Sibling Synergy: Ramon Zürcher takes us inside the making of 'The Sparrow in the Chimney'
Filmmaker Ramon Zürcher joins us to discuss 'The Sparrow in the Chimney,' the final installment in his trilogy with twin brother Silvan that explores family dynamics through a seemingly simple birthday gathering. We dive into how the brothers navigate their creative partnership—sometimes co-directing, other times working solo—while maintaining their unique collaborative relationship.
Ramon walks us through the film's exploration of two very different sisters, Karen and Jule, whose contrasting personalities create mounting tension during a family visit. He explains his approach to character development and why he avoids clichéd family drama tropes, instead focusing on the complex layers beneath everyday interactions. The conversation touches on his background in choreography and how it influences his meticulous attention to sound design and visual storytelling.
From the lengthy development of this trilogy to his philosophy of writing scripts that incorporate audio and visual elements from the start, Ramon offers insights into creating what he calls a complete sensory experience rather than just a visual narrative.
Transcript
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Speaker B:To Talk Hot Oscar podcast.
Speaker A:And this is our conversation with Ramon Tsirjar, writer director of the Sparrow in the Chimney.
Speaker B:I'm sure that the next films I will make, there will be similarities.
Speaker B:I don't want to invent myself newly, and I'm still interested in those topics.
Speaker B:I'm still interested in certain formal aspects.
Speaker B:But those three films, the Animal trilogy, now found its end.
Speaker A:I guess to begin with, you and your twin brother Sylvan have this.
Speaker A:I don't know, at least to me.
Speaker A:Fascinating pattern across three features.
Speaker A:First a solo directing credit for you, then a co directing credit, now solo again.
Speaker A:Maybe I'm seeing too much into this, but what drives the decision on when to share the directing credit versus when one takes the lead?
Speaker A:Is it all an, I don't know, administrative guild type, super boring stuff, or maybe something more?
Speaker B:Actually, it depends.
Speaker B:Just the script writing, because the first film, the Strange Little Cut, it was me in the cockpit writing the script.
Speaker B:So I really had the idea, then wrote the script.
Speaker B:And Sylvan was always very, very important in every process during making the Strange Little Cut.
Speaker B:But then already he was the producer, it was the film we made at the film school in Berlin.
Speaker B:And so it was a very classical division between writer and producer.
Speaker B:And then after the festival circuit of the Strange Little Cats, Sylvan started to write the Girl and the Spider, which is the second installment of the trilogy.
Speaker B:And me, I then started to write the Sparrow in the Chimney, which is the third installment.
Speaker B:And as Sylvan was really in the cockpit for the Gorna the Spider, then it was kind of organic, it felt organic that also during the shooting, his presence and so that we share the role of the director, it was kind of co directing, but the third film, I wrote it and Sylvan again is the producer.
Speaker B:And here it felt right that he organizes everything and he's sometimes also on the set during the shooting, that it's just me in the cockpit of director.
Speaker B:And I guess that from project to project, from film to film, we always look what is the best construction or the best architecture of the the crew or of the positions between the two of us.
Speaker B:And so we always look what fits the best.
Speaker B:But I have also to add, because we're, as you already said, we are twins, twin siblings, and there's a huge magnetism, it's a very symbiotic situation.
Speaker B:And so we always have to look because it's a very personal relationship, but also a very professional relationship as we work together.
Speaker B:And then we Always have to design very, very clear roles so that the symbiotic situation doesn't make it too fluid.
Speaker A:Fascinating.
Speaker A:And as for the writing itself, when one of the two of you starts writing, is it then all his or thanks to this magnetism, symbiotism.
Speaker A:Do you guys do revisions together or consult one another during or is it one's sole project as far as the writing specifically goes?
Speaker B:Well, actually at the Strange Little Cat and the Sparrow in the Chimney, it was always that me, I really wrote it and I had the, the script and I wrote everything, the dialogues, the actions.
Speaker B:And Sylvan was always the first feedbacker or the first reader and he read the scenes or the drafts and then he was always the first person doing the feedbacks.
Speaker B:So he was very much involved in every artistic decision.
Speaker B:But he never had the script on his desktop and he never wrote on his own.
Speaker B:He just made some proposals or he said what works good or what could be added.
Speaker B:And the second film, the Sparrow in the Chimney, Seldon wrote the very first draft.
Speaker B:Not not only treatment, but also the, the first draft of the script.
Speaker B:And then on at Christmas he kind of gave me that draft as a gift.
Speaker B:I read it and then there started a period of collaboration where sometimes one week, two weeks I was in the cockpit, I wrote, then again, Sylvan wrote.
Speaker B:So that project was very fluid there.
Speaker B:It was really a collaboration that the, the cockpit situation changed.
Speaker B:And for example, now Sylvan is writing a script and so I sometimes read some scenes or now I am like the feedbacker for his script.
