Our Interview with Trekkies Director Roger Nygard
Filmmaker Roger Nygard sat down with Media Geeks contributing editor William Castrogiovanni to deconstruct his experience on Trekkies and to wax philosophical about his new documentary, The Nature of Existence.
The Nature of Existence premiered in Los Angeles this weekend and opens around the country later this month. You can find a list of screenings at the film’s web site, .
The Nature of Existence – Original Trailer from Roger Nygard on Vimeo.
MEDIA GEEKS: I want to start by asking you a bit about the project that put you on the map. What led you to documentary filmmaking, and did you have any idea that Trekkies was going to be as big as it was?
ROGER NYGARD: [Laughs.] No. It was a left turn, certainly, in my career. I had never intended to, or wanted to, make a documentary. But [Trekkies producer and Star Trek: TNG actress] Denise Crosby actually pitched the idea to me.
She was in my first feature, High Strung, and we stayed in touch over the years. She had been out doing the convention circuit and had seen what that world was like. One day, she was telling me about the people she was meeting and said someone should make a documentary about Star Trek fans. Of course, it’s so obvious! I mean, why hadn’t anyone done that yet?
So, sometimes that happens. There’s a diamond in the road. Everyone’s driving by it. [Laughs.] And you go, “Hey! There’s a diamond here!”
MG: Was it a radical departure for you? To have to go out and collect documentary footage and try to find the story within it?
ROGER: Sort of, yeah. At the time, I really wasn’t interested in [the project]. I sort of referred Denise to someone else. And they talked to [Constantine scribe] Frank Cappello about directing it. He had a different idea. He wanted to combine the documentary footage of Star Trek fans with a narrative, “road trip” picture.
There was a convention coming up, that Denise was going to be in. So, they were going to go forward with shooting one weekend, just to see how the footage looked. But, when the time came, Frank couldn’t do it, and I was still, like, around… So, we all went and did a weekend at the LAX Hilton, at a convention called FantastiCon.
The footage we got that first weekend was so colorful, that we just kept going. I was hooked from that point forward. Documentary filmmaking is addictive.
MG: Had you ever been to a convention prior to that experience?
ROGER: Not a Star Trek convention. I had been to a Fangoria convention.
MG: A horror film convention?
ROGER: Yes. And had seen an auction of a pair of Vulcan ears. I always remembered that, thought it was wild. So, when we did Trekkies, I sought out an auction and said we’ve got get this on camera. We filmed the auction of a Klingon forehead.
MG: It was purchased by a Klingon, if I remember correctly.
ROGER: Right! He was not going to let that go. [Laughs.]
To finish answering your question, Denise and I got together and watched, I don’t know, five or ten or a dozen documentaries. We picked out the most acclaimed documentaries, and learned by osmosis. And we realized that they need a story structure just as much as a narrative film does.
MG: The difference is that you’re blessed with a script when you go into a narrative film. With a documentary, you’ve got to figure out what your story is. It’s like trying to build a boat while you’re sailing.
ROGER: Right. It’s a journey. You don’t know the ending, really. And, I realized halfway through Trekkies, that the film was severely flawed. And, still, I think it’s a severely flawed movie. Now, much copied — flaws and all. It’s like the flawed film has become a template for a kind of “Fan Film.”
MG: What would you say were its flaws?
ROGER: Well, the most successful documentaries have a story arc, same as a narrative film, with essentially a three-act structure. A crisis is set up at the beginning, there’s some conflict, and there’s a very distinct resolution at the end.
For example, we watched Hoop Dreams, about two basketball players in high school. The crisis is: who will get picked in the end? Who will be chosen? And the one you expect to be chosen isn’t, and the one you don’t expect to be chosen is. So, it’s a great surprise ending.
The way I addressed this main structural problem in Trekkies, and I don’t think it was entirely successful, [was to divide the film into] a series of vignettes, like a collection of short stories. Here’s Gabriel Köerner. Here’s his life. And here’s Barbara Adams, the Whitewater juror. Here’s her life. And then, they’ll pop up again throughout. And so, I created a style of documentary with little vignettes. Little slices of life. Almost an anthropological study.
There isn’t really a crisis or a challenge to overcome. But there IS a conceptual arc. I realized it, almost afterward. Because it’s kind of an instinctual thing, I guess, when I’m making a film. There is a lesson, or a moral story. Which makes sense, because each episode of Star Trek was a morality tale.
In Trekkies, we front-loaded the film with all the bizarre and unusual stuff. You say, look at these “crazy” people. Look how bizarre, and strange, and colorful, and odd they are. But then, as time goes on, it starts getting a little bit serious. Here are all the things they do. With charity work and [Star Trek actor] James Doohan’s suicide prevention story… And you get drawn into the fact that these people have hearts and souls. And so the moral of Trekkies is that, by the end, you realize that these people are all right.
