Face to Face with... The Fines

Recently winning an Oscar for their documentary short, Inocente, husband and wife directing duo, The Fines (Sean Fine and Andrea Nix Fine) have just signed to London-based production company Passion RAW for the UK commercials market as well as being represented by Rabbit Content in the States. Their winning film – of which the trailer is viewable below – tells the story of homeless teenager, Inocente, and her ambitions as an artist in Southern California. Here the directors talk about the touching project, their Academy Award win and the emotional side of sport.

Where did you get the idea for Inocente and how did you come across the story?

ANF: I think we first came across the idea in our own minds from the statistic that in the US, one in 45 kids will experience homelessness and that’s jumped up 35 per cent in the last few years. Because families and kids are the new face of homelessness in this country, we really thought we could do something [to help] by making a film about it.

SF: We called shelters, schools and social programmes from all the major cities to rural areas until we finally came across an arts programme called A Reason to Survive (ARtS) and Matt D’Arrigo, the head, introduced us to the girl, Inocente.

What was it like to direct Inocente and did you have fun with all the painting on set?

SF: We’re documentary filmmakers so we use the word ‘direct’ very loosely in terms of making a documentary. But before we go out to make our documentaries we think a lot about the style in which we want to shoot them and, unlike a set when we’re working on commercials, things happen spontaneously and we have to react to them. [In this case] it was actually really difficult when she was painting because once the brush hits the canvas there’s no going back.

How does shooting something with a serious emotional theme compare to commercials?

SF: As documentarians we’ve seen every emotion man can show. We’ve seen everything from a woman giving birth for the first time to reunions to someone winning a life-changing award. I think that helps us with commercials because we know what those emotions look like. We can use them to help draw out an actor or tell a story in certain ways because we have a feel for it already.

What’s it like to be a married directing duo and tell us about how you met?

ANF: We were both directors working on separate projects and we ended up hitting it off because of our love of filmmaking. We started dating and didn’t work together until we got married. Our first feature film, War Dance, was nominated for an Academy Award in 2008.

And Inocente recently won Oscar; what was that like?

ANF: We picked up two actually! The other fun thing about being a directing team is that you bring two home so we have a his and hers and they sit on either side of the bed; it’s pretty good. The whole experience was incredible. We worked so hard on that film, it took three years and there were so many times that the funding might have fallen apart and it had to get resurrected again. It was a big journey for all of us, for both Sean and I and for Inocente, the character in our film. We’re still reeling from it; we’re really just enjoying the moment.

What did you enjoy most about working on the film?

SF: The thing I enjoyed most about it was that it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like we just showed up and everything was easy to film, it takes a long time to gain somebody’s trust and to allow them to let you into their life and both of us felt so privileged that this young girl was allowing us to tell her story. I love that it wasn’t easy because when things aren’t easy, you tend to get creative.

You’re signed to Rabbit (in the States) and Passion RAW for commercials representation in the UK; is there a particular type of job you’re looking for?

We’re looking for fantastic stories. We want to tell great stories that emotionally move people. So that’s what we’re excited about, but we definitely have a love of emotional sports commercials. My father and grandfather were sports cinematographers, so I grew up around the Washington Redskins. I saw all the emotions on the field and Andrea feels the same way about sport. It just brings out these raw emotions in us. But we’re also excited about shooting things like car commercials and just other great stories that are out there to be told.