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Mercedes Bryce Morgan & Nick Matthews navigate the twisted waters of 'Bone Lake'
Director Mercedes Bryce Morgan and cinematographer Nick Matthews join us to discuss 'Bone Lake,' a film that shifts the typical thriller focus from "whodunit" to exploring why chaos unfolds in the first place.
Our conversation explores how Mercedes and Nick crafted a visual experience that subverts audience expectations, blending genres and pushing boundaries. Mercedes discusses the creative evolution that brought this twisted world to life, while Nick reveals his approach to creating imagery that serves the film's unpredictable narrative.
(Photo: Courtesy of FLASCH)
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast, and this is our conversation with Mercedes Bryce Morgan and Nick Matthews, director and cinematographer of Bone Lake.
Speaker B:I knew going into this, I thought, you know what, it's probably going to be pretty obvious who the who is.
Speaker B:So I'm not hiding that necessarily.
Speaker B:Like, people are smart.
Speaker B:They'll figure that out.
Speaker B:But for me, the real tension is, why is this happening?
Speaker B:And, like, when is it going to go down?
Speaker C:Sometimes you have to go through some pain in order to arrive at something that's really gorgeous.
Speaker C:So I will always prioritize that.
Speaker C:I mean, we're going to make this movie and then it's going to live forever.
Speaker C:So if we're given the opportunity, I'll take it.
Speaker A:I saw you talking about it on Instagram and how transparent you were about the fate of your first feature, Fixation, which premiered at tiff, one of the biggest fall festivals, only to essentially be buried thanks to one of the producers.
Speaker A:Now, with your third feature films, Bone Lakes release upon us.
Speaker A:Having been through all that came before, but having done one of the two, what seems harder coming back from that and continuing, or maybe the one you haven't tried giving up and letting go?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that, you know, filmmaking, it's so intense, and there's so many steps and levels to making a movie where you go, okay, first.
Speaker B:You know, even to get your first feature made is a big deal.
Speaker B:And so I came from the world of commercials and music videos.
Speaker B:And so for us to get that together and find the financing and go through it and then go to one of the biggest festivals in the world and then go, oh, my God, we did it.
Speaker B:Like, this is everything I've been waiting my entire life to do and then have something like that happen.
Speaker B:The thing is, is that I don't think it's not going to maybe come out someday.
Speaker B:But it didn't come out when we thought it was supposed to, because we're in this situation.
Speaker B:And what I always tell young filmmakers is, the biggest advice I give is, you know, play it like a stock market, where you should always have multiple projects going at a time, because you don't know what the market's like.
Speaker B:You don't know what's going to happen when you go to a festival, when you don't.
Speaker B:And so, you know, now coming into Bone Lake, where we premiered at Fantastic Fest and we're in theaters, I'd say that, you know, it's so.
Speaker B:It's so exciting, and still a part of me mourns that.
Speaker B:Because I still do love Fixation as a feature, and it's still something I want people to see, but you just kind of have to ride the wave because, you know, this movie, we didn't know if it would be in theaters, and now we're here.
Speaker B:And so I don't know if that quite answers your question.
Speaker B:Is there anything else specifically I could go into more?
Speaker B:Because it's a huge question.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:One, it's huge.
Speaker A:And two, I'm not quite sure whether it's answerable at all.
Speaker A:But, yeah, we are here to figure these things out.
Speaker A:Anna, just as much, I don't know how consciously you can go about such things, which is the reason why I'm asking this.
Speaker A:But how do you.
Speaker A:Or can you protect your creative spirit when the business side can be so not only brutal, but, first of all, unpredictable?
Speaker B:Yeah, I love this question because I ask people this question all the time, too.
Speaker B:I think that.
Speaker B:Because I'm also learning how to protect my spirit as I go, as I think we all are.
Speaker B:But I think that something I try to do is I've learned, as maybe I've become older and jaded and going through a lot of movies, that I never celebrate something until I'm like.
Speaker B:Like, I won't celebrate this movie happening until I'm on the plane, or I won't celebrate this movie happening until I'm on set or, you know, until it comes out.
Speaker B:And so that's good to protect myself.
Speaker B:But also, at the same time, you have to celebrate every step.
Speaker B:And I know that's ironic to give opposite advice, but it's just, you kind of have to tell yourself, hooray, we did it.
Speaker B:Every step of the way.
Speaker B:But then you also have to tell yourself there are so many steps where to go.
Speaker B:And so I think it's.
Speaker B:It's celebrating, but not putting too much on something and also defining your own success.
Speaker B:So is your success someone just one person loving the movie, is your success having it come out in theaters?
Speaker B:Because to, you know, for someone, they might be like, I'm not successful unless I have an Oscar.
Speaker B:Or someone might be like, I'm not successful unless I have a cult movie.
Speaker B:So it's like, you should find out what that is for yourself.
Speaker B:Because if you don't define what success is, it's never going to be enough.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:As far as advices go, whatever works, works.
Speaker B:Whatever works.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:But it's a tricky one.
