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Speaker 2: Can control forward to Hey, folks, welcome to a special
Speaker 2: episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host Mike White.
Speaker 2: On this episode, I'm talking with screenwriter Barry Keating. He
Speaker 2: is the force behind Invoking Yell, the new film by
Speaker 2: Patricio Velederis. It is a Chilean horror film set back
Speaker 2: in the nineteen nineties, kind of a throwback to the
Speaker 2: Blair Witch Project, where it is three women who will
Speaker 2: go out into the woods to shoot their demo tape
Speaker 2: for their black metal band. Thank you so much for listening,
Speaker 2: and I hope you enjoyed the interview. How did you
Speaker 2: get involved in screenwriting?
Speaker 1: I started as a journalist writing for a local newspaper
Speaker 1: here in my own ten and then I went to
Speaker 1: university to study screenwriting. While I was there, I was
Speaker 1: working at the video store and this guy came in
Speaker 1: and we were just chatting about like movies and games
Speaker 1: and stuff, and he was like, Hey, I'm an editor
Speaker 1: a video game. Mike's a PlayStation He said, you want
Speaker 1: a job. So I sacked off university and I took
Speaker 1: a job as a journalist at this PlayStation two magazine.
Speaker 1: From there, I hopped to DVD Review to do news editing, feature,
Speaker 1: I started writing film, did a bit of freelance for Empire.
Speaker 1: Then I moved to online and I segued into game
Speaker 1: development there. But all the way in the background was
Speaker 1: always running my own stuff, talking to people, and I
Speaker 1: got this opportunity to a bunch of comics based on IPS.
Speaker 1: One was for Day, The Dead Battle Royale was another one,
Speaker 1: and then the Demons, and there were little sort of
Speaker 1: mini comics that would sit inside special released some arrow
Speaker 1: video back when they wanted to do these little still
Speaker 1: little inlace and Big got not nominated for award that
Speaker 1: went up in Italy. Talking to a bunch of Serbian
Speaker 1: guys who just made an R movie called Zone the Dead,
Speaker 1: and they were like, hey, we want to do a
Speaker 1: sequel called Wrath of the Dead. And I was like, yes,
Speaker 1: I'm over here, give me the job, and we started
Speaker 1: talking and I ended up working with those guys and
Speaker 1: Ken read on that script. It never happened, And there
Speaker 1: were many other stories of different projects that worked. One.
Speaker 1: At one point I was working with Brian Josna on
Speaker 1: adapting Reanimator into a comic series. I know what they've
Speaker 1: been done in the past. We're going to try and
Speaker 1: redo the movies and then fill in the gaps in between.
Speaker 1: And that didn't happen. And then I stayed focused on
Speaker 1: writing game stories because that's pretty much what I do
Speaker 1: for my day job, which is game narrative. And yeah,
Speaker 1: and then the serving guys called me up and I
Speaker 1: just was one of the kind of cusp of moving
Speaker 1: to Madrine for a job. And they said, hey, look
Speaker 1: look at this film. We're shooting it. The script needs
Speaker 1: a bit of work, We've got a few months, or
Speaker 1: do you want to do it now?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Of course, And so I took it on and I
Speaker 1: looked on the script and then I didn't really think
Speaker 1: to be perfect, be honest with education. There was so
Speaker 1: many false starts. I'm not sure what's happened about like
Speaker 1: seven months later, I was going for work and there
Speaker 1: was an email with a trailer for the movie, which
Speaker 1: turned out to be Killing Mare Made, which was the
Speaker 1: first thing i'd written the cup produced, and I just
Speaker 1: remember living in the three year class going, Wow, this
Speaker 1: is an actual movie. It's a real Really, I didn't
Speaker 1: realize this was going to happen. And that where I
Speaker 1: went over to Belgrade and when I was there so
Speaker 1: I know another movie, and I I came back and
Speaker 1: I had a friend who was a producing partner up
Speaker 1: to Servey Guys. He had put me in touch with
Speaker 1: Patricia the Patricio and I worked on a street plight
Speaker 1: for sort of home invasion called Breath. We couldn't get
Speaker 1: that off the ground, and then we kept talking and
Speaker 1: that ultimately led to the sort of creation of Downhill.
