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CNN SATURDAY NIGHT
Interview With Ben Coccio
Aired September 6, 2003 - 22:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
KELLI ARENA, CNN ANCHOR: Well, four years after the Columbine massacre, a chilling film portraying two high school killers is receiving critical acclaim. The film, "Zero Day," follows the students as they plan an all-out assault on their classmates.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "ZERO CLIP")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's got a lot of power and a little recoil. Perfect.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: The film has captured several prizes on the festival circuit. And Ben Coccio was the writer and director of "Zero Day." He joins us from New York to talk about the movie and the accolades it's receiving.
Good evening.
BEN COCCIO, WRITER & DIRECTOR, ZERO DAY: Hi. Thanks for having me.
ARENA: Well, thanks for joining us. This is a subject, obviously, very sobering topic. We saw "Bowling for Columbine" last year. There were two films that are scheduled to come out. What's the fascination with this subject?
COCCIO: Well, I mean I think for filmmakers, first and foremost, I would say probably there's no denying that the dramatic and tragic proportions of an event like this, they're attractive. I mean, it's kind of an undeniable story. I mean, it's so moving and it's so compelling and emotionally involving.
But I mean, I think also, especially with "Bowling for Columbine," and I'm sure also with other filmmakers who are making, you know, work about this tragedy, I think people want to -- these filmmakers, they want to express, so they want to add something to the cultural dialogue about this event. They want to say what they think about it.
ARENA: Now you chose not to use actors, but to use real students and their parents. Tell us why you chose to do it that way?
COCCIO: Well, I wouldn't say that I didn't use actors. I mean, these kids definitely, you know, were trained actors. They just didn't have a lot of experience doing movies or television or something like that. But I -- that's why. I wanted to use kids like that because then I wouldn't have to break them of a bunch of bad habits.
So I wanted these kids who are very comfortable just sort of role playing and pretending, but also were very natural and weren't thinking about it as -- you know, they weren't getting too caught up in being something they're not, because a lot of teens, I just wanted them to act naturally with their parents especially.
ARENA: OK, well let's take a look at one of those scenes. Some of the clips that we got, quite sobering. Let's take a look right now at one of them.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP "ZERO DAYS")
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: All right.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Go.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK. Some things. We acted alone. We obtained the weapons alone. And nobody knew that we were going to do this. Our parents had nothing to do with this. And so everybody knows that they didn't know anything about it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Every parent's nightmare, not to know anything about your children, who may be planning something like that. Who is this targeted for?
COCCIO: I mean, I think it's targeted for not just kids who are in high school or college students, but also parents. I know that if I had a teenage son or even a teenage daughter, I would go see this movie with them and...
ARENA: What would you hope that that teenager would take away from this?
COCCIO: Well, I think what would happen is after seeing a movie like this with my teenage child, I think we would have a pretty interesting, honest conversation. You know? And that's the thing, yes, you know, you have a child and I think you assume that you know them better than you know anyone. And to some extent, that's obviously the case, but you -- you know, you never really know everyone all the way. And you know, the more you talk about these things, the more you, you know, the more you hopefully could avoid something like this happening in your family.
ARENA: The film was shown very close to where the actual Columbine shootings took place. What was the reaction to the film there?
COCCIO: I mean, Denver -- when we went to the Denver Film Festival, it was like a very -- you know, like emotional experience for everybody involved, I mean, just the proximity to this event. Because you know, the people there, they've really -- they've seen a lot of about this, probably more than elsewhere.
And the reaction was great, actually. I mean, the people who came to see the film, I think, really understood what I was trying to do. And you know, there was a great sort of Q&A session afterwards, which was like an impromptu therapy session.
And I mean, it was just -- I mean it was definitely tough on me, because you know, I know that I'm not personally involved with this event or events like this, and that I'm an outsider saying what I think about it. So, but I don't claim to be a spokesperson for, you know, anyone. I'm just saying what I think happened, what I think happens in these situations.
ARENA: All right, well let's show the audience in one more clip where we find one of the teenagers speaking to his mother quite calmly, while he's planning something disastrous.
Let's check it out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And we are now going to put in the first set of record tapes to make sure that mommy doesn't find them under the bed.
Hello? Right now, well I'm with Cal. Yes, I'll be home for dinner. Mom, I said I was going to be home for dinner, I'm going to be home for dinner. All right, bye.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARENA: Chillingly calm when he talks to his mother. Tell me, what type of research did you do before you put this together in terms of, I mean, we always find out after the fact, and there's a lot of guessing that goes on, but you have obviously gone into depth into what could have -- may happen beforehand?
COCCIO: Yes, I mean I did a ton of research. There was a lot of, you know, sources available to everyone on the Internet about Columbine and about other school shootings.
But when it came to writing the script, actually I just sort of thought about, not to sound too morbid, but I thought about how I would do it if I was in that situation. You know, how would I -- what would I tell myself? What would I tell the person I was going to do it with? And what would I tell my family and my friends?
And you know, that was sort of the motivation of having these characters act very, very naturally around their family because, you know, if I were going to do it, I would try to keep it completely a secret. I wouldn't want anyone to know.
So I mean, that was the motivation for scenes like that. And that didn't come, you know, strictly from a research source -- related to a kind of research.
ARENA: It came from your gut?
COCCIO: Yes, I would say so, yes. I mean, I -- it just sort of -- you know, you just -- as a filmmaker, you just have to imagine what would happen. And you have to decide for yourself how it would happen. And then you have to make that -- you have to translate that for someone else, and communicate an idea -- visual.
ARENA: All right, well very powerful.
COCCIO: Thank you.
ARENA: Visually. Ben Coccio, thank you so much for joining us.
COCCIO: Appreciate it, thanks.
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