one of the things discoveries for me in trying to practice what you do is deep and profound respect of trying to
00:11:35
Speaker
get it right or tell the story sound-wise, visually, et cetera, on a documentary. And you did that, and I think you excelled with that. It took a while for you to put together this project, Heaven Adores You, and it's obviously connected to your love of Elliot Smith's music and your desire to tell that story.
00:12:00
Speaker
Were there any times when you were doing this that you just said, am I the right person? What kept you going in creating this and spending the time on this and telling this story of Elliot Smith as a creator, you as a creator? Yeah. I mean, it's funny to look back at it now and be like, what made you think that you could pull this off? And I think there's like a bit of not knowing
00:12:29
Speaker
that sort of lets you just sort of walk into things like this and just say, okay, I think I can do this. I think I can do this. And then people are supporting you to do this. Um, I mean, I sat on pulling the trigger on a Kickstarter campaign to fund heaven adores you for over a year, just, you know, like not sure if this was something that I could do or, um, if I could get
00:12:58
Speaker
to do it, or if people would let me do it, or any of those kind of questions that come up when you're dealing with the life story of somebody who's not around, especially somebody who you can't interview themselves. And I think I just
Challenges and Insights in Filmmaking
00:13:19
Speaker
said, I'm going to do the best that I can do. I'm going to do what I would like to do about
00:13:28
Speaker
telling Elliot's story and I'll do my best and I'll try to honor him in the way that I feel is most appropriate to the impact that he had and to honor him in the way that the fans that he has amassed over the past 20 years. Hopefully they like it too. But yeah, I mean, it's terrifying in some ways to be working with such precious material
00:13:58
Speaker
And, you know, a precious legacy of somebody who meant so much to so many people. And I don't know if you ever think, can I do it? You just, you accept the responsibility and the challenge and you, you do it like the very best intentions. And I think, you know, I had great support from the producers and from the contributors and every step of the film just seemed like, okay, well,
00:14:29
Speaker
Seems like we're moving forward on this. There weren't a whole lot of big glaring red flags or big roadblocks. It was just we want to make a film that honors Elliot Smith and his legacy and his music. And I think people were at a point, the people who knew him best were at a point where they were
00:14:52
Speaker
they were ready to talk about it. And so I was extraordinarily lucky to be the person to get to talk to them about Elliot. Yeah.
00:15:02
Speaker
i got a i got a big question coming after this one but i wanted to say with regards to the to the documentary i mean as far as getting the police uh... a feel for place in in time in some of the local community radio clips that you had some of the the you know some of the posters from time some of the bigger right bands coming up through uh... portland a little bit before poison idea capturing the scene
00:15:30
Speaker
not easy to not easy to do but um it's it's it's it's definitely there and it gives you uh maybe that that feel for the time um uh nicholas i i gotta hit you with the big question since you're an artist and you create art in this beautiful piece uh heaven doors you and others you know cinematography work that you do but what is art
00:15:59
Speaker
I think art is what it is to you, you know, like what it is to the person who's being asked that question. For me, and I can only speak for me, I guess, art is that stuff that you don't necessarily sometimes notice right away, but you see it in the details of things or you see it in the shadows. I mean, I think that there's art and it's there, you know, you make art so that you can put art out there and you can
00:16:28
Speaker
put it out there for people to enjoy it as art. And then there's that sort of other stuff that I feel like naturally happens. It sort of organically happens. It's the stuff that you accidentally come across or you accidentally put out or you accidentally make or you just sort of focus your energy on something that's cathartic or something that makes you feel great about something. It's the product of
00:16:58
Speaker
of how you're living your life. Um, but it's such a hard question to answer because it's, you know, what is art? It's, it is, it is what it is. There's that, uh, I, I've mentioned in a show a while back, the, there was the Supreme court decision. I think it was Supreme court on the definition or pornography. You know it when you see it, you know, when you see it, I don't know what to tell you.
00:17:25
Speaker
And then art. You know when you see it. Art in some ways. I've been noticing that lately. When I first moved to New York, I started paying a lot of attention to graffiti and people who put up sticker art and tagging and stuff like that. When I was growing up in Chicago, tagging was a big thing. And I noticed it more here as a way for people to communicate to each other
00:17:52
Speaker
And of course, you know, I don't know a whole lot about the tagging culture, but I know that it's, you're putting your tag up and that's you saying this is my, my name, whatever. But I'm really fascinated sometimes by how like sometimes art isn't there for you to necessarily notice unless you accidentally come across it or you happen to just be looking down at the moment where somebody, you know, spray paint the stencil on the sidewalk that is artistic and you're, it's there for you.
00:18:22
Speaker
if you want to engage with it. But yeah, I mean, artists, maybe some people never experience art.
00:18:33
Speaker
I think City, I love Chicago. We're talking Chicago, Portland, New York City, one of the components of those cities without speaking about anything else that I enjoy is that art happens there. There's a vibrancy, electricity in New York City. Portland has its own wacky vibe, but it's an art vibe through and through, most neighborhoods you're walking through.
