Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Ummm... you saw the title of the article, right? "Quint Interviews Brad Anderson"? So whattaya need... a road map? An engraved invitation? Get readin'!!
Ahoy squirts! 'Tis I, the dependibly crusty seaman, Quint, here to give you fine folks a peek at a little scar-sharin' session that I recently had with indie director Brad Anderson. Brad has 2 films currently in theaters. One is a creepy little horror movie called Session 9, which is open in quite a few places and the other is an off kilter romantic comedy called Happy Accidents that is currently playing in New York and LA.
We talk about his two current films, his use of the new HD 24p camera, Anthony Michael Hall and bunch of other cool stuff. Here it is, squirts. I'll see you on the other side!
QUINT: HOW ABOUT WE START WITH A LITTLE PLOT RUNDOWN OF BOTH SESSION 9 AND HAPPY ACCIDENTS FOR THE READERS OUT THERE?
BRAD ANDERSON: Session 9 is a psychological horror movie set in an abandoned lunatic asylum. It's about 5 guys who are cleaning out an abandoned mental hospital and over the course of the several days that they are there we start to suspect that one of them is starting to lose his mind. It sorta becomes a question of who's really the crazy one.
Happy Accidents is a totally different (film). It's a sort of sci-fi romantic comedy about a woman who meets a guy and sorta falls in love with him only to learn that he claims he's a time traveler come back from the future to fall in love with her. That's how I'd describe the movie.
QUINT: WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BE A FILMMAKER?
BRAD ANDERSON: I had no real agenda, I just kinda stumbled into it after college. I had made some Super 8 movies when I was a kid and I served as an assistant editor in documentary film in Boston. It was just sort of a gradual process. I didn't have any agenda per se.
QUINT: I JUST WATCHED BOTH OF YOUR FILMS AND THEY WERE BOTH CAST TO PERFECTION. IS THAT JUST HAPPENSTANCE OR DO YOU ACTUALLY METICULOUSLY CAST THE PICTURE?
BRAD ANDERSON: No... I mean, casting is half the battle, I think, in any movie if you get the right people, but I didn't write any of those scripts with anyone in mind. Like any movie, it just went out to a bunch of different people. These are small movies, so getting good actors is tough because there's not a lot of money there.
It went up to a bunch of people I liked and luckily a lot of people were drawn to the material in the scripts. It's also a function of how I direct. Since I've written the material and I'm editing the movie, I let the actors really immerse themselves in the role and bring their own sensibilities to the role as much as possible. I mean, that might be why you kinda draw out a kinda realism and a natural response. I'm a very laid back director.
QUINT: HOW DID YOUR FIRST FEATURE, NEXT STOP WONDERLAND, COME ABOUT?
BRAD ANDERSON: I had done my first film, The Darien Gap, that played in Sundance in '96 and I some finishing funds from a local Boston producer. Then he wanted to do a movie from scratch, from the get go, so he hired myself and my writing partner to write a script for a movie he said he'd finance. Luckily he liked our script and financed the movie. But it's just kinda like one movie segued into the other movie.
I just wrote that because I just wanted to make a movie about a really interesting and intelligent woman. I had seen so many romantic comedies that are not comedies, they're dramas. I wanted to make a movie that had a strong and interesting female protagonist and that's why I did it that way.
QUINT: YOUR NEXT FILM AFTER THAT WAS HAPPY ACCIDENTS, RIGHT?
BRAD ANDERSON: After that I did... Yes, Happy Accidents with Marisa Tomei and Vincent D'Onofrio. I wrote that script while I was trying to get a Miramax picture off the ground. While I was waiting for that to happen I wrote Happy Accidents. I didn't really intend to do it, but the Miramax thing fell through, so I ended having a script ready to go, so we just launched into that movie. We got IFC Films to finance it. They just gave me the money and said, "Make your movie."
QUINT: HOW DID YOU END UP PAIRING UP D'ONOFRIO AND TOMEI?
BRAD ANDERSON: Marisa really fit the bill for the part, you know. She really liked the script and for me that's really important that the actors really like the script, the characters. Then you know they're going to give it their all. Obviously neither of them were doing it for the money. It was a passion project. Really, she agreed to do it and I was like, "Absolutely! This is great."
