| FEARSmag Calls the Director of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, Simon West. |
|
|
|
| Saturday, 04 February 2006 | |
 By Joseph B. Mauceri{FEARSmag} - ìCon Air,î ìThe Generalís Daughter,î and ìLara Croft: Tomb Raider,î director Simon West knows action. West, who first received critical acclaim for his work in London on music videos and commercials, moved to Los Angeles in the 90ís. As an action/adventure director, whose three previously mentioned films have grossed over $700 million dollars worldwide, could West tackle a remake of a classic 1978 genre film? Now more than a quarter of a century later, FEARS talked to Simon West about creating his vision of this PG-13 adventure into terror. FEARS: WHEN A STRANGER CALLS is certainly not as action orientated as your previous films. When you first read the script what made you feel you could make it work? Simon West: I didnít know if I could make it work, and it certainly isnít like the other films Iíd done. It is so contained, taking place all in one house, and with almost only one actor. That appealed to me. As a director you always want to try and flex some different creative muscles, and directors are always after control. In a way, the smaller the film the more control you have. Youíre not running a gigantic enterprise that has 500 people working on it everyday. The small the better, really, and that attracted me. The idea of trying to think up different ways the house could be scary also appealed to me. It was straightforward to start with; sheís in this house, sheís getting prank phone calls, and she is becoming more scared. The thing is that itís a situation that everyone has been in. Itís not like you had a bunch of people trapped on a deserted island and thereís a man running around with a chainsaw. That hasnít really happened to many of us. Everyone has experienced being in a house at night and been spooked by weird noises and shadows. You could tap into peopleís real experiences. So there was a strict set of rules for us because itís all real world, no hocus pocus, no supernatural element. The type of films of this nature that appeal to me the most are the ones with that have the most suspense in them. To me, itís always about walking down the corridor and what is going to jump out. As soon as it jumps out, to me, itís less scary. Once you know what youíre dealing with itís only a question of are you going to survive once the monster jumps out? The bit I enjoy, and I enjoy watching the audience cringing and holding onto the side of their seats, is the bit before the monster jumps out. Iím more interested in the suspense than the payoff. Whatever genre youíre doing itís all about manipulating the audience. If youíre doing a comedy, youíre making them laugh when you want them to laugh; and when youíre moving people emotionally youíre trying to get them to cry when you want; and action itís getting their adrenaline going, and in these scary films itís choosing how and when to scare them. Itís almost a technical exercise. These films benefit from the test screenings. Some of the directors hate them, but in this case it really helps. When Iím shooting it, it can feel scary because Iím in the room, itís dark, everyone is being quiet, and itís the first time Iím seeing an actor do something and it can seem fresh. You can feel that itís scary. By the time you get into the editing, youíve seen it a million times, youíre sitting in a comfortable chair with a drink in your hand, you can remember the 50 people standing behind you, and itís not scary to you at all. You have no idea if itís working so you have to put it in front of an audience to make sure itís working and theyíre jumping at the right spot. Itís even more fun with an audience because they spot things that you never spotted, and sometimes it the good things and sometimes the bad ones. Thereís one instance in the film where she goes to get something out of the frig and you think thereís something scary happening in the kitchen. When I cut it together I suddenly realized it looked like something was going to jump out from behind the frig. I never planned that, itís just the way it ended up being shot and cut together. The audience made that connection. So than I can embrace that and make it even better. I can play with the sound, I canít change what I shot, but I can make it even scarier by making the sound really high. So now everyone is expecting something to come out there, and I have the music and sound going, and the door shuts and thereís nothing there. You can come up with scary moments that you never planned when you were shooting, but ended up coming out that way in the edit.  