QUESTION#1: What about your film excites you the most?: What excites me most about this film is that it seems to turn its audience into whimsical big-eyed children, mimicking Sam's childlike excitement about his own creations, and how they interact with nature's magical moments on his property. When creating this film, my main goal was for viewers to be inspired to make things out of nothing. Witnessing their reactions has so far been rewarding and very sweet.

QUESTION#2: What is it about your current movie that will influence your next film?: Playing around with home movies as archival footage was a lot of fun for this film, and it's something I'd like to continue doing.

QUESTION#3: When you’re shooting a film, do you think of time as something you capture or something you construct?: With documentary, it is both. We wanted SAMLAND to play out as though it were happening over the course of one long day, starting at sunrise and ending at sunset. Since it wasn't a film set but just real life, we didn't 'construct' these times -- we woke up at 5 a.m. one day to capture the sunrise on the beach, and the next day filmed Sam on his boat during golden hour (and the full moon) to convey sunset.

QUESTION#4: What’s a limitation you wish you had on your next shoot that would force you into making interesting creative decisions?: Well, when filming SAMLAND, we had no heat on a chilly Northern island, no space to ourselves for 4 days, no Internet or cell service, and no ability to order food from anywhere, all of which are pretty big limitations on a film set -- but also all of which enhanced the shoot. I would do this all again in a heartbeat. We were forced us to prepare ahead of time, and this allowed us to be much more in-the-moment when filming. There were no distractions--just the beauty of where we were and what we had with us. This made the creative decisions easier. We weren't going to bring in any crazy overhead lights or extra cameras. We had what we had. The natural landscape was our canvas and Sam was our character.

Plus - at the end of each day we all gathered around the fire eating our homemade soup, swapped stories, hung out in the hut tub under the stars, and then slept in Sam's giant roundhouse structure, giggling like teenagers at a sleepover. It was pretty epic.

QUESTION#5: If a film shoot is like a living organism, which department do you think functions as its nervous system?: The director's vibe! If the person in charge is calm and prepared, it's easier for the rest of the organism to feel the same way. If the person in charge is upset or unprepared, everyone else will likely find a reason to be flustered also.

Social media tags to share with our readers: @poppe_productions

5Q's w/: Grace Poppe "Samland" Director, Producer