Director Claudio Fah & Actress Sophie McIntosh talks to The Inside Reel about tension, psychology, physicality and action in regards to their new horror/thriller from RJLE Films: "No Way Up".
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Short filmTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:15 -Here's the hatch.
00:18 -Look, they've come to save us.
00:19 -Turn around!
00:21 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:38 -Like that, Sophie.
00:39 You know, it's about claustrophobia.
00:41 Claustrophobia of the self, but claustrophobia
00:45 of the space and the mind.
00:48 Could you guys talk about that in terms of No Way Up?
00:51 Because it's as much a mental thing--
00:53 it's definitely a physical thing that prevents them.
00:55 But it's also the mental element.
00:57 And it's about building that both in the psyche
00:59 of the character, Sophie, but also
01:01 in the build of the film and the tension question.
01:03 So whoever would like to start.
01:07 -Go ahead, Sophie.
01:08 -Yeah, I think claustrophobia is a big thing.
01:11 You know, I've said I think my-- I'm
01:13 very comfortable in the water.
01:14 I love the ocean.
01:15 But being trapped in the ocean is a whole other thing.
01:19 So I think just that feeling of just being completely helpless
01:22 and completely trapped kind of is just
01:25 the constant underlying tension throughout the film
01:28 of these characters.
01:29 You know, even if they had-- you know, there were no sharks
01:33 and they could breathe, you know, they're still trapped.
01:35 So that, yeah, I think that kind of really drives
01:38 that fear the whole way through.
01:40 -Yeah, I'm glad you touched on that, Tim.
01:42 I mean, very eloquently put, I think
01:44 it's a movie where Ava, the character, Sophie's character,
01:50 is sort of trapped in her own life.
01:53 She talks about being, you know, not very good under pressure.
01:56 And she has sort of the support system around her.
01:58 I mean, she's the daughter of the governor of California.
02:01 So she's used to just getting her way and being led
02:05 and being held safe, being kept safe and all that.
02:07 And she relies on that.
02:09 And once all of that goes away, she
02:11 needs to decide, can I break out of this?
02:13 Can I break out of this sort of trapped life
02:15 that I have manipulated myself into?
02:17 And then seeing her getting out of this
02:20 and finding the resilience within herself
02:22 that she didn't even know she had,
02:24 I think that's the through line of the movie.
02:25 And it's all, you know, that's kind of the scenario
02:29 that one would wish for as a director to, yes, you
02:32 have all the physical challenges of what's going on in the movie.
02:35 How do we pull this off?
02:37 But where do we find an emotional through line
02:39 and something that maybe has a bit more meaning than just
02:41 people being yanked out the plane, which is nice too.
02:44 But it's not all there is to it, no?
02:45 So yeah, I'm happy you touched on that.
02:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:51 Was that a shark?
03:14 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:17 What the fuck's a shark doing on a plane?
03:19 [MUSIC PLAYING]
03:22 Yeah, you have to understand and sort of commit
03:26 to what the characters are.
03:28 I mean, you know, Ava's questioning her identity.
03:30 I mean, not her identity, but her questioning
03:33 how she lives her life.
03:35 And you see that with the boyfriend, with the friend.
03:37 But even when she looks at the little girl
03:39 and her grandmother, you see that sort of reflection.
03:41 And you create that empathy as far as like,
03:45 are they going to get out or not?
03:46 And it sort of builds that into strategy.
03:49 Sophie, could you talk about building that along the way?
03:51 I know you probably shot out a sequence.
03:53 But to sort of see that path of her sort of peeling away
03:57 the layers of her sort of resistance
04:00 to what her life is.
04:02 And then Claudio sort of using that,
04:04 but using the pressure that keeps building up
04:06 as the plane starts to drop.
04:08 And using that kind of angle to emphasize what Sophie
04:13 is going through as Ava.
04:16 Yeah, I mean, I think we were quite lucky.
04:19 A lot of it was shot in sequence,
04:21 just because of the nature of the breakdown and the water
04:24 and everything that was going on with the physical set, which
04:27 is always really helpful.
04:28 But we did also--
04:30 Claudio gave us quite a lot of time prior to shooting
04:33 to really kind of think about these characters
04:35 and develop backstories.
04:36 And also, we kind of worked together in pairs and in groups
04:39 to rehearse in character and kind of find
04:42 those relationships.
04:44 So I got to do quite a lot of work, particularly
04:47 on where Ava started and who she was prior
04:50 to walking into that airport.
04:52 So then kind of the events of the film
04:54 kind of then kind of slowly chip away at who she thought she was.
04:58 And I think it's kind of one of those things of, you know,
05:01 humans are put in the worst circumstances.
05:03 I think a lot of the pretense, it all just strips away
05:06 kind of all of the extra, the peripheral kind of disappears.
05:09 And you're left with kind of just the true person,
05:12 you know, in those really kind of terrifying circumstances.
05:16 Yeah, and I think, I mean, like you said,
05:18 the pressure grows inside where they are.
05:21 And it's almost like in the Poseidon adventure,
05:23 the world goes upside down, right?
05:24 So that says something about this.
05:26 And here, it's not dissimilar in the sense
05:28 that the things are crumbling.
05:30 And decisions are forced.
05:33 The characters need to, you know, show who they really are.
05:37 They're forced into making a decision.
05:38 And that's always a fantastic dramatic premise
05:41 because it does bring out who they really are.
05:44 Both, and not just for Ava,
05:46 I think it also really centers around Phyllis's character
05:49 who decides to hand over her most important,
05:53 you know, possession, it's not,
05:55 but her grandchild into Ava's arms.
