2021 Interviews by Elements of Madness - Dailymotion

Elements of Madness

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00:00Hello, everyone. I'm here for one of my stories, and this is Lindsay Dunn. I'm pleased today to be

00:06talking to Theo Reese and Joss Holden Rhea. They are the creators of the bittersweet and

00:14darkly humorous short, Stuffed, which just had its North American debut at South by Southwest

00:212021. And obviously, I'm not the only one who liked it because it won a special jury prize for

00:27Bold Vision in the Midnight Shorts category. Theo and Joss, welcome, and thanks for joining me today.

00:35Thanks so much. Lovely to be here. And again, we really appreciate your background.

00:42We said it off pod, but yeah, it's really great, and we love it. Yeah, all my experience with

00:47taxidermy, I was just picking apart, you know, just making sure you guys had captured it correctly,

00:53and congratulations. You did a pretty good job. Could one of you give us a pitch of Stuffed for

01:01people who haven't seen it yet? Sure. Stuffed is a short musical film about a taxidermist looking for

01:07a human to stuff and a man she finds online who wants to be turned into taxidermy. And it's a kind

01:15of, it's a musical. It's a love story. Lots of people keep calling it horror, which we never

01:22really thought it was. But it's, I think it's a very dark, a dark love story. But at the heart of it

01:29is a love story. Yeah, we can say it's macabre. It's macabre. Maybe it's not horror. It's a macabre.

01:37It's not, yeah. I think it's a kind of... Yeah, that's much better than horror. Yeah. It's a strange

01:41one, horror, because I think that, and I suppose this is the nature of, you know, putting things in

01:46such specific genres. But, you know, as soon as you say horror, I think you have a very particular

01:51image in your head of what horror is. And I don't think it subscribes to that, somehow.

01:58It was a shock for us. The first time it was premiered, which was at London Short Film Festival,

02:03when it was categorised as a horror, we both kind of looked at each other and were like,

02:07really? And obviously, in hindsight, I can understand. But, yeah, it just kind of never

02:13really intended for it to be that. I'd love to know how you guys started working together.

02:20So we went, we kind of met at university. We didn't go to the same university, but it was

02:25a university in the same town. And we met, yeah, we met because we bonded over kind of

02:34a mutual love of musicals, which I think in the circles where we were moving in and still

02:40are moving in and probably will move for the rest of our lives. Musicals aren't a particularly

02:43cool thing. And I think when we found each other, it was a bit like, oh, hey, we both like

02:50this thing. We want to make, maybe we should make something together. What I should say

02:54is actually the film Stuffed is kind of like a, it's basically about me and Joss, to misunderstood

03:01people that the world doesn't understand because they like musicals, coming together and finding

03:06each other and realising that they've got a common connection over a love of musicals.

03:11Not consciously, but yeah, maybe. Yeah. And so, but we've, we've worked together on lots

03:19of kind of smaller things as in like Theo is a director and I'm a composer. This is something

03:24we wrote together, Stuffed, but we've worked together sort of like in different professional

03:30capacities. And this is kind of the first, the first kind of passion project of ours that

03:35we kind of got off the ground, really.

03:37Well, Theo, I actually spent a little time, well, I was looking up stuff about both of you

03:41guys trying to prepare for this interview. And I found some of your, I found your websites

03:46and I enjoyed looking at some of your earlier work, Strange Boy Brooding and Alternative Life

03:54and the Cabousier. So it was, it was really fun. And I was like, cause I'm trying to figure,

04:00you know, see your themes and be like, okay, what are these guys into? And it all, there was

04:05a lot of it. I noticed just alienated characters that feel like they don't quite fit in.

04:11So would you say that's something that's really important to you in portraying and through film?

04:17Yeah, I, I think it, I think it is. I think it's a strange one where you, um, it's, it's only,

04:22it's interesting when you look back at a body of your work and you look back at a few years

04:27of work that you do start to see those themes because at the time they're kind of subconscious

04:31and you, you just make things about what interests you kind of naturally. But it is interesting kind

04:37of looking back now and, and realizing that I've kind of, I think I'm always drawn to kind of

04:42slightly lost characters who, um, who may be a kind of a bit misunderstood within society.

