Out of place but in control: John Maclean and Robbie Ryan on 'Tornado'
John Maclean and Robbie Ryan take us on an insightful journey through the creative process behind their film 'Tornado', reflecting on their decade-long collaboration that has shaped their artistic identities. We dive deep into the thematic undercurrents of their films, with a keen focus on displacement as a recurring motif.
Ryan's cinematographic perspective adds a rich layer to the discussion, as he elucidates how the visual language of 'Tornado' borrows from the stylistic elements of classic Westerns and samurai films. Their exchange is peppered with references to legendary filmmakers like Kurosawa and Tarkovsky, showcasing how their influences shape the film's visual storytelling. The duo shares amusing anecdotes about their shooting experiences, particularly the challenges posed by the unpredictable Scottish weather, which they embraced as a dynamic aspect of the film's character.
As we discuss their filming techniques, the conversation shifts to the importance of spontaneity in capturing authentic moments. John and Robbie emphasize that while storyboarding provides a framework, it's often the instinct-driven choices on set that yield the most compelling results. The candidness in their dialogue reveals a deep-seated camaraderie that enhances their collaborative process, allowing them to push creative boundaries together.
Transcript
You are listening to the we need to Talk About Oscar podcast, and this is our conversation with John McClint and Robbie Ryan, writer, director, and the cinematographer of Tornado.
Speaker B:Some of the references were like Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and sort of the way that they shoot maybe further back through a structure.
Speaker B:We were always looking for little bits like that.
Speaker B:We were shooting through sheets and through bits of wood.
Speaker B:You're just always on the lookout for interesting shots that may or may not have meaning.
Speaker C:It's always easy to post, rationalize.
Speaker C:I think when you're doing it, it's quite instinctive and, you know, it just feels like a good idea at the time.
Speaker C:But you don't.
Speaker C:You wouldn't have thought it through that much.
Speaker A:I guess, pretty much, to begin with.
Speaker A:We are a decade after Slow west and eight years.
Speaker C:Is it a decade?
Speaker B:It's a decade.
Speaker A:Oh, so.
Speaker C:Oh, my God.
Speaker C:Yeah, you're right.
Speaker C:It is.
Speaker C:Sorry.
Speaker B:You're right.
Speaker A:For a moment there, I was like, oh, no, my research.
Speaker A:Everything goes out the window.
Speaker C:No, I guess we shot it.
Speaker C:We shot it last year, so that felt like eight years.
Speaker C:But, yeah, ten years.
Speaker C:You're right.
Speaker C:You're dead right, Arin.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:So now the two of you, of course, reenact for Tornado.
Speaker A:And John, as far as I know, this is your sophomore feature.
Speaker A:While you, Robby, have been on this, I don't know, relentless tear with everyone from Angie Arnold or Yorgos Lanthimos.
Speaker A:So has it changed how you work together?
Speaker A:I mean, the two of you, this gap versus or plus Robbie's continuous output or.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:How do you maintain the nature of your collaboration with each other?
Speaker B:I actually don't think it changes because we have a way of working together that we developed in the short film and then in Slow West.
Speaker B:And I don't tend to deviate too far from that, which is to.
Speaker C:To.
Speaker B:When I finish the script, I draw the storyboards, then I show Robbie the storyboards, then he tells me to draw less storyboards.
Speaker C:Then I.
Speaker B:And then I draw less storyboards.
Speaker B:And then we.
Speaker B:When we're on set, we kind of.
Speaker B:It's a very similar procedure.
Speaker B:I've got two or three guidelines, you know, static camera, deep focus track, if need be.
Speaker B:No handheld.
Speaker B:And then with those very, very loose guidelines, I let Robbie kind of, you know, control the light and control the setups.
Speaker B:And then when it comes to following the storyboards, and then when it comes to, you know, shooting, I just check the lens.
Speaker B:The composition is usually perfect, and then we shoot.
Speaker B:So it's quite simple.
Speaker B:And we don't have to really have a lot of discussions between takes or anything.
Speaker B:In fact, we hardly ever do.
Speaker C:So.
Speaker C:So yeah, no, we.
Speaker C:I think from.
Speaker C:I think to get from your question is I work with lots of different people.
Speaker C:They all different.
Speaker C:Have different styles.
Speaker C:And I kind of been working with John slowest.
Speaker C:I know what his style is.
Speaker C:So I kind of just settle into that for that film.
Speaker C:So it's very.
