Frame & Reference Podcast - 259: "Never After Dark" Director Dave Boyle

Episode Date: September 10, 2026

We've got a change of pace this week, inviting director Dave Boyle to talk about his new film "Never After Dark".Enjoy!► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠F&R Online ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Support F&R⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Produced by Kenny McMillan► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ► ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Hello and welcome to this, episode 259 of Frame and Reference. You're about to drop into a conversation between me, Candy McMillan, and my guest, Dave Boyle, director of Never After Dark. Enjoy it. The word horror can sometimes be a little loaded, because it's the same, it's the same as the word scary, right? Like, it sort of means something different to different people. And there can be, like, there can be, like, a value judgment on scary, but it's really, such a highly individual thing. I don't know.

We struggled with that actually in Japan because you know, even though Japan is like at least from the outside, the rest of the world is very famous for horror movies. They're actually like,

horror is actually a little bit more of like a niche thing in Japan. Like a little bit more of a niche taste. So the word horror is actually like everybody's trying to figure out what to do about the marketing because most of the horror movies that are kind of like get out there and stuff they they they call it like a suspense drama or something you know it's a mystery that kind of thing it's clearly a horror movie but just the word has such a divisive connotation that makes for very tricky um yeah very tricky getting people in would would they consider is how considered a horror? Yeah.

I also think that that's like, house is just like sort of in the realm of a classic. And that's, it's a pretty defies genre. Yeah. Yeah. It's like its own thing. Obayashi kind of like doing,

doing his thing. It's definitely, I'd say like more popular outside Japan than inside. Yeah. Well, we love, certainly love camp in America. It's relatively campy. And the second you get, put it on Criterion, you know, every nerds like me are like, well, I must own that because Criterion said so.

And then you end up watching. Exactly. Yeah. You got, you got introduced to Japanese culture in Australia, right? Yeah. Yep. Because you were on a mission trip? That's correct.

Yeah. So two, two years from when I was 19 until I was 21. so a long, long, long time ago now. But I didn't actually live in Japan until I made the Netflix show House of Ninjas. It's also been like four or five years ago when I, when I, you know, went over for sort of a long, long stay for the first time. And that was the, I worked with a lot of Japanese creatives and the producers and actors and everything like that. but that was my first time actually like going through the whole production process and in Japan and just kind of experiencing the the difference. Yeah, because the immediate question that came to my mind just even reading up on you was like the,

because, you know, speaking to like Australian cinematographers, for instance, they, they're often talk about like a really workman-like ethic. you know, we're not here to, we're not solving, you know, crimes or not building rocket ships or just making a movie and let's make it, you know, efficient, as opposed to here in L.A. where it can be a little bit more, everyone's wearing scarves, you know,

like, we're an autoture, you know, whatever. But I was wondering what your sort of, not perception, but experience with not only sort of the Japanese, I guess, studio system. I don't know what you'd want to call it, but also just working primarily with Japanese actors, working in that culture and kind of the differences that you experience being an American working in that environment. Yeah, I think like the creative spirit when you're making a movie tends to be really individual and varied, but largely, you know, sort of the same

worldwide, but like the organization of how the crew is set up. them, maybe structurally, like, how the industry is set up to accept or reject projects or, you know, sort of what makes it through the system, I think is very different in Japan. And it starts at the level of just, like, I mean, even the development process before you ever get to set in the U.S., like, everything kind of starts with scripts. like if you don't unless it's like the very biggest um intellectual property where they're setting a a release date very first and then everything sort of falls off of that which are very few or far between um you know you really can't get anywhere without a scrubs uh whereas in japan at least in like studio system type of

situations like it starts with a project proposal or like a project Bible kind of thing so so a synopsis and a concept and and maybe a book or a manga or some some kind of original some kind of licensed property or that kind of thing and largely you know the the project makes it

through based on the strength of that document and then you have like the package, the actors and everything. And just because of like just because of the way production cycles work and everything, popular actors, like you're not even necessarily like big, big name draws, but just working actors, everybody's very, very booked up way, way in advance. Sometimes like you're really, like I'll often hear people say, like if I said now, we're sort of looking at Q1, 2028 to shoot everybody's like, you, are you sure you have enough time to, like, so it's, you know,

oftentimes, and like, this is just as a general sort of view, but like you'll see like, okay, we have this book and, and we have like a director and then we have these cast members. We have their schedule lockdown. Let's write the script, you know. And then at that point, the script is written. So, like in the U.S. media ecosystem, the script is often sort of the main marketing tool to make a case for the movie. Like, the script has got to be bold proof.

