WHITE NOISE
2: THE LIGHT – SET VISIT
When I heard I was going to be doing an on set visit
for the sequel WHITE NOISE 2: THE LIGHT, I did a little research on the
film. Even though it’s a sequel of sorts, it does have a creepy story line
of it’s own where a man, whose family has been killed, is himself brought
back from the dead and he soon comes to realize that he can identify people
who are about to die. (Sounds like a cool and eerie THE DEAD ZONE meets THE
PUNISHER!)
There was also other information I found, which had me
running for the door, in more ways then one. On the up side, the film was
starring Captain Malcolm Reynolds himself, Nathan Fillion, whose work in
both SERENITY and SLITHER I’ve thoroughly enjoyed. (And since Michael
Keaton died in the first film, it was a wise choice!) Meeting the man who
my own bosses JoBlo and The Arrow call “a cool dude” and “one class act”
seemed like a no loose prospect and I was running for the door in excitement
to catch a flight to Vancouver, BC, Canada, where the film is currently
shooting.
Now the down side; let me take you back to October, 17,
2005. Battlestar Galactica Season 1 – it was one of my first DVD clinic
reviews, of which I got my first hate mail. Having only given the show 2
stars, I boldly stated that the series was “slow and long, making the
original look like CITIZEN KANE.” I also commented on the unoriginality,
specifically signaling out the character of Starbuck, played by actress
Katee Sackhoff, saying her character, “a butch woman with an affinity for
cigars is not enough to call this a drone of a series a re-imagining.” What
does this have to do with the WHITE NOISE 2 set visit? Well, Nathan’s
female co-star in the film is none other then….Katee Sackhoff! (Yipes!)
Not that I don’t stand by my review of the show (yes,
it still stands!), but I had a million questions zooming through my brain.
Had she read this review? If she had, would she remember it? And if she
did remember it, what was going to happen when I met her in person? If the
angry comments posed on this very site, which said things like “Everyone is
entitled to their opinion, yours just happens to be wrong”, and my personal
favorite “Did the show sleep with you and not call you back” were any
indication, I could be in for the most tense and heated set visit ever and
believe me, this time I was running for the door in panic to make an quick
exit.
The following is the tense, but thoroughly interesting
look at my visit to the set of WHITE NOISE 2: THE LIGHT. (Be afraid, be very
afraid!)
We reach the set, which is a mansion style house in the
Kitsilano area of Vancouver, a house with a lot of character; an eerie front
and some concrete lions that guard the back door step. We are informed that
food will soon be served and that Nathan, the Director Patrick Lussier and,
gulp, actress Katee Sackhoff will all be giving interviews that day. (Can
you feel that I’m nervous?) Anyway, I get a chance to go inside the house,
where they are shooting Scene 79C, it’s a shot of Nathan at his desk, where
(as the director later describes it) he “discovers elements of the cosmic
machine that he’s become involved with”. There is a smoke machine in the
room, adding a cool element of the oddity to the scene and which I am able
to watch in person. Then I head back to the viewing area, where there are
at least six monitors rolling and I watch the scene play out. Ever the
joker, Fillion on one take, grabs the corner of the slate and pulls it
slightly. It makes me laugh and I almost forget that the interview with
Katee is vastly approaching.
Lunch is served and first up is producer Shawn
Williamson, who talks informally about the WHITE NOISE 2: THE LIGHT and how,
even though it’s a sequel, it stands alone.
As the first interviewee enters the room, I feel my
stomach drop, but alas, it’s only Director Lussier and Fillion, who have
come to eat and talk shop. (Katee is still MIA!)
INTERVIEW: DIRECTOR PATRICK LUSSIER
WHITE NOISE 2: THE LIGHT director Patrick Lussier is a
guy who is always smiling. The ever-happy guy started off his career as an
editor for Director Wes Craven and went on to direct his own films like
DRACULA 2000, as well as parts II and III. He jumps back and forth between
filmmaking and editing, most recently having edited the films CURSED and RED
EYE again for Craven. The always positive Patrick, who likened his film to
the creepy 1980 thriller THE CHANGELING, talked about the theme of the film,
working with Nathan Fillion and his favorite Wes Craven film.