Speaker B:It's something I. I still figure out, and I don't know if anyone has ever completely Figured it out.
Speaker B:But I think it's.
Speaker B:We all need like lots of self therapizing along the way.
Speaker A:Yeah, sounds about right.
Speaker A:To talk about, of course, the film itself as well.
Speaker A:The script is penned by Joshua Friedlander.
Speaker A:How did the script find you?
Speaker A:Or maybe even the other way around.
Speaker A:Plus, what I'm even more curious about is, as director, where do you see your voice coming through?
Speaker A:Someone else's material.
Speaker A:Specifically here.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So this was a script that actually my agent sent me, and this is one of the first times that happened.
Speaker B:And so they sent it to me, I read it, and I met with the producers, but I think it was kind of them knowing, okay, here's something that is intense and makes people uncomfortable and it's erotic.
Speaker B:And they went, ah, this is good for Mercedes.
Speaker B:And so I think that it's kind of putting out who you are into the world because then people know what things to find for you, because your agents don't know what to find for you unless you know who you are.
Speaker B:So they're like, this is her.
Speaker B:We'll send this for her.
Speaker B:And as for finding my own voice, the way that I like to express scripts is I sign on a project if I think the script is great.
Speaker B:I.
Speaker B:But even if I think it's great, we're gonna go through so many revisions by the time we shoot.
Speaker B:Like, I was doing revisions for this every weekend while we were shooting.
Speaker B:We'd rap and I'd go, okay, great.
Speaker B:We get to like, make this scene better or bring this through or, you know, make this plot twist to hit here instead of here.
Speaker B:And so just even some examples of, you know, for example, our opening scene where we have this couple running naked through the forest, that isn't something that existed in the script when it got handed to me.
Speaker B:But we decided we need to show people the promise of the premise and that there's going to be sex and violence in this movie and we're going to show up front because we're going to like, you know, then have it be a big slow burn up until it happens again.
Speaker B:But we need people to know they can trust us.
Speaker B:Or even, for example, our protagonist, she fakes her orgasms in her relationship, and that isn't something that was in the script.
Speaker B:And I thought, oh, this would be something that is so specific to see as kind of like a fraying moment for them and kind of bring that through.
Speaker B:And so I always kind of like to put my own self in my voice and kind of have it be this, like, big collaboration with the writers.
Speaker B:Because I think, like, a good script marriage, quote, unquote, is us being on the same page and developing that together.
Speaker A:The devil in the details.
Speaker B:Yeah, totally.
Speaker A:And not to try and put it into a box or anything like that, but is there, like, a primary genre you're identifying this project as?
Speaker A:There is so many different stuff going on.
Speaker B:There's so many.
Speaker A:Which is one of the best things it has going for it.
Speaker A:So, yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I feel like we're in the meta modern era where, you know, being in the postmodern era, we're like, nothing's new.
Speaker B:You know, we have to make fun of what our genres are to be able to mash them together.
Speaker B:But I feel like now we're in an era where we have seen everything, but we are really wanting to love it in a genuine way.
Speaker B:And so the way I describe this movie is it's a horror, erotic thriller, but it's also comedic.
Speaker B:Like, it's supposed to be funny because it's ridiculous.
Speaker B:And what happens is you should be like, what are these people doing?
Speaker B:This is so absurd.
Speaker B:But we also do it in an earnest way because we care about what our characters are going through.
Speaker B:And I wanted to create characters where we go, you know what, like, they're grounded.
Speaker B:We believe their reactions, but then the people that they interact with and the shit that goes down is so ridiculous.
Speaker B:But we can still believe real people are going through the situation.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Because even though, no matter how ridiculous and batshit crazy it gets you, I don't think for even a moment you never lean into the supernatural at all.
Speaker A:No, it stays grounded in reality in its entirety.
Speaker A:And this was one of the things I realized that probably what I love most about the Promise, how the characters try to go away for a weekend or on a vacation to get away from their realities, the realities of everyday life.
Speaker A:But after all, end up too far from the aforementioned reality all the while.
Speaker A:Once again, the film hasn't an ounce of supernatural elements.
Speaker B:Yeah, no, they try to run away from something and they kind of run into themselves.
Speaker B:Because I think that, you know, if you're in a relationship and you try to run away from your problems or any human, you might go, let's go on our trip.
Speaker B:And I go, pretty sure it's about to get more intense.
Speaker B:Intense.
Speaker B:You having to deal with that instead of being able to run away with it.
Speaker B:But we always think we can, but we can't.
Speaker B:Really.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And out of the two couples, you had to ground the characters, Sage and Diego, so audiences can relate, even when Things get crazy.
Speaker B:Exactly.
Speaker A:By making Will and scene the very opposite of that, but still with motive.
Speaker A:So how do you direct actors to hit those different, very different registers without losing believability, without the tones of those highly different marks, not only clashing, but maybe even canceling each other totally?
Speaker B:So for Sage and Diego, the way that we approached every single scene is, would you actually do this?
Speaker B:Like, how would you react in this situation?
Speaker B:And if there was a line in the script or something that felt unnatural, we would say, can't do that.