Speaker B:And when me, I will write a next film, then he always will be the feedbacker.
Speaker B:So it's something very fluid.
Speaker B:And we don't have like very fixed rules.
Speaker B:It always have to feel organically.
Speaker A:I mean, how can any future Christmas gifts live up to getting a script?
Speaker A:Sure, it comes with the responsibility, of course, as far as what to do with it, but yeah, that's incredible.
Speaker A:And yeah, as for this one specifically, the Sparrow in the Chimney with the entire family occasions, setting, it comes with such a pressure cooker of an environment.
Speaker A:And yet the amount of characters, storylines leaked, everything that they ignite, you have to juggle them all.
Speaker A:I know it's a big question, but what's your through line?
Speaker A:The one that keeps you on the right track for not only the characters themselves, but yourself as the storyteller as well.
Speaker B:Yes, I think like the red line, as you said, there are many, many characters.
Speaker B:It's like two families coming, coming together, meeting at the parents house.
Speaker B:And so there Are about eight, nine characters.
Speaker B:And for me, it was always very important that each character has a certain depth, that they are not just like stereotype characters or that they are kind of flat or.
Speaker B:I don't know.
Speaker B:I wanted that really, each character, each family member is really an interesting color, which is ambiguous.
Speaker B:And so it was very, very difficult to design that complexity during those two hours of the film.
Speaker B:But the most important thing was maybe, as you said, there are also many conflicts to design that path of conflicts.
Speaker B:Because it's the portrait of that family and it's the tension in that family.
Speaker B:During their preparation of the birthday party.
Speaker B:The tension always grows bigger.
Speaker B:And for me, it was a little bit like to always put more oil in the fire to make it always more tense.
Speaker B:And that the kind of aggression grows up until it explodes explosives.
Speaker B:And so writing this script, the thing, the red line for me was to designing the conflicts, to designing the different relationships, for example, between Karen, which is the mother and her sister Julie, or between Karen and the different children.
Speaker B:She has that like the heart of the family body or the center was for me, always the mother, Karen.
Speaker B:And so writing the script, I always looked how is the relationship between Karen and, for example, her husband or the different children?
Speaker B:So that was kind of the thing I always highlighted and I always put a focus on.
Speaker A:You also edit your films yourself, to my knowledge, which of course gives you incredible control over rhythm, pacing, and yeah, despite the aforementioned narrative complexity, the amount of characters, many times you hold a scene, hold on to a moment in terms of pacing and not rush ahead of yourself.
Speaker A:And the story itself, how much of the pacing is decided during the scripting and in the edit, pre and post.
Speaker B:Production, I always try, or I always tried those three films to really decide many things already on the script, writing in that process.
Speaker B:So writing the films, the scripts, I always kind of imagined the choreography or also the mise en scene.
Speaker B:So in the script, for example, I put like lines which showed me from which point to which point a certain shot, from when to when a certain shot is when is an edit.
Speaker B:And I already tried to think the choreographies.
Speaker B:When is somebody off screen?
Speaker B:When somebody on screen, of course, it's kind of a.
Speaker B:So only kind of a recipe.
Speaker B:And then during the shooting, we, the actors, actresses, and also the director of photography, Alexander Haskell, we look if that works.
Speaker B:And mostly it doesn't work.
Speaker B:Mostly there are better possibilities to make the mise en scene, the choreography.
Speaker B:And so we adapted then after the shooting, at the post production, editing all that footage Then it's the moment where I really can find the rhythm and the path.
Speaker B:And it never is exactly as it is thought.
Speaker B:It always is more, for example, concentrated and a little bit different.
Speaker B:But actually it's kind of one process.
Speaker B:Writing a scene, shooting it, editing it, it's like one process.
Speaker B:And so I like it to also edit the footage so that I can find that rhythm.
Speaker B:And for example, once I read that for Alfred Hitchcock, he said that before shooting a film, the film already exists just on paper.
Speaker B:The script, he kind of controls everything and he wants to know how everything is.
Speaker B:And at those three films, I was a little bit.
Speaker B:Was kind of an idea which accompanied me.
Speaker B:I also tried to know many things, maybe also because I knew that during the shooting there were so many actors, actresses, so many children, animals.
Speaker B:So that it's good having made many decisions before.
Speaker B:But of course, it's always important, having some space for improvisation, to have an open gaze, to look if there are some gifts, some things which could not have been thought before, just gifts which you collect during shooting.
Speaker B:And so it's important to not only control it, but also keep an open gaze.
Speaker A:Another thing you were very much involved in is the sound design.
Speaker A:And now that you of course, mention the animals, namely, for example, the TTR sparrow, bird chirping in general, the clinking of plates or glasses.
Speaker A:Are these sound elements also in your scripts already to a point, when it comes to, say, shooting what's on the page?
Speaker B:Yes, often when I.
Speaker B:When I write the script, then I have like text with.