How hard was it to give WHITE NOISE 2 a fresh start
being a sequel?
The best thing about our script is complete kind of
stand alone, it’s kind of a sequel in theme, in concept of the EVP
(Electronic Voice Phenomenon), but it goes far beyond that. Probably the
best thing about the original film is that everybody dies (laughs), which
allows us to kind of take the good bits and move on, to having our story and
the virtue of how the story evolves from the themes of the first film; it
let us have a much more aggressive look and tone. The first one was very
kind of modern architecture, things like that and we’ve gone a completely
different direction then that as a much more older, grittier feel, much more
weighted and kind of religion faith base, as opposed to just the electronic
kind of EVP of it all.
How many changes did you want to the script after
you signed on?
Matt (Venne) being the writer, is brilliant. He and I
hit it off immediately. The changes that we went thorough were always for
the best of the character, always for the best of the story, usually it was
to heighten Nathan, who plays Abe, how his interactions were, to make the
reveals that the story has through the different characters, to make them
either more frightening or make the twists more surprising. So that was the
major thing that we did, little cinematic changes and stuff like that,
things that read on the page one way and then we say that reads great, but
you can’t actually shoot it the way it reads, so you have to shoot it
differently, so this is how we’re going to change it in order to make it
cinematic.
Were there any re-writes after actors were cast?
We did do a couple of things after Nathan was cast,
particularly there’s a couple of moments when his character was a little
passive and given just Nathan and his personality, how wonderful he is to
work with and the kind of wonderful energy he has, it was a very conscious
decision to make him, to give him some moments where he was far more
aggressive and react as a more volatile and interesting man, as opposed to
how the character was originally conceived which is a little more, kind of,
passive and moving through the adventure that he’s on.
You and Nathan had previously worked together on the
film DRACULA 2000, where he played a smaller role. What was it like
reuniting with him as the leading man for this film?
It was fantastic.
Was it your idea to cast him?
Yeah, the very first meeting I had on the film, he was
who I pitched as the lead of the film. They always say you never get your
first choice and getting my first choice was just fantastic. Nathan I’ve
been wanted to work with ever since then. We auditioned Nathan for a
different role in DRACULA 2000 and ended up not working out for that, so
that when the role of David the Priest was created, he was who I wanted for
that, I fought hard for that, he agreed to come in that day. It was the
best day of that entire film (laughs), working with him; he’s a fantastic
actor and an amazing human being. You couldn’t ask for anybody better to
work with.
With Nathan being so outgoing, do you ever have to
hold him back?
Nope. Nathan is amazing; he has every single beat of
the character down. The events that happen to his character in the film are
deadly, his life is just destroyed repeatedly and never once does he have to
be a jester, he’s always spot on, on what he needs to do.
Since working with Nathan on DRACULA 2000, have you
noticed any significant changes about him?
I get to work with him more, which is fantastic. I had
Nathan for a day on that film and here I get him everyday. So everyday I
have more and more appreciation of not only how talented he is as an actor
and understanding the character and understanding the motivations of his
character, but his understanding as somebody who gets how to make a film,
how he needs to work and function within the filmmaking process. He’s so in
tune with camera, with every department and what he has to do to make their
lives easier, to make the film better. The film will be far, far better
because we have Nathan, than if we had anybody else.
How is it working with the Nathan and Katee
together?
The two of them are a riot together; all you have to do
is get them to stop laughing!
As a director, what do you think is the best way to
deal with actors?
Some of them want hands on, sit there and talk them
through every single moment. Others want you to give them just enough to be
able do their job. They come prepared, the come knowing what it is they
want to do, they come knowing where the character is, what motivates the
character, what drives them. What you need to do is provide them with
continuity of the story, where they are in the story, what’s happened in the
story, how that is impacting a character at every moment. Basically, you’re
the keeper of all their secrets and you have to know when to unleash them.
We heard that as a director, you have the film
already mapped out in your head, has this been helpful in terms of making
this film?
It is a great benefit to me. Everyday is beat the
clock, you know, you race against time, your visions in the morning far
exceed your grasp of time, of how much time you have to actually execute
things, everything just takes longer then you’d like it to take. So the
trick is to have a plan when you go in and then have a way out of your plan,
so you at least know what you have to do to get the story told and to tell
the story not only in an efficient manner, but in a really provocative one.