Speaker B:Like, we need to have a reason why you're staying.
Speaker B:We need to.
Speaker B:Like, it has to relate to what you really care about deep down.
Speaker B:And even if you're running through that door, there has to be a reason.
Speaker B:Or your characters are smart and we want you to outsmart the things that you're in, because we like characters like that.
Speaker B:And then for Will and Sin, I wanted to kind of start him out in this grounded place.
Speaker B:But then as it goes on, we would try things so they would be like, hey, what if we, like, danced in this moment?
Speaker B:Or, you know, like, what if I growled?
Speaker B:Or what if I just did something that was over the top?
Speaker B:And we had the reality as a basis, but we were able to experiment and see if it worked.
Speaker B:Because I'm a huge fan of let's try this.
Speaker B:And it might be weird and it might not work, but we might find something that's so fun.
Speaker B:And so because there was that trust and willing to go there, we were able to build that with them.
Speaker B:And so for every scene, we had a safety where we went, here's the safer version of the scene, but then here's the really fun version.
Speaker B:And that's what we ended up with in the film.
Speaker B:And.
Speaker B:And so it was like, allowing us to scope that together.
Speaker B:Incredible.
Speaker A:And most of the film, a great amount of it, as far as locations go, is set in one place in this beautiful large house with so many different rooms for different uses.
Speaker A:And of course, to the heroes of our story, it has its restrictions, despite how big it is.
Speaker A:How does architecture become a character in building that?
Speaker A:Not even.
Speaker A:Or not only claustrophobic tension, but rather this lost in a maze type feeling.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:So I wanted to choose a house where it could be expansive enough that you're exploring the rooms, but also no house exists that has a perfect hallway leading down into these three doors.
Speaker B:And so that's actually a set that we built within our practical location.
Speaker B:And so we wanted to create the.
Speaker B:You know, it's like a game it's door 1, 2, and 3.
Speaker B:And as our film goes on, it's this tension of what is behind door three.
Speaker B:And so we've had to physically create that, to be able to give that to people.
Speaker B:Because I don't think it's as exciting if there just happened to be a door somewhere else in the place and there was one room over here.
Speaker B:It's more enticing to see all the options laid out for you.
Speaker B:And you go, what is that space?
Speaker A:Another thing I found pretty interesting is the role of water.
Speaker A:As in, there is, of course, not only in the title, but in its physical form, the lake, which is natural.
Speaker A:Or it can be the other way around.
Speaker A:But after all, thanks to being still controlled, versus there is the rain, which is, I'd guess, simulated, fabricated.
Speaker A:But at the same time, you never know how exactly it will land.
Speaker A:Once again, a big question and a rather holistic one.
Speaker A:But what's your relationship with control when it comes to filmmaking?
Speaker A:Because as we know, that entails a whole lot of the job of a director.
Speaker B:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker B:So the way that I like to approach filmmaking is having as much control as possible, but then the uncontrollable is going to happen.
Speaker B:And so you kind of just have to go with it.
Speaker B:So, for example, I will completely shot list my movie.
Speaker B:I'll have visuals for every scene.
Speaker B:But on the day, like, for example, on this, you mentioned water.
Speaker B:We literally had a whole storm that made it so we couldn't shoot the ending of our movie.
Speaker B:Like a real storm overtook our fake storm.
Speaker B:And so at the very, very end, we had to switch to a boat and a soundstage.
Speaker B:We went from a real boat on a lake to a boat and a soundstage.
Speaker B:And people can't tell.
Speaker B:But that was kind of having a plan and having to reassess it.
Speaker B:And so I think if someone.
Speaker B:If I know that I can come in with this amount of control where I know what my A option is, my first choice and my second choice.
Speaker B:And for some reason, my first choice doesn't work out.
Speaker B:I can move right away and still know that the second is good instead of just looking around in the situation going, I don't know what to do now.
Speaker B:Like, everything just got thrown out the door.
Speaker B:Like, we plan so that we can replan.
Speaker A:Yeah, that's.
Speaker A:Wow, that's completely seamless.
Speaker A:That might as well lead to my next question or topic, which is, as you've mentioned as well, having worked on, I guess, bigger budget as well, music videos and multiple filmmakers have told me about how on Music videos, they get to try some of the more heftier, pricier tools, just whatever might come to them.
Speaker A:While shooting an independently financed feature film is of course completely different situation.
Speaker A:So how does the former's visual vocabulary translate from one medium to the other?
Speaker A:Do certain tools, solutions or even just the decision making process travel?
Speaker B:Yeah, I think that having done lots of music videos before I did features, first of all, I consider myself a very visual director.
Speaker B:Like I always want to do things in a creative way instead of just going, here's the dialogue.
Speaker B:And you know, in this we pick our moments.
Speaker B:And so it's like for the POV of like a lock being hit or like when they go to sleep, we're gonna like pull up from the bed and have it be like fake time lapse and come back down.
Speaker B:And so I think being able to try things on music videos and realize we tried this shot and it didn't work, or we tried this and this is really awes, kind of allowed me the money and time to figure out who I was before I then went and executed it on this.
