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Speaker 9: Hey, folks, welcome to a special episode of the Projection Booth.
Speaker 8: I'm your host Mike White.
Speaker 9: On this episode, I'm talking with director s K. Dale
Speaker 9: all about his latest film, Subservience. The film is.
Speaker 8: About a family that gets a new robotic maid who's
Speaker 8: definitely not like Rosie from the Jetsons. Thank you so
Speaker 8: much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed this interview.
Speaker 8: Can you tell me a little bit about your background
Speaker 8: on how you got into filmmaking.
Speaker 2: I'm from Melbourne and where I grew up was way
Speaker 2: out in the woods. So growing up as a kid
Speaker 2: and telling people you want to be a film director
Speaker 2: pure laughed at a lot. But for some reason I
Speaker 2: stuck to that dream and went to film school here
Speaker 2: in Melbourne, but really wanted to focus on making genre
Speaker 2: films and making action films. And the films that excited
Speaker 2: me the most are the ones that I was watching
Speaker 2: come out of Hollywood. So at a very early age,
Speaker 2: I was saving up for the whole year and then
Speaker 2: I would come over to LA and I would try
Speaker 2: to meet anyone I could. What I love about that
Speaker 2: place is the film community, the creative community and people.
Speaker 2: Every person you go to a bar who is someone's
Speaker 2: writing a script and you want to hear stories, you
Speaker 2: want to talk and I love that world. And yeah,
Speaker 2: and eventually, after numerous years, I found myself a manager
Speaker 2: and managed to get myself and I would actually do
Speaker 2: a short film each year before I came over. So
Speaker 2: I would say, up, make a short film, fly over
Speaker 2: and I had done this one horror short that just
Speaker 2: went viral and got a lot of people talking about
Speaker 2: and everything and opened a lot of doors for me.
Speaker 2: And from that point on, Yeah, it was just a
Speaker 2: wild ride of getting people, people allowing me to film
Speaker 2: things and make my dream, my childhood dream come true.
Speaker 9: Is that how Till Death came about? Was that kind
Speaker 9: of an entree to your first feature?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 2: Correct, Yeah, having that short film and going around they
Speaker 2: saw that, and it was actually because the short film
Speaker 2: itself was only three or four minutes. So once I
Speaker 2: was attached to Till Death, and it took a long
Speaker 2: time for them to finally say yes to me as
Speaker 2: a person who hadn't done a feature film before. There
Speaker 2: was probably fifteen to twenty pictures with them on that,
Speaker 2: But once they said yes, having that short film really
Speaker 2: allowed them to show their buyers what my capabilities were director,
Speaker 2: And so we had Megan attached for that film, and
Speaker 2: they had a short film and it sold really well
Speaker 2: for them. So I think ultimately having those short films
Speaker 2: behind me helped my career even in the feature world.
Speaker 9: It feels like you were Delta pretty lousy hand though.
Speaker 9: As far as Till Death coming out in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 9: did you actually shoot that during the pandemic? Was the
Speaker 9: background to that film?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 4: Yeah, So my goal was always to make a film.
Speaker 2: By the time I was thirty and I was on
Speaker 2: set for my thirtieth birthday and they brought in the cakes.
Speaker 2: Actually we were prepping. We were a week out from shooting.
Speaker 2: They brought in the cake and I blew out the
Speaker 2: candles and I remember my first ad coming up to
Speaker 2: me and saying, Hey, I don't know what's going to
Speaker 2: happen with this movie, but I know you're going to
Speaker 2: have a nice, great career. And then he left the room,
Speaker 2: and I turned to my partner and said, what does
Speaker 2: he mean? And I had been so focused on prep
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how much this was all spreading and
Speaker 2: everything like that. And then then producers came into the
Speaker 2: studios or came into my office and said we're shutting
Speaker 2: down the studios. You need to fly home tomorrow. This
Speaker 2: was the day of my birthday that we got shut
Speaker 2: down and we went back and it took a few
Speaker 2: months to reassess and to create these protocols for.
Speaker 4: Health and everything like that.
