by Stephen Vagg
Tell us about the film?
“It’s a teen-who-cried-wolf thriller about a girl (Ella Newton) who suspects that the next-door neighbour (Vince Colosimo) might be a serial killer – and to complicate matters, he starts dating her mum (Radha Mitchell)! It’s equal parts Nancy Drew and Disturbia. Actually, when I tried to describe its aesthetic to my cinematographer, Garry Richards, I said ‘think of it as an Amblin movie from the 1980s directed by Tobe Hooper’.”
How did you come to be involved in the project?
“After remaking Patrick, Tony Ginnane and I had spent quite a few years working on a much bigger follow-up – an action film in the outback. Like most projects, it was so close to getting up a number of times – but eventually I realised a lot of time had passed without me being on a film set. So, I asked Tony what was a budget he could raise without too much trouble and suggested we develop a project based on that figure. Tony mentioned he had a script called Eyes by screenwriter Terence Hammond that might be ideal – and we took it from there.”
This is your second feature with Antony I Ginnane. What’s your relationship with him like?
“I guess Tony is considered a controversial figure in the industry – I certainly painted him that way in Not Quite Hollywood – but I have nothing but the utmost respect for him. On Patrick, he was the one who stuck his neck out to support me (a first time narrative filmmaker), Justin King (a first time screenwriter) and Garry Richards (a first time cinematographer). I also just love chatting about cinema with Tony. He has an exhaustive knowledge of not just the business but of film history. You may find this hard to believe, but the producer of Fantasm and Turkey Shoot’s favourite filmmaker is Vincente Minnelli. He’s also pretty much the last man standing amongst his peers. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of another Australian producer of his generation still getting films financed.”
You’re known for your love of cinema. What were the big influences on you for this film?
“Garry Richards and I spent a lot of time shot-listing the film – neither of us can draw storyboards. Unlike on Patrick, where we spent a lot of time watching other people’s films, this time around we planned the film relying on our own aesthetic. We love traditional Hollywood cinema, so everything is shot on dolly tracks and cranes – there is no hand held – and it is lit very different to most Australian films. It’s almost over-lit, far from naturalistic. But when we’re planning a thriller, we always get inspiration from Richard Franklin and Brian DePalma. There is a split screen sequence and also a series of cuts based on the elevator scene from Dressed to Kill. Jamie Blanks, the film’s composer, even matched the high frequency synth sound from that sequence. Our film features quite a few split diopter shots. Most people associate these with DePalma – but we went back to Robert Wise’s films – Andromeda Strain etc – to see which worked the best.”
Tell us about the cast?
“Due to shooting the film during lockdown, we had to cast only from Melbourne. We were really, really lucky. Radha was back in town renovating her Melbourne home and James Mackay (Dynasty) was travelling around the country in a van with his dog and happened to be in Victoria at the time. The two teens, Ella Newton and Karis Oka [below], were real discoveries. Both make their feature debut in the film and their enthusiasm for the project had a great effect on fellow cast and the crew. I thought they were really great together. It was also a thrill to be working with Vince Colosimo who was good fun and very supportive. One day I sat opposite Vince and Radha at lunch and said, ‘it’s not often I can chat to people who’ve worked with both Ridley and Tony Scott. What were they like?’ Vince replied that Ridley was the most immaculately turned-out person he’d ever worked with. Radha said that every day on set, Tony wore the tightest red shorts she’d ever seen! There’s some insider info for you.
“I should also mention the great cop double team of Andrew S. Gilbert and Sharon Johal. When we did ADR Andrew remarked that he actually thought that he’d dreamed the shoot, it was so fast and furious!”
What was it like filming during COVID?
“It was tough. When you make a film on a tight schedule you need everything to work in your favour. Shooting during a pandemic with everyone else in lockdown, pretty much everything works against you. The wardrobe department and art department can’t go and buy anything from stores – everything has to be sourced online. The camera assistant can’t pull focus from the camera – everything has to be done by remote. Lots of little things that add more stress to an already tight and tough shoot.
But I think that also helped build a camaraderie between the cast and crew. We were all battling against the odds – and getting scenes shot that we were proud of was considered a remarkable achievement.”
Any particular memorable memories from filming?
“I had an idea for a shot where we see an eye removed from the point of view of inside the skull. I thought this would be a lot less gory than seeing someone scoop an eye out. I also thought it would be simple; cut an eye socket shape out of a piece of card and pull an eyeball through it. However, our special effects make up guy, Larry Van Dynhoven, came up with this elaborate device that sat on the end of the camera that had a giant latex eye socket and an oversized eyeball with a detached retina. It looks far more grisly on screen than I ever possibly imagined!”
The film features some actors you’ve worked with before – Simone Buchanan, Jackson Gallagher. Are you forming a little stock company?
“Trust me, I’d love to be working enough to form a Corman style stock company! [Joe] Dante, [Allan] Arkush, [Jonathan] Kaplan, [Paul] Bartel etc all shared their favourite character actors. I got on really well with both Simone and Jackson on Patrick and we’ve all stayed in touch, so I was really hoping they’d accept the only roles in the film they were suited for – which weren’t overly flashy parts. Simone did me a big favour making her cameo as the country news reporter. Hopefully on the next one the stock company will have expanded.
“Equally, my crew is also a kind of stock company, many of whom I’ve worked with since making music videos in the early 1990s. However, on this film I felt like Clint Eastwood reassembling his Malpaso team – many of my key crew had retired or died since working on Patrick. So, there were lots of new faces on the set.”
What has response to the film been like?
“I’ve only spoken to people interviewing me about the film – and obviously they feel obliged to keep quiet if they hated it. What I think is most interesting about the film is that it’s very much a throwback. These days, almost all genre films are either arty or extreme – there’s very little middle ground. GATW very much fits somewhere in the middle. In a way it’s perfect for filmgoers who don’t necessarily love horror or thriller films. Hopefully there’s enough mystery and fun to get them sucked into the story and characters before the horror kicks in.”
Girl at the Window is in cinemas August 18, 2022