Speaker B:But I think it also, what it gave me is, you know, having done more than a hundred days, like hundreds of days on other shoots before I even did my first feature, it allowed me to know how to make a get how to make a day.
Speaker B:Because if, even if I have this great plan, let's say I planned 30 to 40 shots and then I show up on my movie and we only have time to do 15 to 20 throughout the day, there's no point in having all these great ideas if you can't execute them.
Speaker B:And so I think it allowed me to know when I asked for this, this is going to take this much time and this is what I can expect of a crew or this is what I can't.
Speaker B:And so it allowed me to know what's possible logistically so I could make sure it happens on my movies.
Speaker A:And as for the genre, or rather genres at large, what's your relationship with the conventions and expectations they carry?
Speaker B:Yeah, so I think that for me, a type of horror movie I don't like is where it's a slow burn and then it never pays off.
Speaker B:And so I knew that I wanted to create something.
Speaker B:I'm like, okay, we're making people wait for the horror to go down, but when it happens, like we need everything to actually go down and really deliver for people.
Speaker B:And so that something that was really important to me.
Speaker B:And then as for the erotic thriller genre, it's something where when I Look at plot twists.
Speaker B:There's.
Speaker B:You can answer the who, what, when, where, why.
Speaker B:And so I knew going into this, I thought, you know what, it's probably going to be pretty obvious who the who is.
Speaker B:So I'm not hiding that necessarily.
Speaker B:Like, people are smart, they'll figure that out.
Speaker B:But for me, the real tension is the why?
Speaker B:Why is this happening?
Speaker B:And, like, when is it going to go down?
Speaker B:And so it's kind of figuring out, like, what of those who, what, when, where, why plot things we want to happen at each point in the story and making sure those hit.
Speaker B:And so I like to organize my stories by tension of, like, the possibility of sex, the threat of death, and the wondering how it's all going to go down.
Speaker B:And so all those things kind of came together in this.
Speaker A:As a technical side note, did I see a dolly zoom in this one?
Speaker B:Yes, we do have a dolly or a dolly zoom.
Speaker B:But yeah, we specifically have that in this seduction scene of the couples are facing off, looking at each other, and we dolly zoom into each of them.
Speaker B:And that's something where I thought, oh, how interesting would it be to do this with four different characters and compare them all in this way?
Speaker A:That was super cool.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker A:And yes, once again, with blending the genres and everything given, this explores erotic thriller territory alongside the horror.
Speaker A:How do you navigate the intimacy and vulnerability required from your actors when and as the stakes keep escalating?
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:I mean, I think first of all, what's nice is almost all the actors in this is someone that I had worked with before, the producers have worked with before.
Speaker B:So that's a huge part of it.
Speaker B:But the other part of it is, you know, we have an intimacy coordinator, but it's also, you know, it's setting up of what has been agreed upon in the contract.
Speaker B:And what if the coordinator talked to them and what have I talked to them about?
Speaker B:But it's also on the day if someone, like, everything is for a story purpose, and if someone doesn't feel comfortable about something, we don't do it because people's comfort is not less important than the movie.
Speaker B:It's more important.
Speaker B:And so, you know, I think it's just like treating people like people because I think anyone needs to think about how would I feel if I was in this situation and what would be going through my head because it's very anxiety inducing.
Speaker B:And so I think it's just treating it like that.
Speaker A:And finally somewhat circling back to where we started.
Speaker A:What does creative freedom mean to you right now versus when you were Starting out?
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think when I first.
Speaker B:First started out, I feel like I even talking about commercials instead of movies.
Speaker B:I had this thing where I would create a commercial when I would be like, this is my baby and this is my chance to be creatively free.
Speaker B:And I realized it's a commercial.
Speaker B:That's not what a commercial is.
Speaker B:You're selling someone else's product.
Speaker B:And so, like, this is not your time and place to do this.
Speaker B:But then I realized that movies should be the time and place to do that.
Speaker B:And if I'm not creating a movie that feels like me, I should not be doing that movie.
Speaker B:I've had multiple movies where I start developing it, and then I realize that maybe the producers or the writers are in a different place than me.
Speaker B:And I realize I can't spend years of my life doing this if I don't feel right about this, because I'm going to have to watch a movie.
Speaker B:I'm going to read the script probably like 200 to 300 times by the time we're finished shooting it.
Speaker B:And I'm probably going to watch the edit like 400 times.
Speaker B:And so I better love this movie to be able to go through with that.
Speaker B:And I think it's really just pairing up with people who see it in the same way because it's almost like having a partnership or a marriage where if you want different things from it, it's not going to last.
Speaker B:But if you want the same thing, it's going to be really, really hard.
Speaker B:But that makes it worth it because you guys are just pushing for the same thing at the end of the day.
Speaker A:Thank you for sharing.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:And once again, thank you so much for your time and for making such an incredible film because it's so much easier to talk about it.
Speaker B:Thank you so much for having me, Aaron, and talking about the movie.
