Inside View: Todd Selby

Moving image

Selby’s films are great – eclectic, for sure – each one representing the particular eccentricities and idiosyncrasies of its subject. But they also make sense as part of the Selby universe, which may be his most impressive achievement. Without imposing any specific aesthetic on to the people he meets, somehow, by way of his shooting style and the personality he weans out of them, it all hangs together.

Philippe Starckʼs Paris apartment
Philippe Starckʼs Paris apartment
Philippe Starckʼs Paris apartment
Philippe Starckʼs Paris apartment

People want to be photographed and filmed by him – they want to be on his site and part of his world. There’s a call for submissions on TheSelby.com, but it doesn’t count for too much of his output, he says. “People will send me pictures of their kids and say, ‘These kids are awesome, come and take pictures of my kids.’ The vast majority of what I do is people I find. Self-selection is kind of a terrible way to do things.” A lot of the people he shoots are people he already knows, and with film he can explore their worlds in further depth.

“Filmmaking was always something I was interested in. I made a lot of films when I was a kid – karate films, with friends; we had a VHS recorder. I wish I still had them. It just made sense – I was doing photoshoots of all these interesting people and thought some would make for amazing films. So I thought I’d just get people together and do it – hire really good people and learn, see how it’s done.” The team he put together included the DoP and line producer from the Anna Wintour documentary The September Issue. Selby uses all sorts of cameras – Sonys, Alexas and lately Canons. All his films are crafted with love, although some are more whimsical than others. So on his website, a film about Christine Sun Kim, a deaf sound and performance artist who says she is “unlearning sound etiquette”, sits next to one about Mitch Alfus, New York’s self-appointed leather king, who scours the planet for quality rawhide.

William’s Honey Hole, meanwhile, features a beardy-weirdy who takes Selby gold-mining in Brooklyn after a remote-viewing session, and the film’s style is markedly kookier and more playful, befitting its star. Aliens are involved. “I love documentaries, I love Werner Herzog,” he says of his own tastes, before getting to the heart of the matter. “I love really bad films, crappy films, like [1984’s] The Ice Pirates. Terrible sci-fi fantasy films, and really simple films like [1971’s] Two-Lane Blacktop. Films that were done really simply but have a lot of entertainment value… they make me feel like, I could do that!

The warehouse home and workplace of Mitch Alfus, the self-styled ‘Leather King’ of New York, whom Selby also captured in one of his most successful films
The warehouse home and workplace of Mitch Alfus, the self-styled ‘Leather King’ of New York, whom Selby also captured in one of his most successful films
The warehouse home and workplace of Mitch Alfus, the self-styled ‘Leather King’ of New York, whom Selby also captured in one of his most successful films
The warehouse home and workplace of Mitch Alfus, the self-styled ‘Leather King’ of New York, whom Selby also captured in one of his most successful films
The warehouse home and workplace of Mitch Alfus, the self-styled ‘Leather King’ of New York, whom Selby also captured in one of his most successful films

“Lloyd Kaufman from Troma wrote a book about making movies. I love that book. There’s an introduction from Trey Parker [of South Park] and he talks about how those movies inspired his filming. He thought, ‘These pieces of shit are so awesome, I can do that!’ And there is something inspirational about that.”

At one point during William’s Honey Hole, a rocket is launched, because, why not? How much of the work is planned? Did he know that was going to happen? “Yeah, that was kind of scripted,” says Selby, revealing a potential future direction. “A foray into more scripted territory, it was a bit of an odd moment. We worked on it together; we came up with something we thought would be fun. William’s really into aliens and crystals, but the film’s kind of like him in a scripted reality way. That film really amused us. I don’t think it has a wide appeal, but it was fun.” It certainly betrays a love for B-movies. “Yes, I’d like to get more into that. It’s on my to-do list. Homemade special effects, watermelons getting run over by cars – that stuff amuses me.”

In October 2012, he published Edible Selby, a book chronicling his culinary adventures, and he’s made some great food films for The New York Times. The people he’s found, naturally, are a world away from Jamie Oliver. There’s Connie Green, a mushroom hunter in the California Sierras, who at one point is on the verge of tears just being there among the fungi. “Yeah, she’s passionate about mushrooms.” Then there’s Kirk Lombard, a fisherman who forages for horseneck clams, rock pricklebacks and monkeyface eels – Selby was told about him, then met him and “thought he was incredible”. In the film, Lombard sings sea shanties while his wife accompanies him on an accordion. What was the idea behind these food films? “I just thought there was an opportunity for a fun way to learn,” he says. “There’s so much boring stuff with the food celebrities and TV competitions, and there are some amazing artists and craftspeople. The passion people have is really impressive.” Did he become more of a foodie while doing the work? “I definitely learned a lot, and it was an eye-opener in terms of the world of chefs. The book was so intense and crazy – I didn’t have connections, I didn’t have any cred in that world. That was a challenge. And food people are impossible to get on email or phone; they’re always working and don’t sit behind a desk and answer emails. It was so hard. But learning is fun, and I try to show that through my work – I like people to learn when they watch these films, but in a fun way.”