04:48And so I think that that has become, you know, in realizing that that has become sort of important.

04:53I think I really like, um, small town England. That's where I feel like most of what I've been

05:01making kind of lies, small town lost England. Um, and that's very much where stuff right from the

05:07beginning. You know, I wanted to, I grew up in Gloucestershire, which is in the countryside in the UK.

05:12And, um, and it was kind of always, I thought of it set in Gloucestershire in a kind of, um,

05:20house that, you know, no one goes, dares goes near down the bottom of a country lane. You know,

05:26it's that kind of world in small lost England, I think. But yeah, it's, it's definitely, um,

05:32it's, and it's interesting to, it's nice to hear you say that as well after looking at my work,

05:35but I think it's always a peculiar thing to actually find those patterns within your own work

05:41and them. What, what is your approach to songwriting? And, and I don't want to assume

05:47who did what, um, you guys worked together, but I know you're given credit, you're both given

05:53credit as writers. So I'm not sure if you wrote the songs together or if you, if it means that one

06:01of you did this screenplay and one of you did the song lyrics. So can you talk us through that

06:05about how you guys approached the writing? Well, we did, um, it's like, we kind of outlined

06:14it together. We kind of like wrote it together, like wrote the story and kind of like plotted it

06:18out together. And, um, and then we kind of went into our separate roles. So I wrote all the music

06:23and lyrics and Theo kind of directed the project. Um, yeah, so we kind of like, we started together

06:29and then we went off into our individual roles. I think something that was really interesting

06:32about this project, as far as like lyrics go, is that, um, there's this, like, there's a really

06:38nice kind of world, like lyrical world to play with. And it was really fun, for example, like in

06:43that, um, in the kind of scene where they discuss how they're going to do it. It's kind of like,

06:49like an interesting research project to like, look up how like taxidermy actually works and like work

06:54out what words rhyme with like tanning oil and, and what, and what other words like lice oil,

07:01which like rhymes with that that is also used in the process. And I think that's always generally

07:06better when you have some kind of like specific world that you can kind of like rally around for

07:11lyric writing. And, um, that was my favorite lyrics and musicals and songs in general, when they're

07:17like specific and they're not too general. Um, but yeah, but the process was that we, um, we outlined

07:25everything and then I went away and wrote all the songs and it kind of existed as a, um,

07:33just like one long track of me doing both characters, um, me singing both characters and

07:39then we sort of reported it off of that. And, um, I wrote a screenplay to that, wrote a screenplay

07:48to the, to the songs and built, and built that out, which I think is a kind of, is it as a backwards

07:54process, but I should explain that like when we started making this project, we had, we actually

08:00had another film on the go that we were planning to make and we were trying to sort of just find

08:05funding for, and this was, this was very much when we first started writing this, it was like,

08:10Hey, we haven't made anything in a while. We should just sit down. We should make something.

08:13We should do a day. Um, we should do, we should do like two weeks of, of, of writing and then

08:21two weeks of shooting, you know, and just make the whole thing in a, um, it was very much just

08:25a test project. So I think we went about it in a different way to, to how we would approach a

08:31project again. You know, I think normally, I think going forward, it would be something where we would,

08:37um, work to, to write out a bit more of a script before kind of plotting in the songs. Um,

08:42but it worked for us. And so do you write the lyrics or the melodies first, or is it,

08:48is it not the same every time, Joss? Uh, I think at the start of the process, it, it depends on,

08:57it depends. I think, um, normally it's kind of at the same time, but I think it's, it's a nice thing

09:02with like a musical, uh, even over like the course of our, like, you know, 15, 16 minutes of music

09:06that's in it. I'm sorry. Um, even over the course of like the 16 minutes that's in it, it becomes

09:11like a rolling stone, which starts to like help write itself in a way, because like, it's very

09:16difficult at the start to like know where to begin, whether you should start with a lyric or

09:20start with, I always try and start with them at the same time, because then I think you end up with