Then Vince... We looked around at a lot of different people, but Vince was ultimately the most intriguing to me 'cause he's a very versatile actor and can play a range of characters. He's played everything from a bug to a psychopath. So, having him play this guy who ranges from being scary to being charming... And I liked them together. I thought they were an interesting pair. You know, sort of an unusual couple. I wanted them to be a sort of quirky couple.
QUINT: THEY WORKED PERFECTLY TOGETHER ON-SCREEN.
BRAD ANDERSON: They had a good chemistry. I think we all liked each other, as well. It's certainly helpful if off camera you're getting along as well.
QUINT: AND YOU GOT ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL IN THE MOVIE! IT'S SO COOL. YOU GOT FARMER TED! THAT ROCKS.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, Anthony Michael Hall. He flew in for a day and helped us out.
QUINT: YOU HAVE NO IDEA... WHEN ME AND MY BUDS WATCHED HAPPY ACCIDENTS WE WERE LIKE, "WOW. VINCENT D'ONOFRIO! WOW! MARISA TOMEI!" THEN ANTHONY MICHAEL HALL'S NAME COMES UP AND EVERYBODY GEEKED OUT.
BRAD ANDERSON: Yeah, I know. He's an icon of a certain generation.
QUINT: US GEEKS WORSHIP HIM. HE WAS ONE OF THE FIRST ONES TO MAKE BEING A GEEK COOL.
BRAD ANDERSON: Totally, man. Exactly. He played Bill Gates perfectly and that's the Uber-Geek, you know.
QUINT: SO, DID YOU WRITE THAT FOR HIM OR DID YOU FIT HIM IN LATER?
BRAD ANDERSON: That scene, what it called for was some known actor to play himself. You know, if you didn't know who this person was, it'd be weird, you know. The fact that Vince's character has no clue who Anthony Michael Hall is, it's pretty weird.
We actually tried to get a big star, like Jeff Goldblum. He couldn't do it, or wouldn't do it or whatever. We went through a whole list of A-list actors. You know, "Could you come in for a few hours and do this scene?" It just got down to the wire and Anthony Michael Hall was available and he thought the script was really funny.
Certain actors aren't willing to play themselves, too, you know. They're not willing to spoof themselves. He was willing to do it. Oddly enough, I think he's done a couple movies where he's played himself. This might be one of his other specialties, playing himself. But yeah, I think the whole idea of this sorta geeky guy is now this... I always picture him as the little geeky guy from the John Hughes movies... Now he's a big guy.
QUINT: YOU NEXT WENT ON TO SESSION 9. HOW'D THAT PROJECT START?
BRAD ANDERSON: Again, it was sort of written quickly because I was looking for a film to do and I couldn't find one. I had always wanted to do a horror movie. I lived in Boston and for 8 years I always drove by a big, abandoned mental hospital on the hill just outside of Boston and it always struck me as a great place to set a creepy movie, so I started writing it with my friend Steve Gevedon.
Originally we were going to do it like a really quick Dogme kinda movie, like a little DV movie and make it for like a hundred grand, make it really quickly. Then USA films came on board and said they'd give us a little bit more money. That was really it. I wanted to do a movie that's a psychological horror movie, not like a teen thriller. I totally have no desire to do that. Ultimately, I don't know... USA might have been looking for more of a teen thriller. I wanted to do a serious horror movie that's genuinely creepy. Not about monsters and stuff, but more about what's going on in the human mind, you know?
We also wanted to do something that was very atmospheric and very much about that location. We did a lot of research on the mental hospital and we incorporated a lot of our research into our script, into the story, to make it as authentic as possible. So, a lot of stuff in the movie is based on the reality of that place and its history.
We cast that movie in sort of the same way. It was a small movie, budget wise. We were only able to get a certain kind of actor. I think we lucked out. Peter Mullan is just great. (David) Caruso... it's probably the best thing he's done in a long time.
