In late June, film director Larry Clark participated in a journalist conference call to promote his latest film "Wassup Rockers."

What is it that inspires you to keep making youth oriented films?
Larry Clark-Well I think it's really an important time in our lives. Things that happen to us at that age in a lot of ways dictate what we are going to be like as adults. It's when we are forming and being formed. And it's interesting for me. I started making work about my friends when I was a teenager I photographed them over a ten year period it and sort of became visual anthropology. And then I did my first book Tulsa many years ago in 1971. It was a book about my youth. It's kind of a bottomless well of inspiration for me. It's interesting how different people are raised in different environments. It's pretty simple that way. Plus it's my territory now and it's kind of my turf and I've been doing it for a long time and people like the work and if someone else did it I wouldn't have to do it. If someone else did it better then I would stop it.

What makes you interested in skate culture?
Larry Clark-Well I'm a visual artist. I've been a visual artist for over 40 years and visually it's exciting to watch and when I first decided I wanted to make a film about contemporary teenagers and found out what was going on when I made my first film Kids I was drawn to the skateboarding culture because I thought it was the most interesting visually plus it seemed that grown ups thought of skateboarders as outlaws and were afraid of them and the cops didn't like them because the kids had so much freedom and they couldn't deal with the kids having that kind of freedom. Plus, I started skateboarding myself when I was like 45 years old and that wasn't the easiest thing.

When making a film like Wassup Rockers how important was it choosing the music for the soundtrack?
Larry Clark-It was really important because there is this big resurgence of Latino Punk rock. My first thought was making this film in South Central was that it would be a hip-hop soundtrack music and I was going to use the real street corner hip-hop because I found that some of the best hip-hop is kids making it up themselves. And I knew that there would be a lot of people doing hip-hop in South Central but these kids were into punk rock and there were all these Latino punk rock bands I didn't know about and there is a big resurgence of Latino Punk Rock all over the world I discovered but these kids would go to these gigs, which is a back yard party, like in Compton it would be in someone's back yard and you pay like $2 to get in and all these neighborhood Latino punk bands come in and all the kids come all punked out and the girls in black and black lipstick they just have the most fun. Bands save their money and go to a studio and make a little homemade CD of a few of there songs and there would be copies and to cut to the chase so when we were driving around these kids would have homemade CD's and compilation CD's and we would listen to it constantly. I really like punk rock so I wanted that to be the music. The music is so important it really drives the film and its just like unpublished garage bands, neighborhood bands.

Related Links-
http://www.wassuprockers.net/
http://www.larryclarkofficialwebsite.com/
Wassup Rockers Review

Larry Clark interview copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, and Thabiz.com 2006
Dorrie Williams-Wheeler is the author of Be My Sorority Sister Under Pressure and the Unplanned Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students. She is the founder of Thabiz.com and Imissthe80s.com and writes for the Rap, Teen, and 1980s section at Bellaonline.com. She is an ASCAP member as a writer and a publisher. Please contact Dorrie for advertising inquiries, lyric writing inquiries, reprint rights, paying entertainment jobs, or general comments.
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Larry Clark interview may not be reprinted, copied or distribute without permission. You may link to this interview.Interview copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, thabiz.com July 2006.