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The Christopher Guest-led improv comedy squad has tackled seemingly every other form of entertainment in their past films with a cult following (A Mighty Wind, Best in Show, Spinal Tap etc...) --music, talent shows, dog shows--you’ve got to wonder what took them so long to get around to satirizing Hollywood.

Their latest film, For Your Consideration (opening Friday), chronicles the making of Home for Purim, an inexplicably bad movie that somehow generates Oscar buzz on the Internet. As the characters start believing their own hype, they spring to life in typically outrageous fashion.

Much of the film relies on the individual improvisation skills, but the men in charge are writer/director Christopher Guest and co-writer Eugene Levy, so CraveOnline grilled them on their process.

CraveOnline: Chris, when you had the idea of doing this film, did you ever consider doing it in the documentary format like the others?

Christopher Guest: Nope.  We thought we had done the films in one format and it was time to try something new and we did.

CraveOnline: Now that it’s done, how do you feel about it?

Christopher Guest:  I've worked on this for two years.  It's a long haul and you look at a movie when you finish it and at some point, you have to say, “Okay, that's kind of it.” I'd say for the most part, I like the film, but I always feel that even after finishing a movie that it's a work in progress that you don't get to finish.  Because you change as a person and you look back on a film and you think about what would have happened if it was different.  But in general, I would say the main feeling would be satisfied, especially with the end of the movie, I would say because we were very much committed to showing the bad side of this and the serious side really, unfortunately, the tragedy of what happens to Catherine's character. There are plenty things in the movie, I hope that people would like that but I think we really both felt at the end, we didn't want to pull punches because this is tragic, I guess at the end.

Eugene Levy:  It's hard to tell sometimes what you have when you see the final product until you see it with an audience.  It was the same way with Waiting For Guffman which is you're on it so long, Chris is on it for so long, and you're looking at cuts and looking, looking and you're really seeing what is not working and then you put it before an audience and WOW.  The screening at Toronto Film Festival for Guffman was amazing.  It's one of those nights you'll never forget.  Laughs just started right off the top and just kind of cascaded through the whole movie and you're going, “Whoa, boy things are working that I had no idea.” So I understand that kind of unfinished product and that you're always looking at it as a work in progress thing, you'll still looking at it saying, “Ummm, if I had another day, Ummmm.”

Christopher Guest:  And the fact is I have really an unlimited amount of time which is different from a conventional movie.  I'm fortunate enough to have this situation at Castle Rock where this movie doesn't start with a release date and then work back.  I shoot these movies in 27 days which is much less than a regular movie which could be 80 or 100 days or whatever, and then I edit for nearly a year.  But they say when the movie is finished, the movie is finished.  This is not a Christmas thing. These are small films but because they're small, I get to control all the elements in them.  That's what's important to me.

CraveOnline: When you write something about Hollywood, do you ever write something that's so accurately depicts the industry but that you don't think the general public is going to buy that it really is this way?

Christopher Guest:  Well this is toned down. You're in the business.  We've both had things happen in our lives and in show business that are so much more bizarre, so much worse on some levels, that if we show those things no one would believe them, or think they were funny.  It's extraordinary.  So what's in the movie is a balancing act between trying to find something funny but accurate as well.

Eugene Levy:  We kind of rounded the edges here.  If you're trying to portray a more kind of accurate slant on the business, then you're dealing with times of nastiness that sometimes aren't necessarily funny and we're trying to keep our characters kind of on the funny side.

Christopher Guest:  And I can only speak for the two of us because we have this discussion all the time. It's more fun playing people that aren't competent and are stupid, than funny.  Because if you're doing a comedy and everyone is doing something correctly, then there is no comedy.  Laurel and Hardy bring in a piano and nothing happens.  Here's your piano.  Thank you.  Having said that, I've been in interviews with journalists where a woman showed up dressed as a dog to interview me. I think if I showed that in the movie, it would seem a very bad joke and not very well written.  But this actually happened.

Eugene Levy:  It was for a Best In Show junket.