FEARS: Being you mentioned the sound and score, I have to say that James Dooleyís score was right on the money. It was so subtle and a great misdirection, really supporting what you where doing visually. How closely did you work with James on the score? Simon West: The sound was one of the most important things on this film. There is so little dialogue and very little interaction between the actors. Itís subtitles, in as much as youíre in a house that is quiet. Both music and sound effects were a huge part of the scares. Working with James, a lot of the cues we did over three and four times, in different ways, because it was so different how it could shape the scene. Sometimes things I intended to be one way when I shot it, put the music in -- like when she is investigating the house and the sun is still up and I want ìinvestigating the house musicî ñ you suddenly realize that the audience has come to this movie to be scared. Theyíve seen the trailers, theyíve read about the film, and they know exactly what they want to get out of it. They want to get on with being scared as soon as possible. So we ended up changing the music to make it much more suspenseful, even though she isnít scared in the slightest. Weíre actually playing the score for the audience, because they know that something horrible is going to happen. The audience has seen the first five-minutes of the film that she didnít. That happened quit a few times in the film where we reworked, and reworked the music to really squeeze every drop of suspense and fear out of a scene. Basically itís the same with the sound effects. All the sound effects were done two or three different ways because if something was too loud it wasnít ambiguous. You need some of the sounds to be ambiguous because thatís what most frightening about these houses. Was that a branch scratching at a window or someone opening it? So we spent working on the sounds, what they were, and also how loud or quiet they needed to be. That was fun to do. FEARS: From the moment that you decided to direct the film, how did some of the little nuances for the technology of the house come about. Did it present any challenges?  Simon West: From
the very beginning I decided I wanted to build the house. When I first
went through the basic script, you find yourself saying, ìWhat are the
logic holes? What can I add to it to make it more scary?î I guess the
first thing was deciding to make it a modern house. I wanted to get
away from the traditional gothic, scary, old creaky wooden house that
youíve seen a million times over. But I wanted to keep it dark so I had
to go with an architectural style that had a lot of dark woods, and I
wanted a lot of glass because I wanted it to like she was in a fish
bowl, which is even more uncomfortable. Then a modern house gives you
the chance to have some unusual things in there. Like you can have an
atrium, with a fishpond, that is in the middle of the house. You donít
usually see that in traditional houses. It gives me a chance for
another type of room that is very unusual. If youíre stuck in a house
for an entire film you want to have things as varied as possible in the
rooms. So we have an atrium and we decide to put birds in it to make it
alive, and I guess it was my Hitchcock reference, because they are kind
of disturbing and make you uneasy, especially the sound they make.FEARS: And especially their yellow color set against the dark tones of the house. Simon West: Yes that makes for a great visual element. But then also, the killer has to escape from that atrium. In the original script he throws a chair and breaks a window. I thought that was a bit of a let down. First, lets make the glass unbreakable, which is more frustrating and it makes it look like sheís done something cleaver by locking him in there. How does he get out? I designed the fountain to go from inside to outside, so he works out that he can push that fountain out of the way and escape. You want a subtle way to reveal that and the birds were perfect. The first thing she notices is that the birds have escaped before she notices that he has escaped. The whole story youíve built up to those birds stuck in that atrium and if they get out there is something wrong. Then you go, ìGreat, now I can have the cat eating one of the birds.î Itís fun and youíve seen the cat that has been trying to get one of those birds his entire life, just as the bad guy has been trying to get her. Then you build on the atrium. When you think about having her get in there to try an escape. Obviously, itís only about 15 by 20 feet, how can anybody hide in there logically? Thatís when I came up with the misters. I saw them in the produce section of the market, where they mist the vegetables periodically. I thought that would be great because she can turn those things on and hide. Also, we can establish them early and get a nice scare from it. Thatís what happened through the whole process. It was a matter of building up design elements in the house that were logical, but would give me things to play with plot wise and scare wise. The automatic lights were another element. That came to me because I was thinking that if youíre really scared in a house the first thing you do is turn all the lights on. You donít want all the girls in the audience going, ìWhy doesnít she just turn all the lights on in the house?