The
Arrow interviews James Wan
Before
"SAW", I had never heard of James Wan. Internet research (i.e.
lesbian porn) revealed nothing about James Wan. In addition, calling
my shrink in the middle of the night for some cooking advice gave me
ZERO meat about the man that is "Wan". All I know is that this duder
directed what was one of the more hard-hitting genre film that I’ve
seen so far this year and yes…I’m talking about "SAW"! That alone
made it a must for me to chat with the guy. Here’s what he had to
say.
ARROW:
What’s your
favorite horror movie?
JAMES: Jaws, Lost
Highway, Black Christmas, Roger Corman’s The Fall of the House of
Usher, Carnival of Souls, and of course, Argento’s earlier films,
are some of them. My two all-time favorite films are Jean Cocteau’s
Beauty and the Beast and Spielberg’s Duel.
ARROW: What was it about the SAW
screenplay that made you want to tackle it?
JAMES: SAW was
spawned out of our desperation to want to make a film. Initially,
Leigh and I thought that the only way to do so, was to make it
happen ourselves- write and fund a guerilla film out of our own
pockets. However, we knew that to stand out from amongst all the
other low-budget indie movies, our idea had to be really
ass-kicking. Since we weren’t going to have any big stars and
explosive special-effects to draw audiences in, the script itself
needed to be the ‘star’.
ARROW: Would you say it was an
advantage or disadvantage to have the screenwriter also be one of
the stars of the picture?
JAMES: I would
definitely say it was advantageous. Leigh and I have known each
other for a very long time and we really trust each other’s opinion.
He knew that I wasn’t going to mess with his screenplay just for the
hell of it, but at the same time, understood what I had to do, to
make it work. Plus, it was comforting to not be the only novice on
set!!
ARROW: Cary Elwes, Danny Glover.
Monica Potter, Dina Meyer, Shawnee Smith…what a stellar cast! How
strenuous was the casting process for the picture?
JAMES: Casting is
always a challenge but particularly in my case, because I was stuck
in Ottawa getting my visa processed, and this ate into my valuable
pre-production time! I had to do half of my casting from Canada,
before returning to LA with only one week of pre-production left!!!
But nonetheless, I was extremely fortunate to end up with the cast I
did. I worked with a really good casting director.
ARROW: Being a big Dina Meyer
fan, I have to ask…was her part in the film initially bigger?
JAMES: Well, being a
big fan of Dina myself too, when asked by my producers if I wanted
to give her a cameo, I leapt at the chance.
ARROW: You have a very electric
and aesthetically heavy visual style. What’s your background in
terms of directing?
JAMES: I don’t really
have a lot, in terms of my directing background. I guess, like most
aspiring film geeks out of film-school, I’ve only experimented with
shorts and have made a few music videos for my friends’
garage-bands, but that’s pretty much it. However, I’ve always wanted
to make movies since I was 11 years old, and everything has been
leading up to this first film. SAW is truly the first real thing I
have ever made. I’m very grateful to my producers for having faith
in the script and taking a gamble on me as the director, based on an
8-minute sample-short I made of the script. Regardless of the tight
budget and schedule, my aim with SAW was to make it as good as I
possibly could.
During the shoot, some of my
concepts had to be rethought to accommodate the shooting pace, but
nonetheless, it’s these limitations that forced me to be more
creative and come up with new ideas that I never saw before. I
worked very hard to try and make the film look more expensive than
it actually was. And artistically, this visual style I ended up
with, lent itself to the kind of film-making I wanted to tell. I
wanted SAW to be a film of ferocious intensity from start to finish.
Like a pressure-cooker building up, or a vice tightening. And so I
chose an assaulting film-making style that relied heavily on
aggressive camera-work, rapid-fire editing, and a harsh industrial
soundtrack to convey that feeling.
ARROW: What was the more complex
scene to pull off in terms of intricate staging?