Christopher Guest:  So I sat there and the woman in full suit with whiskers and ears and you say, “What am I supposed to do, what am I supposed to say?” And that's just the tip of the iceberg, actually.  There are things much sadder than that.

CraveOnline: When you have so much improvised, how much of the original structure of the film remains?

Christopher Guest:  It's all there.  You can't go off that.  A film that's done in this way, and there's not many people making movies like this, you have to have a very strict outline.  We have back histories on all the actors, everything they've done in their lives, their resumes essentially.  You have a 1st, 2nd and 3rd act, an epilogue and do 110 cards on a board that delineate every single scene.  You can't move away from that because where are you going?  We know what has to happen and within that structure, they improvise.

Eugene Levy:  And every single scene, every piece of information is in the outline that has to come out.  How the actors do it is up to them.  The improvising, honestly in these movies, is the delicious icing on the cake but the cake is fully baked in the office.  We know what it is, the shape of it, the flavor of it, and everything else.  But the magical part is what the actors do.

Christopher Guest:  It's this very difficult thing to describe and I've been trying to do that since we did Spinal Tap 20 years ago, but it's very hard to articulate how this is done and I always compare it to playing music or jazz. You always have to play it in the same key.  And it's not a random slug fest where people are just playing music at the same time.  You have to listen to other people and it takes great skill.  And there are not many other people who can do this.  That's why these actors are in these movies.  This is very specific. This isn't who I can get, these are the people to get. Period!

CraveOnline: Has there ever been a subject matter you wanted to tackle and it just didn't work out?

Christopher Guest:  We talked originally about doing a political movie in a small town election.  Then there was a movie being made in a similar area.

CraveOnline: When you are writing the script, how do you choose the parts you'll play?

Eugene Levy:  Certainly with Waiting for Guffman, the idea came with the character Chris wanted to do fortunately.  And Best In Show, you create these characters that just seem right for certain people.  You know when they seem right for you and I think Chris, you had a good idea with Best In Show, the kind of character you wanted, when we were going through the bloodhound.  Maybe it was the association with the bloodhound.

Christopher Guest:  Because I direct these movies, I tend to be alone in these movies it occurred to me recently which I never thought of consciously when I was doing them.  I think part of that is I'm so concentrated on directing during the day that I'm just this solitary figure.  It was true in Best of Show.

Eugene Levy:  And in Mighty Wind, we knew what we were doing and certainly Chris did because he did the Folksmen.  That was part of that thing.  And we needed an amalgam of folk groups like the New Christy Minstrels so we had the big group and then we wanted an Ian and Sylvia duo and I think we kind of pegged me and Catherine from that.  

Christopher Guest: When we have the concept of the story then we write the parts for the actors. They're not generic parts. They're very much written for Fred, Jane, and Catherine is the central figure in this movie.

CraveOnline: What’s the best part of editing?

Christopher Guest: Lunch is unbelievable. It's a break in the day. It's a long process. Fun is not the right word. I worked with Robert Leighton, who's a great editor. He's done several films with me. We talk a lot and not just about the movie. We talk for hours about other things, politics, etc.

Eugene Levy: That's why it takes a year and a half.

Christopher Guest: It's interesting. It's stimulating more than fun.

CraveOnline: Is it painful to see a comic moment that you know has to go?

Christopher Guest: It isn't, because you have to be ruthless right from the beginning and say, “This is the story we are serving.” There always is going to be funny things which right away you know you can't get to them, it takes too long. Those scenes are generally on the DVD. If you lingered on that, you'd kill yourself. There are funny moments in a scene that just doesn't work and so you learn to pass on them.

CraveOnline: Will we be hearing from Spinal Tap anytime soon?

Christopher Guest: Who's we? I don't know. We were offered this gig this year. It's a huge thing to gear up to do these two-hour shows. It takes a lot of energy. Michael McKeon is doing a play in London. Harry is selling his book around the country. It's really hard to get together. I wouldn't say no for sure. I think we're going to go out next year and play some music but not as those people. As us.