It's got to be like it's got to hit all these bases because it has to get past so many people to sort of get their stamp of approval. And, you know, everybody along the way has their thoughts on it that you navigate that system. Whereas in Japan, I would say that the script. like the development process and in the writing of the scripts is is less about sort of like this script has to be good or the movie's not going to be made it's it's more like we've got we're going to start shooting on this date and we need a we need a script that kind of thing um and i'm speaking about you know studio movies and the kind of like that kind of thing and a lot of a lot of, you know, it's a very, very strong domestic marketplace that, you know, the TV,

broadcast TV is still very, very strong in Japan. And so a lot of movies, theatrical movies that come out are adaptations of popular TV series. And so, and then so you can advertise those on TV because the TV station has like a piece of the movie. And so they're motivated to get it out. there and everything. Whereas Netflix, Amazon, etc., the streaming services have been there for more than 10 years, but you really can't, like here, if you're opening a movie or you're, you have a Netflix show starting, like you book all your talent on Jimmy Kimball or whatever, and then they tell people who can watch the show on Netflix or something. You can't really do

that in Japan. They won't. They see. Netflix as the competition. So like the broadcast are not going to book Netflix talent on a on a popular talk show or whatnot. So Netflix is

like a streamer is sort of has to resort more to paid advertising or that kind of thing. It's just a it's a little bit different audience share over there. So there are these things that like just from a macro point of view of like the media the landscape are very, very different.

And, you know, movies fall apart all the time because the script is not ready or anything. But I would say that there's not as much of this, you know, there's not as much of a development cycle that you, that is a gauntlet that every project has to run to get through the end. It's just a very different sort of process to get to that first day of shooting. And then, you know, beyond that, there's just like, and this is for a wide variety of historical reasons. And again, I'm making broad generalizations here. But sure. Because there are definitely like differences within that system. But generally, the structure of the crew is different.

And also the method of preparation and sort of the steps along the way are much more sort of set in a a formalized, a standardized formula to working towards production. So like the ADs are called the directing department in Japan. And that's because, you know, historically like, being an assistant director was, is part of an apprenticeship to learn how to direct. So each one of them is given like a little piece of the there,

in charge of. There might be one and and they are given the opportunity to offer creative input and they come on to this they come on to the movie or TV show earlier than a typical than they typically would in the American system and they function as more like a research department that is the director and comes up with comes up with all kinds of things that they can they can use in the in the making of the show. So like for House of Ninja, for Netflix, like the, I think we had eight assistant directors. And they came on, you know, they were, they were on it starting maybe six months before we started shooting.

Not totally out of the question for like a huge blockbuster in the U.S., but I would say an unusual number of people on an unusual timeline. And then they were doing things like tracking down the country's foremost expert on Ninja history and getting his input on everything, getting him to read scripts, getting him to interviewing him, asking him, does this make sense? Does this make sense? Does this make sense? Does this make sense? All that kind of stuff. And then, you know, if there's some sort of gag or some kind of thing in the some kind of effect, anything like that, like they're the first line of defense figuring out how that's going to be executed. That's not all that much different

from the American situation. It's just that like the actual hierarchy is different. Like in America, I always feel like the main character on the set is the first AD. Like they really, you know, they're the ones sort of really driving the car and getting, making sure the trains are all running on time and everything. And on a typical Japanese set, the first AD isn't even there, isn't even on the set at all. because they you have actors that are sometimes double triple booked on multiple different things and they are involved in the in the ever-changing schedule puzzle of the whole thing. So anyway, I can go on and on and on, but there was, you know, my first time sort of going over and experiencing that was with House of Ninjas and then I, you know, I stayed to do Never After Dark.

after that. Within that answer, it did make me wonder because I had been reading about how sparse like Japanese scripts can be. And I was wondering if you adopt some of that in your writing, because you wrote

and directed like all of your films, right? Yeah. Yeah. Has that kind of integrated itself into your work or do you still sort of mentally you know, in pre-production or whatever,

do an American thing and then have to translate it to either literally or figuratively into a more Japanese-based system. I end up going back and forth pretty fluidly. I think that the... I'll be honest, because the writer's room on House of Nijas was all in Japanese, on the scripts,

were all in Japanese. And I think that, like, when I was still kind of getting used to the different format because it really is a different, like, yeah, it's the building blocks are the same, but there's just so many, there's so many bags of tricks that a Japanese screenwriter has that American screenwriters don't and vice versa. There's, I mean, I would say that American script styles

are a little more flexible. than Japanese. But, you know, I was like I, when I wrote the, like a draft of the pilot, and I turned it in, like, I think my, I think it was like 47 pages or something. And they were just like, this is just way too, because I wrote, I wrote that one in English and then trans,

and then had translated them. And it just was like, everybody was like, what do you think this is, Lawrence of Arabia? And you're like, it's 90 pages. Yeah, no, it's the weirdest thing. Like, I mean, I find that scripts directly translated to between languages, it doesn't matter which language they are. They never feel like scripts anymore.

They don't even register. Like, they always feel bad. It's the weirdest thing. Just because, like, the bag of tricks that a writer has available to them just so particular to any given language. And then you do a faithful translation of that. And it just doesn't sound like a scripting for it. It just sounds ridiculous.

