Director Kim Albright talks to Fest Track about logic vs.emotion, visual style, meaning and context in regards to her film "With Love And A Major Organ" playing the Axis section of the Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal, Quebec [Canada].
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Because it's tricky, the aspect of logic,
00:28 just in terms of what we were just talking about.
00:30 The aspect of logic and emotion, what pulls you certain ways,
00:33 you know, that's specifically what this film, at least to me,
00:38 but you can explain for you, what it was about.
00:40 It's about pulling that out and just sort of putting things
00:43 in certain boxes, per se.
00:46 Could you talk about that in terms of your approach
00:48 at looking at the character, Alana,
00:50 but in the overall world that you were showing?
00:53 Yeah.
00:54 I mean, this is such an interesting aspect,
00:56 what you're saying about--
00:57 like, where your heart leads you.
00:59 And like Annabelle, hers is this lantern.
01:02 And it's this idea that she gets led in light and dark places,
01:07 good and bad, happy, sad, fearful, you name it.
01:11 No matter what it is, that's where her heart brings her.
01:13 And that's why she's so kind of easily affected
01:16 by all her experiences.
01:17 And then George, a bit more of a pragmatic,
01:21 his heart is paper, at least the one that--
01:24 without giving too much away--
01:25 the one that his mom kind of replaced when he was little.
01:28 So it's very pragmatic, doesn't go against the grain,
01:31 does everything very sensibly.
01:33 So yeah, it's super interesting to kind of think about--
01:37 take that idea and then think about what your heart is
01:40 and how you make your decisions.
01:42 Or sometimes, is it more to do with making decisions
01:45 following your heart or your head?
01:47 And both characters kind of sort of straddle this and sort
01:51 of take very different approaches, which
01:53 I find super interesting.
01:54 And it really made me think about how
01:57 I approach decision making and how that came to be
02:01 and what I got from maybe my mom or my dad,
02:04 or is it like a combination of both?
02:06 And so yeah, I think very early days when
02:09 that project came to me, it really
02:11 forced me to think about that and why I am how I am.
02:15 And even now, how did you make that decision?
02:19 And was it the best one?
02:20 I don't really know.
02:21 But there's a process that goes on, I think, for all of us.
02:27 And it can kind of really be tied down probably
02:29 to how we were making decisions as a kid.
02:31 Who knows?
02:32 And you just follow that pattern up until adulthood.
02:35 There may be some tweaks along the way, but yeah.
02:38 It's super interesting to kind of explore and use
02:41 these characters to kind of figure out--
02:43 because I think personally, I'm maybe a little bit of a mix,
02:47 but maybe a little bit more like George sometimes,
02:49 depending on what I'm working on.
02:51 Anyhow, they're fun avenues to explore.
02:54 These two characters are fun avenues
02:55 to kind of explore ourselves and how we go about our own
03:00 decision-making in life.
03:20 Dearest stranger that I know, when I think of you,
03:25 my heart beats in four directions,
03:29 not just in a forward thump, but a thick rattle,
03:34 like a garbage truck or a dangerous snake.
03:38 With only your eyes, you cause earthquakes inside my chest.
03:43 Your eyelashes are like a hurricane
03:46 to the dry fields in my gut.
03:49 Like a paleontologist discovering rare bones,
03:53 you unearth things in me I have never known, big and small.
03:58 Your voice twists my tangled spaghetti guts
04:04 around a silver fork, smooth, shiny, and clean.
04:09 It wakes me up, and I absorb it all.
04:12 Every note, moment, and breath, I drown in it.
04:16 A lonely meatball in a vat of rich tomato sauce.
04:20 I soak it all in.
04:26 If my chest were a birdcage I could unlock
04:31 or an oven I could open, I would let you see
04:35 what you'd do to my heart.
04:37 I know this is far, but I know that you're here.
04:44 I know this is fast, but it doesn't feel too soon
04:48 to think I could love you.
04:50 He kind of has this goofy smile,
04:56 and when he breathes, it's so rhythmic.
05:01 I think I'm in love.
05:03 [scoffs]
05:04 And I want you to fall in love
05:08 after a normal and energetic time right now.
05:13 Just try and keep your job.
05:15 [phone ringing]
05:17 Okay.
05:19 Hello, Virtual Insurance, where we insure
05:22 everything you can't hold in your arms
05:24 unless you hug computers.
05:26 Why don't we go for a drink after work?
05:28 I have a quick free session.
05:29 Oh, come on.
05:30 It's relaxing.
05:31 Everything in you is still and numb for 20 minutes.
05:35 Okay.
05:36 It also is about perspective and perception,
05:39 you know, how you want to be perceived, you know, either--
05:42 and this is a big thing in modern society
05:44 in terms of dating or love or whatever,
05:47 or relationships, is how much do you show--
05:49 how much do you show your friends
05:51 versus the person you're actually having
05:53 the relationship with?
05:54 But it's interesting that, you know,
05:56 people don't want to open themselves up.
05:58 They'll open themselves up online some ways,
06:00 but then they won't do it in person.
06:02 Can you talk about that diametric?
06:04 Because you have to visually represent that
06:06 in the film with the rooms and stuff like that.
