00:00This is Tim Wasper from Festtrek Concert TV.
00:28I'm here at the Regal Cinema's Union Square in New York City for Dances with Films New York.
00:33So we'll start with the story, which is we modeled the, I mean, our northern star for the script was coping with abuse.
00:40So we dove into psychology, what a narcissistic household is, and we found that a narcissistic household will have the narcissist at the top, the golden child, the black sheep, who's Miriam, and then the flying monkeys, which are people that they enable.
00:56So it starts on that cerebral level and that psychological level.
01:00And then from there, we build the color and everybody has their own look.
01:03I mentioned in another interview that you have light motifs for music.
01:07We had the light motifs for the cinematography and the lighting.
01:10So we assigned color to each character.
01:12I'll let you elaborate on that.
01:13Was that built from the script up?
01:15Um, no, uh, so the genre of giallo films, um, color plays an important part.
01:21And I just thought it would be fun for each character to have a color.
01:25Um, the location that we were in each room had a different color, um, and a different theme.
01:31Um, so I just, you know, I said, let's just build on that idea of, you know, a color for each person.
01:37Um, Danny came up with a great idea that, oh, well, Miriam, our main character, she's, she's our little red riding hood.
01:44So I was like, oh, well, her color's red.
01:45Uh, you know, that made it easy.
01:47And then, um, without giving away too much, you know, some, some of, some of the other characters had specific colors that play into, uh, who they are and what they do.
01:57Um, what you got in there, a dead body or something?
02:00Not yet.
02:04Welcome to the Hofstra Mary's Academy.
02:09Why are you here?
02:11Did you kill your folks?
02:12Don't be late.
02:13Lift.
02:14It's the one thing you can control here.
02:17Did your parents' lawyer tell you about your trust?
02:21Yes.
02:22If you want to afford yourself the lifestyle of luxury you grew up with,
02:26you're stuck here until you graduate.
02:33Look, who were those, man?
02:35Coming lights out sometimes.
02:37I don't know what they do now and then.
02:38And I'm not trying to find out.
02:42Again, it comes down to story and objects.
02:44And, like, what does she want?
02:46What does she need?
02:47Who does she need to be by the end of the film?
02:49How much is she in denial about what she needs?
02:51You know, and we've been asking these questions the whole time.
02:54And it's just, it's fun to play and put her in different situations,
02:57but also ground her as a real person, I think.
03:00And I think, like you said, with Dario, his films were very strong.
03:04I think most of his films were very feminist forward,
03:07even though there was a lot of backlash about other things,
03:10you know, especially amongst other Italian filmmakers.
03:13And I think that comes down to his wife,
03:17or his, I think it was his wife and girlfriend at the time.
03:19She was his muse and writing partner.
03:22And my wife is my writing partner as well.
03:25So we have this thing we like to bounce off each other with the characters.
03:28No one can leave.
03:43No graduate, you disappear.
03:45Hello?
03:47Where is she?
03:50Please come with me.
03:51We have to get out of here and expose this place.
03:57It'll be way worse if you leave right now.
04:00What was the most important thing that you bounced back and forth about
04:03in terms of, was it about the character?
04:06Was it about her motivation?
04:07We always ask where her head's at.
04:09So we put her in the situations, and how does she respond to them?
04:12We build a character sheet.
04:14I know it all sounds sort of rudimentary with the way I'm talking about it,
04:16but you define the character, who they are at the start of the film,
04:19and then you put them in these situations.
04:21You almost build them like a D&D character,
04:22and then they react to the situations,
04:24and that sort of informs how the script is written.
04:26So that's my writing process, and my wife's writing process,
04:28and our other writing partner's writing process, and it's really fun.
04:32You do the front work before you start writing the script,
04:35and then the script just kind of writes itself.
04:37Every character has their own way they glow, their own aura, if you will.
04:42I can dive into that a little bit.
04:43I was about to get to it.
04:44So our film deals, and I don't want to spoil anything too much,
04:46but it deals with the mythology of the cult of Saturn.
04:50So, you know, Miriam's character is a little Red Riding Hood,
04:53but she also represents, in my mind, without spoiling it too much,
04:57God Jupiter.
04:59So there's red.
05:00If you want to dive into some of the mythology, you can.
05:02That helped inform some of the color decisions.
05:04I really only came up with Jupiter, you know, for her,
05:07and Max kind of came in with some of the other colors,
05:09but it's definitely a collaboration.
05:10You know, we had art directors with ideas.
05:12It was Mars.
05:14I think Dante was.
05:16Mars, yeah, God of War.
05:17In his mind, that's what he wants to be,
05:19but, you know, we have to play with the character
05:21and subvert tropes and expectations, so.
05:23So, uh, who's Gilda?
05:39First, I'm not your f***ing friend, Miss Pascone.