And so, you know, that was a big, but I learned quickly. And there were a lot of things that I loved about the format and that I loved about things that Japanese producers and Japanese filmmakers are often, complain about to me as being something that, you know, that isn't in it, they feel as an impediment. I was feeling like, wow, you know, I was actually sort of really getting used to that and kind of enjoying that aspect of it. But there is a real estate problem with Japanese scripts that they're like, you know, it's vertical right to left and you only use half the page. And traditional, what is, what is that?

why is why is that um you know i i don't know how i don't know how the format started originally if it was but the way that it's typically used is that the top of the page is where the director basically writes in the shot list or writes in the cuts and some some directors like um some directors will actually a lot of directors will draw in the cuts like a vertical line so when you're looking at the script, it's like an editorial timeline, you know. I can dig that. Yeah. No, it can be very helpful, but it can also be overly prescriptive and kind of binding, you know,

because like once you, like typically like in a production cycle, it's just like in America. Everybody wants the shot list because I want to know what their day is going to look like. that top half of the page is called the cuttawadi in Japanese which just means like the cuts and so everybody wants to cut the wadi from the from the director but then once once you give that over

then it's you know everybody sort of prepares according to that because like oftentimes it's like okay we need a crane we need the we know we need a rail like we always say it's always rail on a Japanese set but we know that's kind of a tracking shot and everything and

those can be sort of set in stone in a way that can be counterproductive and so you know like you you sort of learn as you go along and then the way that directors all do their cut the wadi becomes like sort of you can sort of tell the type

of director they are by by looking at their, by looking at their, at their, uh, at their scripts. And, you know, some of, some of them a lot of the, like, I, I tried to sort of, you know, because I had eight episodes of, of that show to work on. And so I, I tried to kind of vary the approach just because just as a, as an experiment in process. Um, and, you know, there are some episodes that I was very, very sort of pre-planned, everything down to a T and I wanted to be the one planning it. And then there were other episodes where I was doing a much different, I was deliberately trying a different approach. It's like same aesthetic and everything. It was just, I was trying to sort of get my hands around the difference

and process. And I don't know, it felt like a, it felt like a worthwhile experiment. But there was, you know, there, there was a lot of stuff that I loved about it. First and foremost, just the detailed level of preparation and these, you know, huge production meetings that are standard for any, any production of any size, like the kind of stuff that would be handled with kind of emails between a handful of crew members or sort of just, you know, smaller meetings or they're like these larger formalized production meetings that go a certain way. They're called Bucci, like called essentially artistic meetings. I sort of like that because there's just no,

there's just never any surprises. It was never anything, I never showed up and it was like, this isn't, you know, this isn't what we're doing. Right. Yeah, so I enjoyed that process.

Yeah, it's, it's funny. Working in film has made it so that I like, get anxious if there isn't ostensibly a pre-production meeting about anything now. Hey, we're going to go camping. And I'm like,

all right, everyone, everyone in a room. We got to figure out, like, you know, no text messages. We need to talk. You know, I'm producing like a stand-up show. And it's literally just invite your friends to do, you know, I know all these stand-ups. And I've got the other producers on that. And, you know, producers isn't heavy quotes. But just like I had them fill out like a brand, or they need to fill out like a branding document.

And like, what are we saying with this show? And I'm like, the other day, I was like, I really am probably over-overdoing this now. but it really removes a lot of the anxiety you can feel from day to day. Yeah, I mean, movies are made in prep. And I think that, you know, it's a, it's funny. Like, I probably overrely on text and email and stuff, but just the more you can kind of be face-to-face and talking on the phone and everything. It's like there's, there's a lot of things that are still really formal.

in in kind of the Japanese production system that I agree with welcome. Well, that, yeah, Eric Mezzershmit really impressed upon me how important. Because, you know, I mostly shot indie stuff and then now a lot of documentaries. And there's plenty of pre-production involved in that.

But, you know, especially with the docs, it's like I kind of get an idea of what we're going to do and then we go shoot it. Yeah. So, again, I've been trying to really get better at, like, forcing my way into, if I'm not receding that level of communication, like doing that. But with all that context, the reason I asked, you know, a question that got you going there was just to get the context for what you're working on. Because I think, you know, people, especially who listen to this show, likely won't have that based on the demographic, the analytics. You know, they're all.

Yeah, no, of course. My age dudes who largely live in Los Angeles. But with that out of the way, talk to me about the pre-production process for this, for Never After Dart, because it seemed, and again, I'm going to speak visually, but please expand. It seems like there was a lot of sort of formalist influences. It felt very, maybe formalist is the wrong word. but manicured, not in like a derogatory way, but manicured in such way where it felt like, oh, I'm watching maybe something that could have been made in the 70s,

you know, with like a lot of attention and care that maybe a modern horror film these days. It doesn't, not all of them, but sometimes you can just be like, oh, this is going to be a spooky movie. Let's get in there and just shoot it as reality, whereas this felt a lot more painterly almost. And were there films or books or photographs that you were referencing to kind of get the look going to start? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, just like just starting from sort of the 30,000-foot view of what we wanted to accomplish, like I was less concerned with kind of the reality of light and kind of strictly, you know,

understanding exactly where the light is coming from and everything and more interested in a more expressive expressive style like i also even though a lot of the movie is very dark and takes place at night i wanted to kind of evoke darkness more than actually live in like the the to the film i think that's what i was mostly getting at but yeah yeah it's it's uh you know and it was it was the other thing i was I was coming off of, I was coming off of house of ninjas that had a very, um, sort of realistic,

