Suspense With a Camera

by Jeffrey Michael Bays

  SAAR: Thank you. I appreciate your kind words and I hope your endorsement will encourage others to see the film.

  J: Music scoring in After the Fall was quite minimalistic. Very often you would let the ambient sound of a location breathe and fill the dramatic space. How important is silence?

  S: In film, silence is as important as sound. The lack of sound is a powerful tool to dramatize, highlight and often to immerse the viewer into the eyes of a character to experience the world as they do. In my opinion, there’s an overuse of sound in recent Hollywood films. Both music and effects are pushed, creating audio fatigue for the viewer. For very practical purposes it is important to remove and simplify sound, so when you need to use it and you want it to “pop” you have the room to do so. To badly paraphrase This Is Spinal Tap: your amp doesn’t need to be at 11. With After the Fall I tried to push these ideas to the next level. The intent was to place the viewer into the environment of the characters in order to create immersion.

  J: How did you decide where the music goes?

  S: I hate watching a dramatic scene and hearing the music start at the beginning of the emotional moment to “help it”; it doesn’t help. Music placed in that manner takes me out of the moment and makes me feel manipulated. Some films try to push the music when they don’t trust the drama or the humor or action. It’s like oversalting a tasteless dish. It remains terrible, but now it’s also salty. I feel like music can elevate and augment, but it needs to be placed on a solid foundation. So first of all, the scene needs to function without any music. I often try to start music in the “wrong” place to see what happens. It’s surprising how shifting its placement can add complexity and highlight details you hadn’t noticed. Ultimately it may not be the right starting point, but it can inform me where the music should start.

  J: A notable sequence without music was the first time Bill Scanlon (Wes Bentley) breaks into a house. No music score until after he’s finished robbing the people inside. He’s driving away and you have this compelling, long, tight shot on his face. He begins to regret what he did, having a panic attack as the music swells up.

  S: That refers to exactly what I mentioned before; I wanted to save the sound and music for a monumental moral crisis in Bill’s life. Even though the “action” is Bill entering the house and robbing the people in it, the greater drama is when he’s driving away and realizes that he’d betrayed his own moral code. The reason I refrained from any score in the house was to build tension. It may seem counterintuitive, since in horror films they always prime you with “something bad is going to happen …” music, but I have found that people are so used to music in these types of scenes that it creates more tension to intentionally play it dry. This is unfamiliar ground for a viewer so it puts them on edge. I used this same technique in The Bourne Identity when Jason Bourne (Matt Damon) first enters the Paris apartment. There is no music when you would expect it, just natural sounds: the creaking wooden floors, the street sounds permeating the apartment, water running in Marie’s (Franka Potente) bath, until the fight begins.

  J: The flow of The Bourne Identity is heavily reliant on tension and release. How much of the film’s pacing was discovered in the editing room rather than in the script? Any big changes?

  S: Much of The Bourne Identity was discovered in the editing room, which led to some reshoots, re-editing and some more reshoots. The script was always a work in progress and Doug Liman is a director that likes to discover things as he goes along. He’s not scared to change things on the set or in the editing room so our approach was very loose and dynamic. This is a technique that I love since it provides the editor with the freedom to reinvent, repurpose and hopefully elevate the material.

  J: As an editor, how do you keep the material fresh after you’ve seen it so many times? By the end of the process, how do you know what’s tense and what isn’t?

  S: That is the greatest challenge to the editor and the director. The only trick I have is to remember how I felt about a scene or a performance the first time I saw it. I try to remember what made it work, and focus on that as everything else constantly changes. This is especially challenging in comedy; have you ever heard a joke a thousand times that still made you laugh?

  J: Are you influenced by the work of Alfred Hitchcock at all?

  S: I have only seen about three Hitchcock films and I feel very ashamed about that. But I assume that I have been influenced by his techniques as they have trickled down and influenced so many subsequent filmmakers. It’s on my list of things to do; watch all his films. But I’m waiting for a retrospective since I’d like to see his work projected.