Speaker C:It's actually very reassuring and it's quite a nice change of pace to.
Speaker C:Every director has a bit of a different way of working, you know.
Speaker C:And with John it's.
Speaker C:It's always quite enjoyable because of.
Speaker C:I think you're pretty much everyone I use workload does two storyboards.
Speaker C:So they're a joy to sort of behold all the way.
Speaker C:You've seen that picture in the film in your head and it's like a beautiful kind of like book of pictures.
Speaker C:So that's really fun to kind of look at when from my perspective.
Speaker C:And yeah, the only problem was there's too many of them.
Speaker B:For a 25 day shoot.
Speaker B:There was a lot of storyboards.
Speaker C:Yeah, I worked it out.
Speaker C:We'd have to do 80 setups a day.
Speaker C:You drawn.
Speaker C:I remember reading someone telling you that and then you're going, yeah.
Speaker C:And then when we actually started unit, they did so like some of them would double up.
Speaker C:So you know, it wasn't like.
Speaker C:Yeah, but we did do like quite a lot of setups a day.
Speaker C:So we had to because it was a short shoot.
Speaker C:But John has his.
Speaker C:There's a very satisfying element to the way John works is he just crosses off the storyboard, but he's got it.
Speaker C:So you go, okay, great, we can move on.
Speaker C:And that's actually sometimes people linger and they don't know if they've got the shot and don't know whether you're going to move on.
Speaker C:So when I see John cross it, we go, all right, we're moving over there.
Speaker C:And on this job it was like, we're moving.
Speaker C:Doesn't matter.
Speaker C:We got to go over here now.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:And both films center on displaced characters that are being chased.
Speaker A:Cody's Scottish boy in the American frontier.
Speaker A:Now cocky, stranded in Britain.
Speaker A:So John, what keeps throwing you back to characters who don't quite belong?
Speaker B:I think that's a good framework to say other things.
Speaker B:You know, I think a lot of films, when you analyze a lot of films, you find maybe that's the case, maybe not so obvious as these two, but characters that are out of place, you know, is.
Speaker B:Is the theme of the Western, this sort of stranger that comes to town, you know.
Speaker B: they weren't all American in: Speaker B:And the same as possibly.
Speaker B:I tried to suggest the same in Britain.
Speaker B:You know, Britain, Britain's period dramas have sort of always inhabited quite a narrow field of radio.
Speaker B:Rich people in a big house and poppers in the streets of London.
Speaker B:And you know, I was just wanting to sort of make a period drama that was perhaps full of outsiders and full of people from other places in the world.
Speaker B:And you know, and then, then you can bring in the western and the Samurai film and, and other.
Speaker B:The Bergman esque troops and you know, you can bring in other elements.
Speaker B:So yeah, that was the kind of feeling about both stories.
Speaker A:And Robbie, what does this displacement, the clash of widely different words mean for the visual language you develop for these films?
Speaker C:Well, I think both films lending into a genre of sort of western and samurai films.
Speaker C:So I think from my perspective, I watched a few more samurai movies and John is a complete aficionado on that.
Speaker C:So I would always be trying to go, oh, I watched this video.
Speaker C:Yeah, I've seen that one.
Speaker C:This one's better.
Speaker C:But it would be, yeah, like the visual sort of kind of language of those films is so exciting and so kind of, you know, they're, they're popular for a reason, you know, so we were able to tap into that.
Speaker C:And that's just like.
Speaker C:I find it very enjoyable to do technoscope, close up Levis and a kind of a mix up of a western and a samurai.
Speaker C:It doesn't happen too often because they both are kind of the same thing.
Speaker C:But you know, to sort of like it Tornado, I think it kind of like stands out a bit more that you're melding the two together because it's in an English sort of environment.
Speaker C:So I think that's.
Speaker C:That was very interesting.
Speaker C:And yeah, we, we kind of, we settled into it because we both love those films.
Speaker C:So it was quite fun to be able to kind of get away with using that sort of film language.
Speaker A:And the shorter two of you were not together.
Speaker A:You mentioned John Pitch Black Heist, which one of the leads was Michael Fassbender who also starred in Slow West.
Speaker A:And then there is Rory McCann as well, who starred in the latter.
Speaker A:And now Tornado.
Speaker A:I'm not gonna ask you who'd be the next actor you wish to bring back in a future project of yours, but what do These familiar faces and a particular type of performers bring to newer and newer stories.