uh, you know, the environments kind of dictated like the, the light and how, and the look of, of the, the show. And that was,

that was something we were trying to be very, just, or evoke ordinary life. Um, and I, I wanted this to, to feel very lush and, uh,

and very beautiful as well as, as being very scary. And then the other thing was just it just felt like it needed to it was the kind of movie that would that would benefit from a lot of precision of like very very specific camera movements and very specific framing and you know just trying it felt like there had to be because there was a lot of big ideas that we're trying to get across and a lot of sort of frankly kind of out there actions and and things that are when you read them on the page are a little strange but you know I had to really sell them in a convincing fashion and sometimes and that just required of sort of figuring out exactly the right you know camera angles and and and movement and everything so so I I called in um so my DP is Patrick Guziel who who uh this was his first feature but I'd work oh wow Yeah, I'd known him and worked with him for a very long time

And, you know, somebody who I really I really believed in him and, you know, just really Thought he was a he was the right guy for the movie, but but yeah, first time featured EP And then the the lighting team in Tokyo was was fantastic as well and just So watching there, it is like Hidei Nouri Nagata who was it was heading up the lighting and And, you know, I think that, like, there was a really, really strong collaboration where it was, and everybody was, even though there was a language barrier. Like, so Patrick had an interpreter to work with the crew and everything. But they fostered a really, really great collaborative relationship. and yeah, I thought that, you know, I just, I knew he was going to kill it and he did.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it looks phenomenal. A lot of great shafts of light also, as well as just, you know, the classic DP thing of like, especially in that living room, I was like, that is a lot of lamps. That is a lot. We love, we'll put fucking bulbs anywhere, you know? If there's a room, we'll take it. Yeah, you know, it was the kind of movie where I just, I, I, I, uh, I wasn't as interested in making everything exactly real.

So, so, um, and that was, you know, some of the marching orders were, were to, you know, aim for interesting instead of like precise reality. Yeah. I kept, I kept thinking, um, like a heightened realism the whole time. But not to the point of being like, to your point about like, oh, make it interesting. Like it doesn't feel put on.

You know, it's not like interesting for interesting sake. It still serves the story really well without being, without drawing too much attention to itself, which a lot of DPs hate. Oh, that's, that's great to hear. Yeah, I think, I think, you know, there's a fine line to walk. and like there are some opportunities in the movie for just kind of when you like we had to create like the real world and then we had to create sort of the spirit world that she goes into and so there are some opportunities for just kind of more wacky stuff but um you know wanted i think that like a lot of times the scariest movies i i feel like you know a visually beautiful movie has a potential to be much scarier than something that's like deliberate

ugly, even though they're, you know, like the, the more gritty kind of, it's a very minimal look and can also absolutely, absolutely works. It's just like something about the story felt like it needed like the kind of elegance and the feel of an older movie, like where, you know, you're seeing a lot of more kind of crane and dolly type of work. And Zooms. We don't get a lot of Zooms anymore. I mean, you know, they do, they are, they are, uh, I mean, I, I love zooms. There's, there's so much, there's so much fun. Um, but I, I find that like, there's, aside from, because I wasn't, they always end up sort of feeling like they're just evoking

period, but I find that they, um, I find that they sort of add a lot of tension in a weird way, uh, that I can't describe. And sometimes like a, uh, a zoom that's combined with a little bit of a little bit of dolly movement that some of the I don't know there's just there's something like a zoom automatically creates a little bit of distance from you like sort of like you're you're not in it you know like yeah but but I I find that unsettling feeling to be like really valuable in certain settings like I can I can really sort of have a hypnotic effects that at least for me increases the feeling of suspense and tension in a weird way. Well, I mean, that's the whole thing with, because I know you used to edit too, so you're probably very familiar with the idea.

But like, if you hold on a scene, that's inherently, you know, you're holding the viewer's head and being like, you're not allowed to look away. So anything you can't cut, Zoom is just, you know, not cutting because otherwise like that, that woman in the window with her mouth agape it's fucking terrifying right and it's just like she's just making a face like she doesn't have the fucked up face that the other guy has and uh just that was that a zoom or was there a cut there but in any case just like but i know what you mean yeah there's like just as if that were a zoom even i'm making up an example now of something you didn't do

but uh you know that can be because you can't you can't look away you're just being forced to whereas a cut gives you a split second to breathe yeah um way to look at it and And I never, it's one of those things where it's some, some types of lenses and some types of shots like have a psychological effect that's highly individual to everybody. But, you know, the chances are if you feel it, then somebody else will feel it too, even though maybe there's some viewers who are kind of inoculated or immune to that, that kind of thing. And so it's always good to sort of lean into what moves you, I feel. but yeah there's like there were a lot of times in the movie where we ended up doing zooms where we originally were playing more of like fixed uh we we thought we didn't we didn't think

that this was going to be a zoom but we ended up going with the zoom at the last minute and um yeah there's there's a lot of uh you know uh china's just kicking out lenses like crazy now and a lot of them are excellent. And, but not a lot of, not a lot of zooms. I don't know why I'm now stuck on this because I hadn't even really thought about it. But there's the, all prime sets,

a lot of animorphics. But I think they've fought, because they've fallen out of fashion, I guess there's not really, you know, everyone's just like, grab an ingenue, grab that one cook.

