Bomb the System is the first feature in a long time to delve into the world of graffiti art. Mark Webber plays Blest, a 19-year-old graffiti writer fresh out of high school with no ambition for the future. He spends his days stealing spray paint from local hardware stores and his nights getting high and "bombing" the streets with his graffiti crew. The film is the feature debut of 23-year-old writer/director Adam Bhala Lough.
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Daniel Robert Epstein: Ive been hearing about this movie for many years. Whats been the story with it?
Adam Bhala Lough: Its been an epic story.
DRE: Give me the short version.
ABL: The short version is it was my first feature film out of NYU film school. It was expanded from a short film that served as my thesis project there. That stemmed from my documenting of graffiti culture for many years as well as being a graffiti writer when I was in high school. We made the film on a miniscule budget with a lot of favors and a grant from Panavision for free cameras and shot it on 35mm. We shot the film almost all illegally here in New York City, which had its pros and cons. We were shut down by the mayors office for eight days for various violations and they told us not to come back. I was blacklisted from shooting in New York, but I think Im off that by now. I definitely feel that the films go for broke quality is one of the best aspects of the film. We finished the film and were quite proud of it. We premiered it here in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. That was great but it led to some problems because the night before the festival, we went out on a little promotional bombing mission. Sol Tryon, the producer of the film got arrested but the premiere ended up really successful anyway. We managed to garner an Independent Spirit Award nomination, which lead to us selling the film in a few territories, which finally lead to a theatrical release through Palm Pictures.
DRE: I worked with your production designer, Jon Nissenbaum, a few years ago on Tromeo & Juliet. How did he do?
ABL: Jon is incredible. He has now quit production design and has gone onto pursue a career in fine arts. His production design is tremendous and has been mentioned in some large publications by some critics.
DRE: How did this come to Mark Webber?
ABL: We knew so many people in common.
DRE: He was at one point a street kid.
ABL: Yeah, for awhile he was homeless but that was when he was younger. He moved up to New York when he was 16 to pursue a career in acting and hes done a bunch of indie features. I didnt realize he was a graffiti writer as well. When we found that out, we were pretty overjoyed and we knew we had to get him. It ended up working out. Since then weve stayed really close and I consider him a good friend.
DRE: What kind of reactions have you gotten from real graffiti artists?
ABL: The reactions from real graffiti artists were probably the most surprising because they are really positive. As a former graffiti writer, I know that the people in the culture are the biggest haters in the world. Part of the graffiti culture is to hate on everyone else and jump people. In a way we were lucky because we got some of the torchbearers of the whole graffiti subculture involved in the movie so they definitely had a lot to do with spreading the world and getting it on peoples radar.
DRE: What was your tag name when you were hitting the streets?
ABL: I cant tell you that. I could put myself in some legal problems.
DRE: Even at this point?
ABL: Oh yeah. The vandal squad doesnt give a shit. If they have a photo of you from ten years ago, theyll lock you up.
A few years ago Howard Dean gave a speech in New York when he was running for president. For some odd reason he chose to have graffiti writers paint his backdrop. He hired a friend of mine, Keo, to paint his backdrops but Keo purposely didnt do it beautifully. He did some really shitty graffiti tags, like just dripping, nasty graffiti and it was all over the news. Bloomberg got really ticked off at Dean and said, You support graffiti and blah, blah, blah. On the cover of the New York Times, they listed the graffiti was done by Keo and Howard Dean specifically said Keo is one of my favorite artists and thats why I chose him. I dont support the illegal aspects of graffiti. The next week Keo comes home to New York and his apartment is completely trashed. His door was kicked in and it was raided by the vandal squad. Those guys dont fuck around. They do a lot of illegal shit. Theyve fucked over a lot of friends of mine. Its no joke. He luckily didnt get arrested, but there was nothing he could do. They took his computer with all the shit off his hard drive. Thats how they get you. Theyll go in and take your computer and take photos that you took of various pieces and then use them as evidence against you or just never give your shit back.
DRE: Are there any guys still doing graffiti for the love of it or do they eventually want to have their own clothing line?
ABL: I think 90 percent of them are doing it for the love especially in Middle America. In New York the figure is a lot smaller, maybe 50 percent, because a lot of these cats, thats how they eat.
DRE: What are you working on now?
ABL: I was supposed to shoot my second movie called Weapons in New Orleans. I spent a good deal of the summer down there looking at locations and meeting people. The specific location we were going to shoot in, St. Bernard Parish, is now underwater. So were regrouping and Im going out to LA again. Ive been going kind of back and forth talking to the producers and they kind of want me to move it out to southern California, so were trying to see if we can find a location out there. Were certainly not going to find anything as inspiring as St. Bernard Parish, but were just trying to roll with the punches.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy Bomb the System
Daniel Robert Epstein: Ive been hearing about this movie for many years. Whats been the story with it?