Speaker A:I guess I'd like to start with your collaboration with the director Mercedes Brice Morgan, and finding that common language with the director in general.
Speaker A:And to my knowledge, this is your second feature with her following Spoonful of Sugar.
Speaker A:When you return to a creative partnership like this, even though, of course, each project means or comes with its own specific characteristics and its challenges.
Speaker A:Is there a sense of familiarity?
Speaker C:Yeah, I think there's nothing quite like making a film with somebody.
Speaker C:It's a uniquely challenging and bonding experience.
Speaker C:And I do feel like every film that I've made with a director really does bring us a lot closer because you're finding something together, but you're also facing all the obstacles that come up along the way.
Speaker C:And so with Mercedes, we had made this film, Spoonful of Sugar together.
Speaker C:And we met right before that film started.
Speaker C:So we didn't really have a language of collaboration yet when we started that movie.
Speaker C:And we actually, we had the really great fortune of.
Speaker C:I met her, interviewed for that film and then we made a music video together.
Speaker C:Totally different style, totally.
Speaker C:I think it was a Christmas video for an artist, I think Adam Lambert or somebody.
Speaker C:And.
Speaker C:But it gave us a chance to just work together, see how we felt on set, see what kind of our rhythm was.
Speaker C:And then in the process of making Spoonful of Sugar, I felt like we bonded both as friends, but also as collaborators.
Speaker C:I think going through that process, you see how each other works, you get a sense of each other's organizational style, management style.
Speaker C:And then also I think some of it is, can we, after a project, are we excited about what we made?
Speaker C:Are we excited about the work itself?
Speaker C:And then also, in the midst of the challenges on every film, there are compromises and it's, do you compromise?
Speaker C:Well, are you able to kind of find that?
Speaker C:And for me, it is about supporting a director's vision, supporting their point of view and supporting their process and so.
Speaker C:And then also bringing something that excites me to the table.
Speaker C:So with Mercedes on that first film, I felt like we were really able to explore.
Speaker C:But also that film was very, you know, we didn't have a huge budget on that movie.
Speaker C:So she has a very big vision in terms of how she wants to move the camera, in terms of what she wants to do with the lighting, and also how she wants to tell stories.
Speaker C:And so when the script for Bone Lake came to me and it came from her, she had kind of started telling me a little bit about this film.
Speaker C:I was really excited to have a little more time, a little more money, more resources, and to be able to take what we had explored on Spoonful of Sugar.
Speaker C:And actually we had done multiple commercials since then and some music videos, so we continued to be able to develop this language.
Speaker C:I think of her as a very expressive, immersive, subjective filmmaker and how she works and how she moves the camera and how she thinks and she loves surrealism.
Speaker C:And to do that kind of visual language requires some degree of crew equipment and pre planning.
Speaker C:But she's very organized.
Speaker C:She has a very specific way of shot listing.
Speaker C:In fact, I so love her approach to shot listing and onset and pre production organization that I've brought other directors into that sort of mindset.
Speaker C:And it really just involves us using A mixture of the range of, like Google Documents, Google Drive to keep everyone working off of the same, you know, documents.
Speaker C:And it's really much more of a digital nomad kind of approach.
Speaker C:You're using iPads, it's updating in real time.
Speaker C:You're able to share GIFs and images.
Speaker C:You know, it's not just text on a piece of paper or in the director's head.
Speaker C:It's something that that's visually available for all the crew to see.
Speaker C:And that's something that I brought into other films and shared with other directors.
Speaker C:And so we've used pieces of it.
Speaker C:And I love that style of working.
Speaker C:It's really collaborative and it communicates a lot and it keeps the director from having to say the same thing again and again.
Speaker C:Because you can just flip an iPad up, show them images we shot in Artemis, and be like, we've actually been thinking about this a lot.
Speaker C:We've already pre planned this.
Speaker C:This is what's going to be on screen.
Speaker C:And it really brings everyone up to speed.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker A:And you touched on this to a point.
Speaker A:But what does that second feature collaboration give you?
Speaker A:That the first?
Speaker A:Not that it couldn't, but yeah, couldn't be possible on a first outing.
Speaker C:That's a great question.
Speaker C:I think that this was the first time I had the opportunity to make a second film with a director.
Speaker C:Directors tend to take a long time before they're able to get projects off the ground.
Speaker C:Just the way the industry works.
Speaker C:And so I was very excited by that opportunity because there's trust that's built.
Speaker C:I think so much of it is you actually know the person that you're working with.
Speaker C:You know how they approach things.
Speaker C:You already know their point of view.
Speaker C:You know, I think of the first movie I make with the director, both as a study of the visual language and of that film and the story that we're telling.
Speaker C:But I also think of it as a study of that person as a character.
Speaker C:Like, who is that person?
Speaker C:How did they view the world?
Speaker C:What experiences led them to this point to make this film?
Speaker C:And so that informs how I approach working with them, that informs how I approach that collaboration.
Speaker C:And the truth is, it's trust, it's friendship.
Speaker C:You go in with this footing that already exists.
