Nearly ten years ago, I asked you what your dream directing job would be, and you said: directing your first feature film. Since then, Earth Mama has had this extraordinary life. When you look back on the path from that answer to the film you made, what feels most significant to you now?
Awe that’s amazing, I love that we have that history. I definitely think going to 1.4’s first award show was a pivotal moment in my career. Like that was right when I was transitioning from being a volleyball player to being a director and I was like – wow, I need this. How can I make this my life?
But to answer your question, I can’t really pinpoint one thing for being the ‘most pivotal’. There’s been so many little moments that have really added together. Everything from putting the money I made in sports into making my first short titled ‘F Word’, to deciding to study acting at Drama Centre London at CSM, to working for production companies like Stink and Biscuit, to deciding to quit and pursue my own career, to my close friends and partners that over the years who have encouraged me not to give up on my personal stories, to that athlete mindset I have in me that just won’t let me stop even when it feels like all odds are against me. So yeah I feel like it wouldn’t be right to just pick one of those moments, because it’s an accumulation. And there’s also been a lot of down moments, a lot of doubt, and a lot of people who have been fuel to the first, if you know what I mean.
Earth Mama was such a deeply felt film, and Kelsey Lu’s score felt inseparable from its emotional rhythm. What made you want to return to that collaboration for ‘So Help Me God’?
After Earth Mama, Lu and I became close friends and so when the album ‘So Help Me God’ was shaping up, she asked me to listen to the album. At first it was just because she wanted me to listen and give my thoughts on a couple songs. Then it became listening to the entire album. And then she asked me whether I could do a music video for one song. Then it became Lu asking me to do videos for almost every song and make a short film that heroes most of the songs on the album. I’ve always been excited by Lu’s music and also her as a performer. And this album felt extremely special – it has a beautiful, cinematic soundscape. It takes you on a journey from start to finish, and brings you through so many terrains. So it truly felt like an honor to be asked to do this project, and I just couldn’t say no.
What were the first conversations between you and Kelsey about this film? Did the narrative begin with a clear visual idea, or did it emerge more gradually through intuition and conversation?
This was a long collaboration, I think we were working together on the project for over seven months. It took many forms. At first, it started out with ideas around rebirth – what that feels like and what that could be like. Our early conversations also were around empowerment – what that means to Lu and what it could feel like in a visual. We started out with a lot of discussions around crawling and also around her being attached to a helicopter. Some ideas stayed, others had to be cut off because they weren’t feasible. And then we landed on this loose narrative around the push and pull of a relationship. From there I built this short film interweaving the tracks to create the ebbs and flows of the relationship dynamic.
There’s something especially rich about this being a collaboration between an artist-director and an artist-musician, rather than a more conventional director-for-hire dynamic. Did that change the way you approached authorship, interpretation or control?
I think it just meant we were sharing a lot more references, and we had worked together so there was an element of trust that was already baked in. That being said, it also felt like a very different collaboration for me, I had a lot of my close friends involved in this one, in a way I haven’t had before, so it also felt like there was a lot more pressure to do something we all love. We wanted to make something that felt timeless, so that meant we all really gave it our all.
Every frame in ‘So Help Me God’ feels charged with a vital, elemental energy, and it’s striking to see Kelsey Lu so fully inhabiting the narrative rather than simply performing the song. How did you arrive at that particular atmosphere? And when it came to shaping the movement and physical language of the piece, did you work with a choreographer, or was that something you and Kelsey developed together?
Movement for me is extremely important when it comes to directing. I’m really interested in drawing out performance not just in someone’s face or the way they speak, I’m interested in how they walk in the room, what their words sound like, what tension arises in the physical spaces and the atmosphere. For this film, the land itself was an obstacle. We were working on volcanic rock, and both Kelsey Lu and Garance Marillier (co-lead) were climbing steep mountains, and throwing themselves about spiky and prickly rocks. It was physically and emotionally draining for both of them, but it also lent itself to the volatile ups and downs of a relationship.
For movement, we were drawing from a lot of performance artists, people like William Pope. L and Bas Jad Ader. It was all about that feeling when you love someone (whether it’s a friend, family member or romantic partner) you often give your whole being over to them and if that relationship is toxic, it can quite literally break your body down, until you have to crawl yourself out, and build yourself back up again.
The relationship between the two women in the film feels both intimate and expansive. There are these close, private framings, but also long shots and tracking movements in these rugged landscapes. How did you and your cinematographer develop that visual language?
I’ve been working with Ryan Marie Helfant for many years, and over the years we have developed a language that we are both really drawn to which incorporates a set of rules and guidelines. We are both drawn to shooting on film using natural lighting, with blocking that unfolds in durational shots, using a mixture of long lenses and extreme wides.
We also very much have the edit in mind while working together, and the goal is to never show the same frame twice. For this film, we were inspired by films like Gus Van Sant’s ‘Gerry’, Bela Tar’s ‘Werckmeister Harmonies’ and Phillipe Garrels ‘The Inner Scar’. These films have beautifully orchestrated, durational shots that have this feeling of anticipation and enable the performances to have time to breathe and unfold in real time.
One of the striking things in your work is that you can portray pain, fear and vulnerability, but also moments of real beauty and reflection. How do you think about beauty when you’re working with emotionally difficult material? Are the deep-rooted feelings expressed in the video autobiographical in any way? And more broadly, what is your process for translating private or difficult emotions into film language?
I like to prepare a lot before I shoot so that before coming to set I know what each frame is going to be and how the edit is most likely going to unfold. Then when I’m on set, I like to focus as much energy as possible on the actors and their performance. I like the frame to feel almost like an extension of the location, or maybe a better way to describe it is like a basketball court, of which the actors have to perform inside. Then, within the boundaries of the lines on the court, the actors have the freedom to give everything they have and pour all of themselves inside it.
In terms of beauty, I don’t know. I just like to shoot what I’m drawn to – people who are honest and vulnerable in places that feel true to life with lighting and a color palette that feels natural and yet subtly sculpted. I think the greatest beauty comes in being present in the moment. To find that balance of raw honesty with subtle poetry is so tricky. It’s impossible with the wrong people or places. For me, making films is all about creating the environment which will get the most honest performances in a way that the audience can feel like they are right there sitting courtside for the game.
Does emotional truth in film need to come from lived experience? Or can that truth come just as powerfully from research, empathy, imagination and close attention to other people’s lives?
I think emotional truth doesn’t have to come from lived experience, but it can help. Especially when trying to get you closer to nuances that only people with lived experiences truly understand. I think research is definitely very important and a requirement whether you have or don’t have the lived experience of the characters in your film. Also, as a director, I think being honest with yourself and acknowledging what sort of biases or prejudices you may have on the people you are portraying is extremely important. Not enough directors seem to care about that.
That being said, I also think lived experience can sometimes have a reverse effect. For actors and especially for me as a writer, sometimes drawing from autobiographical experiences can feel too heady. It can sometimes even lead you astray because you are trying to stay too close to what actually happened in your life. When the truth is, film is not the same as reality. Sometimes real life is too bizarre that it feels fake when you put it on screen. So in that respect, sometimes I try to use movement as a way into a scene. Creating physical obstacles, or using physical spaces as a way into the emotional intention of a scene.
Did anything emerge during ‘So Help Me God’ that felt like the beginning of another future “dream” project — visually, emotionally or thematically?
I am very much interested in exploring fantasy and science fiction, something that is new to me. ‘So Help Me God’ wasn’t the start of that feeling, but it was definitely a stepping stone along the way, and I am excited about continuing along that journey.