  J: Looking back on The Bourne Identity, what did the process of editing the film teach you about suspense?

  S: Building suspense is an intuitive process that is hard to verbalize. You have to feel your way through it and develop your own personal language rather than rely on technique or mimicry. But there is one important thing to keep in mind; the only way suspense can work is if the viewer fears for the safety of their protagonist. Meaning, that the viewer needs to care for the protagonist. An extreme stunt, camera work, or editing will amount to nothing if your viewers don’t care about the fate of the character experiencing it. So in a way, so much of the hard work needs to be accomplished when the protagonist is not under duress. This dynamic is earned throughout the film when you build a character that’s believable and worth caring for.

  J: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk about your work.

       CHAPTER 22

      “10 CLOVERFIELD LANE” DIRECTOR DAN TRACHTENBERG

  DAN TRACHTENBERG directed 10 Cloverfield Lane (2016), starring John Goodman and Mary Elizabeth Winstead, for Paramount and J. J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot. He followed that up with the episode “Playtest” of the acclaimed series Black Mirror from Charlie Brooker. His short Portal: No Escape has garnered close to 20 million views online. Dan got his start in the world of commercials working with brands like Lexus, Nike and Coca Cola, and created The Totally Rad Show on Revision3.

  Humor is an essential part of suspense in keeping the audience from getting too depressed during tragic situations. 10 Cloverfield Lane is an endearing movie that uses humor to not only keep its audience entertained, but to increase the audience’s bond with the characters. I asked director Dan Trachtenberg about the importance of humor, and about his intriguing influence from video games.

  JEFFREY: First of all, congrats on the success of 10 Cloverfield Lane. Great suspense!

  DAN: Thank you!

  J: My favorite moment of suspense is during the game of word association where Michelle and Emmett’s secret plan almost gets out. It’s played for tension and laughs—a delicate balance. How important is humor in a suspense film?

  D: The first drafts of the script did not have as much humor and as we developed the script further and then eventually when we cast it, adding some laughs, some brightness was essential. Our subject matter was very dour, very intense, I wanted there to be some levity. I wanted the “ride” of the movie to be a complete one—to be fun and a nail biter. Laughter brings catharsis. And I think when you’re laughing with characters it links you to them in a very specific way, and it makes the bad stuff that happens to them that much more sad.

  J: Was the casting of John Goodman a key component of that humor?

  D: Intensity and humor were the two key components that inspired the idea to cast Goodman.

  J: I know you’ve said in interviews that you were influenced by video games. This fascinates me, because there is a whole chapter in Suspense With a Camera about how a suspense film is like a game between the director and audience. How did video games influence your approach to the film?

  D: I wanted to make this movie feel very experiential. I took a lot of inspiration from the way third-person action games can achieve exactly what first-person action games do. And I really wanted it to feel less objective, and more subjective, something that you
didn’t just watch but experience. That generally manifested in longer takes, shots from behind, and a synchronicity between the math the character is doing and what the audience is thinking.

  J: Michelle is constantly keeping track of objects she can collect and combine to escape—just like in a video game!

  D: Totally. Like a puzzle or adventure game.

  J: The business with the keys is very Hitchcockian.

  D: My very first pitch to Bad Robot invoked images from Notorious. That sequence has always been a benchmark suspense sequence for me and was our reference point for our own “key” sequence.

  J: What was your first experience watching a Hitchcock film?

  D: I believe I had just entered the room when my camp or something was screening Saboteur, the end scene on the Statue of Liberty. The image of the guy falling really did a number on me when I was too young to see something so real.

  J: I’ve found it common among films of high tension for their directors to reshoot once the editing begins. The rhythms of both The Fugitive (1993) and The Bourne Identity (2003) were discovered in the editing room, prompting major transformations. Did 10 Cloverfield Lane go through any big changes once the editing started?

