Jackass 3.5 Director Jeff Tremaine on the Future of Jackass and DIY Filmmaking

Has the technology growth over the last ten years made these films easier for you guys?

The technology has improved a lot, but I wouldn't say our skills have improved so much. It's still a bunch of amateur people holding on to all that nice expensive equipment. Shooting all this in 3D was definitely a challenge and exciting for us. It made it something totally new. Even Jackass 3-D; we weren't going to do it in 3-D if it wasn't going to play in 2-D. We didn't shoot anything -- all right, maybe a couple of things -- that were really dependent on 3-D being the joke. You don't even notice -- even if you watch the Jackass 3-D DVD, I don't think you feel it's shot in 3-D.

Was there one bit that really flourished in 3-D?

I had this idea: the rocky's, that are in Jackass 3-D. You sneak up behind somebody and throw a glass of water in their face and punch them simultaneously, and the water is supposed to look like sweat coming off their head. We shot that with the wrong camera a bunch of times. It just wasn't looking right. We kept shooting it at 120 frames on the [specially rigged] RED 3-D cameras, and it just wasn't looking right. I found out about the Phantom 3-D camera, and that changed everything. That was a bigger revolution to us than the 3-D. For Jackass, where all the impacts are real -- that makes sure you realize every bit of the violence. I had never seen any Phantom 3-D slow motion. 3-D works really well when it's slowed down like that. We had a lot of water and little elements that created a lot of volume in the space. (Learn more about the Phantom 3D camera by clicking here)

Have you found that editing is easier now that you have all this new technology at your fingertips?

Well, we edit even the duds. Everything gets cut. Sometimes I'll go back and think we failed on one, and then all of a sudden, you tweak it in the edit bay and it becomes funny. We cut everything. For Jackass 3-D, we started shooting in February; we started editing like seven days after we started shooting, and we edit simultaneously. All the way up to August. So, six months. Then for Jackass 3.5 we extended the edit another four months to get things finely tuned. With the 3-D, we were seeing our results instantaneously. We would do something and go look at it in 3-D to make sure we had it. The old school was was to film it and play it back in the camera to make sure you got it right; this is a much more advanced version of that. Editing instantaneously, it doesn't change much for me, because that's how we've always done it. It's faster now because it's digital, but beyond that it's the same process we've always done.

You've obviously made a new name for yourself with Jackass; do you hope to branch out into fiction films going forward?

My goal is to definitely take a crack at narrative film. I'm attached to a script now at Warner Bros. and I'm chasing a few others. We're trying to develop a few, too. So we've got a lot of hooks out for that. But we're still in the reality television game, and I'm not opposed to doing more movies similar to Jackass.

So does that mean you'd do another Jackass film?

If we want to do a Jackass 4, we can probably get everyone back together for it. Jackass 3-D was a great experience for everyone. But at the moment there is no plans for a fourth film. These movies definitely take a toll on you.

That sounds like being an ultimate fighter. They have to take, like, 6 months off between bouts.

It's like being an old ultimate fighter. A 40-year-old ultimate fighter. Your bounce back isn't quite the same as it was. It's more mental stress than physical, y'know? I think everyone has Post Traumatic Jackass Stress Disorder. It takes a little while for all that to settle down.

Spike Jonze has obviously played a large role in the growth of Jackass. Do you find yourself asking him for advice as a director hoping to direct more narrative films?

Definitely. I lean on him heavily for advice a lot. He's just so good at what he does. He's been a great source of information and inspiration to me. He's always been part of Jackass. [Pause] He's just as big a dick of anyone of us, by the way. Put that in print. (Laughs.)

Done. Last question: Does your background with Jackass make it harder for you to get non-Jackass directing jobs?

It definitely takes someone with a little bit of vision to hire me. I might as well be a first time filmmaker to some people. But in the same sense: Jackass isn't as spontaneous as it looks all the time. Sometimes it is -- I'm not going to deny that -- but sometimes it's crafted. It's more planned and crafted than it seems.

For a look at Spike Jonze in Jackass 3.5, click here.

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