Adam Bhala Lough: Its been an epic story.
DRE: Give me the short version.
ABL: The short version is it was my first feature film out of NYU film school. It was expanded from a short film that served as my thesis project there. That stemmed from my documenting of graffiti culture for many years as well as being a graffiti writer when I was in high school. We made the film on a miniscule budget with a lot of favors and a grant from Panavision for free cameras and shot it on 35mm. We shot the film almost all illegally here in New York City, which had its pros and cons. We were shut down by the mayors office for eight days for various violations and they told us not to come back. I was blacklisted from shooting in New York, but I think Im off that by now. I definitely feel that the films go for broke quality is one of the best aspects of the film. We finished the film and were quite proud of it. We premiered it here in New York at the Tribeca Film Festival. That was great but it led to some problems because the night before the festival, we went out on a little promotional bombing mission. Sol Tryon, the producer of the film got arrested but the premiere ended up really successful anyway. We managed to garner an Independent Spirit Award nomination, which lead to us selling the film in a few territories, which finally lead to a theatrical release through Palm Pictures.
DRE: I worked with your production designer, Jon Nissenbaum, a few years ago on Tromeo & Juliet. How did he do?
ABL: Jon is incredible. He has now quit production design and has gone onto pursue a career in fine arts. His production design is tremendous and has been mentioned in some large publications by some critics.
DRE: How did this come to Mark Webber?
ABL: We knew so many people in common.
DRE: He was at one point a street kid.
ABL: Yeah, for awhile he was homeless but that was when he was younger. He moved up to New York when he was 16 to pursue a career in acting and hes done a bunch of indie features. I didnt realize he was a graffiti writer as well. When we found that out, we were pretty overjoyed and we knew we had to get him. It ended up working out. Since then weve stayed really close and I consider him a good friend.
DRE: What kind of reactions have you gotten from real graffiti artists?
ABL: The reactions from real graffiti artists were probably the most surprising because they are really positive. As a former graffiti writer, I know that the people in the culture are the biggest haters in the world. Part of the graffiti culture is to hate on everyone else and jump people. In a way we were lucky because we got some of the torchbearers of the whole graffiti subculture involved in the movie so they definitely had a lot to do with spreading the world and getting it on peoples radar.
DRE: What was your tag name when you were hitting the streets?
ABL: I cant tell you that. I could put myself in some legal problems.
DRE: Even at this point?
ABL: Oh yeah. The vandal squad doesnt give a shit. If they have a photo of you from ten years ago, theyll lock you up.
A few years ago Howard Dean gave a speech in New York when he was running for president. For some odd reason he chose to have graffiti writers paint his backdrop. He hired a friend of mine, Keo, to paint his backdrops but Keo purposely didnt do it beautifully. He did some really shitty graffiti tags, like just dripping, nasty graffiti and it was all over the news. Bloomberg got really ticked off at Dean and said, You support graffiti and blah, blah, blah. On the cover of the New York Times, they listed the graffiti was done by Keo and Howard Dean specifically said Keo is one of my favorite artists and thats why I chose him. I dont support the illegal aspects of graffiti. The next week Keo comes home to New York and his apartment is completely trashed. His door was kicked in and it was raided by the vandal squad. Those guys dont fuck around. They do a lot of illegal shit. Theyve fucked over a lot of friends of mine. Its no joke. He luckily didnt get arrested, but there was nothing he could do. They took his computer with all the shit off his hard drive. Thats how they get you. Theyll go in and take your computer and take photos that you took of various pieces and then use them as evidence against you or just never give your shit back.
DRE: Are there any guys still doing graffiti for the love of it or do they eventually want to have their own clothing line?
ABL: I think 90 percent of them are doing it for the love especially in Middle America. In New York the figure is a lot smaller, maybe 50 percent, because a lot of these cats, thats how they eat.
DRE: What are you working on now?
ABL: I was supposed to shoot my second movie called Weapons in New Orleans. I spent a good deal of the summer down there looking at locations and meeting people. The specific location we were going to shoot in, St. Bernard Parish, is now underwater. So were regrouping and Im going out to LA again. Ive been going kind of back and forth talking to the producers and they kind of want me to move it out to southern California, so were trying to see if we can find a location out there. Were certainly not going to find anything as inspiring as St. Bernard Parish, but were just trying to roll with the punches.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 4 of 4 COMMENTS
Once with a room full of drunk writers... well, no, twice, but different writers. It is one of the most realistic depictions of the graffiti world there has been in a feature film I would say, except that nobody gets a hot girlfriend who also writes, and most graff heads aren't cool with stencil kids.
Middle american graffiti...