Speaker 1: And once we broke Downhill together and shot that, that
Speaker 1: was the beginning of our sort of working relationship. When
Speaker 1: we've just done so much stuff in me like Knight
Speaker 1: goes to Guarrap and Embryo and this, it's it's been
Speaker 1: a bit of a brend about journey to get its
Speaker 1: almost what I wanted to do when it just took
Speaker 1: a little longer than I planned.
Speaker 2: What was it like the first time you heard somebody
Speaker 2: say you're a dialogue? Oh?
Speaker 1: I died. I was mortified, to be honest. I remember.
Speaker 1: The first time was it was at the premiere of
Speaker 1: Killing Mermaid and it was in this big, massive place
Speaker 1: called the Sava Center in Belgrade. But you're talking like
Speaker 1: a couple of thousand people, and I just I just
Speaker 1: remembered sinking into the seat just because I don't know,
Speaker 1: it was so crazy to hear it, but I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh my god, I wish I had to
Speaker 1: change that, and I don't like the way that sounds,
Speaker 1: and oh no, and why did I like that? I
Speaker 1: was sitting just having their panic, see. But eventually got
Speaker 1: over that. But yeah, now it's cool to see what
Speaker 1: people do with the dialogue and what they do with
Speaker 1: the script and what they take from that, what's on
Speaker 1: the page, and how they turned that into a performance.
Speaker 1: So that's pretty cool. But yeah, the very first time,
Speaker 1: I think I was like, oh man, maybe I chose
Speaker 1: the all care.
Speaker 2: You talked a little bit about working with Patrizia, but
Speaker 2: what's that working relationship? Like, how do you guys go
Speaker 2: back and forth? As far as the ideas the shaping
Speaker 2: of everything.
Speaker 1: We've been working together I think speaking a decade. We
Speaker 1: constantly communicate on Facebook and on What'sapp, just sending stuff
Speaker 1: back and forth, messages and this, but basically how we've
Speaker 1: always communicated. He might have an idea, we'll start kicking
Speaker 1: it around back or create a document, bencing back and forth,
Speaker 1: and then well flectu at the treatment and whatnot together
Speaker 1: and then once we have that script and I'll send
Speaker 1: it to him, they'll give me his notes. So it's
Speaker 1: really is a back and forth. But the funny thing
Speaker 1: is I don't speak Spanish and protruce you understand it's great,
Speaker 1: but we don't put the drop on cause but we
Speaker 1: get able to write it really well. So do we
Speaker 1: communicate via text, which I'm sure people thinks of an
Speaker 1: odd relationship, but I always sit to my wife. I
Speaker 1: really must learn Spanish because I've been working together issue
Speaker 1: some lock. But it is very much a pink obsession
Speaker 1: where we pushed stuff back and forth. I do remember
Speaker 1: the day hell we hadn't finished Breath and showing it
Speaker 1: around and seeing what was happening, and then we were
Speaker 1: talking about it would be cool to do something in
Speaker 1: the world of extreme sports, and we got talking about
Speaker 1: different types of Dan Hill Mountain. Mike, You're write in
Speaker 1: the forest and generally the forest is worset, creepy, mad
Speaker 1: shit happens, so maybe let's just go with that. And
Speaker 1: that's how we started working on that one's ideas back
Speaker 1: and forth. And then I remember with Embryo, which was
Speaker 1: a mad one where we had the idea for us
Speaker 1: start working on a script and then it's basically like
Speaker 1: COVID Hit, you don't even manage to shoot. I think
Speaker 1: it was twenty five minutes of actual film footage, and
Speaker 1: then we were like, why are we going to be
Speaker 1: able to do this? So I started looking at the
Speaker 1: script and we started rewiring it essentially, and then he
Speaker 1: was a shoot loads of stuff in his home with
Speaker 1: just himself and his daughter and his wife, and it
Speaker 1: was Comata with Frankenstein this thing together. But we did
Speaker 1: and they played at fried Fest hilariously. It played at
Speaker 1: fried Fest and it was an online version and the
Speaker 1: subtitles that we had in it didn't trigger, so I
Speaker 1: think it was what happened was it was like these
Speaker 1: old generated subtitles started just following this cleeding, like what
Speaker 1: was being said would made no sense whatsoever. I was
Speaker 1: just like, is all we can do about it? Just
Speaker 1: go with it and anybody everybody could laugh at it, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: it was some fun experience.