Speaker B:I think when you work with someone and they're great and they're fun to work with and they're, you know, they're very accomplished actors, a lot of them.
Speaker B:You know, there's some non actors that I brought on that you'll notice from Slow west and Tornado as well, that then I start writing with them in mind.
Speaker B:So I would write a part for Rory and Tornado because I enjoyed working with them in Slow west.
Speaker B:And, you know, so it happens in the script writing.
Speaker B:And then you just hope they're available.
Speaker B:You know, sometimes they are available, sometimes they're not available.
Speaker B:So you kind of write.
Speaker B:It's nice to be able to visualize people, actors when you're writing and then hope they'll do it.
Speaker A:Other than even the lead character being named after a weather phenomenon.
Speaker A:And with that, the film itself as well.
Speaker A:Yeah, the weather itself in this one isn't just backdrop or anything like that.
Speaker A:So we.
Speaker A:With that in mind, what are the two of you's relationships like with different weather elements on set and within a film, whether they be simulated or completely out of control for you?
Speaker C:Well, from my perspective, this film, the weather was.
Speaker C:Is true to form To Scotland was changing within seconds actually this time, because it was a very windy time of the year.
Speaker C:And it actually made it really dramatic, which was actually perfect for us.
Speaker C:And we work quite quickly.
Speaker C:So it only became like.
Speaker C:So you've got sun coming out for five minutes, then it's actually hail and rain for five minutes, and then it's sun again.
Speaker C:And it like, from a continuity point of view, it went all over the place.
Speaker C:But it kind of really added to the character of the film, I think.
Speaker C:And you know, there's only one or two scenes where you kind of go, oh, it's literally gone from one thing to other.
Speaker C:And grading helps in that regard.
Speaker C:But I think the weather is really, really amazing in the film.
Speaker C:And it's so much demanding of you to film in that environment that it kind of changes your perception of the film.
Speaker C:And it's when it's been shot, if you know what I mean.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, you look at Kurosawa's film for weather, you know, but you sort of.
Speaker B:It's kind of underused as a character in a film, I think, you know, and especially everyone watches TV now.
Speaker B:And the one thing that kind of is missing in general in television is weather.
Speaker B:But, you know, when it comes to cinema even, you know, it's sort of.
Speaker B:I Think a couple of things that are underused are British landscape and weather in general.
Speaker B:Because they're there, you know, to be there and they're free.
Speaker C:Well, the problem with it is sometimes you kind of like, for instance, this film was always set in the snow.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I wanted even more weather that I didn't get.
Speaker C:No.
Speaker C:Which was like difficult to get a film to make anyway.
Speaker C:But to make it at a certain point in time with snow is very, very tricky to get that window right for getting your actors and all of the things.
Speaker C:So luckily John changed it and said, I'll just take whatever comes my way.
Speaker C:And we really got great weather.
Speaker C:Like the first day of the shoot was absolute torrential rain, like.
Speaker C:But we were inside for that one.
Speaker C:It was horrible and it was great and it was like beautiful weather.
Speaker C:And it was, it was John's very lucky with the weather.
Speaker C:And I think this film really is a heck of a lot stronger because of it.
Speaker A:Plus there is quite a big amount of wind picked up as well in the film.
Speaker A:And yet there is not so much dialogue.
Speaker A:But still, what was the amount of ADR and non ADR as far as dialogues go?
Speaker B:Actually, I think there's got to be big props to the sound team on this because basically we were.
Speaker B:If we didn't have full on wind, which we'd have 60% of the time, then we'd have a wind blower, you know, I mean, it's.
Speaker B:It's slightly quieter if you've got wind than if you've got a machine blowing wind.
Speaker B:But at the same time it's both quite difficult.
Speaker B:And I think in the end we saved, you know, 70, 80% of the dialogue, I think came from on the set.
Speaker B:Because he was just really.
Speaker B:He was just really great at doing it, you know, I think his rule was simplicity.
Speaker B:So I never saw him the whole set.
Speaker B:He was sort of just someone that kind of ghosted in and ghosted out.
Speaker B:And you know, you've got roads, you've got planes, you've got cars, you've got wind machines.
Speaker B:But I remember in the post sound department all being pretty happy about a lot of the adr and we didn't have the finances to do, you know, masses of adr.
Speaker A:As far as pacing goes, there is of course the one you develop during writing and then in post, the one in the edit.