00:18:57
Speaker
And Chicago, oh my gosh, I think the greatest museum in the entire world, the Art Institute of Chicago. So I adore Chicago. Nicholas, another kind of conceptual question about you as a creator.
Motivations Behind Creative Projects
00:19:15
Speaker
I see in your work that you spend a lot of time professionally looking to tell the story.
00:19:26
Speaker
Do you ever step back and say why you create or what drives you to try to tell the particular stories that you tell? Um, yeah, I mean, sure. Cause I feel like if I'm embarking on a project, I have to know that I'm going to spend a significant chunk of my life involved in it. And it does become this thing that can, can consume you. And you do,
00:19:55
Speaker
You do get to ask that question like, what is it? Why am I exploring this? Why is this coming into my life now? Why is this topic something that I'm gonna work on? And sometimes you work on stuff that's not yours and you still find a connection to it. And sometimes you get to work on stuff that's yours and maybe other people don't find the connection to your work, but you do it because it feels like the thing that you need to work out.
00:20:25
Speaker
I mean, I think that's a big part of it too. Like sometimes I just need to work out stuff, even if it doesn't flesh itself out into a motion picture or, um, or that, you know, nobody will ever see it. It's practice and it's working things out in your head and it's working out feelings and it's working out technique and it's working out sort of the craft that prepares you for
00:20:54
Speaker
you know, the next project that you're gonna take on. I think there's something to be said about, there's something to be said, I think about not creating art as well and just sort of, you know, sort of living in a moment where you get to do your own research and you get to sort of plan and nest and sort of collect things for what you feel is gonna be your next artistic journey. Yeah, yeah, I like that.
00:21:21
Speaker
I had a question that I didn't want to forget to ask you, Nicholas, and just hearing some of your comments about your connection to music. I share that on the program. I'm really impacted by music, adore music, knocked over by music, and I can hear some of that in your thoughts. I just wondered, out of curiosity, when I've lived in different areas of the country, I'm from Rhode Island. I've lived in Washington, D.C., and Wisconsin, and Oregon for about
00:21:49
Speaker
10 years and I adore the Portland music scene. When you went from Chicago, I mean Chicago music, right? I can hear the music right now, but when you go from Chicago and went to Portland, was there anything that stood out for you as far as music or the music scene or any component around the differences you saw from Chicago to Portland? I don't know.
00:22:16
Speaker
When I was in Chicago, I wasn't necessarily listening to the Chicago music scene. I was kind of listening to anything that was happening in, you know, 1989 to 1994. So that included like, that included all this sort of indie stuff that was coming up. And it was from places that, you know, I'd never been to. I was listening to Cebedo and I'm a Massey star and, um,
00:22:44
Speaker
I was always listening to the butthole surfers too. So I think when I moved to Oregon, it was at the sort of, I mean the tail end of grunge for sure. I remember Kurt Cobain died and then I moved to, I took a train to Seattle. And that was the end, but there was still this sort of overflow of grunge in the Pacific Northwest that was still there. And that sort of morphed into this post
00:23:13
Speaker
punk pop stuff of, you know, Heat That Heatmizer, Hazel, Cracker Bash, that Portland scene. I don't remember ever feeling like, oh, I just stepped into a completely different music scene as much as, you know, going from Chicago where I grew up to Oregon, where I'd never even visited prior to Andy up there.
00:23:36
Speaker
It just seemed like, okay, I'm in a totally different world and the world is mine to explore. That's wonderful. That's wonderful.
00:23:46
Speaker
I got a big question for you, but I wanted to tell you a quick Portland Cebedo story that I think you might enjoy. It's stuff like this happens in Portland. You mentioned Cebedo band that I really enjoy in the connection to Dinosaur Jr. and Luke Barlow, but Cebedo was doing a little signing in a record shop, a very good record shop, Name Escape and Me right now in Portland.
00:24:13
Speaker
My son plays guitar and he's wild into music. He's going to be turning 18 soon. And he, I grabbed him out of school because Cebedo was signing, right? So I scrapped him out of school for like one of his last pairs. I'm like,
00:24:29
Speaker
Aiden's like, why are you getting me out of school? I don't have a dentist at the point. I'm like, Sebido, Sebido, get in the car. And we raced across town and basically sweating and running, going into the music store. And we just missed them. We just missed Sebido. And I'm quizzing the owner. I'm like, hey, we're going to come back in. But what's the deal? Did we just miss them? Can we track them down? I mean, we came here just for Sebido.