MG: I re-watched Trekkies last night, and it dawned on me that there’s certainly a cultural component — and perhaps even a spiritual or philosophical dimension — to Star Trek fandom.
ROGER: [Laughs.] Sure. The “Prime Directive.” It’s a philosophy.
MG: I dare say it may even be a religion. Do you think you entered the same territorial waters when you embarked on your journey into The Nature of Existence?
ROGER: Oh, yeah. There’s definitely a pattern there. This film is a complete, almost scene-for-scene remake of Trekkies 2. But with different people, and different belief systems. Trekkies 2 was the dry run for this film. Because, with Trekkies 2, we went international. We traveled the world to talk to Star Trek fans in other countries. And, also, I asked more theme questions. There were some in Trekkies — that’s where they made their start. You know, “Trekkie” or “Trekker?” Which is appropriate?
MG: I would perhaps call them religious denominations.
ROGER: [Laughs.] Right. That was my first theme question. The seed of all the other documentary theme questions. “Trekkie” or “Trekker.” What’s the right answer?
MG: And which is the right answer?
ROGER: [Laughs.] Well no one, of course, agrees. That’s where the fun starts.
MG: Fair enough. So tell me about this new project. What was the genesis of The Nature of Existence?
ROGER: Well, you’ll see the stylistic genesis in Trekkies. But, existentialism, for me, began at the age of 7, when I realized that I was going to die. Up until that age, children just kind of go along. Suddenly, you’re in this world. And, of course you’re permanent! Why wouldn’t you be? I’m here now, why wouldn’t I be here next year?
MG: So, what happened at age 7 that made you say, “Oh my God! I’m gonna die!”
ROGER: [Laughs.] I was a voracious reader. I still am. I lived out in the country. The nearest house was a half-mile away. And so, all there was to do was blow things up, or magnify ants, or read books.
So, I was paging through the family medical encyclopedia for the first time, and the first thing I read about was tuberculosis. And [the symptoms included] a lot of coughing. Fatigue. Sleepiness. I was thinking, Man… I’m sleepy. I was coughing a lot. Just last week. And I’m gonna die!
The little hypochondriac in me was convinced that my time was up. So, I put on my little snowsuit, because I lived in Minnesota, and went out on the frozen lakes, and lay down and waited to expire. And I was counting the stars and marveling at how many there were. Probably got to 200. And then my feet were getting cold, and it was probably 20 minutes later. And I thought, probably better go have dinner.
MG: You literally thought that, if you just go lie down and wait for death, that—
ROGER: I was coughing! I was so fatigued! Probably because I had been running around and playing outside all day.
MG: At that age, what did you think was going to happen? If you lay there long enough, would the sky open up?
ROGER: My time would come. I was waiting to see what would happen. I was sort of overwhelmed by the idea of death. And so, partly, it was just being a little bit in shock. Like all shock, it sort of just fades after awhile, as other more immediate concerns come to the forefront. Like hunger. Or you’ve got to pee. Or you’re cold. Or all three at once. They’d motivate you to move on from this mortality fixation.
MG: So what led you to ultimately seek answers in the form of this documentary?
ROGER: A couple of things happened between then and now. One of them was that my dad died when I was 13. It brought mortality home in a personal way. He had multiple sclerosis, which is a very slow disease. And he wasted away until he was an emaciated version of himself, before he finally died. And so I had questions about that: Is he going to heaven in this form? Or some other form? Or… what happens?
MG: Were you raised with a particular set of beliefs?
ROGER: Episcopalian. So, we went to church every Sunday. I talk about it in the film, actually, in the setup.
For me, church was a countdown until pancakes. We skipped breakfast, because we would go to brunch afterwards. For a starving kid, that’s the immediate thing. Not let’s sing about something with lyrics so ancient I don’t even understand what they’re talking about. I wasn’t non-religious or religious. I just was hungry.
But, when my dad passed on, it did open up that question. Which creates more questions, a sort of infinite, existential onion. There’s another layer, another question behind every question.
I was like, well, there’s this retarded kid in school. What happens when a retarded person dies? Are they retarded for eternity? Or, a baby. When a baby dies, is it just crying and floating around in space? For all eternity? That doesn’t seem like a nice heaven for a conscious entity. Or is that baby given an immediate college education? And who chooses his major? Of course, nobody had any answers.
It wasn’t until 9/11 occurred, when suddenly there’s people dying on television, and our entire country had to face our mortality, that my mental dam finally broke. I started interrogating all of my friends. What’s the point of everything? Why are we here? Where is this afterlife located, exactly? How does the soul work? What’s the method of information transfer from a brain to a soul? And what happens with an Alzheimer’s patient? Are the memories saved somewhere, and then transferred? Once again, I was off and running with all these questions.