Speaker C:You go in with a common language and being able to elevate that and take that and you don't have to say as much.
Speaker C:You know, there's so much that remains that you've already kind of built into the relationship.
Speaker C:It's really magical.
Speaker C:It's really Special.
Speaker C:So I think it gives like a great launching point to be able to do something.
Speaker C:And Bone Lake came together very, very swiftly.
Speaker C:I was actually shooting another film outside the country when I first heard about Bone Lake.
Speaker C:I got back to la, I think I was here for a couple weeks and then we went to Georgia and had, you know, basically four week prep.
Speaker C:So it was a very swift process.
Speaker C:And so having that pre established trust and collaborative friendship really gave us strong footing to be able to move forward and start to experiment and explore and elevate, you know, the language of what we were doing.
Speaker A:With the four week prep you just mentioned.
Speaker A:And something you've also alluded to, which is prioritizing on an 18 day shoot, which is considered pretty much the bare minimum for a feature.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:How do you decide and how much can you plan, rehearse what can serve the story and be feasible at the same time?
Speaker C:Yeah, it really starts the process, kind of looks the same on every film in some ways.
Speaker C:You're scouting locations, you're having extensive conversations with the production designer and the director about where and what and the look of that film.
Speaker C:And then you're pre designing all of that.
Speaker C:So everything in Bone Lake was heavily pre planned.
Speaker C:You know, we, we really actually tried to avoid doing that much handheld in the film.
Speaker C:There's actually a lot of Steadicam and dolly work throughout the first and second act.
Speaker C:But with the opening scene, honestly, some of that was a little bit of the magic of the moment.
Speaker C:So that opening scene was something that we added after we premiered at Fantastic Fest because we felt like it would be a stronger open and we were able to get the resources to do it.
Speaker C:But actually a lot of that handheld work in the opening scene, it started with us shooting off of a gimbal off of this mule, basically.
Speaker C:It's like a four wheeler essentially that you rig a camera on.
Speaker C:And I had been talking with Mercedes and we designed that and we designed that entire scene.
Speaker C:But then in the process, Mercedes is very much a two camera director.
Speaker C:We almost always use two to three cameras on every scene.
Speaker C:And so we're either leapfrogging those setups or we're using them at the same time.
Speaker C:And so I actually jumped on the back of that and I all that handheld work that's in there, I was operating, pulling my own focus.
Speaker C:But it ended up being so dynamic and so kind of all of the, you know, gives a dynamic feeling to that scene and it makes you feel kind of the terror and the expressiveness.
Speaker C:So we ended up cutting a lot of that in and then a lot of the other work was actually done on a gimbal.
Speaker C:But it's pretty swiftly edited.
Speaker C:So it gives kind of like a real movement forward in the edit.
Speaker C:So a lot of that, you know, for that specific scene we flew into Rhode Island.
Speaker C:Mercedes and I had discussed kind of what that was and she had been work, you know, she had been working on that opening scene for a while.
Speaker C:And then we scouted the location.
Speaker C:We spent one day, like first day we got there, we scouted and then actually I think we only scouted and I think designed the shots in one day and then shot the next.
Speaker C:It was very swift, but for like the, you know, principal photography sort of period, we were, we'll go, we'll talk through it and then we'll use, you know, a digital viewfinder and actually a mixture of GIFs and pictures and then digital viewfinder to find what the frames are.
Speaker C:And then we're plotting it all out as, you know, a camera's doing this, B cameras doing this so that we're able to maximize our day.
Speaker C:Because the truth is on most films you're not getting, you know, you're getting between 20 and 30 setups a day and you might be running two cameras for both of those.
Speaker C:So on an 18 day shoot, you just do the math.
Speaker C:And so we really prioritize.
Speaker C:We build a full shot list of the entire film and then we go as we get the schedule for the film and we break it out day by day and, and we try to make sure that those setup counts are achievable and feasible because you're either going to pay overtime or you're going to drop shots as you shoot it.
Speaker C:So it's better to have a great plan in the starting and then it gives you a little more flexibility.
Speaker C:And even with all of that pre planning, there's still magic that happens in the moment.
Speaker C:And one of my favorite shots that just was like a moment we found was we were leaving set one day and Mercedes and I were driving together so we could talk about how the day had gone and what we needed to pick up.
Speaker C:And before we left the set, I just looked out and there was this gorgeous reflection of light at sunset.
Speaker C:And I grabbed, I have a little Blackmagic 6K camera and I went and grabbed it and I was like, hey, let's shoot this real quick.
Speaker C:And that ended up being the title card shot of the movie.
Speaker C:And so that kind of magic comes up along the way.
Speaker C:Even if you pre plan everything, you just, you know, nature provides.
Speaker A:See, I had no idea that the opening was added later on.
Speaker A:I spoke to Mercedes a couple weeks back and we didn't talk about the opening at all.
Speaker A:Just the ending in details, which was then the only thing shot on stage, to my knowledge.
Speaker C:Yes.