Speaker A:But what I get to ask you guys about now, since we have you on Robby, is cinematographic pacing, as in the tempo you establish with the camera itself.
Speaker A:So what was it like for you Guys to find the rhythm together and.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:Are there moments you deliberately wanted to read or on the other hand accelerate through these choices and moments and scenes?
Speaker C:Well, as John said at the start of this interview, he has a very set sort of rule book to an extent.
Speaker C:So the camera, for ease of speed was always mostly static.
Speaker C:And that, you know, is good at expediating the, the way you shoot you get through a lot of stuff because the camera's just a static camera and it's easy to set up.
Speaker C:And yeah, the, we did do quite a bit of tracking as well.
Speaker C:But I think the nature of that was, was what made it.
Speaker C:We just got through the days.
Speaker C:We had days to get through.
Speaker C:They're very short days for the light.
Speaker C:So it really just.
Speaker C:There was no, like, let's pause and think about this one.
Speaker C:It was all like, let's go, let's go, let's go.
Speaker C:And the great thing with the way John works is he tends to not do very many takes if maybe he's a bit disappointed if he's doing maybe three takes of each setup.
Speaker C:So if we can do it in one, we do it in one.
Speaker C:And that means we get through it really quickly.
Speaker C:And not that it's quick and not being thoughtful, if you know what I mean.
Speaker C:It's, it's, it's kind of.
Speaker C:Because we kind of knew what we wanted to get.
Speaker C:We had it's kind of good characters to film.
Speaker C:It was never a boring frame as such.
Speaker C:So I think it was only good that we down to like a performance thing.
Speaker C:And I think all the actors were really, really good actually.
Speaker C:They really stood up and settled into it and you didn't really have much time with them, did you John?
Speaker B:No, no time.
Speaker C:In that way it's an amazing sort of achievement because I don't, I don't really think there's ever a bum note from any of the acting and like they might have been told that you have to do it in one take.
Speaker C:So they really up their game.
Speaker C:Which I think is a really good approach, especially on a 25 day shoot.
Speaker B:Yeah, I mean, I think that if, I mean if the actors are reacting.
Speaker B:Sorry.
Speaker B:And not acting, then it makes it easier for the actors.
Speaker B:So you know, there's most of the time they're reacting to something happening which makes it easier.
Speaker B:You know, where some films it demands acting which is different.
Speaker B:You point them and they have to do some sort of internal torturous.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker B:Scarf.
Speaker B:You know.
Speaker B:But anyway, I think as Robbie said, we were, we were against time, but that Sort of rush against time suited the style of film ended up being.
Speaker B:So the.
Speaker B:The urgency and the speed kind of got the energy into the actors and then got the energy onto the screen for the.
Speaker B:So, you know, it sort of worked in our favor.
Speaker B:I think if.
Speaker B:If we had a long, long time and we were sort of pausing and breaking, you know, you might not have got the energy that you feel when you watch it.
Speaker C:Because I think on Slow west, we had a bit more time to film, and I do remember some days felt a bit dragged.
Speaker C:Yeah, you kind of were a bit like you'd start maybe just wasting time a bit, in a way, whereas there was no time to waste on tornadoes.
Speaker C:So it was like almost like a race every day.
Speaker C:And if you got past the finish line or even close to the finish line for the day's work, it was a real achievement.
Speaker C:So I think that for me, it's.
Speaker C:It's a really fun way to shoot.
Speaker C:I really like that because it's.
Speaker C:You feel like you deserve that drink at the end of the night.
Speaker B:The actors love it, too.
Speaker B:Tim Roth loved it.
Speaker B:You know, he really.
Speaker C:He still wanted to get offset early, though.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker A:And two other things we've talked about very briefly is me just mentioning the script.
Speaker A:And earlier, Michael Fassbender and Slow west had his narration in addition to him starring in the film.
Speaker A:And, of course, narration means that some of the narrative itself can be told by him, plus it's an additional subjective perspective that it gives to the story.
Speaker A:But here in Tornado, you don't have that.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:Does that mean that both in shot listing and then during the shoot aiming for those shots, you have to be more descriptive with the image.
Speaker B:Hmm.
Speaker B:I mean, I always said at the start of this process that Slowest felt like a story that was being told by someone about the past, you know, And I always felt that Tornado was.
Speaker B:I wanted it to feel like it was happening to the audience now.
Speaker B:You know, not now in the present, but in a way, not be someone telling.