09:23something that feels, um, feels more natural in a way, like, uh, because I think you can sometimes

09:31tell when you listen to a piece of music, if like, um, it's a lyric, a lyric that existed that, that

09:37has then been set to music because there's something slightly less kind of, um, real about

09:42the intonation of that. But, you know, if you sit down and you play and you sing at the same time,

09:46then it's going to naturally kind of be in a more natural intonation. But anyway, but, but I think

09:50because you sort of like build themes as you go along and you kind of come up with melodies,

09:55um, it can then sort of like help to sort of start to write itself. So like a lot of this,

10:00you'll hear, like if you listen to it, it's really only like a very small amount of music,

10:05um, that actually exists in it. And then that music is just kind of like done in different ways

10:11as it goes on, basically. Um, so there's like certain themes for this, there's like a theme they

10:18sing when they're kind of like, whenever like they're contemplating the nature of death,

10:22if that doesn't sound like the most pretentious thing anyone's ever said, um, which is like

10:26nothing survives the case. So that was always there when, when that happens. And then there's

10:31Bernie has his own theme as well for when he talks about aging. And so every time Bernie

10:35talks about aging, we get a similar kind of that theme will come back. Um, and so, yeah,

10:40it's very, um, laborious at the start, but then I think what's nice about working on a project

10:45like this, it's that like, it then becomes like a rolling stone that you can, it just

10:50kind of helps write itself really. Um,

10:52How did you guys approach casting? Did you have a certain look you were going for,

10:56or how did you find your two leads? Cause they're both fabulous.

11:00Yeah, we were unbelievably lucky with, with both of them. I think right from the beginning,

11:04when we wrote the characters, um, I knew Anthony who played Bernie from when I used to do,

11:13uh, amateur dramatics when I was a little boy and, um, he has this amazing voice and I remember

11:20seeing him like we, I think we were in a show, the Car Show Fall, which is a, um, a musical that I

11:26should stop telling everyone that I was in. But, um, there's an incredible song at the end of,

11:31at the end of that musical, which is called I Am What I Am. And it's really moving and very

11:37vulnerable song that sort of takes someone from being incredibly vulnerable to incredibly empowered.

11:43And he played that character and did, did that song. And at the time, I just remember it being

11:48so powerful because of his performance and like the vulnerability in his voice.

11:53And so when we, when we first sort of started casting, I was like, actually, I think Anthony

11:56would be perfect for this, which was then really lovely because he was free and we wanted to shoot

12:01it in Gloucestershire where he's from. So there was this really nice connection there.

12:05And with sort of with him in place, then, um, we kind of knew what we wanted from, from Alison.

12:14Um, but we would, you know, the whole project for us was made on nothing. We had no money.

12:19So it really was, you know, we couldn't find a casting director to come on board or anything.

12:24So there's a website in the UK called Mandy, which you may have in America as well, which is a casting

12:29website. And I just tooled through everyone from the age, I think the playing age of 35 to 55.

12:37And, um, just to give myself some kind of boundary because it's hundreds and hundreds of people.

12:43And, um, and I found Alison and, and she was just incredible and perfect and immediately

12:49really got the project and was in love with the songs and the whole story, which is great because

12:55I actually, there was like, it was a kind of funny process, but I had lots of people, um,

12:59that I originally reached out to. I had a couple reply back to me who were totally appalled that we

13:05were doing this, this film and really like upset by the nature of the story. And, and, you know,

13:11the film has a reference point of this, um, the story of the German cannibal. And I've mentioned that

13:17in the email to them and they were like, that is absolutely appalling. It's way too soon to be,

13:22you know, even referencing that. And this happened like 15 years ago, 20 years ago.

13:27I just, um, yes, it's kind of fascinating, but also make, makes you kind of at the time

13:32makes you think, oh, okay, maybe we're, maybe this could, this is onto something. If you know,

13:36you're getting these immediate responses from people, that's kind of fun.

13:39I think, and I think with just to build on what you were saying about Anthony and Alison,

13:42the actors in it, like, I think they, um, they like the characters just are really like from them.