Speaker C:Yes, it was.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Which was a unique challenge.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:I can share more if you want, about that.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Since you starting or pretty much shooting all of the film on practical locations and moving from all these natural spaces to an environment as controlled as it gets, is that somewhat liberating or limiting?
Speaker A:What was the feel around that in this specific instance?
Speaker C:It was extremely liberating because, you know, we basically were shooting our final scene on the water, on a lake.
Speaker C:And it's very challenging.
Speaker C:You know, one of the main challenges for me with lighting a lake at night, it's where can you put lifts?
Speaker C:Where can you put condors?
Speaker C:So, you know, basically, it's like.
Speaker C:Think like a construction crane.
Speaker C:It's like I need to get lights up high enough above the trees to be able to light the backgrounds.
Speaker C:And in a perfect world, I'd be able to backlight everything.
Speaker C:But with a lake, it doesn't mean you can always get to the other side of the lake.
Speaker C:Then you have to have power over there, you have to have cranes over there, you have to have crew over there.
Speaker C:So there are a lot of logistical challenges that are involved with that.
Speaker C:And I think we were able to afford a couple lifts.
Speaker C:I think we had 280 foot lifts, but, you know, you're putting 18Ks in those and you're trying to paint the background, you're trying to paint the actors with light.
Speaker C:You know, it's very challenging.
Speaker C:And then on top of that, because there's nowhere to put stands, you know, it's all water.
Speaker C:On top of that, you're also dealing with all the crew is kind of funneled down into one space, the actors and everybody, because you can't go on the water.
Speaker C:And so every time you step a foot on the water, it's just extremely challenging.
Speaker C:It costs more time, it costs more money.
Speaker C:So we had started shooting that scene and then we had a massive storm roll in.
Speaker C:You know, 20 mile an hour winds, crazy rains.
Speaker C:The boat was being rocked.
Speaker C:You know, we had a couple people that I think.
Speaker C:I think we had an AC or somebody fall into the water.
Speaker C:Was that.
Speaker C:It got that turbulent and so we called it because it was just.
Speaker C:It was really crazy.
Speaker C:Luckily, this was by luck, not by design.
Speaker C:We had already shot a few sequences on the lake and there were you know, in those instances, we had been painting the background with light and painting everything.
Speaker C:So you could kind of, you know, some of the earlier scenes in the film where it's.
Speaker C:You have that kind of lavender color touching the background and touching the actors.
Speaker C:But when we got to the final scene in conversation with Mercedes, in conversation with the producers, we just were like, let's go with an all practical boat look.
Speaker C:You know, these kind of greenish, yellowy kind of tones.
Speaker C:And just to give it something that felt more claustrophobic, more like we're stuck on the boat and there's darkness everywhere.
Speaker C:And so we had made that decision, not realizing it would save us.
Speaker C:And so we, you know, we conclude that day, we come back to a stage and shoot more later on.
Speaker C:Well, now I can use black backgrounds.
Speaker C:I can bring the rain, which was not something we were doing on set.
Speaker C:That just happened, you know, by nature.
Speaker C:It was beautiful.
Speaker C:I remember the producer saying this would cost us a lot of money to do.
Speaker C:And it was gorgeous and it looked great.
Speaker C:So we were actually able to take that.
Speaker C:You know, the black backgrounds, the rain, and then you go on a stage and now you can put the camera anywhere you want on the boat or around the boat.
Speaker C:It gives you a lot more access to.
Speaker C:To your actors.
Speaker C:Because, you know, when actors are on boats, communicating with them is over walkies, you know, it's very challenging.
Speaker C:You don't.
Speaker C:You have a lot of distance between you and the actors a lot of times.
Speaker C:And it's only the people that can fit on the boat that have immediate access to the actors.
Speaker C:So usually that's an operator and sound.
Speaker C:So shooting on a stage was great because it gave us the chance to get a lot more material to shoot the scene with a lot more control.
Speaker C:And then also we were able to match it in, you know.
Speaker C:And honestly, I watched the scene and I can't remember what shot, practically what was shot on stage because it does kind of all blend together.
Speaker A:And as for the surrounding elements, that, of course, serve the story, but at the same time are visual challenges as well in the form of mist, rain or on the lake.
Speaker A:Water everywhere, pretty much.
Speaker A:I know except for when the actual storm came, these weren't exactly natural occurrences.
Speaker A:But from a cinematographer's point of view, how much of working with water is fighting it versus letting it do what it wants to do and then bring the most out of it?
Speaker C:Yeah, it looks great.
Speaker C:You know, sometimes things that are great on screen are not easy to do.
Speaker C:And, you know, I like to talk about, you know, sometimes what's good for production isn't what's good for the movie.
Speaker C:So sometimes you have to go through some pain in order to arrive at something that's really cool, gorgeous.
Speaker C:So I will always prioritize that over, you know, I mean, we're going to make this movie and then it's going to live forever.
Speaker C:So if we're given the opportunity, I'll take it.
Speaker C:It does cost.
Speaker C:It does, you know, and frankly, we didn't have the kind of budget to be able to do, you know, 200 yards of rain, you know, so we were very fortunate that we got rain when we did.