Speaker 2: You talked about how when you wrote Killer Mermaid or
Speaker 2: rewrote that one just went into the void. You didn't
Speaker 2: even know what was happening until you know it came
Speaker 2: back to you. When it comes to these films that
Speaker 2: you're making with Patricio, are you going to the set
Speaker 2: or are you just handing them over and saying, okay,
Speaker 2: good luck, have fun and children.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, it's just so it's hard to make
Speaker 1: that show. One day I'm going to we'll get the
Speaker 1: opportunity to to fly over and do a shoot whatever
Speaker 1: or something like that.
Speaker 2: We work it up.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's a great working relationship and and it's
Speaker 1: worked really so far. But yeah, there are some things
Speaker 1: about it that I wish that we could change, which
Speaker 1: is like getting on set and hanging out and going shoot.
Speaker 1: I would have loved to have been there for invoking
Speaker 1: three days shooting this thing in the woods, and Dan
Speaker 1: Hill looked great, as well. But I get to live
Speaker 1: vicariously through all the pictures and the messages that they
Speaker 1: sent me. And you're like, oh, I don't ca like,
Speaker 1: I'm okay with that. I know I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: but there's another guy that which is you had worked
Speaker 1: with Pastor Andrea and he's an Italian writer. He was
Speaker 1: posting a message on basebook like I've written whatever fourteen
Speaker 1: movies and I've never once been on the center. I've
Speaker 1: never once met the actors that have been in the movie.
Speaker 1: So I was like, hey, fake going that one.
Speaker 2: So where did the idea for invoking Yell come from?
Speaker 1: I think it's a bit of a shame of trivia here,
Speaker 1: But basically, he had been making a bunch of movies
Speaker 1: and then he had made one movie and he had
Speaker 1: a conversation about see was in a bit of a
Speaker 1: ways we didn't have to do creative creatively, and so
Speaker 1: we got to joking best stuff back and forthy and
Speaker 1: he was saying, like the idea of this love letter
Speaker 1: to the Blair witch to sort of nineties and he's
Speaker 1: a huge black metal man, and it came from that
Speaker 1: whole conversation about what if this happened but we see
Speaker 1: three girls going out to the words to record the psychophony,
Speaker 1: and we just ran with it from there, and I
Speaker 1: knew the you know, this was a zero buch and
Speaker 1: it was just like flying by the seat of your pets,
Speaker 1: and we were just come up with it. We knew
Speaker 1: the limitations of what we had, which was like very little,
Speaker 1: tried to write to very little, and that was it.
Speaker 1: And I think, really what, honestly what carries the film
Speaker 1: through from start to finish are the performances. And I
Speaker 1: think the relationship that you see on screen Towe three
Speaker 1: girls is just they really elevate. They're just so good
Speaker 1: and you believe them, and you do feel like you're
Speaker 1: just watching these kind of nineties teenagers want to be
Speaker 1: black metal legends doing something awfully stupid that leads to
Speaker 1: something horrible. So yeah, but they sold it.
Speaker 2: So so when did you finish the screenplay and when
Speaker 2: did they shoot?
Speaker 1: Well, I can't remember the timeline, but basically how this
Speaker 1: one worked in particular was truciha idea and then we
Speaker 1: buy the storage structure back and forth, and then because
Speaker 1: he was going to shoot it in Spanish over there,
Speaker 1: we go through the screen talk through and then I
Speaker 1: would suggest to fix this, change this, move this here,
Speaker 1: things like that. So that's how we know this one.
Speaker 1: Because he was he wanted to get out and do it.
Speaker 1: But that's heavy how that one worked. It was very
Speaker 1: quickly he knew he had the money. There was a
Speaker 1: few months to keep them with the script and then okay,
Speaker 1: we got money. We got it was a super micro
Speaker 1: bunch of job, so there wasn't a big lapse in
Speaker 1: time between finishing the script shot and.
Speaker 2: How much later do you see it? And do you
Speaker 2: see it with subtitles first or just purely in Spanish.