13:48I think it's, it's, it would be very like easy for us to sort of like claim it and be like,

13:54we wrote these characters and then they, they filled it. But I think they very much kind of

13:57came from them. And like, for example, I think with, with Anthony's voice, um, he has an amazing voice.

14:04It's fantastic. Um, it has an amazing range and amazing tone, but it kind of like,

14:10is a little bit untrained maybe, or definitely is kind of, he has been trained, but it's kind of lost it.

14:14So he kind of like has this kind of vibrato that is kind of a bit like unnatural when you wouldn't

14:20really hear if you like, or you, uh, music kind of a music coach, like a vocal coach would probably

14:25iron out. But I think that gives his character like this weird vulnerability where he kind of

14:30like, it's slightly uncontrolled voice and it makes him, it brings so much to the character.

14:35And then I think on the other side, like Alison, Alison's voice was kind of a surprise,

14:39a surprise when we heard it. Um, because I think naturally when you write that sort of character,

14:44you think about like Mrs. Lovett or, uh, the mom from Tangled or whatever. And you think about

14:51these kind of like raspy, um, kind of like raspy kind of like witchy characters. But the truth is,

14:58is that like, but then Alison came and, and her voice is like so pure and sweet and, um, and soaring.

15:04And I think it just kind of brought so much to the character that wasn't really there until Alison,

15:10Alison started singing it really. When Bernie arrives at the house and he's,

15:14he's just checked in and he's in his room kind of, you know, thinking about if he's going to go

15:21through this, with this or not. And the, one of the stills from the film is him sort of

15:27like hugging himself in this very awkward way with his arm. Um, and he looks like he's in,

15:33he's in pain. And through the movie and the, in the lyrics, we get to know that he's afraid of

15:39aging and not leaving anything behind. But when I saw that as someone that often suffers with

15:46physical pain, I, I wondered if Bernie perhaps suffers with some unspoken physical pain that

15:52you put in that shot, or is that something I'm just reading into it?

15:57I really love that you've brought up that shot because it's my, my, one of my favorites in the

16:03film. Um, but it's not, it's not directly linked to him having physical pain, or I should, I should

16:09say, perhaps it is. I mean, we're in a short, you know, in a, in a, in a short film, you, you can't,

16:15you can't possibly delve into backstory. And so I think that there's a like that maybe lots of people

16:21have different visions to what his backstory could have been. And I like that that is potentially one

16:26of them. I think it wasn't necessarily meant for that. I think that what we tried to get with that

16:32was a, is a kind of uncomfortable, angular, um, tenseness from, from him. Um, I think particularly

16:43in that moment, trying to sort of show that very physically in a, um, whilst he was singing,

16:51I think was, is a kind of difficult thing. So we, we worked on him just being incredibly tense on

16:57his body. And, and, um, so to, to really show that kind of the difficulty that he was going

17:02through in a very physical sense, but I, yeah, I don't, it wasn't, it wasn't a direct, we hadn't written

17:07that as a, as a, as a thing. But I think that there's a, there is a whole host of reasons for

17:13why this character might be there. And I think they're all much deeper than wanting to be

17:21specifically turned into taxidermy. I think there are much, much deeper reasons.

17:26Yeah. It's definitely not conscious, but I think we found like we've been fleshing out this story a bit

17:32in our own minds and sort of maybe trying to think about it on, as a, a lot, a more long form

17:38project in some capacity. And that process has been us sitting down and actually being like,

17:43why do these characters want to do this? You know, cause the short doesn't really explain what,

17:46really why or how these characters got to this place. And so like, it's been the last kind of

17:50couple of months we've been talking a lot, me and Theo, about like potentially why these characters

17:55feel like this. And yeah. And like Bernie's like physical pain is definitely something that has come

18:00up a lot, like him feeling uncomfortable and in pain and definitely wasn't a conscious thing when we

18:06wrote the character, but it's definitely something that kind of definitely has come out of it. And I

18:12think generally like this whole self by selfless experience has been like a lot of people have

18:16said kind of, because it's so ambiguous, like a lot of the, their character, their characters are