You know, off we go. Yeah. But, so what drew you to wanting to do a horror film? Because you had like comedy, you had action. Yeah.

And it had been a while since you've done a feature again, right? Yeah. So, I mean, horror was always something that I wanted to do and wanted to continue to do. It was a combination of a couple things. Like, you know, you, you, I was, had written a lot of horror movies that hadn't kind of gotten through the development gauntlet and, you know, looking, looking back on

sort of how I started my career. I was just looking for kind of any way in. And I don't think I could have gotten a horror movie made, but I knew that. It was like at the time I lived in Utah, and Napoleon Dynamite was sort of the thing that was the big hit your success story. It captured a lot of people's imagination.

So it felt like the way to get your, to get your foot in the door and sort of get that, you know, that first indie movie under your belt was to come up with a quirky comedy. And it wasn't that I was totally disliked that genre or anything. I wasn't, it wasn't a total cynical move on my part,

but it did feel like, gosh, you know, this is, this is the move. And then there are also just some people who I met at the time that sort of had they, were looking to make a movie and I was eager to be the person who made the movie that they were going to make. So it's funny, like those those first steps you take end up kind of like they can define your path for for a little while.

But the first two movies didn't, didn't do all that well. And so I, I, I downsize quite a bit and made a couple of movies that were really, really small, really small just like mid or I don't know like five figure budgets just making them with my friends

and those were you know those turned out to be great experiences in a lot of ways but they were not I felt like I didn't it wasn't until I made man from Reno which is my fifth feature that

I did like a genre a genre piece and even though that was also a low-budget movie it had some it had some scope and a little bit you know more kind of narrative and production ambition and everything yeah I was

doing my research I found I'm from the Bay Area and so when I heard it was set in San Francisco I was like I got to see that you know yeah no no I still I still love that movie but that I mean that one got some a little bit of awards love got nominated for like a spirit award and that's how i met how i got my first manager and how i

kind of like got into like the la like the kind of development you know writing jobs and and things like that and um so it was a big it was a big turning point but then there is a you know a long period of my filmography where i don't i don't have any any feature work really and then during that time i was writing tons and tons of scripts but not really getting things through the, through the system. With, this is a mild aside,

but did you ever see the documentary Fog City Mavericks? No, I haven't seen it. Fog City Maverick. It was, I found the DVD finally from like some library, but it was about all the filmmakers who were in the Bay Area, you know,

how films started Edward Boybridge all the way to Lucas, you know. And all the, those guys and I always found it kind of enjoyable I guess that all of our favorite films growing up largely came from filmmakers in the bay um so anytime uh you know San Francisco as a film hub can get some love I'm always like yeah I get excited because I'm like that's me kind of sort of Yeah, I had a great, I made three movies in San Francisco and loved, loved working up there and staying up there. That was sort of like a weird time in my life when I was just kind of couch surfing a lot. And, yeah, there's, well, a lot of my filmmaker friends from that era are still my close friends.

And they still live up there and everything. It's just like, you know, there was that, I had a little Bay Area chapter of my life. and then uh and then moves that away after after me now yeah the um it was something about the horrors oh that was um i don't i don't think i finished the thought but the idea of doing the horror um i might be i might have just skipped over mentally when i was thinking about something else but uh i got too many notes um so you would you the horror script had kind of already been in your uh quiver and that's and it was just time now no i actually i wrote this one made to order um i had written a number of horror scripts before this that uh for one reason or another didn't

didn't make it right okay you did say that yeah um i did i did want to uh ask about because the uh i haven't seen house of ninjas but reading up on it you know the ninja group is living in modern times, right? But they're still living under the sort of rigid framework that society is self-imposed rigid framework. And in some ways, with this film, there is a similar kind of rigidity to the mechanisms of visiting the spirit world

and talking to these people and stuff like that. And I was wondering, has that always been a interest for you? Like, especially growing up Mormon, like, did the, have you been trying to exercise? There's a good playoff with exercise those demons, as it were, not that they're demons, but. I don't know. Figure it out for yourself through art. Yeah, I'd say so. Sometimes it's, you don't know.

you're not always conscious of what draws you to a to a story but i think that like people who people who live by a belief system or have like some kind of some kind of practice or some kind of code of conduct that is out of step with the times um is i always tend to gravitate towards stories about that and um so with house of ninjas it was explicitly so because that that was something that you know, I was a gun for hire on that, but I needed to find sort of my personal way into the story that made sense. And I was, you know, imagining that that way. Because like my whole, my whole pitch to the studio and, and everything was that this should be like a very ordinary, um, everyday world that, you know, the, the masks that they should be like COVID masks. And,

and they, you know, they're not like, they're not superheroes. They're, like, dressed in hoodies and everything. And, you know, it's not necessarily about, like, the weaponry or the gadgets. It's more about, like, the belief system and the restrictions that they are placed under. And also the fact that, you know, that they are sort of the servants to the politicians that control them and everything. And so I don't think it wasn't, it's not like an especially commercial pitch, but for whatever. reason they they went for it i think you know never after dark like we were trying to evoke the feeling of without ever really explaining it but she is like the the main character like the

practice that she follows of the method the methodology that she uses is is uh quite you know it's it's it's a whole it is in a whole world of its own you know you can imagine it's probably other people who have the same kind of magic mirror traveling around doing the same job that she does all over the world who are all part of this some sort of sisterhood of mediums. But without ever explaining that or making it explicit, I thought like outsider characters who deal with that kind of thing are always kind of interesting to me. Sure. Yeah. Also, was the kind of like zoetrope thing just like a not?

