Meet Indie Filmmaker: THE MAGICIAN
Directors Taylor Alexander Ward and Valentina Avayu talking on set.
We
speak to directing duo Taylor Alexander Ward and Valentina Avayu about
their atmosphere piece, "The Magician", a recent submission to ÉCU’s Non-European Dramatic Short category. Their questions shed some light on an enigmatic story of one person's attempt to face up to a terrible loss...
By Katie Jackson
Q: The film has a very personal feel to it. Did the project deal with a subject that was close to you?
Valentina: The process of loss in everyday life is a close to
my heart. The idea of experiencing something for a particular time, and
then having it end, and all the subsequent feelings about it, is
certainly a theme in my life. This concept is what first interested me
in the story.
Q:
According to the credits, the film is based on a story. What kind of
story is it? Where did you find it and how did you adapt it for the
screen?
Taylor: A friend had written "The Magician" as a short story.
It had a lot of cinematic qualities that we believed would easily lend
themselves well to the screen. When writing the screenplay we felt very
strongly that we didn't want to simply adapt the short story to a
screenplay form, but instead start somewhat from scratch. Almost all of
the beats that you see in the film are present in the short story, but
we made a point of telling the story through picture and performance as
opposed to text. The narration required the most reshaping. We had to
pick and chose what would be said in voice-over versus what would
simply be seen. Since the story is so grounded in a single POV, in a
sense the voice-over and the images are the same thing.
Q: How did you choose your locations?
Valentina and Taylor:
We wanted something American and Timeless - a house that we all had
seen before – generic and comfortable, yet domestically cinematic. We
shot at a friends home and knew right away that it would be perfect. We
didn't even consider an alternative. The church was more problematic.
We probably looked at 25 churches before picking the current one. It
was important to find something intimate, without much religious
iconography.
Q: The lighting is very polished. Did you experiment before deciding on the final effects?
Valentina and Taylor: Not really. We deeply trusted
our cinematographer, Matt Lloyd. We decided to shoot 35mm black and
white very early on, and gathered mood images. From there we mostly
just worked off of image references.
Q: The narrative begins at the mid-point of the story, facts
unravel gradually, and indeed by the end of the piece the characters
still remain largely anonymous. As a result the film is very
elliptical. The magician is an especially mysterious presence. Was this
approach designed to privilege atmosphere over plot?
Taylor: I think the plot really exists within the atmosphere,
and therefore we knew that if the world was not precise, then the
narrative aspect would most likely fail. Whereas if the world
succeeded, we still had room to play with the plot points.
Q: The film appears to allegorise the grieving process. Was this your intention?
Valentina: Absoutely.
Taylor: Yes and no. I'd like to think some people out there aren't quite as indifferent as the characters in the film.
Q: There is some palpable tension between the characters' views
on death, the dead, and then scepticism over magic--what is the link
between these in your opinion?
Taylor: Rather than making any sort of concrete statements,
the intention was simply to present questions about the real versus the
unreal, and leave them purposefully ambiguous so the audience would be
forced to participate. We definitely attempted to maintain this
enigmatic quality in the film.
Valentina: The link is the way in which people react.
Q: The
soundtrack becomes very prominent in one instance, almost as if it
takes over the narrative. Who wrote it and how did you come up with it?
Valentina: We tried different music pieces looking for
something enigmatic and playful It engages you right when the Magician
engages the audience.
Q: For a short film there is a large cast with a great variety of ages. How did you meet/choose your actors and actresses?
Taylor and Valentina:
Lots and lots of casting. We had to basically create a family for the
deceased man. We were shocked by the amount of responses and
interesting people who were very eager to participate in an ensemble
cast movie. The casting process was extremely entertaining.
Q: Tell me about your next project?
Valentina: I've just wrapped on my latest short about
premature sexual awakening, and I'm currently developing my next movie
which is set to shoot May. Its an hour long film about a possessive man
and his blind girlfriend.
Taylor: I'm finishing my first feature script. It's essentially a post - apocalyptic love story.