Speaker 1: The whole thing that I was, how I saw this
Speaker 1: one kind of generates in front of me was first
Speaker 1: of all that he showed me some of the footage school,
Speaker 1: and then the big thing that we went back and
Speaker 1: forth quite a lot was the look to make it
Speaker 1: look like that, and it was this nineties vaes that
Speaker 1: that that Blair witch vibe about it, and so we
Speaker 1: went back up for a lot on that, just sharing
Speaker 1: different sort of effects and how we go what we
Speaker 1: thought he was this, how does that look? And we'll
Speaker 1: get there and eventually hit upon that that's what that's
Speaker 1: the look that's it, don't touch anything from there, that's
Speaker 1: what you need to do. And then yes with guys
Speaker 1: back and forth, and then he would give be like
Speaker 1: I saw a version with like rough translation sub set
Speaker 1: on it. I was like, okay, this is true. And
Speaker 1: then he got a guy who did a full on
Speaker 1: propertranslation script, which is really great and really help. So yeah,
Speaker 1: in different stages trimming thing here, it's all it's a
Speaker 1: little bit too lock air. Let's cut it back. I
Speaker 1: think the leader to better his stuff, especially considering you've
Speaker 1: got that's what is it fifty six minutes with just
Speaker 1: the relationship before the needle drop.
Speaker 2: You're writing this over in Ireland. He shouldn't get over
Speaker 2: in Chile with something like a found footage film. It
Speaker 2: feels like the sets or the setting would be really crucial.
Speaker 2: Is he going out and taking photos or is he
Speaker 2: just describing things or is it just one he knows.
Speaker 1: Where to go. He's fairly good with the sort of
Speaker 1: the location. Some members shot around there and Dan Hills
Speaker 1: shut out and the forest and stuff, and then he
Speaker 1: had the bus, so he's pretty good at finding places.
Speaker 1: A creepy thing he was hiking and quite a bit.
Speaker 1: So if he's been a good eye for this sort
Speaker 1: of stuff.
Speaker 2: Have you seen the movie with an audience?
Speaker 3: No?
Speaker 1: No, And it's one of those weird ones where it
Speaker 1: was doing the rents for all the festivals and I
Speaker 1: just haven't. No, it's not out here, so I'm hoping
Speaker 1: to get to see it. I've seen it a few
Speaker 1: times that just watching your at home, and I wish, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would like to see you. But I think, truthfully,
Speaker 1: I think I've only ever seen two or three films
Speaker 1: I've done. It's I'm in a weird position. It's like
Speaker 1: you're the guy and you do the script and then
Speaker 1: you hand it over stuff like that. I'm still thankful
Speaker 1: for where I am, but yeah, there's a few things
Speaker 1: I would certainly love to improve.
Speaker 2: Are you still your own harshest critic when you're watching
Speaker 2: these gone I should have rewritten that. Oh I should
Speaker 2: have changed that.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, all the time. I do that with everything
Speaker 1: I've written. What's in the day job, it's the same.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 1: I'm currently one of the writers on the new James
Speaker 1: Bond game for IOI to Active, and when I'm testing that,
Speaker 1: like always, well, you're always super everything. I wish you
Speaker 1: could always you know, change it and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: I do find, yeah, that I'm constantly really listening to stop.
Speaker 1: A couple of times, like some of the movies I've
Speaker 1: done and appeared on TV and I've stuck them on
Speaker 1: just to see and I was like, oh, I wish
Speaker 1: I changed that. But look, I think it's probably not
Speaker 1: a bad thing. I was sitting there watching something. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's the best that could have done, or that's amazing.
Speaker 1: I probably shouldn't be doing.
Speaker 2: What What is the difference writing between movies and video games?
Speaker 1: I suppose the biggest difference is that it's when you're
Speaker 1: in control, you as the writer and the director, your
Speaker 1: control of every pacing to what the what the audience
Speaker 1: sees all that. And when it comes to a video
Speaker 1: it's a player facing experience. They're on the sticks, they're
Speaker 1: the ones controlling the game, so you have to take
Speaker 1: it to it. And even if you've got a very linear,
Speaker 1: straightforward the art game, the player will do things to
Speaker 1: defy the narrative, and that's the biggest And then of
Speaker 1: course with games it's use so many different tools. You
Speaker 1: might write cinematics which would look like a screenplay. That's fine,
Speaker 1: that's not the easy stuff, right, but the one that
Speaker 1: looks most familiar, and then you would have all of
Speaker 1: the lines that the non playable characters might say, Hey,
Speaker 1: he's over there, they all. That's all Excel sheets, thousands
Speaker 1: of thousands of lines. You're using ovingds, bespoke software. You
Speaker 1: might write a Microsoft word there. A lot of studios
Speaker 1: have tools, some of which will look a lot like
Speaker 1: final draft screenplay. But yet it's a bit of everything.
Speaker 1: It's a very Frankensteinian process. But it's fun, very chatting to.