Like, you know, in the back of my head, I'm always like, I'm with anything, it's like, where did you get that? And then I was looking up that used to be an animator. And I was like, was that just like, you know, reminiscent of the, especially because all, you know, all the ghosts are stuck in these loops, the things a loop. You know, zoetropes a loop. Like, was that, is that on the money or did the spinning mirror come from a different place? No, that's very much on the money. Hell yeah, good for me. Yeah.

No, I mean, there's, there's, we, we talked a lot about loops, like making, making the movie because, you know, the whole conception of a ghost in, in the context of the story is people who are specifically stuck in a loop and you see the ghost repeating the same action over and over and over again. And, you know, she, like the main character in her own way is, is stuck in a loop of her own. And so that was something that we talk about a lot. And then the, you know, the Zoe trope itself, like it was, the concept of it was that it was going to be a mirror that had a Zoe trope in the frame. But the content of the, of that animation was something that we had to talk about in discussion. And, you know, I think that I wanted people to be able to understand what that mirror device was doing for her without an explanation. so it seemed natural that it would be you know

try to depict the separation of the spirit and the body but I think that yeah it was really my production designer like we I mean a zoidrope is naturally a loop but we wanted to make sure that the you know the animation really kind of like

sold that idea yeah yeah the uh what's that I was like, good catch. Oh, thank you. Well, first, I'm asking about that. Oh, good for me.

I'm not completely failing on the D.P. Brain. I did one thing I loved about, because I don't know if I've, you probably know, just having, you know, done your due diligence, but I don't know if I've seen a film where the, where the ghosts are in a loop kind of like that. Or there's got to be that I'm not thinking of. Or even just. characters that are kind of stuck beyond in any case uh but i did love the little moment where

you know she's getting drunk and dancing around and like the you know that's the sketchiest man in the world just she's like all right off you go you know completely uh i just you know because it is kind of a groundhog day situation where you're like what would you do if this tariff you're now used to this thing yeah you know good we're trying to figure this now yeah yeah it's it's it's So, I mean, I thought just from kind of a story construction point of view, I really wanted to sort of, you know, like you're like there's something there's the eerieness of a ghost story. But at a certain point, you're kind of like puncturing the last of whatever tension is left in the ghost story. Because it's like, well, now, now it's going to happen. Like, because if she's really that unfrightened of this guy, then the audience also lets their guard down.

and that I think is, you know, what I want for the next step of the story, the next iteration of kind of the narrative. Yeah. Talk to me about the score too, because you pulled the guy from House and Ninjas, right? Yeah, Jonathan Snipes. John is sick name. Yeah, he's fantastic. Just a really, really great.

just amazing ideas and just just has the weirdest power of sounds as at his fingertips. But yeah, yeah, he's, he's, like my process with him is I basically just wait for the music and then put it in. No notes. Yeah.

It really does, again, at a certain, at a certain point, I had to, like, mute it just to, like, kind of focus. Again, I'm, I'm, like, I was halfway looking at the cinematography, but I kept flinching, you know? She was like, ah! So I was like, all right, muter for a second. All right, get back. And every time it was always, I found the score that was really, like, as it should, but it was just very effective in its both just leading us along in the film,

but also not being overly, I guess tropey when it comes to horror films. I feel like horror films can have a lot of that heavy string, sharp thing going on. And as you said, it's a, it's a, how did you guys describe it before? Darkly Winsical?

He brought some of that back. Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, there's something kind of, in the book industry, there's like the cozy mystery genre, right? and a little bit of like the cozy mystery in this movie. And so we wanted to have the score be something that was emotional and inviting in a way. And something that sort of like the two sisters at the center of the movie,

like to me they're the heart of the movie and their relationship is like the most, it's the thing that, you know, that is the most important element of the film. And so the score is kind of like they're, they're the, only two that kind of have their own oh that's not true but they have the most prominent sort of melodic theme in the movie that develops the whole way through and and uh and that was all very much you know jonathan's kind of like the his design of of how to construct a score and and uh yeah this it's it's it's interesting how the commonate like the combination between his score and then the design.

This is just really interesting hearing them together for the first time and just how well they complimented each other. Yeah. This is a good director question. When you're editing the film, you must go through the thing that I think everyone goes through where you're like, this sucks. Oh, my God. What have I done?