00:24:59
Speaker
And he's like, oh my God, they're there getting on the bus. So we saw Cebedo get on the Portland City bus and we unfortunately missed the signing for Cebedo. I mean, Cebedo, I adore Lou Barlow so much. I think he's fantastic. And I love all the stuff that he does so much so that I made it a point to include
00:25:28
Speaker
some footage of Lou Barlow and Elliot Smith talking in the Heaven Adores you. I saw this MTV clip or something sort of thing of you. And I was like, you know, I love Lou Barlow so much, I really want to just put him with Elliot Smith in this film. I wanted to live there so that, you know, 10, 20 years from now, if somebody watches Heaven Adores you, they can see Lou Barlow in there and maybe ask
00:25:59
Speaker
Nicholas Rossi, you are a good, good man. You're a good man. Thank you for doing that. You know, also though, I did get to see Cebedo play that night. I had a ticket to the Doug Fur Lounge, which is featured at the end of your movie as a location, beautiful location, Doug Fur Lounge.
00:26:25
Speaker
I got one big monster question for you, Nicholas. And towards the end, I want to play, actually, basically the ending of the film, and it'll explain itself. But before we get to how the audience can connect with you, there's the big question that the show is entitled. And I want to see if you wanted to take a stab at it. Why is there something rather than nothing?
00:26:56
Speaker
Yeah. Why is there, I mean, I suppose, I suppose there's nothing as well as something. When I think about, you know, why is there something rather than nothing? I mean, part of me feels like, well, of course you have to have something to, I don't know, distract you, entertain you, inspire you.
00:27:23
Speaker
Um, give you reason to wake up in the morning. Everybody has a something, but I also love the nothing too. I love that there's, there's the ability to connect to nothing. If you, if you want to, um, it's kind of like that art question, you know, I think art is what, art is what you want it to be. And something is kind of it's wise. Why do you have it? Cause you.
00:27:53
Speaker
because most people want it. Most people want something, make them feel better, have something, have that sort of, I don't know, that plan, that thing. The thing, you know, the language ends up with things. I mean, I wanted to say something. One thing I noticed, and this is going to sound slightly strange probably, but one of the things in watching
00:28:19
Speaker
a documentary getting back into another Elliot Smith phase, my first heavy Elliot Smith phase in a few years. I've had a few. And hearing how much Elliot Smith in his lyrics, he's using the word something, nothing, anything. He uses that a lot. So I'm actually going to explore that and just kind of see what happens. Because a lot of times that kind of at the end of thought, you're just talking about things. In an interview, we're talking about things philosophers are talking about.
00:28:50
Speaker
So, I thought it was just curious to notice.
00:28:56
Speaker
All right, so Nicholas Rossi, I want the listeners of the show to be able to connect with your work, maybe film and projects that you've worked on that you'd like to point their attention to, or I think you might have a professional website. Can you help
Where to Watch 'Heaven Adores You'
00:29:14
Speaker
guide the listeners to how to connect with both you and, of course, the film we've talked about as well, having adores you?
00:29:24
Speaker
Well, of course, Heaven Adores You is widely available to watch. It is available on Amazon if you do the Amazon thing. There's a good old-fashioned DVD and Blu-ray and all that kind of stuff that you can find it on. It's pretty readily available. As for me, my days of social media just seem like they're coming
00:29:54
Speaker
closer and closer to an end. And I'm not as active, I think, as I once was. But I'm certainly discoverable on the internet. I'm sure somebody can find a way. I'm always sort of up for chatting with people about art and film and Elliot Smith. I have a website that has all my cinematography stuff on it. It's of course Nicholas Rossi.com. But I'm pretty easy to get in touch with.
00:30:23
Speaker
There's not a whole lot of Nicholas Rosses out there. Yeah, well, and I wanted to thank you so much for taking the time to pop on to the show and to tell you, you know, I think your first, your full directorial debut with this film
00:30:44
Speaker
I think you took on a pretty heavy, heavy, heavy lift. And I think you pulled it off. I think you pulled it off. I think it's absolutely clear to the viewer that you pulled it off. And I wanted to let you know that. I wanted to recommend Heaven to Doris. Yeah, to everybody. And of course, you know, celebrating what you do in that, the music of Elliot Smith. But again, thanks for popping on the program and talking about art, a real blast.
00:31:14
Speaker
Um, yeah, thank you for having me. Absolutely. And I'm going to cut to now, uh, essentially, uh, the end of your film, everybody check it out. Heaven adores you. Nicholas Rossi. Uh, thanks so much. And thanks for listening to something rather than nothing. Uh, well, we've got, uh, another one here. This is going to be, I think the closing song. Is there a reason you picked this one to close the album?
00:31:40
Speaker
Um, because it was kind of happy. It's got a positive name, doesn't it? Oh, yeah. We have Elliot Smith in the studio with us. It's Morning Becomes Eclectic on 89.9 KCRW.
00:32:08
Speaker
Hello, y'all. Welcome to No Name No. 1, a tribute to the life and music of the great Elliot Smith. Tiffany's killing the actor And the cop's standing out on the road Turning traffic away There's nothing she could do
00:32:46
Speaker
Nothing else could have been done Made his life in my soul He didn't buy, never had to know what he was Made his life in my soul I told him that he shouldn't have said
00:33:29
Speaker
to keep her safe from herself
00:34:04
Speaker
We'll pass away the day you'll see
00:34:16
Speaker
For you