Gor Kirakosian: Big Story in a Small City
by Paul Chaderjian GLENDALE, Calif. – Like all filmmakers, Gor Kirakosian has to control the choreography inside each frame. At 30 frames per second, the discipline of controlling every detail captured with the lens of a high-definition camera sometimes spills out of the frame and into real life. At one of Glendale’s most popular Armenian hangouts, the all-American Conrad’s diner where we meet for our second interview, Kirakosian tells the aging Vietnamese waitress that he wants a green salad, finely chopped and evenly tossed with ranch dressing. “You really know what you want,” she says, and she’s right; Kirakosian wants to make people laugh. How a salad is tossed to please the palate of a comedy filmmaker may seem like a trivial detail to ponder, but making his first feature, Big Story in a Small City, Kirakosian has had to think about the most hard-to-please audiences by being precise about everything, including directing the waitress during an interview to p...