18:22quite ambiguous, ambiguous. And a lot of people have said a lot of like interesting stuff about like,

18:27oh, did you mean this? And, and it's, it's really nice to hear because it's stuff that we haven't

18:32thought about. But now when we rethink about these characters, we can like, it's like a team effort

18:37building these characters. And it's really nice to be able to put something out into the world

18:40and then have, have other people like yourself tell you what they think of the characters. And

18:45that that is as valid as anything we might say about them. Like we, I don't know, we don't have any more

18:52like, um, we, we, we, we can't write a character better than anyone else. So it's really nice to

18:57kind of like almost crowdsource like ideas or for like how people see these characters.

19:02Um, I think that there was definitely in the original story, which, you know, as I mentioned,

19:08this, the, um, this was inspired by a true story of a German cannibal, Armin Muse,

19:15who found someone online that wants to be eaten. And I think that when I, I had first heard that

19:19story when I was like 13 and there was just so much to unpack in that. And, and, and the,

19:24but the major thing is why someone would, for me at 13 was why someone would, would want to,

19:32to die and to be in this, this position as in to, to want to die and want to be eaten.

19:38And I think that that's where the, the root of like, what was exciting to sort of think about

19:42his character is why was someone in so much pain in their real life, whether physical or emotional,

19:50um, to want to be put in this position. And so I think that, yeah, this, it's a, that, yeah, that for

19:57me is the, is the really interesting part of it. The house itself is a mishmash of kind of elegant

20:04old world decoration with its curtains, wallpaper, and the brocade frames,

20:09and decay with peeling wallpaper. Um, I know you've mentioned that you found the house,

20:16you know, in a place that you grew up, was that the natural state of the house,

20:20or did you have to create that look with your production designer?

20:25We, we, the natural state of the house was completely dilapidated. So we actually had to

20:31rebuild some parts of it. Um, it was a mixture of, of, in some cases, rebuilding the wallpaper,

20:37which had kind of completely fallen down. And then, um, there was also, there were surfaces in

20:43there, which we then dirted down and, and sort of texturized to make darker, because I think that

20:49there were some walls that were just too white. So it was a real mixture, but what was great is that

20:55we weren't just working from nothing, you know, because I think that's the hardest thing is when

20:59you're just, when you're working from like, um, a modern house with nice white walls. It's just very

21:06difficult to actually, without lots of money and lots of time, to actually build anything that feels

21:11realistic. So I think that that's what we started from, you know, having a really, really good basis

21:17and some amazing textures. And then through, through photographs of that, we kind of built up

21:22the, the color palettes and the design around that.

21:24Well, where will people be able to see stuff after it's removed from the festival website?

21:30If people are like, we really want to see it.

21:33I hope people are. Um, it's going to be immediately, I think, in the next week,

21:38it's going to be online with, uh, Mailchimp. So it's Mailchimp support the shorts.

21:44So people should be able to watch it almost immediately. And then it's going to be on

21:48shorts of the week. And I believe it's going to be on another platform called Ulta.

21:53Um, and I'm hoping also at a festival near you soon.

22:01If people want to keep up with those kinds of updates about where they can view the film,

22:05is that something, what, where would you recommend people?

22:10Is there a place we can follow you or what do you recommend?

22:13Yeah. You can follow our Instagram, which is stuffed underscore film.

22:18That's the easiest way. And then Joss and I will be tweeting about it and posting about it.

22:23So you can follow one of Joss's around Twitter as well.

22:27I've heard a rumor that stuffed may be a feature length film in the future.

22:32Uh, what can you, or would you like to tell us about how you might like to expand the story?

22:38I know you sort of alluded to it already.

22:40They don't really exist.

22:42What, Joss? I'm sorry. I interrupted you.

22:44Oh, no, I was going to say we started those rumors just for our own egos.

22:47It's not really a thing.

22:50No, we are, we think we're thinking about, we're thinking, we're talking about a lot at the moment.

22:54And I think there's lots of avenues that if we did make it into a longer form thing that it could go down.