And then you get the music and any effects or anything like that. And they're like, oh, okay, never mind. It's just it wasn't complete. But how do you have some of that score early on or like temp tracks or anything? Or were you just going strictly off script and then that punched it up? I'm trying to remember. I think I think we had some temp score, but it was temp score from Jonathan. But I did not play the temp track for him.

I gave him the movie with no music and just gave him. I did, you know, we had a spotting session, but I had already sort of decided where I thought music should go. And there are, you know, there's obviously like some changes that happened over the course of that discussion and everything. But the, like, I was in a situation where I needed to show a cut of the movie, I want to say five days after rap. Oh, wow. Yeah.

Yeah. So, and I didn't, I didn't feel good about. like showing them in no score or anything so so the uh i used to be an editor i i totally don't i don't do it at all anymore i i don't uh i much much prefer to have second set of eyes other people and um it's informative it's not fun no it's good experience so that you know what you need but i i I feel like just better. I was never that good of an editor anyway, but somebody who is just like a really,

you know, top class editor, who I have now is just an invaluable sort of asset worth their weight and gold. Yeah. How many days was production? 27? 28. Okay.

No company moves. Yeah, no. I mean, even there's like one, one or two scenes that take place outside of the house, and those were all just, yeah, one day. And it was very close to the house. Yeah. Did you build that house, the set? No.

No, that's a cool. Wow, great find. Yeah, those, that was a lot of the, uh, it was a few solid months of location scouting, not by me, but, you know, by a production team. And then, yeah, when we, all saw that place. We were just, we were thrilled. And they were totally, you know, they let us do whatever we wanted. There's, there's, it was great. A lot of times people are on these sort of press tours, Zoom press tours. And it's the first time I've ever thought about this, but you know,

you probably, I've probably asked something someone else asked, you know, maybe you get the same question a bunch of times. Doing all that, is there something that like you have been wanting to talk about that no one has brought up yet? Oh, great question. Um, actually you brought it up the the loop thing is is uh something that you know i always felt like it was pretty central to the movie but maybe like in the in the overall it it sort of falls a little bit into the background but it it felt like it was kind of really important to the concept of of ghosts within the movie and everything so i was glad to have a chance to talk about that because it's just such a such a big part of the movie to me.

Well, but it's also so, it's such a fascinating, I almost said gimmick, but I didn't, I meant more in the magic sense, not in the, you know, derogatory sense. You make me totally, like, I think that's a totally appropriate word. Yeah.

Yeah, I found it very, I don't know, gratifying. It was just a very interesting way to approach a ghost story. And to be honest, like I, you know, I live in Japan towns, for over a decade. And so there's been a casual osmosis with, whether it be Japanese cinema, anime, certainly food.

And just the various structural ways that stories are presented, I find interesting because, you know, you only get what you get where you live. And then when you get outside things, even if they're not good. You know, you only learn if they're good when you see enough of it. You know, at first it's just interesting. And I find that your...

I don't even know. It was how much of... I kind of asked us earlier, but how much of it was sort of Japan influence, like story structure? Or was this just like a Japanese cast and crew with your mind? There was definitely a conscious effort to... echo or subvert or pay homage to like Japanese ghost stories in a lot of ways.

Like there's a famous Japanese ghost story called the, about the slit mouth woman. It's been, you know, it's been made into movies as well. And in Japanese, like the ghosts in our story, like in the credits and stuff,

it was called the slit mouth man. And, you know, I would say there's, there's, you know like the the vast majority of Japanese ghost stories are about a ghost who is a victim um who you know a a woman who is is is killed in some horrible fashion and then as a as a as a result you know she she develops powers and death that she didn't have in life and there's

there's something that, you know, that's, that's very, there's a tragic dimension to a lot of those stories that, that, uh, I think we were, I was interested in, you know, making something that was, um, set in Japan, but made a lot of the exact opposite choices of, of the prototypical Japanese ghost story. Uh-huh. Having a, I mean, light spoiler alert, but, but having a, it goes to is, uh, who is not a victim, but is in fact a perpetrator. And is somebody who is maybe not worthy of any sympathy or redemption or, you know,

not worthy of kind of like having any sort of power that he didn't have in life. There's also, you know, I think like it's fairly ordinary in Japanese storytelling. This is also something that's kind of like in the stories of Stephen King, I feel like often have this. but characters who have telepathy or ESP or psychic just presented as being just existing in the world, and that's just an ordinary part of it and how they interact with each other, how they find each other and everything like that. That's something that is, you know, you see that in Japanese ghost stories, Japanese novels all the time.

It's so funny, it's so funny, the original film of the, of, Mingu, you know, they sort of draw direct line, like the father and son character, they both have, they both have that gift. And then the remake, which I like very much. I like the remake as well. That thing scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. Good.

