By Travis Johnson
You jumped straight from a low budget, Perth-shot thriller in Hounds of Love to a big budget Hollywood film in Extinction. How has the transition been? How would you compare the two experiences?
It’s exactly the same, really, the whole filmmaking process. The only difference is that there were more assistants on Extinction than there was crew on Hounds of Love, so it was significantly bigger. You kind of have to do less, because you’ve got so much more support. You just kind of turn up when the actors turn up, and block it, and agree on what the shot list is, and then you can disappear into your trailer for an hour while they build everything, then you just turn up and go yeah/no. There’s a lot more control, in many ways.
Dealing with the studio was different to dealing with an independent producer in Australia. It was actually much better than I thought it would be. They were all really supportive of what I wanted to do and really encouraging. I felt very aware the whole time that it wasn’t my film, you know? That I was making a film as a product more than as an expression, so that was a big difference – having nine producers as opposed to just the one on Hounds was all very different. But as far as the crew went and the cast went, it was no different to working on Hounds.
The turnaround from the release of Hounds to you working on Extinction was very fast. Was that a deliberate move on your part, to lock in a new project while you were generating so much buzz?
Yes and no. I actually didn’t want to be doing one as quickly as I was, it’s just that I was lucky. I signed with [talent agency] UTA after Venice [Film Festival] and they organised some private screenings in their office in Beverly Hills and invited all the producers in the States along to watch it and Alex Young, who is one of the producers on Extinction, was there and he really liked it. It was a project that they had a director on who they’d recently lost, so they were chomping at the bit to do it. So then I got a call from my agent saying, “They’ve got this project, it’s very real, James McAvoy is attached and you need to read it today, and if you’re interested, we’ll get you on Skype tomorrow.”
So I read it immediately and I really loved the idea of it, so we discussed what I liked about the script, what I didn’t like about the script, and then next thing, 10 minutes later got a call from my agent saying, “They want to offer you the job. What are you doing tomorrow? Can you go to London to meet James McAvoy?”
Then James couldn’t end up doing the project, but I met him, and then I went to Beverly Hills and met with all the producers in person and it just started ploughing forward. I was really surprised and just found myself on this freight train that was just racing towards production. I just assumed it would never happen or it’d get lost in development or whatever, but that was not the case at all. I said yes, was on a plane the next day, and four months later Universal Studios was backing it. It happened way faster than I planned on it happening, and as a result I’m pretty burnt out!
You hear all these horror stories about studio gate-keeping and torturous development periods, but you’ve had completely the opposite experience.
It was crazy. Hounds of Love got West Coast Visions [funding] off a first draft that I had only been working on for four months, so that was insanely fast, and Extinction was the same deal – I’d been on it for four months before it got up. In that time we did a hell of a lot of development. The script got some serious rewrites and the writer we were working with, Brad Kane, he can turn stuff around fast, so that was good. And the creative producer, Alex Young, he is similarly as passionate. I just wasn’t used to it – I think the big learning curve was the reason that these guys in the States are at the top of their game is just because they work so hard. I would literally some mornings wake up and have an email from Brad saying, “here’s the new draft” and I would already have the follow up from Alex. Like, oh my god! You guys don’t mess around, do you? There was just never a moment to breathe – it was Alex and Brad’s enthusiasm that led to it happening so quickly.
Because of that one-two punch, people are going to think you’ve arrived on the scene overnight, but you’ve been doing music videos, commercials and television for years. How does that background affect your approach?
It’s really interesting. It took me 20 years to become an overnight success. It all adds up. It’s all filmmaking. I think one of the best things about doing music videos for me was the notion of marrying music and vision together. Music plays a really huge part in Hounds of Love – I was playing songs that would end up in the film on the set while we were shooting the scenes. The last scene of Hounds of Love we had in several houses; on the street we had speakers hidden in the yards playing “Atmosphere” by Joy Division as Susie [Porter] was running down the road.
Similarly, when I was in Serbia doing Extinction there was a scene where Michael Pena couldn’t quite get the tone of what I wanted him to do. I kept trying to get him to slow the scene down and he was struggling to understand what I was trying to do, so in the end I just played a song while we did the take and he was like, “I get everything that you’re asking me to do now.” So music really helps a lot with me to get an understanding of tone.
The other good thing about music videos was I did a lot but it took a long time. Every band that I did was just a minute bit above the last band I did until I ended up working with people like John Butler. It’s nerve-wracking when you’re working with somebody that you know through their work, so I guess a famous person, but I’m really lucky that I slowly got to work with people with a public profile through music videos – that helped a lot when dealing with actors with public profiles. So it all helps.
I think one of the other things I noticed was that when we delivered Hounds of Love, I think we went an hour and a half overtime. With Extinction, same deal – we hardly went overtime and we don’t need any pick ups – touch wood – so far. I think that comes from working in a very low budget, independent sphere where you’re often getting people working with you for favours and things and every time they’re there with you, they could be doing something else. I think that’s kind of drilled into me now, and so I’m not a very indulgent filmmaker in the sense that I won’t just keep going until every take is perfect; I’ll just go, “Alright, I think I’ve got enough to make that work – let’s move on”. And the background in kid’s television, that was sausage factory stuff – we had to shoot so much there. It all helps.
What’s up next?
I’ve got a film that I’m very much hoping to be shooting early next year, which I won’t say much about because I don’t know how much I’m allowed to say, but the deal is with an Australian production company, so that would be fantastic – a great Australian writer is behind that. Then I’m back to LA on Wednesday to do post-production on Extinction for the rest of the year.
Hounds of Love, with an introduction and Q&A with director Ben Young, is screening tonight, June 23, 6.30pm, at Dendy Newtown in Sydney; Saturday, June 24, 4.15pm at Cinema Nova in Melbourne; and Sunday, June 25, 4.45pm, at Lune Leederville in Perth.