î Then I would be left with a set that wasnít very scary because all the lights were on. I didnít want to get into him cutting the power, because that would give his hand away too soon. So I came up with these automatic lights. I had them in my office on the lot. They have them as this economy thing so that when you leave the room they go out. I thought that was great because I could have the house dark so that whenever she leaves a room it goes dark again. Then of course you get to use that as a plot device as well. When you donít know where the killer is you can kind of tell by what lights are going on. The whole design of the house, the technology, and the plot all developed in preproduction as we refined it. A lot of those things were kind of last minute.  FEARS: Sony is focusing on doing these PG-13 genre movies. Here you have a film about a babysitter, obviously something that would have an appeal to a younger audience. When you were presented with the script, and through development, had it ever been considered as an R rated film? From a directorís point of view, is there an advantage or disadvantage to making a PG or PG-13 scary movie? Simon West: In some ways I took it as an advantage. Nobody could rely on blood and gore, and it kept it psychological. I think that is a scarier thing anyway because you get the audience to scare themselves, and they go to whatever they think of as the scariest thing around the corner. They do all the work or you. As I said before, if a guy jumps out and itís a monster, and starts cutting legs off, youíre hoping the audience is going to be thrilled or scared by that. Itís not really their imagination at work. The PG-13 meant that wasnít an option to go for those things. It had to be kept psychological. You could feel that the audience would be broader for that. Morally, it felt better because itís good old-fashioned scares instead of trying to be more and more gory. That eventually becomes a dead-end, sooner or later youíre making something that is so offensive that itís no longer fun to work on, let alone watch. I kind of like the PG-13 aspect of it. There are certain restrictions, and we may put out an R rated DVD version or an unrated version. I still think that at the end of the day the scariest bits will still be the ones in the PG-13 cut of the film. FEARS: Coming from a summer of misogynistic films, like ìHigh Tension,î ìWolfís Creek,î and ìThe Devilís Rejects,î to name a few, itís refreshing to have a film with a strong heroine in a less gory film.  Simon West: I
wanted to have an intelligent lead who was constantly trying to
persuade herself that this stuff wasnít happening, like we all do, that
there is going to be a rational explanation for this. But, when it is
bad, she just doesnít go to pieces. She pulls herself together to think
and fight her way out of it. It is a strong female role model, and if
youíre up against it you fight like mad. I didnít want to make a film
where in the first five minutes something scares her and she screams,
and then she just keeps screaming until the very end of the film, and
itís all on one level. Thereís actually only one scream in the whole
film from her. I think thatís more relatable to real people.FEARS: I saw that the next film youíre mentioned to be working on is ìRPM.î Is there anything else on your slate at the moment? Simon West: Iím Always working on several things at once, because you never know whatís going to bubble to the top. Thereís another thriller at Screen Gems that Iím thinking of. Itís very different from this one. WHEN A STRANGER CALLS was classic, almost Hitchcock in style, and this other one would be more contemporary, still thriller based rather than horror, but technology based. Maybe taking some of the technology things we did in STRANGER, but going to the nth degree. Itís all about technology. FEARS: Not another remake though? Simon West: No, an original. Iíd never seen the original ìWhen a Stranger Calls,î so I came to it with no baggage. It was only afterward that I learned that this script is only based on the first 20-minutes of the original. The rest may appear in sequels, I suppose. FEARS: If the audience is there and the studio calls for a sequel, would that be something you would be interested in? Simon West: Yeah, I would! With every film I do, I always feel like we never had quite enough time or never really got into it. Iím never really satisfied. Films are like short stories; Iíve always felt there was much more to tell at the next stage of it. Also, the things you learned in the first film you can put to good use in the second one. A lot of times sequels arenít as good as the first ones, and I donít really know why because Iíve never made a sequel. I always thought if I did it would be much better than the first one because of the things youíve learned on it. The first one is always an experiment; the second one you should know what youíre doing better. Click on the links belwo for more coverage on the film: WHEN A STRANGER CALLS Film Page - clips, stills, and more! WHEN A STRANGER CALLS Film Review LINK THIS ARTICLE             |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Interested in becoming an advertiser on FEARS?
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it