00:26This is Tim Wasper from Fast Track Unstruck TV.
00:29I'm here in Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Film Festival.
00:33Memory, how memory can trick you, that's what this sort of shows too, because of perspective
00:39and perception.
00:40You know, how he perceives Lily might be not what's actually happening.
00:44How he sees grace and perceives grace might not actually be happening.
00:49It's the fact that you can't trust anything that you're seeing.
00:53Unreliable.
00:53Unreliable narrator is, that is, especially from a point of view character, I think it
01:02is such a great opportunity to delve into that kind of stuff.
01:06And I feel like, you know, the exposing of past traumas in relation to that, and then,
01:15you know, later on you start to see things and then you start to question everything you
01:20have seen, which I just think like putting the audience just a little on edge like that
01:25is just the best.
01:27Yeah.
01:28But also using the environment, which is true, you know, keep, well with any movie, I mean,
01:33both of you have done movies that were, yeah, it's, it's about environment and it continues
01:37to be, but it's about how you react, how you're active and reactive.
01:41Could you talk about that, especially with going down, because I mean, that whole space and how
01:47you guys built that was fantastic.
01:48Yeah, so I was down in the little cellar a lot of the time, and I never really got to
01:54go out except for a couple of times.
01:56But when I did, I was kidnapped.
01:59That might sound like, that might sound bad.
02:05But when I did, it was really, it was really fun.
02:09I had like these night shoots.
02:10And I think we've talked about it, but like the Australian bush is so scary, especially to
02:16Americans because they have all these like, um, preconceived ideas.
02:20Very honest.
02:21Sorry.
02:22It's the best myth that Australia is dangerous.
02:26It's dangerous.
02:27It's great.
02:28It helps.
02:28It helps horror movies.
02:30But it sounds scary.
02:32It sounds scary.
02:33There, it is scary.
02:34Yeah.
02:36Yeah, I do.
02:37You must see something.
02:39Are you okay?
02:41The nightmares again, Sean.
02:45I'm so sorry to hear about your system.
02:47Very, very practical.
02:48Yeah, yeah.
02:49Very practical.
02:51I mean, living in Australia, you'd think you'd get used to being in the middle of the bush
02:57by yourself, but you really, you really don't.
02:59It's something about the soundscape, these strange bird noises, like the crickets.
03:05You turn around and there's like a huge spider in your face or like ticks crawling up your back,
03:10which we all experienced while we were on set.
03:13It just adds to the reality of it.
03:15Like we weren't acting.
03:18This is a documentary.
03:20Yeah, yeah.
03:20It's like purely very reactive.
03:22I think horror is very experiential.
03:26You know, you have to really experience what's going around you.
03:29So being on set, having the environment there, adds so much to it.
03:35And then going down into the cellar space, it's so alien.
03:41It's just looking at how it's amazingly dressed up and all the makeup and all the prosthetics
03:48everywhere.
03:50I don't know if that, did that not reveal anything?
03:55Okay, okay.
03:59But you get to see how people react.
04:01Yeah, yeah.
04:02With anything.
04:03Yeah, like I was reacting for real.
04:04Like what is, you know, what is all this?
04:07It's so alien.
04:09It's so unknown that you really don't need to push too much.
04:16Shoot, the camera or Sean can just see it.
04:20Because you were just talking about sound.
04:22It's about the sound design.
04:23Because how he perceives the world, again, with the sort of narrator aspect of it.
04:29Can you talk about that both from a directing standpoint and how to direct your actors in
04:34that way?
04:36Plus your person doing the actual.
04:39Well, I think because I wrote it as well, I think it also came down to balancing it on
04:44the page.
04:45You know, just having, making sure it had, you know, this, you know, real solid base of
04:52horror and then building out, you know, drama from that or bits of levity, comedy from that
05:00and then just keeping that balance, you know, because there are like funny moments in that.
05:07Why are we here?
05:08Dragging him out here searching for his piece of shit, dad?
05:12There you are.
05:16And I remember, I think it was Aaliyah said, I didn't realize how funny this script was
05:24until we were doing it.
05:25Because, you know, one of the actors, Charles, just sort of took these lines and was just,
05:30I mean, he's, you've seen it, he's such a great, his physicality is amazing.
05:36And I was like, yeah, this is, and I was like, no, we're not toning this down.
05:41Like, this is completely natural.
05:43He's not trying to be funny.
05:44It's just, it's like the way his character is going about it is like, he's that goof, he's that goofball.
05:52Like, and so it was sort of, it's like when you bring people on like, like these guys, like Aaliyah,
06:00like Charles,
06:00I feel like they have such a great read of their characters and they bring so much themselves.
06:07It takes such a weight off as a director.
06:10And you don't want to, like when you have these guys bringing stuff like that, you don't want to curb
06:16that too much.
06:18You really want to just let them fly.
06:20And especially with these long takes, I mean, you get to see them sort of experience the space in front
06:27of you.
06:28And look, they're such pros.
06:29Is it hard to direct that 360 sometimes?
06:31Because I know you had to do some 360.
06:33Yeah, I think, I think it's, it's the hardest part about it is more so the sort of like,
06:44exposition is a dirty word, but you have to get information across for a horror movie, especially.
06:50You have to understand where they are and what the stakes are as quick as possible and not bore the
06:55audience.
06:55And so that was on the page and direction, that was the most difficult thing because we've got, we don't
07:03have cuts.
07:04You know, all the cuts are sort of hidden.
07:06Yes.
07:07So, you know, if it's, you know, the camera has to be somewhat dynamic and somewhat realistic to sort of
07:15make sure a scene's not going to tire people out.
07:18So that was a huge, huge barrier.
07:20And I think we did, I think we did pretty well.
07:49And I think we did, we did pretty well.
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