"The Lazarus Effect" film by (RED), HBO and Anonymous Content, directed by Lance Bangs and executive produced by Spike Jonze, follows the story of people who go from near death to health thanks to access to treatment. The film premieres on May 24th on HBO at 9pmET/8c, YouTube and Channel 4 in the UK. We asked Spike some questions about his involvement in the project.

How did you start to work with Lance Bangs [director of "The Lazarus Effect"]?
I met Lance on a Lollapalooza tour. Sonic Youth was out and maybe Pavement. I went on a few stops and kept seeing Lance there. One night Thurston Moore from Sonic Youth asked me to shoot their concert on his home VHS camcorder. So I ended up shooting a few shows and he asked me to edit together. I saw Lance carrying around a Super 8 camera so I asked him for some of his footage. He sent me all his Sonic Youth footage and on it was all this other amazing Super 8 footage. Just like his personal stuff that he shot. We ended up using some of that for the Sonic Youth video and we just got to know each other through that. That was like 15 years ago and we've been working together ever since. We worked on a Maurice Sendak documentary ["Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak"] last year and different things like that.

How did you and Lance get involved in "The Lazarus Effect"?
I know (RED) through Girl Skateboards and I really like what they're doing and that they're having an impact, but I didn't fully understand the impact they were having and that they were saving people's lives through these drugs. Sheila Roche from (RED) had shown me photos of the transformation that took place when people had access to antiretroviral medicine. I didn't realize that something so radical was already taking place. It was pretty mind blowing. I kind of thought that people had AIDS and then they died. Sheila asked me to go to Africa to shoot a documentary about it, but I couldn't go because I was in the last few months of working on "Where the Wild Things Are." So I suggested Lance.

How much time did Lance spend in Africa?
Lance went there three times and every time he came back he had more intense stories of seeing people's lives being ravaged by the disease. He'd meet people who were just skin and bones with no energy and he'd go back two months later and they'd be like riding a bike. He'd go back again and they'd be getting their lives back. You could tell it was a really emotional thing to see. And that's what the film is, basically a portrait of these people's lives over these months.

Finally, is there anything you want to say to Mike Carroll?
Yeah, why did you flake out on Sunday? I thought we were supposed to go skating. He had to go buy tiles or something. Actually Rick [Howard] flaked too. I had to skate by myself.