Interview: Catherine Owens, Co-Director and Producer, U2 3D

Have you ever considered living elsewhere?

Why would you want to live anywhere other than New York? I mean there is no reason. Perhaps Paris, but really, only under duress.

Tell me a little about your current fine arts project.

I'm currently working on a piece of outdoor installation for 2008 for the Kinsale Arts Festival in Ireland. I'm collaborating with an architect and we're going to build an island out in the harbor and it's going to be a little media island.

Will it be functional?

Yes. It's a sailing port so it can be built like a dock. Hopefully we're going to be able to have it so that people can come in to this little wooden dock from everywhere. We're not sure what we're going to do on it yet but I'd love some performance abilities. The title of the piece is called, "Beacon".

What have you seen that's been visually stimulating or inspiring to you recently?

I'm a huge Bill Viola fan. Everything he does I love. I love early Laurie Anderson, Kathy Acker, the New York performance artist, just people who were, ballsy women. There's another women, Nancy Spero - an incredible feminist artist who's hugely inspirational and her husband Leon Golub, he died a few years ago. Nancy's still alive. She was an amazing political artist during the 70s and 80s. She had beautiful draftsmanship and is a collage artist, political feminist... very interesting. I can go on and name a thousand artists but they would be really early influences. Now I love Matthew Barney's work and Michel Gondry's work.

When I saw the film for the first time and realized the potential for what you could do with the new technology, I thought of director Michel Gondry.

Yes, Michel Gondry and Chris Cunningham, his work I love.

It seems as though it was very organic how you became a filmmaker. Do you have future plans to direct other films?*

I think I would like to do a couple of more 3D films. I'd love to work with a couple of people I spoke to today. But you know, I was talking to Edge about this last night and we were talking about how careful you have to be once you do a project like this that's really a success but what you do next. We were just talking about being in the service of creativity and letting the creative idea come to you. So whatever life has to offer. I think I'd actively seek to experiment with 3D cameras and then see what can come of that.

Working in the male dominated entertainment and new technologies industries,do you feel it is necessary to mentor young women?

I think just by being there, women will be encouraged. But I think I really want to encourage students, men and women to think in a very conscious way about why they're doing the work they're doing and what they can contribute to a bigger picture. To a socially conscious experience as well as a creative experience.

What do you think the biggest lesson you learned about the creative process was when you made this film?

The biggest lesson really is that you've got to have a good team and you've got to trust that team.

I think [VFX Supervisor] Dave Franks along with my editor Olivier Wicki and our music producer Carl Glanville made a decision that they were really just going to serve the creative intention above all else. And Dave's guidance to the rest of the 3D team was always focused  towards whatever the creative demand was. That has all of its own inherent tensions because people want to go one way and others want to go another way. But at the end of the day everybody really served the film first, and the band first, and my vision. We really had a very strong working relationship despite any of the technical ups and downs or the budgetary ups and downs.

Any last thoughts?

Coming to this as a non-traditional filmmaker, hopefully will encourage others to feel the man made barriers need to be pushed aside really. I would encourage people to break barriers because that's what U2 have done all their life and that's what I do. And it seems to work.