00:00 - Thank you. Peter Gray from the AU Review in Australia. Hello, Bryce.
00:08 - Hey, what's up, man?
00:10 - Hello. I'll say congratulations on the film, first of all. Looking at your background,
00:17 like in writing and directing, obviously, short films predominantly, was there anything
00:23 specific about Night Swim that was like, "This is the one that I want to expand to a feature"?
00:30 - No, that's just the one that got expanded to a feature, homie. You keep making short
00:37 films because you hope that one of them gets across that impossible gauntlet of turning
00:40 into a feature with James Wan and Jason Blum and Universal Studios. And you're lucky.
00:44 - Very true, yeah.
00:45 - And then the strongest species survive, right? So you just keep, you have to keep
00:51 making stuff, keep making stuff, keep making stuff, get better at your job, get better
00:54 at your job. But then ultimately, it's the idea that wants to get made is the one that's
00:58 going to get made if you have enough persistence and patience to let that run its course. But
01:05 there was not like, "Oh yeah, The Whistler." Like, "No, no, no. No, not that one." It's
01:11 just that Night Swim was the idea that had a gravitational pull to it, and it brought
01:17 in the people that saw the potential of the concept and was excited by it the way that
01:23 I was excited by it, which was James Wan was the first person in that saw the show and
01:28 was like, "Fuck yeah, let's go. Let's do this."
01:31 - Yeah. Because I imagine a lot of people just assume that it's just about adding extra
01:38 content in. But obviously, do you sort of almost have to go to just the absolute base
01:46 level and then build the story back up?
01:48 - Yeah, for sure. Because there's no story in the short film. It's not, right? It's a
01:53 woman in a pool and she goes missing. There's a scary pool, and then there's an atmosphere,
02:01 and there's an environment, but there's no story. I literally had to completely throw
02:07 all of that away. I mean, what is this pool? What can it do? What does it want? Who are
02:14 the people that need it? What can it give them? What can it take from them? You've got
02:19 to ask all those big questions. I think I always feel like premise and character have
02:28 to be completely connected. Who are the characters that are going to go through the gauntlet
02:35 of this premise, which is a pool that can give and take and can do certain things to
02:41 them? And so who are the characters? Who's the family that can gain the most, that need
02:46 it the most badly? And then how is it going to test their loyalties and test what they
02:53 want and test where they find meaning and find happiness and what they're willing to
02:57 sacrifice and all of those things? But yeah, it just was kind of being like, "All right,
03:01 I've got this concept of the pool. Who are the characters that are going to change the
03:05 most and grow the most and be tormented the most by going through this concept?"
03:10 Yeah. No, I loved the lore that was created in this. And then one of the other things
03:16 I liked was Kerry Condon's character, Eve, she was smart. She was smart enough to start
03:21 leaving when shit hit the fan. But obviously she can't through circumstances, but the intent
03:28 is there. And I was wondering if this was happening to you, would you personally investigate
03:33 further or would you just be like, "I'm out. I see white people die in the movies all the
03:37 time. I'm done." I don't know. These white people really have
03:42 it coming. They just, they should know better. No, I think, yeah, it is interesting. If a
03:52 kid comes to you and says, "I saw this thing in the pool. I tried to grab me." It's hard
03:57 to know what to do with that because if you go out there and look and there's nothing
04:00 there and you have a younger and imaginative kid, like I have a kid, and I would really
04:07 want to take them seriously and I would investigate that. But at a certain point, do you really
04:12 move your whole family from a house because your youngest child said they saw something
04:18 and you have no other evidence to confirm that? Yeah.
04:22 And it's like, that's, I mean, especially for this family, think about that. All they've
04:26 done is move, move, move, move, move. And finally there's someone with the stability.
04:30 And I think there's an aspect of like, Carrie, Eve's character is definitely not stupid at
04:36 all, but there is this element of like, you just don't want to believe some bullshit like
04:42 that because of the implications for what it means for your family. People are going
04:47 to resist accepting that for as long as they can. And then at a certain point, she's like,
04:52 there's something wrong with the pool. We're getting out of here. And as you said, the
04:55 pool has more up its sleeve. It has more powers than we realize. But yeah, I don't know. I
05:03 think I would do what she's doing. I think I'd be like, I got to go talk to someone.
05:07 I got to go investigate. I got to figure out what else went on here. And as soon as I know
05:11 that I'm trying to leave and you just hope it's not too late.
05:15 Yeah. Well, I feel like if white people were doing smart things, we wouldn't have all the
05:18 horror movies we do. So I just think keep them doing what they're doing. But yeah, no,
05:25 thank you so much for taking time out. I was like, I'm such a fan of the genre. So I'm
05:28 very excited to see what you come up with next. So thank you so much.
05:32 Awesome, man. I appreciate that. Thank you.
05:34 Thank you.
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