  D: Michelle’s backstory changed quite a bit. We all loved her ending so much and we tried so many different ways to “earn” it until we finally landed on her “silent” opening and heart-wrenching confession she tells Emmett through the wall.

  J: Looking back on 10 Cloverfield Lane, what did the process of directing the film teach you about suspense?

  D: I think making a suspense or horror film is a unique experience. If you’re making any other genre you know when it’s working. But when you are making one of these movies, none of it is scary or suspenseful while you’re shooting nor while you are editing. So you really have to trust the craft—trust the math you learned while watching others and employ it all smartly.

  J: Thanks so much for taking the time to talk about your work.

  D: Thank you. Can’t wait to read the rest!

       CHAPTER 23

      “DETOUR” DIRECTOR WILLIAM DICKERSON

  WILLIAM DICKERSON is an award-winning filmmaker and author. His debut feature film Detour, which he wrote and directed, was hailed as an “underground hit” by The Village Voice and an “emotional and psychological roller-coaster ride” by The Examiner. He self-released his metafictional satire, The Mirror, which opened YoFi Fest’s inaugural film festival in 2013, and recently completed his third feature film, Don’t Look Back. His first book, No Alternative, was declared, “a sympathetic coming-of-age story deeply embedded in ’90s music” by Kirkus Reviews.

  Detour (2013) is a perfect example of a suspense film in the vein of Hitchcock’s film Lifeboat or TV episode “Poison,” in which the protagonist is trapped and isolated throughout the duration of the story. The film opens with Jackson (Neil Hopkins) in his sunken car, completely enveloped by mud. I spoke with director William Dickerson about the choices he made at the script stage and in the editing.

  JEFFREY: First of all, Detour is a beautifully constructed thriller.

  WILLIAM: Thanks so much for the compliment, Jeffrey. It is much appreciated.

  J: I love the choice to break up the time we spend underground with Jackson by cutting to flashbacks, dreams, and videos from his phone. These demarcate key portions of the narrative and give the audience periodic relief from the darkness of the car. Was the exact placement of these cutaways decided in the editing room, or early in the script?

  W: What is on the screen is almost exactly what was written in the script. In early drafts, we kept all the action isolated within the car. After a few revisions, my writing partner and I ultimately felt that limiting the perspective in this fashion was too claustrophobic for the audience to experience for an hour and a half. We wanted the film to feel claustrophobic, of course, but we also didn’t want to risk overwhelming viewers.

  J: Was there a risk of monotony?

  W: Suspense is a balancing act; it’s a seesaw. If you have too much intensity, too much of the same circumstances, it does risk becoming monotonous. However, if you pepper in moments of relief, when the moments of intensity arise, those moments are more dramatic, more unpredictable, and consequently, more satisfying to the viewer. Movies are, essentially, emotional roller coaster rides. A roller coaster wouldn’t be very fun to ride if there were no twists, turns or loops, now would it?

  J: To older folks, maybe! You say you “almost exactly” followed the script and that’s stunning to me. I find it’s very difficult to imagine how a suspense sequence is going to play simply by reading the script pages. Are there any tricks to gauging this before production? Do you test the material somehow with mockups? I think there is a fear within any director that when they get to the editing room the suspense falls flat and doesn’t work as intended.

  W: I storyboard every single frame ahead of time. This is, of course, a very Hitchcockian thing to do. Hitchcock was famous for saying that he was bored during the productions of his movies, because he had already made the movie prior to stepping onto set. What he meant by that was that he had done all his homework: He knew the intentions of his characters, was familiar with the ins and outs of the beats, and he storyboarded each and every frame. In a way, we can only hope to be bored on a film set. That means we’ve done our homework and everything is going according to plan. Every beat advances the story, advances the momentum, and in a thriller, raises the stakes of the suspense. If you’ve broken down the script properly into its beats, and have drawn storyboards for each specific beat, it’s easy to tell in pre-production if the next shot, or camera move, etc., will advance the story and increase the suspense.