23:00And it's just kind of, you know, as I was saying about like gauging audience reactions,

23:05a lot of South by Southwest for us has been like working out what are the things that people like about it?

23:10What are the things that people would like to see more of?

23:13Because it's, you know, it's, it's such a small self-contained story.

23:17There's so many options of what you could do.

23:20And so many directions we could take it in.

23:21And it also has like a few different tones in it.

23:23And we kind of just trying to work out, we're just writing it at the moment.

23:26We're trying to work out what, what is the best kind of avenue to go down.

23:30And South by Southwest has been like an unbelievable, unbelievably useful experience

23:34for like gauging, gauging what direction we should take it in for sure.

23:39I think we've learned over the last week so much about the film

23:42and so much about the characters, which is great because you do, you make something

23:46and it's so self-contained, you know, you're, you're so focused on it.

23:50And it's only through this conversation, including this conversation with you, that you, you learn

23:55so much about what people see and actually through, you know, us talking about it as well.

24:00And having questions asked, you kind of, you, you find that you know more than you think.

24:06But I think with the, the feature it's, it's maybe trying to, I think at the moment we're

24:11focusing it slightly more on Bernie's beginnings to, to the, at the start, because that's obviously

24:19that's the, one of the hardest things to understand within the whole project is, is where that kind

24:26of comes from.

24:27Sorry, is there something, sorry, is there another noise coming?

24:31But, um, uh, I think the other thing to say is that, that shorts are, um, or the musicals,

24:39what a lot to say on, you know, musical films and how musical films are kind of often full

24:45flat and, and just don't really work.

24:47And so I think the most important thing for us is trying to find a tone that works in a longer piece

24:53that feels different and, and, and that kind of, we think works in, in terms of, um, a musical,

25:00because I think that there are, there are just lots of mistakes with feature length musicals.

25:05Well, I think, I think, yeah, I think the tough thing, the tough thing is, is finding a form that

25:09really works like, yeah, finding a musical that specifically works for film, because, you know,

25:14you know, musicals is a tradition that comes from the theater and that's, you know, and there's

25:18a reason it's because it's a very hard thing to write and it like, um, and it needs to be devised

25:22and have a lot of warden's reaction.

25:24But like a lot of films that you see, they're either kind of like adaptations of, normally

25:28adaptations of stage musicals.

25:30And that structurally is a very different thing, even just like, for example, like most films

25:35being like over three acts, but musicals are very like solidly two acts and like the kind

25:39of song placement in them and how the stories are told are like very much like, um,

25:45like blueprinted to the idea that like you need to like leave an audience feeling a certain thing

25:49when they go off to the get their ice cream in the break and how they need to feel when they come

25:54back.

25:55Um, and also on like a really like small level as well, like I've said this before, but like

26:01I think lyric writing, um, is very governed by like the kind of like this, the space in a theater.

26:09Because for example, like when you kind of like study lyric writing, or you study like

26:13lyric writing in theater, it's very like utilitarian about like, no, oh, you know, if you want to make

26:18an audience member at the back of the theater hear a certain line, it needs to be on a certain

26:23type of rhyme and a certain kind of type of like, um, like lyrical structure.

26:29Um, and film has this like freedom that we can have, like, yeah, we have, we don't have to do

26:34that kind of stuff.

26:35And, and as Theo said, a lot of film musicals fall flat because, because they're like, they're

26:40made for theater and it's like, it just doesn't really often translate.

26:44And there are obviously fantastic examples of film musicals that really, really do work

26:49and are brilliant.

26:50Um, but we're just trying to work out what we want to, what we want to do with that,

26:54how we want to kind of try and, cause it's kind of like an open playing field.

26:57There isn't been a huge amount of like fantastic specifically made for film musicals.

27:02And so the world's our oyster. So we just need to work out what we want to do with it really.

27:06Okay. Well, that is all the questions I have for you guys today.

27:11Theo and Joss, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me.

27:16Thanks so much. Lovely to meet you.

27:19See you later.

27:20Bye.

27:21Bye.

A Conversation with “Stuffed” co-creators Theo Rhys and Joss Holden-Rea.

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