05:43I don't know you.
05:44I don't want to.
05:46You've got dead parents.
05:48Congrats.
05:49Join the club.
05:50Coming off of working on two TV series that were all handheld,
06:10I said, that is not the look for this.
06:13Um, going back to being a period piece,
06:15I wanted to use the tools that they had then.
06:18Um, camera is very static,
06:22and we let the actors move throughout the frame.
06:24Um, so the, the compositions are very intentional.
06:28Um, the location was so beautiful that I was able to use a wide lens.
06:33What location?
06:34You might call that.
06:34Yes.
06:35So, um, quick aside.
06:39Yeah, I'm sorry.
06:39So, no, no, no, no.
06:40This is, this is a great question.
06:41So, in low-budget filmmaking,
06:44you don't want to film in somebody's apartment that's four white walls.
06:47Which, I mean, there goes your production value.
06:49So, we actually found the location,
06:51I found the location first,
06:52and we wrote the story around the location.
06:55We made the location a character.
06:56Um, it's a big mansion.
06:58It's not old.
06:59It was built in the 90s.
07:00Um, that's used as a wedding venue.
07:02Okay.
07:02Um, and, uh.
07:04UK, New York?
07:05Oh, Richmond, Virginia.
07:06Really? Okay.
07:07And, um.
07:08Which has a lot of old colonials have to have that really neat feeling.
07:11Yes.
07:12And, uh, it's a beautiful space.
07:14Um, we were only able to afford to shoot there for eight days.
07:17Um, so we cheated.
07:19A lot of locations, um,
07:21the dorm room, for example, is my garage.
07:23Um, the school classrooms are my son's classrooms.
07:26But we wrote it all around being that one space.
07:38Yes.
07:39A lot of them are, uh, homages to 70s, uh, giallo.
07:56Um, you know, they're, I think every giallo has a, has a spiral staircase in it.
08:12Um, but, uh, it was really, we wanted the characters to be able to work within the frame.
08:19Um, and, uh, the, the space kind of dictated what we could shoot, um, which was, in a good way.
08:29Um, there weren't limitations.
08:30It was, oh my God, we can look anywhere and it's beautiful.
08:32We didn't do any production design in that location.
08:35It was all there.
08:36It was all there.
08:37So, um, that really let us, as things start to build up at the end, um, there's definitely
08:43more movement, um, not handheld, um, but, uh, there's definitely more movement.
08:47Um, there are definitely more close-ups.
08:50Um, and that's kind of a, it was not only a choice, but also a necessity being, you know,
08:57low-budget, independent film.
08:59There were certain things when we weren't shooting in the, the main location that we
09:03had to shoot tighter because we didn't have these big, beautiful sets.
09:07Um, so it, it kind of lent itself, um, and, uh, it's kind of funny that, um, the film ends
09:15in such a small space.
09:18Yeah, so she's dealing with grief and, uh, abuse.
09:45So, we started with an arc, uh, with, with Sophia, our actress who played Miriam, and
09:50we talked about who she, again, back to the story, who she is at the beginning and who
09:54does she need to be by the end.
09:55And then we obviously couldn't shoot it in order, so we had to, like, spend a little
09:58time.
09:59I gave her extra time to, like, get in her headspace that she needed to be.
10:02But again, we always ask, where's her head at in this very moment?
10:05I always think, what's happened up to this point?
10:07We never think about what's coming next.
10:08We always think about where she had up to this point.
10:10So, you give her those moments earlier in the film where she's human, and she goes, she
10:15has quiet time together.
10:16She has time where she's to herself.
10:18And she does things that people do.
10:20You know, when she first gets to her dorm room, it's not a huge spoiler, but she snoops around
10:23and sees what her roommate's like.
10:25Yeah.
10:26Because she hasn't really met, she's met her briefly.
10:28But, so we just give her those little moments that maybe wouldn't be in a normal film today.
10:32But I just wanted to make her a real person.
10:35We go opera.
10:36We go full big at the end.
10:37But I do want to tie it to reality.
10:39Otherwise, you kind of lose, there's this disconnect that the audience is going to have.
11:02We go opera.
11:03We go opera.
11:04We go opera.
11:05We go opera.
11:06We go opera.
11:07We go opera.
11:08We go opera.
11:09We go opera.
11:10We go opera.
11:11We go opera.
11:12We go opera.
11:13We go opera.
11:14We go opera.
11:15We go opera.
11:16We go opera.
11:17We go opera.
11:18We go opera.
11:19We go opera.
11:20We go opera.
11:21We go opera.
11:22We go opera.
11:23We go opera.
11:24We go opera.
11:25We go opera.
11:26We go opera.
11:27We go opera.
11:28We go opera.
11:29We go opera.
11:30We go opera.
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