05:58 I mean, that's a monumental decision.
06:01 But the same way we see that the ever cynic,
06:03 the cynical guy, Kyle, played by Will Attenborough,
06:06 which I think did a brilliant job
06:08 in endearing us to a guy who really just kind of
06:11 is awful at the beginning, you know, he's not very nice.
06:14 But then we understand,
06:15 and cynicism comes from a place of complete vulnerability
06:20 and insecurity.
06:21 And he's able to open up like that to Ava,
06:25 who's his best friend.
06:26 So all of those things that like,
06:28 it forces people to show what they're made from.
06:33 And so that is a good thing, I think, in this story, yeah.
06:38 - How long do you think we have?
06:40 - Three, maybe four hours.
06:42 - As if the structure holds up.
06:45 - Look, they've come to save us!
06:47 - Hey, we're over here!
06:49 - We're gonna have to find our way out.
06:58 - Before I go over to the logistics with Claudio on that,
07:01 was there a scene or a sequence
07:03 that was more challenging than others?
07:05 I mean, obviously when you're diving down,
07:07 there's that, you know,
07:09 and there's so many different things,
07:11 but without giving too much away,
07:12 what was the most challenging for you within that?
07:15 - Yeah, I think the most challenging,
07:17 there was one, I think it was like the second
07:18 to last day of shooting or something.
07:19 And there's a sequence where I'm,
07:22 without giving too much away,
07:23 I'm trying to swim to the surface
07:25 and I'm not really getting anywhere.
07:27 And to kind of create that,
07:29 what we ended up doing was harnessing me
07:31 to the bottom of this kind of 10 meter tank,
07:34 which was, I think at the time,
07:37 I was just kind of going with it,
07:38 but in retrospect, it was quite scary.
07:40 I was down there, I think for nearly 45 minutes in the end
07:43 with an incredible crew of safety dives and everything.
07:46 But yeah, that was quite scary.
07:49 And I think there was a,
07:49 we did one take where I passed out
07:53 and I couldn't really hear or see anything.
07:56 - So it's just like waiting for this.
07:57 - But see, after a stand, without giving too much away,
07:59 that part of it,
08:01 everything she's working towards builds up to that.
08:03 And so you feel sort of that pressure on her.
08:07 And obviously the effects are well done.
08:11 I mean, you obviously guys had to work
08:13 within a certain budget,
08:14 but I mean, that sequence is pretty neat
08:18 because it is yes, no, maybe, what?
08:22 And that's what you want from one of these movies.
08:25 Could you talk about,
08:26 I'll go to Claudio before I come back to you, Sophie,
08:28 on that, but thank you for sharing that.
08:30 The aspect of the logistics of making a movie such as this,
08:33 obviously you can work with gimbals,
08:35 you can work with water,
08:36 you can do so many things in a tank,
08:38 but can you talk about sort of the challenge of that for you?
08:41 I mean, you've worked on different genre films,
08:43 but I don't think you've worked on something
08:45 quite like this.
08:47 - Correct.
08:47 And nobody has so far.
08:49 (laughing)
08:50 But yes.
08:51 - I mean, if you're talking about Cameron,
08:53 I mean, he did "The Abyss,"
08:54 but that's completely different thing.
08:55 - Yes, it is.
08:57 That's true.
08:58 But "Abyss" actually was one of the movies
08:59 that we did look at in terms of look and style
09:02 and claustrophobia as well and all the rest of it.
09:05 But yeah, the logistics take up a huge section
09:08 of a very limited prep because of a limited budget.
09:11 So, and it's tricky because on the one hand, of course,
09:15 I think in this sort of genre,
09:17 you do have some license for some suspension of disbelief.
09:20 It doesn't have to follow complete physical logic
09:23 all the time, but it needs to be sold enough.
09:25 I think the trick is to pick a perspective
09:29 through which you portray what's happening
09:32 to elicit an emotion, to tell the emotional story
09:35 rather than the physical story.
09:37 And telling emotional story can have hyperbole
09:40 and can be exaggerated in doses, I suppose.
09:45 And then you hope you strike the right balance
09:48 between something that is heightened
09:50 and something that feels real.
09:51 But wherever we were able to do something physically real,
09:55 be it people being yanked out an actual plane,
09:58 we would do that for real and only paint out the wire.
10:01 Whenever we were able to be underwater,
10:02 I mean, Sophie swam the length of the cabin underwater
10:06 in complete darkness, held back by two wires.
10:09 And once she got to the bottom,
10:10 she would be yanked back to the top again.
10:13 And then swam down.
10:14 I mean, that's all real.
10:16 A credit to her.
10:17 She's incredibly fit and incredibly brave to do that.
10:22 So, and wherever it was not possible,
10:24 we would go to even stuff like virtual production
10:26 where we would shoot dry for wet
10:28 and hang Sophie from wires horizontally
10:31 with a big LED wall displaying the plane that goes down.
10:34 So it's a mix of various different approaches
10:37 that we're kind of living almost within our budget.
10:39 And then you push and you hope that people come through.
10:42 And I think they did.
10:43 (dramatic music)
10:46 (screaming)
10:48 - What's a shark doing on a plane?
10:52 - Ava.
10:53 - I'm sorry, kid.
10:56 You're gonna have to do this one on your own.
10:58 (screaming)
11:03 (dramatic music)
11:06 (dramatic music)
11:08 (horn honking)
11:15 (dramatic music)
11:18 (dramatic music)
11:21 (dramatic music)
11:24 (dramatic music)
11:27 [BLANK_AUDIO]