So it’s having those elements. Sometimes people go out and they, you know,
shoot with ten cameras whatever, they don’t pick what they do and that’s not
how we can afford to work, given where we are and given the scope of the
film. In order to make the film seem bigger then it is, we have to know
exactly what we want, it has to be executed in a surgical manner. Everyday
is full of traps, so you always have to know where the traps are and how to
get out of them.
What is the budget for this film and what would it
have cost another director?
(Laughs) The budget is just enough to get it done and
another director probably would have cost more money.
Is it an easy transition between directing and
editing?
Yeah, I’ve gone back to editing, back and forth.
Editing is something I’ll always love, it always is very lucrative to do, so
it’s an easy kind of job back into editing because somebody is willing to
pay you. In several projects I’ve had as a director in that period, four or
five that have come very close to going and ended last minute, for this
reason or that reason, have not happened. So yeah, it’s difficult, but you
keep swinging at it and in the meantime you gotta pay your mortgage, so you
keep doing what you can do.
As a director coming from a horror genre background,
do you think it influenced this movie to become a little more of a horror
film rather then just a psychological thriller?
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Was that in the script or something you pushed for?
It was definitely in the script, it was definitely in
Matt Venne’s leaning right from the get go, which is to make it far more of
a horror movie. He’s a fan of horror movies, he felt that the original was
perhaps a little too much of a psychological drama, as opposed to a straight
ahead kind of horror movie and that this was very much the intention of
this; to know exactly what it was and to make that film.
So if Nathan is the conduit for the white noise in
the film, how do you establish that cinematically?
You see and hear something, both. It’s a very much a
visual, audible thing that goes on, the transformation of his character as
he begins to discover what’s actually happened to him and what these
abilities that he has are. It happens first by seeing something that’s not
quite right and then hearing things, there’s both things, the soundscape and
the visual landscape that all has to do with things that generate electronic
impulses. All seem to lead him in a certain direction, but leaves him to
draw certain conclusions about what he can or cannot do.
Are your visual effects based on some of the stuff
from the first film?
It’s kind of a new visual design. I mean some of them
are a little bit similar and some of them we’ve left off, just because the
movie has its own twist on how that works. The first one is very grounded
in the world of, you know, looking at TV’s and monitors and things like
that. This one had to stretch beyond that, becomes more physical and
tangible for that character.
What would you say is the visual design of your
film?
We’re kind of trying all sorts of different things. I
mean mostly we’re looking at how electrical signals work and how
transmissions work, how they break down in waves, how TV and different video
images feed back on themselves. And then we’re leaping from what in reality
happens and then we’re just twisting that and tweaking that be our own thing
as best we can. I mean part of it will feel a little bit like other things,
part of it will hopefully feel different when you see it.
Are you going to edit the film yourself?
I’m editing with Tom Elkins, who’s been one of my
editing sidekicks for the last couple of years. We dragged him off, he was
assisting on THE DA VINCI CODE, dragged him off that to come here and he’s
cutting with me. I like to cut myself, but I also like to cut with somebody
else. So that mixture of having somebody else you have a rapport with is
invaluable.
Do you have another project lined up after this one?
Oh my God! I’m thinking about the end of next week,
not the end of the film. Hopefully, something good.
You’ve worked with Director Wes Craven in many
different facets, what kind of impact has he had on you as a filmmaker?
Wes gave me my first break in terms of bringing me down
to the US from Canada, from Vancouver. He brought me down to cut WES
CRAVEN’S NEW NIGHTMARE, helped me get through immigration, we hit it off.
He’s been a great influence to me just in terms of, kind of as a mentor over
the years.
What’s your favorite Wes Craven movie?
(Laughs) My god, why did you ask that? Probably
SCREAM.
Since this is going to be a PG-13 movie, is that
limiting for you?
It’s only limiting if you allow it to be limiting.
That limit is what you make it.
STAY TUNED FOR INTERVIEWS WITH NATHAN FILLION AND
KATEE SACKHOFF