MG: I read that you came up with a total of 85 questions for the film.
ROGER: [Laughs.] Yes.
MG: Was there any particular question that was, like, THE ultimate question? The one that was the most difficult to answer?
ROGER: Yeah. I started with that question, every interview: Why do we exist? And scientists would correct me and say that’s the wrong question. The correct question is “How did we come to exist?” Whereas religious experts are perfectly comfortable with “Why.” Because “why” implies a reason.
That leads to the next question: if we are here, what is our purpose? Most people reference a religious aspect. Not everybody. But, if they do, then the next question is, “define what the word ‘God’ means.” Because, if someone asks me, “Do you believe in God?” I can’t answer that until they define for me what “God” means.
Do you believe in the God of the Old Testament? Well, that’s a little more specific. And, to me, that seems a little less likely than the God of Einstein — who borrowed Spinoza’s definition — which is that God equals the Laws of the Universe. That’s pretty easy to believe in. I believe in the Laws of the Universe. Without them, we wouldn’t be here.
MG: How do people respond, generally, when you pull them aside and say, “Why are we here?” How do you get them to talk past the dogma?
ROGER: Well, the religious experts tend to quote Scripture, because that’s what they put their stock in. And everyday people tend to give you more grounded answers. I like the answers that have to do with food. I love food. I love eating. It’s a big part of my existence. Hence the pancakes when I was a kid.
I got a spectrum of answers. There were dichotomies, though. Eastern thought versus Western. In the West, our belief system is based on God being an entity outside of us. We pray to Him and ask Him for things. Please help me. Please help Grandma. Help us win the baseball game. Please grant us special powers. Essentially to favor us with His good will.
In the East, they look inward for God. God is within you. It’s about meditation, instead of prayer. It’s about self-realization, instead of asking for strength. They believe that everything you need is already within you. So, it’s two completely different ways of looking at the concept.
In my opinion, it seems maybe a little healthier to understand yourself, rather than praying that my invisible friend is bigger than your invisible friend. The Mormon god is different from the Scientology god is different from the Catholic god. So, how do you choose which invisible helper is right? I don’t know. But I do know that understanding yourself is one of the most important steps you can take towards personal happiness.
MG: This is clearly a more personal film than Trekkies.
ROGER: It was the first time I’ve inserted myself into a movie.
MG: You read my mind! I was going to ask, as somebody who’s spent his career behind a camera—
ROGER: I was a very reluctant protagonist. I didn’t start out intending to put myself in the film. The first year and a half of shooting had nothing to do with me. It was just interviews of other people.
As I was trying to figure out how to tell the story, I showed some of the footage to a friend, another filmmaker named Paul Tarantino. He suggested I put myself in the film. It was my journey, after all, and I was learning. And, so the audience could learn as I learn.
So, I set up at the beginning what my existential crisis is and, at the end of the film, I have a resolution. It’s not an earth-shaking resolution. It’s really that the answer is so simple, it’s hard to see.
MG: Which leads me to my last question. Now that you’ve been through the process—
ROGER: [Laughs.] What’s the answer?
MG: Right! What’s the answer? Why are we here?
ROGER: I get that a lot. People expect there to be some really big, complex answer. But, in the middle of the film, there’s a pizza chef I interviewed, named “Big Lenny”, in Boston. I asked him for the secret to his pizza sauce. And, he adamantly yells, “there is no secret!”
I realized, after the film was finished, that’s the answer to the movie. Right in the middle of the film: there it was. There is no secret. The secret is so simple, it’s not a secret!
It’s the little things in your life. The small things. The moments. That’s what meditation is about: focusing you back on the moment. So, knowing that, what is the answer? Well, no one’s gone to the afterlife and come back with videotape—
MG: Not Yet.
ROGER: —and I’ll wager that we won’t be seeing that in our lifetime. So, if that’s the case, the only thing we know for sure is that we have this moment, and a limited number of moments, until the day we expire. And as we get closer, those moments get more and more precious, because there are fewer and fewer left. So, if you’re not maximizing those moments, and being IN those moments, and THANKFUL for those moments, you’ve sort of wasted them.
[Actress and Letting Go of God scribe] Julia Sweeney says in the movie that happiness is a false goal. You cannot find happiness. Happiness is a byproduct of having a purpose in your life. So, you need to find a purpose.
And, so what is our purpose? Well, the universe was created somehow. And, we’ve been created, somehow. Through evolution or whatever you want to believe.
So, creation is the most basic “vibe” of matter. We have a consciousness, and we are able to understand that. So, we are here to continue that vibe. To create.
Now, what should you create? Well, if you’re a writer, you write. If you like to dance, you create a new dance. Or paint if you like to paint. A new math theorem. A new building. A better widget. Whatever it is, you offer something to society, to the world. A creation of some kind.
People who are creating something are happier people.