JAMES: Well, the
rapid shooting pace made some of the more complicated scenes
challenging to pull off. But we soldiered through. If it weren’t for
the amazingly talented and dedicated cast and crew, I would still be
filming right now! Shooting all of Shawnee Smith’s scenes in one day
was physically taxing. The scene in Jigsaw’s lair was probably the
trickiest to stage due to the amount of things happening on screen
at the same time; involving action, gunplay, special-effects,
three-way dialogue, and hitting specific marks ( trying to
photograph it without revealing the villain’s identity). Also it was
crammed into the end of the shooting-schedule, so I had very little
rehearsal time to map it all out. To be honest, I was making it up
as I went along. In fact, I was making a lot of things up. The trick
as a director, is to not let anyone know that you’re winging it half
the time!!! LOL
ARROW: Did you stay fully true
to the screenplay as you were shooting or were there some re-writes
as you moved forward?
JAMES: I knew that
the quality of Leigh’s screenplay was one of the main factors in
attracting all these great talents (producers, cast, crew) to the
project. So I made sure to stay as true to it as I possibly could,
despite of the film-making detours that a director inevitably come
across during production. It was comforting to know that even if I
hadn’t achieved everything I wanted to- ‘directorially’, at least if
I had stuck to the script, I should still have something pretty
decent.
ARROW: Danny Lohner, and Charlie
Clouser, ex-members of “Nine Inch Nails”, did the score for the
film. Who’s idea was it to have them be involved?
JAMES:
Firstly, I should
clarify that it was Charlie Clouser who scored the film. Besides
being an ex-member of NIN, he also writes his own stuff, and
produces for others such as Rob Zombie, Marilyn Manson, Helmet, etc…
One of my producers, Gregg Hoffman, was instrumental from the very
start in wanting to marry me with a composer, who had the right
sensibility to my style. Even back when we were in Australia, Leigh
and I knew we wanted this film to say ‘cool’. ‘Cool’- in the story,
in the action, in the violence, in the villain, in the camera-work,
in the editing…and especially ‘COOL’ in the music. Based on my very
early rough cut of SAW, a handful of high profile composers, and by
that I mean rock musicians who wanted to compose for films, were in
the running after having seen the film and loved it. I could not
believe it!
Charlie stepped out
of his screening of SAW (at 10:30 in the morning), looking a bit
green and the first thing he said was, “Man, that freaked the
shiiiit out of me, I need a cigarette to calm down!” It was then
that I thought, “Wow, If I could freak a member from Nine Inch Nails
out, I must have done something half right!” He was so enthusiastic
about the film, and had so many great ideas, I knew he was the one
to go with. I knew Charlie was going to be able to bring me that
certain sound that I was after. The first thing he did was went off
and recorded all these experimental, industrial-musical instruments,
and then got Danny Lohner (fellow NIN member, who was obsessed with
SAW also) and Page Hamilton from the band Helmet to play for him. I
knew straight away, I had found that ‘cool factor’ I was looking
for- and it was in Charlie Clouser.
ARROW: How smooth was your
collaboration with the Charlie?
JAMES:
I am extremely anal
with my sound design and music. I went into SAW having already heard
the entire soundtrack in my head before the first frame even rolled.
I shoot my films knowing exactly how the shots would work with the
edits, and the edits with the soundtrack…so I spewed and downloaded
all my thoughts to Charlie, and we ended up working very closely on
the score. Charlie was such a great guy and was so easy to
collaborate with.
ARROW: What’s next on your
plate, directing-wise?
JAMES:
I’m not a hundred
percent certain yet what my next project will be as director, but I
am writing my next screenplay with Leigh, titled Shhh. It’s
an old fashion chiller for Universal. I would love to make it in the
vein of those late night, black and white creepers. Think Carnival
of Souls, or Dead of Night (1945) meets the Drop of Water episode of
Black Sabbath.
ARROW: Would you accept to
direct a SAW sequel if there was to be one?
Leigh and I are
quite superstitious- we don’t like to count our chickens before
they’ve hatched. I’ll just have to wait and see… 🙂
ARROW: What’s your fondest
memory of the SAW cast and crew wrap party?
JAMES:
Getting to dance
and groove with Shawnee!!! 🙂 It was surreal to be there with
someone I’ve had a crush on since I was a pre-teen!
I’d
like to say "gracias" to James for checking in the site and not
checking out before giving us some insight on what will be the more
popular genre film of the year, in my humble opinion. Keep it up
James and remember The Arrow when your next film comes out. I want
to cover it and I have lots of connections with the wonders that are
"hookers". Remember that my friend…h-oo-kers! ‘Nuff said ; )
"SAW"
will own in September 2004, mark your calendars and get ready to get
your asses pleasurably kicked!
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