Speaker C:And, you know, I'd also rather be lucky than good.
Speaker C:You know, it's like sometimes you just, you get, you do get lucky.
Speaker C:And we got very lucky.
Speaker C:The rain matched too.
Speaker C:In our times of day.
Speaker C:There were some that we built.
Speaker C:There was definitely.
Speaker C:There's scenes that is completely us.
Speaker C:But we also got really lucky that some of our bigger exteriors where there was rain, it happened naturally.
Speaker C:So like them walking through the woods, you know, that was like a 200 yard placement.
Speaker C:And I had 18Ks coming from either side through the woods and kind of gets eaten up by the trees and stuff.
Speaker C:But the rain was still falling and we were still able to get these like long Steadicam shots which get cut up in the film.
Speaker C:They're not play as long steady cam shots.
Speaker C:And then, you know, the mist was something we created.
Speaker C:All of that was created by, you know, it's called the tube of death.
Speaker C:So you basically have like a hundred yard or 100 foot tube and it's, you know, you fill it with smoke and then it blows.
Speaker C:The only challenge of course is if the wind goes the wrong way, you know, it leaves you hanging and all your smoke went this way.
Speaker C:So some, you know, and we just didn't have budget or size of teams to do two special effects teams with two tubes of death.
Speaker C:So we can set it on either side and then it'll spill this way.
Speaker C:But it was so important to us that those scenes not feel that they have a mysticism to them, that they do feel sort of ethereal.
Speaker C:We wanted there to be this kind of gothic, hazy tinged atmosphere where you weren't sure what was lurking in the shadows, you're not sure what lurks in the haze, you know.
Speaker C:And I think those kind of practical elements really are advantageous for creating this sense of mystery.
Speaker C:This, you know, and, and tonally kind of letting you wonder.
Speaker C:Yeah, some of it, a lot of it's planned, but then a Lot of it was also luck.
Speaker A:Another thing I asked Mercedes about briefly, but, you know, I'm going to ask you as well, but in length, which is the Zali.
Speaker A:That technique, I wouldn't say carries so much baggage, but rather association with specific moments in film history.
Speaker A:What were the conversations around deploying it here?
Speaker C:Yeah, that's a great question.
Speaker C:So there's a big act shift at that juncture in the film, and we wanted to leave the audience wondering what just transpired.
Speaker C:You know, these characters are.
Speaker C:They're split apart.
Speaker C:You know, there's two different couples in two different places.
Speaker C:You know, there's people being seduced in both scenes.
Speaker C:So we have a pretty dramatic lighting in the Diego sin scene.
Speaker C:It's got almost, you know, we're playing with pretty.
Speaker C:Pretty dramatic shafts of light and color, you know, colors.
Speaker C:And then in terms of what's going on with, like, Will and Sage, there's.
Speaker C:We're outside, which is more challenging to be able to control.
Speaker C:And we wanted there to be a stylistic.
Speaker C:You know, some stylistic cues that really play with this act shift and what's happening.
Speaker C:So the Zolli was a way to kind of.
Speaker B:Of.
Speaker C:I think it works more dramatically in the Will and Sage material.
Speaker C:But we also did use it with Sin and Diego.
Speaker C:So we wanted there to kind of be this, like, montage of Zollis, you know, that we're playing with, in order to kind of, like, accentuate this moment, you know, make this moment sort of last longer in time.
Speaker C:And then we're cutting into those macro shots of, like, eyes and lips, you know, and there's a sensuality to that and a height aspect to that.
Speaker C:So rather than.
Speaker C:I don't feel that we.
Speaker C:You know, it's like, of course, there's the famous Vertigo shot and the famous shot in Jaws.
Speaker C:And, you know, it is a very dramatic way to move the camera.
Speaker C:But I think for us, it was like, how do we create a moment that feels like everything's crescendoing?
Speaker C:And then there's a big, you know, act shift.
Speaker C:And then we're like, I don't know what just happened.
Speaker C:I'm not sure what's going on.
Speaker C:Did these characters all cheat on each other?
Speaker C:Like, I don't know.
Speaker C:So it was really a way to kind of heighten that moment.
Speaker C:And I think, like, with everything in film, if you're going to talk about it as grammar, if you're going to use an exclamation point, let's say you don't want to overuse it, you know, it has drama when you use it in a limited context.
Speaker C:So that was kind of the approach.
Speaker C:That was the thought behind it.
Speaker A:Exactly.
Speaker A:I like that.
Speaker A:And for me, at least, it worked.
Speaker A:I mean, the fact that it's symmetric between the couples that are split in those moments.
Speaker A:Nick, once again, I thank you for your time and for this lovely conversation.
Speaker A:This was a pleasure.
Speaker C:Absolutely.
Speaker C:Thank you so much.
Speaker C:I really appreciate it.
Speaker C:And it's great to meet you.
Speaker C:And, you know, I love hearing how people respond to film.
Speaker C:You know, I want to make movies I want to watch, so I'm glad that it touched you.