But yeah... It was a tough shoot. Physically it was a very arduous shoot because we were shooting it in 21 days under very difficult physical situations. Floors were collapsing all around us, there was asbestos everywhere. It was not a pleasant place to shoot. It was a really tragic, awful place. I think it gives the movie a certain realism that I like. But yeah, we shot it really quickly and we shot it with the new HD 24p cameras, which are the high definition cameras that shoot 24 frames per second. I think we're the first film to theatrically release that (used that camera).
QUINT: YOU BEAT LUCAS.
BRAD ANDERSON: That's right.
QUINT: WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES TO SHOOTING ON THE HD CAM?
BRAD ANDERSON: The advantages are the mobility. It shoots very nicely in low light conditions, so we didn't have to bring in tons of light. What you see is what you get. When you're looking at the monitor, you're basically seeing what it's gonna look like. No triangulation, so you can rest a little more comfortably while shooting the movie. If it looks good, it's gonna look good. Those are the advantages. It's not necessarily cheaper because it's still a new thing, but you get to move a little quicker because of the size of the camera unit and all that.
The disadvantages... I mean, it's still not film. It's not totally up to speed with looking like film, although it's close. That's probably the main disadvantage, I think.
QUINT: I'M STILL REELING A BIT THAT YOU SHOT SESSION 9 IN AN ACTUAL RUNDOWN INSANE ASYLUM. I MEAN, YOU SHOT A GHOST STORY IN A PLACE THAT COULD BE HAUNTED.
BRAD ANDERSON: That's what's odd about it because we were shooting it in the place where all this stuff went down. We didn't have as many weird and ghostly experiences as we were hoping. It was a pretty run of the mill shoot. I think some people got freaked out by the place. The good thing was that the actors didn't have to try that hard to get freaked out. All they had to do was walk into a room alone and they'd suddenly get into the spirit of the movie. It is a crazy place, but when you're making a movie, you don't have time to be thinking about that. So, yeah. We didn't have any hauntings.
QUINT: YOU WRITE AND DIRECT. WHICH STEP OF THE PROCESS DO YOU ENJOY MORE?
BRAD ANDERSON: They're both satisfying in their own ways. I mean, writing's fun because, kinda like editing, you're totally in charge of your own universe. You can do whatever you want. It's totally up to your imagination. Directing is interesting in its own way. It's a very exhausting... It's just logistically not easy. You're always making compromises.
You know, trying to realize what you wrote down on paper earlier when you only have 2 to 3 weeks to shoot it, you got actor's personalities maybe getting in the way, you don't have the budget that you wanted to have and all the other realities of trying to make a movie. It can be a very frustrating process. I mean, I'm not a perfectionist, but I still want to realize as much as I can that I originally intended. It's not my favorite part of the process. It's just a means to an end.
It's satisfying in it's own way... kind of... But I'm always thinking of how I'm going to be able to figure it out in the editing room or how the scene's going to work when it's all done. I'd say editing for me is the most enjoyable part because you're actually working with images, you can start to play around with sound and music and all the little bells and whistles. You can make a scene work or whatever. You're totally God. You can change performances, you can make them better, you can make them worse, you can cut people out. For me, that's pure cinema.
All the films I've done editing is just as much a part of the artistry as is the writing or the acting or the music. Not that I try to be all flashy, but editing, I think, is a critical part of how I define myself as a filmmaker. That's the thing I like to do most of all. I know what I'm doing when I'm editing a movie. When you're directing, you're making it up because you're dealing with so many different constituencies. But when you're sitting there in the dark alone, you can be like a kid again.
QUINT: WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
BRAD ANDERSON: What am I doing now? I got a couple of projects. I got a documentary which is about the history of Boston. I've got a few scripts based on these books that I'm attached to direct once we can get the financing in place. They're both period pieces, coming of age period pieces set in the early '60s. And I'm also looking for a bigger studio project. A bigger sorta run of the mill movie. I'm looking for a good script I can attach myself to, a good studio movie.
There you have it, squirties. Everything you wanted to know about Brad Anderson. This is the first of many, many interviews that I¹ve fallen behind on recently, so keep yer parascope aimed at the horizon, fer this old salt has bunch of treasure to share with ya¹! 'Til that day, this is Quint bidding you all a fine farewell and adieu.
-Quint
email: aicnquint@aol.com