  J: Detour begins in medias res, throwing the audience into the midst of this tragedy without context. We see that Jackson has just been trapped in his car under a mass of dirt, but we don’t know why. While you drop hints about the cause of the accident, you don’t actually show it until sixty minutes into the film, as a flashback. What factors went into the decision to withhold this moment?

  W: When I held test screenings for the film (which, by the way, is an extremely important thing to do for a thriller), one audience member said he didn’t know whether he was underground or on Mars for the first five minutes of the film, and that terrified him. While that may have terrified him, it thrilled me to no end! I got some notes about wanting to know more about the character at the beginning of the film, but I felt it was more thrilling to start with the action, and as a result, using the mystery of the circumstances as an additional element to create suspense and generate terror.

  J: What was your first experience watching a Hitchcock film?

  W: I grew up watching Hitchcock films. It’s almost impossible to pinpoint which of his films I saw first. The one that probably resonated with me the most, and continues to be my favorite, is Vertigo (1958). It really solidified the fact that no matter how much the thrills and chills take front and center in a movie, it all comes down to fully realized, flesh-and-blood characters. Vertigo is a character movie. It is about people who have been traumatized in the past and want to start over. It’s a thrilling movie, but what we relate to is the human element, the theme—that is what is universal.

  J: Did Hitchcock influence Detour at all?

  W: Absolutely. I watched Lifeboat (1944) as inspiration for making the movie for two reasons: 1) It all takes place in one location, and somehow Hitchcock makes it compelling; and 2) it’s a survival film. If you divide Detour into its two basic elements of protagonist and antagonist, it comes down to man vs. mud. Since the narrative is told through Jackson’s point of view, we see his enemy the way he does: through the windows. Until the mud actually begins to physically invade the car, it is an invisible antagonist. Therefore, sound plays a crucial role in conveying the “threat” of this antagonist, an antagonist that no one watching the first half of the film can actually see. Even when you finally do see it, you’re n
ot visually aware of how much mud there is, beyond the mud you’re seeing on screen. You guess there’s probably a lot—it’s a mud slide, after all—but you’re not being given that information visually. I came up with an idea called the “Mud Monster” that would act as a sound motif throughout the film. Much like the recurring score in Jaws that telegraphed the appearances of the lethal great white shark, the Mud Monster—a mixture of crunching, cracking, creaking and ominous dread—would foreshadow the devastation that was threatened by our film’s antagonist.

  J: Manipulating audience knowledge is a vital element in building suspense. Hitchcock would say, tell the audience everything and let it play out. Others might say, keep the audience guessing and tease them slowly. I noticed in Detour that Jackson reveals a lot of exposition while whispering to himself, but never reveals his future plans that way. We therefore hang on to figure out what he’s up to with his MacGyveresque craftsmanship. For instance, when he begins building something with the tent poles, we have to wait and watch to understand what he’s building. I found myself intently watching these moments. Is that mystery intentional?

  W: Yes, it is. The majority of the dialogue is meant to reveal character, not telegraph behavior. It was already a tricky thing writing a character that talks to himself throughout the story—that, in itself, requires a certain amount of suspension of disbelief—so we really restricted ourselves to writing dialogue that didn’t “explain” what was going on. We wanted the audience to see Jackson’s thought process as it plays out—that, in the case of Detour, is much more interesting!

  J: Looking back on Detour, what did the process of directing the film teach you about suspense?

  W: Suspense resides in the imagination of the viewer. In other words, the less you show, the more terrifying the implication is. If you show all your cards, there is a limit to the terror because we see it. If we merely hint at the terror, or imply the threat of the antagonist, as I did with the mud, there is no limit. It’s human nature: Left to our own devices, our imaginations make everything much worse than it actually is. Good suspense should target this.