I know I have a different perspective on watching Interface because I worked on it. Interface when we made it, was an exercise in low budget, quality filmmaking. We put the money on the screen, so to speak in filmmaker terms-had high production value.
This film was made by a college film production department, University of Texas at Arlington(UTA). Keeping that in mind it deserves a big congratulation. It was not very easy in this year to pull something like this off. It would be fun to look it up and see how many other colleges in the 80's did this, if any.
When I watch it I see my family's Family room furniture and lamp being used in the scene of Rex Hobson's Living room. I see that the day I had to do makeup by myself I put too much blush on the Boley character. I like seeing myself and my bro in bit parts.
Over the years watching it has changed. back when I first saw it I was so close to it I could not see it as objectively. I lent my cast/crew VHS copy to someone and they never returned it. So over a decade passes and I buy a copy off the internet. I watched it around the year 2002 and I liked it quite a bit.
I watched it again this year and what jumped out at me was the good camera work so often in it. One of the cameramen Roger Pistole still does camera work around the world. I watched it with a friend who also does film work and he gave the credit to the other cameraman Leighton McWilliams but I cannot recall who did what.
Little things we had access to we used which is something that was popular for DIY filmmakers a half generation later like Rodriguez. We did it first and every low budget filmmaker before us has done similar things like using the Studebaker we had access to.
Yes, in this time period with armchair critics bursting at the seems it is criticized and rightly so in many ways. However comparing what we were able to do for so little money using sets on the UTA campus using well trained actors for the main parts and all kinds of folks for the bit parts it was a hell of a good production! Although they don't mention it (I looked again and Lane does list this movie on her IMDb page now!)because time has eclipsed it's good aspects, it was the entry point for both Lou Diamond Phillips and Lauren Lane (C.C. Babcock on The Nanny) launching into acting careers.