Speaker B:With the text which is black, I write it.
Speaker B:Black is on screen.
Speaker B:And when it's sound or off screen elements, then I write it green, so that when I read or the.
Speaker B:The script, I already know visually, which is mostly sound.
Speaker B:And then I already write, for example, there's that quality of sound that there's.
Speaker B:And that moment is rather silent, or that moment is rather loud and explosive or destructive.
Speaker B:Or this moment is rather tender and soft and slow.
Speaker B:Or, for example, the noises of those birds are rather lovely, the singing of those birds is rather aggressive and uncanny.
Speaker B:So because I think that the great thing of making films, of making cinema, is to make things which are invisible, to make them visible, but not only visible, but also hearable, so that you can really construct something.
Speaker B:And I guess when you treat or work with sound in a very conscious way, the images or the cinematographic space can become very rich and complex and can be very interesting.
Speaker B:And it's always difficult to look which element you put in the dialogues, or what could Be shown with light, with sounds, with maybe or sometimes also music, because those are the things, the really cinematographic things where you can rebuild a complexity of reality.
Speaker B:And so I always liked it very much to think the sound, to think the music, and to really work with those elements in a very conscient way.
Speaker A:And as for the ones mainly bringing your visions to life, those who perform the actors themselves, there are of course, many directors who have muses, ones who have their most trusted collaborators in front of the camera as well.
Speaker A:Looking across this trilogy, there aren't really recurring actors or familiar faces throughout these three films.
Speaker A:So I'm curious, what do these fresh faces and voices bring to the table for you, going from one project to another?
Speaker B:Well, during the script writing, I never had like certain actors or actresses in mind.
Speaker B:So I was very, very open when I went to the casting director.
Speaker B:And it was always very interesting what they proposed, which actors, actresses.
Speaker B:But for me, in the casting, the most important thing is how the dialogues, how the monologues and how the things.
Speaker B:Mostly how the dialogues work, how when they speak it, how that dialogue works with the actor or actresses.
Speaker B:And I guess when I had a certain feeling that it kind of works, or that I'm interested or that I believe it and it kind of feels organically, or that something new is produced, which maybe I didn't know that it is in the.
Speaker B:In that scene.
Speaker B:And when I would like to always re.
Speaker B:Watch the takes or look also how the other scenes are with that actress or actors.
Speaker B:So that is very important.
Speaker B:But I never had like a fixed idea or an obsession that it has to be this actress or that actor.
Speaker B:Because I think that there are many actresses or actors who could play those roles.
Speaker B:It's so many different possibilities.
Speaker B:Then of course, always it would be a little bit different.
Speaker B:Yes.
Speaker B:And I.
Speaker B:In those three films, there was just one actress who was in two films.
Speaker B:It is Lea Dreger, who was in the Strange Little Cat and the Girl and the Spider.
Speaker B:But with most actors, actresses I'd like to rework, it's just.
Speaker B:Were always wonderful experiences.
Speaker B:It was always great time on.
Speaker B:On the set.
Speaker B:But those three films, they are kind of a family, siblings, they belong together.
Speaker B:But when I would have, for example, one actress or actor in two films, and that would have been a little bit strange.
Speaker B:So I. I like the idea that it's not always the same mother or it's not always the same children, so that the three films are kind of independent, they are formally connected.
Speaker B:And also the topic is very similar, but the actors actresses there.
Speaker B:I like that the three installments are really independent from each other.
Speaker A:And last but not least, not to question you in any shape or form, but rather to pick your brain about how these three films turned out.
Speaker A:Now, somewhat in hindsight, compared to what you set out to make, do you yourself feel as though this planned trilogy is complete?
Speaker B:Yes, I feel now it's really complete and it's a nice feeling because so now it's like really that Trypticon, that trilogy, it was 10 years we worked on it and it's really like a journey from rather the static, because the Strange Little Cat is rather like the static family portrait on one day in one flat, chamber piece in one flat.
Speaker B:And now the third film, where it's rather like a transformation within a family.
Speaker B:It's like a metamorphosis, a development, not the aesthetic portraits, but like a family in movement, where a transformation, a turn, a change happens.
Speaker B:So it's a little bit like the journey from static to movement.
Speaker B:And for me now it's really a finished project.
Speaker B:I'm sure that the next films I will make, there will be similarities.
Speaker B:I don't want to invent myself newly and I'm.
Speaker B:I'm still interested in those topics.
Speaker B:I'm still interested in certain formal aspects.
Speaker B:But those three films, the Animal trilogy, now found its end and it feels nice being now from in front of a blank page, in front of a white paper, and to start something very newly, with a fresh eyes.
Speaker A:Well, that's exactly what you want to hear.
Speaker A:And yeah, once again, Ramon, thank you so, so much for your time.
Speaker A:This was such a lovely chat.
Speaker B:It was a pleasure, thank you so.
Speaker A:Much.