06:09 Yeah, that is so true in terms of
06:11 how we open ourselves up to the world
06:13 and kind of these facades that we put on,
06:15 be it for social media or just, like,
06:17 our face-to-face friends.
06:19 And I think Casey, Annabelle's best friend,
06:21 is a really good example of this and how she--
06:23 you know, I think she really opens up to Annabelle,
06:26 and you see this-- the real side of Casey,
06:28 particularly when they're in that art gallery,
06:30 and she kind of goes through, you know,
06:32 her decision-making process to do with her wedding
06:34 and the venue and, you know, yeah, it all made sense.
06:37 The app just told me to do it, and, like,
06:39 it's right, obviously.
06:40 So, you know, you really kind of see--
06:42 and I think she's a good example of, you know,
06:45 today's decision-making.
06:46 I mean, obviously pushed a little bit,
06:48 but she's a really good example, I think,
06:51 of how we kind of make a lot of our decisions
06:53 or perhaps, you know, we're even maybe going more
06:56 in that direction soon, which is a bit scary.
06:59 [train whistle]
07:01 [train whistle]
07:09 [train whistle]
07:11 [train whistle]
07:17 Do we know each other?
07:21 No.
07:23 Oh.
07:24 Well, you waved, which normally indicates
07:26 some kind of familiarity.
07:28 Right.
07:29 [train whistle]
07:31 Okay, well, thank you for waving for no reason.
07:37 I'm Annabelle.
07:39 I'm George.
07:43 What's the latest news?
07:47 Um, a new shooting, a new war, a new virus.
07:52 No, never mind.
07:54 You don't have to worry.
07:55 This is yesterday's paper.
07:57 You're reading yesterday's news.
07:59 [whistles]
08:00 That way I know everything worked out okay.
08:03 For you.
08:04 And for you, too.
08:05 You're here.
08:06 I am.
08:08 I've seen you here before,
08:11 even when the weather was at its worst.
08:14 Yeah, I want to be able to rave the elements,
08:17 so I'm ready for the apocalypse,
08:19 which, according to the news, is any day now.
08:22 It wasn't yesterday.
08:24 Maybe it'll be today.
08:26 Then I will read about it tomorrow.
08:27 Oh, we'll both be dead by then.
08:29 Oh.
08:31 But it's also taking the metaphor of what the heart is.
08:34 Yes.
08:35 Because the thing is,
08:36 as a director, you can talk in metaphor,
08:38 and visually you can do that,
08:40 but then you have to interrelate it to the actor.
08:42 In this case, obviously Anna.
08:44 Could you talk about that and finding sort of that balance?
08:47 Because her shift is really diametric,
08:49 and it really works.
08:50 It's really well done.
08:52 But you feel for her,
08:53 especially when she's towards the end, too,
08:56 when it has to switch back in a way.
08:58 Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
09:00 I mean, gosh, we worked --
09:02 we knew this would be a challenge for her,
09:03 kind of right off the bat.
09:04 I mean, for any actor.
09:05 Because it's such a shift from going from, you know,
09:09 feeling wholeheartedly absolutely everything,
09:11 and, you know, expressing herself, you know,
09:14 with her painting and her recordings.
09:16 So she's like an open book,
09:18 and then suddenly to kind of being shut off,
09:20 no emotions,
09:21 and how does that translate to her physicality,
09:24 to her speech, even to, like, what she says, you know?
09:28 So this was -- it was super fun to kind of figure this out with Anna
09:32 and how she was going to tackle it.
09:34 Because, you know, when she rips her heart out,
09:37 it's not like we go from A to B.
09:39 It's sort of like -- there's various shades within that,
09:43 and her decline.
09:44 And like you were saying, like, towards the very end,
09:46 when she's, like, totally lifeless,
09:48 has the sort of the blood sucked out of her,
09:51 not literally, but, you know, metaphorically.
09:54 You know, she's just, like, lying on this couch
09:56 and just, like, unable to do anything.
09:58 And so we really had to think about, okay, well,
10:01 what's the starting point, you know, as in, like,
10:04 when she immediately pulls her heart out,
10:06 and what's the finished point when she's on that cliff and,
10:08 you know, sort of desperate to get this heart back.
10:10 So it was super -- sorry, it was super hard to kind of navigate
10:14 that at the outset and think about, okay, well,
10:17 let's map this and think about what's -- with the different stages.
10:21 But I think once we kind of got through that initial mapping process,
10:24 then it was easier to kind of think, okay, well,
10:27 this is where we're at now, and this is what happened before,
10:30 and this is what's going to happen after.
10:31 So we have to sort of plant ourselves within that.
10:35 So, yeah, it was super fun to figure out.
10:38 But I think for Anna, a huge challenge, because it's not --
10:41 it's just not cut and dry.
10:43 And I know on the day we needed to kind of do various takes.
10:47 So, okay, let's try a little bit like this or a little bit --
10:49 let's strip it back even more, or let's go back to kind of,
10:52 you know, how we started.
10:53 And so just so we had variations to play with in the edit,
10:56 because you never quite know how it's all going to put together when you
11:00 get to the edit.
11:01 But if you have those options, then you can kind of, you know,
11:03 lean more into this for this one scene or that,
11:06 or just make the transition kind of a bit more seamless.
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