Speaker 2: I know you probably can't talk a lot about the
Speaker 2: James Bond video game, but I'm curious, with something like
Speaker 2: that which has such a rich history, are you doing
Speaker 2: individual scenes? Are you doing that kind of overall story,
Speaker 2: because I'm sure that you have to pay a lot
Speaker 2: of lip service to in Fleming and all the things
Speaker 2: that have come before.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't really say too much, but what it
Speaker 1: is is it's an origin story and there is a
Speaker 1: really great story in place, and yeah, like make it
Speaker 1: what we believe is a really great Bond story. And
Speaker 1: of course there are going to be tips of the
Speaker 1: hat to everything stuff like that, but yeah, it's fun.
Speaker 1: I am ND Eight of the Hills it's so hard
Speaker 1: to talk about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I can totally understand. It's such a huge
Speaker 2: ip and it's only been going on since the mid fifties.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of that expectations and we're aware of that.
Speaker 1: And yeah, it's just it's fun. It's coming really great.
Speaker 2: So that's the day job. What's the next movie for you?
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, Like I had a couple of I've
Speaker 1: done a couple of scripts. I wrote an action script
Speaker 1: back at the start of the year. I think that's
Speaker 1: trundling through development. I'm not really sure. I just did
Speaker 1: a polished job recently on another project for a producer
Speaker 1: I worked with again on That World, Laris Kerchie. He's
Speaker 1: been a great guy. He's the doors for me. Actually
Speaker 1: had a lot of different opportunities in terms of my
Speaker 1: own stuff. I've got two or three different projects that
Speaker 1: I'm developing, and I'm hoping to have scripts done by
Speaker 1: early next year. It's find the time because when you're
Speaker 1: writing during the day, whatever it is, I decide to
Speaker 1: focus on as like my next project, whether it's specscript
Speaker 1: or something like that, I have to really be into
Speaker 1: it because I have to be able to come down
Speaker 1: here at sort of eight thirty at night, after I
Speaker 1: put the kids to bed, and I'm sitting right for
Speaker 1: like two to three hours, depending on how much juice
Speaker 1: is in the tank. Really that's the truth. But yeah, well,
Speaker 1: a bunch of different a bunch of irons in fires
Speaker 1: and trying to see where I can take things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hopefully something hits for you soon. And in the
Speaker 2: meantime it sounds like quite a good challenge with the
Speaker 2: James Bond game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yah, yeah, that is a bit s good. Poe
Speaker 1: accept great Tam. Good people work with it, just trying
Speaker 1: to make the best game we can't as possible.
Speaker 2: Mister Keating, Thank you so much for your time. This
Speaker 2: is great talking with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, likewise, I really appreciate all right, I.
Speaker 3: Don't say to fuck of a cry. I was wait,
Speaker 3: what you know? Great life? What fine? You know they're
Speaker 3: poking double its side. It means I got my life
Speaker 3: on the line, So I start to break gone, Yeah
Speaker 3: why read class, what win? Cut the water, take your
Speaker 3: dumb bad and for give domain. This was over. So
Speaker 3: that's like, well I'm going for the colt, but you
Speaker 3: can both gos for me and this mo in your
Speaker 3: heart and the like your chest. Still thought that was all?
Speaker 3: And son over to your sight your fi or brop
Speaker 3: your gun bigs. I came back. I came back. What why? What?
Speaker 3: Every day?
Speaker 4: The line you my.
Speaker 3: Prison, boring quad on the line and everything I go.
Speaker 3: I'm puting a lot a fucking life. Well why read, climb?
Speaker 3: Why fly? You know how that would? I? So you'll
Speaker 3: chance use the lifetime I went several So I say,
Speaker 3: you're bright, why not take my eye? Probably let the
Speaker 3: loose dead live on my days still be stared at
Speaker 3: the chows of debate, fool die and all I know me?
Speaker 1: Why down.
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Love my side so.
Speaker 3: That nothing ness, my clive where on my side, my
Speaker 3: feeling is gone, my live right of my side of.
Speaker 1: Free flowers outside.
Speaker 3: My own welcome my sight, the cry that sound.
Speaker 1: They know justice.
Speaker 3: I'm drunk it by I go slake clim white grey clive,
Speaker 3: w F and prok dollar nuts aside wrap on that side,
Speaker 3: crack on that side. A love that can fly on
Speaker 3: talbankis wap.
Speaker 1: On my side, wak on my side.
Speaker 3: The alba nuts and side