That's probably why I'm cautious about horror films, because that film. It's funny, they go, they sort of, and I think it's a very effective choice, but they go to a great deal of trouble ticks to justify the, you know, the powers that the, like the little boy, like the certain amount of ESP or whatever that the little boy has and that the ghost at the center of it, obviously, like there's a much more sort of kind of nuts and bolts explanation of how it works and everything. And then that father-son thing is sort of like not really present in the remake.

the dad is just, you know, more of an investigative character. And I always thought that that was like a fascinating choice. And you could, you could sort of see how, like, in a Hollywood movie, it might be harder to accept two characters who have that gift or something. And yet, you know, in our movie, we've got multiple people who all have that. And I feel like people just go with it and that it's a totally acceptable. you know, you're watching two psychics basically duke it out with each other is what is what the story is all leading up to you. And so absolutely, I think that storytelling tradition informed a lot of what was going on in the movie and a lot of, and since, you know, like I am American and there are a few American team members on it, but it is a Japanese movie entirely like I'm just one piece of the machine.

and so the taste of my collaborators and the storytelling tradition that they come from and all the discussions that we all have together it all sort of forms this this rich stew and I mean hopefully hopefully rich stew it's fun for us so I believe so those discussions were things that we had every day

yeah the other thing that I was I was fumbling over was just the idea you know this this girl woman is you know she I think in in most horror ghost stories

all ghosts are malevolent and I know there's this game I played a while back called I think it was called Tokyo Ghostwire and you did you ever play that I haven't played it but I like the title it's it's fun game if you've got a PlayStation you should get it

but all you're you're like a ghost um i think you might maybe you're like some kind of ghost cop or something but like none of the almost none of the ghosts you meet they're all people that are stuck that are stuck and you got to like unstick them um and so they're just you know they're they're not benevolent but they're they're neutral i guess and uh that was something that we're watching your film that i kept thinking about because like she she doesn't normally go around exercising demons. It's usually just like, oh, they're stuck, and then I'll get them unstuck. And then here we go. And this is like a brutal one.

But I also found that, going back to the idea of what I found interesting about the loop thing, but also just the idea of ghosts as stuck spirit. That's kind of like a Buddhist thing, isn't it? Like, you just stuck versus mean. Yeah, I mean, I think they like, and it's, um, because there's, there's various types of ghosts also in, in sort of Japanese tradition and the words for the more malevolent spirits or the vengeful spirits are different

than just the more generic term for a ghosts. And then so I think just like the Western idea of a ghost and the more Japanese idea of a ghost who is a product of a terrible traumatic incident or some sort of some sort of injustice are quite or quite different. And while I don't know exactly how all those, like the origin of all those things are,

it's, there is like a, I will put it put this way. I feel like Japanese storytelling has more of a tolerance for spirits that are, shall we say, neutral. That there is, there is a certain, there is a certain pressure in sort of like Hollywood storytelling or Western storytelling that you know you have to you don't you don't want to risk lowering the the danger that your characters are in right and so I think that you know some of this some of the scariest um I

feel like some of the scariest experiences I've had it that and in kind of like the movies watching like a Japanese horror movie or whatever. You don't you don't exactly know what the deal is with the ghosts. Like you don't exactly know what they want or something. But there's still both like this, it's like the fear of the uncanny that keeps you scared. Now, I don't think that that, like, I think that that's absolutely something that Western audiences can appreciate and can. And there are obviously tons of Western stories that deal with ghosts who are not malevolence. However, I just like, I don't know, I always appreciate stories that have some level of, shall we say, ambiguity.

And don't try to explain everything that's uncanny and give you a reason to things that are scary or scary. you know and and uh and uh so adam yeah so i was trying to think of like there's also something i always appreciate about movies that have a ghost in an otherwise different genre movie like a the devil's backbone was was yeah um you know it's this great this great historical story set in an orchid and there's a ghost story happening in the middle of it you know it's so Yeah, I think the, to your point about like not sort of over explaining things, I think not that it's a trick, but I think most modern audiences probably prefer that because then again, this goes back to an idea in magic where it's like the trick happens

in their head, not in your hands. Yeah. The less they see, the better because, you know, The classic one was the David Blaine levitation from the TV show where he would, you know, he literally only went like a few inch, you know, the spoiler alert, he's just going on his tiptoes. But when he would come, quote unquote, come down, he'd go, how high did I go? And he'd gesture his hands really wide. And then people's memory of it was, oh, he was like a foot and a half off the ground because

they just remember this, right? And I think when you make a film and you don't spell everything out for him, the audience creates a slightly different film that they prefer because they made it up. Yeah. Especially if you're good at like guiding the, you know, when I feel like audiences are often feel like they're rewarded for quote

unquote figuring it out before the movie shows it to you. And it's like, no, that's just good writing. You know, it's, we want you to think that way. And I think I think you did a good job of a lot of that here. Well, thanks. Thanks. yeah it's it's always nice to let them put two and two together and as long as the as long as under the surface you know you it's earned yeah yeah well um i really appreciate you uh taking the time to

chat and and uh even though it is a spooky movie and it's not my cup of tea it was it was a phenomenal watch oh thank you know i think a lot of fun thanks for having me on i appreciate that and yeah um again time, next time you got some come out, please come back. Absolutely. This is a lot of fun. Thanks much. Take care, brother. Bye-bye.

Frame and Reference is an Albot production, produced and edited by me, Kenny McBillen. If you'd like to support the podcast directly, you can do so by going to frame and refpod.com and clicking on the Patreon button. It's always appreciated. And as always, thanks for listening.