The SXSW Film Festival is a few weeks old now, but we’re still playing catch-up. Sue us if you don’t like it.This weekend we went through our notes and recording and realized we still have plenty of material to roll out there.
We already went into an in-depth piece about the Q&A with filmmaker David Gordon Green which touched on his potential remake of “Suspiria” and his next film, “The Sitter” that will star Jonah Hill, but Green went on at length about several projects including his upcoming throwback fantasy movie comedy, “Your Highness” which stars Danny McBride, Zooey Deschanel, Natalie Portman, James Franco, Justin Theroux and hits theaters October 1st via Universal.
Though Green said he was very excited to show the film to the world in October because it’s “really insane,” he also noted it was the most difficult film he’s ever had to make.
It was a “a tough shoot” Green told the SXSW audience, “by far the most expensive movie, by about double anything I’ve ever done. There was huge special effects, it’s just got so many different elements working, to puppets from guys in suits that can’t breath, that have to pause the shot and take their masks off every three minutes. There was so many things going on and at the same time you’re trying to be funny and get a performances out of two guys and just have the backdrop feel alive and authentic… but then everyone needs a break and everyone hands are sore from working a puppet mouth. ”
The filmmaker noted that balancing logistics, effects, puppeteers, explosions and actor was a huge challenge he’d never undertaken before. And because of the difficult stop and starting of putting on such a vast production, the filmmaker shot miles and miles of film.
“You can’t ever get a flow and that’s really frustrating, cause the greatest part of making movies for me is when the cameras are rolling. And so the second I would call cut I would fall into a super depression, so it would be this weird roller coaster of an emotional day and even when we had it going and everything had come together in concert it was still tough cause no one wants to be the guy that messes up a take cause they’re too tired working a puppet mouth. They’ll get carpal tunnel for you, cause no one wants to fuck up in the middle of a moment and actors are still alive and they don’t wanna disrupt themselves. So I just burned through film. Every time we put a mag in the camera, I would empty it out just because I didn’t want to stop cause I know the second we stopped, we had to tweak lights and everyone has to reset and get their hair fixed.”
Green also acknowledged that 10x the footage is currently making the editing process tough. But the biggest lessons he had to make on the film, rumored to be in the $40 million dollar area, was having to make compromises he never expected he’d ever have to make.
“Sometimes you have to say to actors, ‘Look I’m not going to make my day if I don’t deal with these guys that are supposed to light all this shit on fire and stuffs supposed to blow up here, here, here and here, I’m gonna trust you to rock it out, while I’m just watching for the background stuff. So let me know if you feel good about it, you guys direct yourself for a second.’ Sometimes you have to make those kinds of choices or you cannot make those choices and there’s a lot of directors that have the budgets that they can do the everything with more time.”
While the film was scripted, like Green’s “Pineapple Express,” much of the film was improvised by McBride and Franco, who both worked on that Judd Apatow comedy. However, some took to this process well and others practically balked.
“Natalie Portman perfectly integrated into [this improved workflow] and loved it. It was like a playground for her,” Green said, but laughed before recalling the difficulties some British actors had with these wild and free methods. “We had these amazing British thespians that has worked on the stage of London who thought we were fucking ret*rded. They were scratching their heads everyday thinking themselves, ‘Why did I agree to do this?’ Because it would be just like having them say foolish things as a twist for Danny to say something to change the middle of a scene. It was not what they signed up for.”
Green noted that the British actors were frustrated and one of them even bailed in the middle of the scene when he had no clue what the actors were doing.
“It was torture for them during the process, but what didn’t realize is that I got what I wanted because you get them totally confused and baffled and things they want to iron out and I just want to exploit all that,” he said laughing good naturedly. “And them being frustrated by all the things that Danny saying is perfect, because they don’t know how to respond, but Charles Dance was this fantastic actor. Would just be like [in the middle of a scene] “Cut. I’m not going where you’re going’ and I’ve never had an actor do that to me before, that’s rare. That said, I think there was such a great vibe between the actors that I think they eventually said, ‘Ok fuck it, and let’s just see where it goes.’ ”
But if this all sounds like drama on the set, Green’s recollection of the difficulties on set are relaxed, assured and seemingly all part of a day’s work. While “Your Highness” wasn’t the film they signed up for, the filmmaker is confident they’ll find the finished product a funny, albeit absurd one.
“I think they thought were doing ‘The Holy Grail.’ They thought it was a spoof. But we didn’t make a spoof. We made a medieval, early ’80s adventure, sword and sorcery film. When you reference ‘Krull’ or ‘Beastmaster’ to a British stage actor they’re not necessarily making the [same connections that we are]. I think they did great, but ultimately when they see the movie they’ll get it.”