Inside the Sundance Labs: Elgin James, Gang Leader Turned Sundance Filmmaker

If you've got any notion of a "typical" Sundance filmmaker, Elgin James ain't it. Raised on a farm by Quakers, he eventually found himself drawn into gang violence, and after a fight that left him brain-damaged and homeless he founded the street gang FSU, which robbed drug dealers to finance straight-edge propaganda. Eventually, the film-crazy James ended up in Hollywood, and he's just finished a series of programs at the Sundance Labs where he workshopped the feature he's about to shoot, Goodnight Moon (starring Alia Shawkat and Juno Temple). Movieline talked to the filmmaker about becoming a Sundance fellow and what it taught him about flashy camera moves and, in his words, "being able to fucking do it."