Speaker B:Not having the melancholy or not having this sort of remembering something and telling it through a kind of dreamlike thing, which, you know, I wanted.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker B:I think I said Slow west was a dream and Tornado's real, basically.
Speaker B:And that's.
Speaker B:That's kind of.
Speaker B:So even though I don't think I had an idea to do the voiceover, you know, I think that came in the edit of Slow Ass because it just helped sort of put that character in.
Speaker B:Made it about Michael Fassbender's character remembering this happening, whereas this, that couldn't really happen.
Speaker B:So, yeah, it's just a different sort of a more urgent style of storytelling.
Speaker B:You know, I think that I kind of prefer in a way, because the audience just have a more direct link to it, to what's going on, especially when it's supposed to be tense or.
Speaker C:Thrilling, which it is.
Speaker C:Yeah, all the time.
Speaker A:Plus for you, Robby, with a more static camera, there is a lesser room to wander.
Speaker A:But is being descriptive with your image and aspect you think much about?
Speaker C:Well, kind of what we should talk about really is what the camera is pointing at and the landscape and, you know, all of this, the amazing work done by the people in the costume and in the production design to create something that's just visually really very aesthetically good to look at and very much brings you into that moment in the film very well, I think.
Speaker C:So I kind of have to say the camera job on this was very simple because it was all very much in front of the camera and I didn't have to do anything particularly sort of special to make that look as good as it was, except for film on 35 mil films, which is a big thing for me and John to do.
Speaker C:And I think it really raises the production value of the film quite a lot.
Speaker C:That's why I think it's another reason it's a really nice film to look at.
Speaker B:I think that some of the references were like Kurosawa and Tarkovsky and sort of the way that they shoot maybe further back through a structure or something, through a bit of wood or.
Speaker B:And Sergio, and he does it as well.
Speaker B:But I think there was.
Speaker B:We were always looking for little bits like that.
Speaker B:We were shooting through sheets and through bits of wood, you know, and there's.
Speaker B:Someone came up to me the other day and said, oh, I loved how at the beginning of the film you're shooting through this sort of natural bit of wood that was sort of all spiky and jaggy.
Speaker B:And at the very end of the film you shoot through this black, burnt out wagon, you know, and it felt like a sort of bookend, you know, which obviously I hadn't.
Speaker B:None of us had realized we were shooting it or editing it, but I'll take it.
Speaker B:But yeah, it's allowing for nice little coincidences like that to come through.
Speaker B:I think Robbie spotted that little bit of rough, sort of spiky bush to shoot through at the beginning.
Speaker B:So, yeah, you just.
Speaker B:You're just always on the lookout for interesting shots that may or may not have meaning.
Speaker B:And then by the time you've got at the very end, you've edit all together, then the audience will put some meaning on it.
Speaker C:Anyway, it's always easy to post, rationalize.
Speaker C:I think when you're doing it, it's quite instinctive and, you know, it just feels like a good idea at the time, but you don't.
Speaker C:You wouldn't have thought it through that much.
Speaker B:So that's.
Speaker B:I think that's better because I think when you're overthinking, then you start coming up with sort of pretension, maybe.
Speaker B:So, you know, it's sort of.
Speaker C:That's always good to set something on fire, isn't it, Joe?
Speaker B:If in doubt, burn it, say I burn it down.
Speaker B:I mean.
Speaker B:I mean, I had many conversations about how they were going to burn it in CGI because they didn't want to burn the whole set.
Speaker B:And I just kept saying, but we're finished with the set, we're going to burn it.
Speaker B:It'll be the last shot.
Speaker B:And then I got, what if we need it again?
Speaker B:I was like, well, we'll make sure we don't need it again.
Speaker C:And then we did have that, the one caravan that was, again, the design was amazing because we made it look like it burned to the ground, but it was actually structurally totally fine.
Speaker C:It was just all made out wicker.
Speaker C:So that went up very dramatically, but went out really quickly, so the whole caravan was still integral.
Speaker C:So, you know, it was clever.
Speaker C:There's a lot of clever things going on and that's with design.
Speaker A:Gentlemen, once again, thank you so, so much for your times for this conversation, and I really hope we won't have to wait another decade for your next collaboration.
Speaker B:I hope not, too.
Speaker C:Me too.
Speaker C:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker C:All right, thanks very much, Aaron.
Speaker B:Thank you.
Speaker C:Hey, guys.