Speaker 2: But we were like one of the first productions in
Speaker 2: the world to start up again.
Speaker 4: We all got back there because we had.
Speaker 2: Such a contained location of a film and very minimal cast.
Speaker 2: It was the perfect well probably a bit of a
Speaker 2: test monkey for the studio, but it was, Yeah, it
Speaker 2: was the perfect film to start up again. So once
Speaker 2: we got everyone on there, it was getting tested. And
Speaker 2: in fact, I flew out the day before Melbourne went
Speaker 2: into lockdown and we went into one hundred and intense
Speaker 2: low down time restrictions distances you couldn't go past three kilometers,
Speaker 2: so like it was pretty crazy and we were just
Speaker 2: lucky enough.
Speaker 4: To fly out.
Speaker 2: But at the airport they were calling up every passenger,
Speaker 2: they were calling up their final destination and saying is
Speaker 2: this person approved to land there? So I had to
Speaker 2: get approval from them. I had to get approval from
Speaker 2: our government to be let out.
Speaker 4: It was a wild time.
Speaker 2: On top of trying to direct my first feature. But
Speaker 2: in fact, by the time we got back onto set
Speaker 2: and we were starting to roll again, winter was finishing.
Speaker 2: So we had to then completely reconfigure out this idea
Speaker 2: of how we're going to shoot in the middle of
Speaker 2: winter now in the middle of summer. So it was
Speaker 2: that was huge challenge within itself as well. So it
Speaker 2: was an exciting time, but it was also a terrifying time.
Speaker 9: Do you think you'll ever use your birthday wish for
Speaker 9: a global pandemic? Again?
Speaker 4: That's the one of no time.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you said that, Megan Fox was already signed up
Speaker 9: for the film. Tell me a little bit about you
Speaker 9: and your relationship with her, because it feels like she
Speaker 9: may become your rabbit's foot here.
Speaker 4: This is the second film I've done with her.
Speaker 2: I didn't know her We're going into the first film
Speaker 2: and everything like that. I just knew her as Jennifer's
Speaker 2: body and Transformers. Megan Fox and I remember getting off
Speaker 2: the phone call for the first time when I heard
Speaker 2: she was attached to Till Death and the producer was, yeah, look,
Speaker 2: I think she's pretty interested to do it and all
Speaker 2: this and blah blah blah blah. Just be ready to
Speaker 2: fly out maybe Friday and said that to me and
Speaker 2: hung up, and I turned to my partner. I was like,
Speaker 2: I think Megan said yes, and I was like, when
Speaker 2: I was in so much shock, I just didn't confirm anything.
Speaker 2: So having done that first film and we had a
Speaker 2: really excellent kind of relationship on set in terms of
Speaker 2: building that trust and everything and doing some you know,
Speaker 2: action sequences that were really exciting when we were doing.
Speaker 2: When we were developing this next project, she did pop
Speaker 2: up in the back of my mind and I was
Speaker 2: thinking about this darker path that we have in Subservienes,
Speaker 2: kind of the mirroring effect of Jennifer's body or playing
Speaker 2: into that element of Jennifer's body, and that the character
Speaker 2: arc there.
Speaker 4: So that was exciting to me early on.
Speaker 2: And I also felt like it was a completely different
Speaker 2: performance that we would have to do to till death,
Speaker 2: and that was a big thing for me. So I
Speaker 2: didn't want to do the same thing twice with the
Speaker 2: same actor or actress. So I just was very excited
Speaker 2: by that idea of Okay, we've done this, now let's
Speaker 2: try to do this and ultimately we have these intimate
Speaker 2: scenes here that having that trust goes a long way
Speaker 2: with in terms of building an environment and making everyone
Speaker 2: feel safe and comfortable and creatively able to explore those
Speaker 2: aspects of that scene.
Speaker 9: How did subserbiens come to you? How did you get
Speaker 9: the script?
Speaker 2: It was through the same team that we did Till
Speaker 2: Death with, so I was kind of in production and
Speaker 2: you know, we just had such a great run with
Speaker 2: that movie that we were discussing a few other projects
Speaker 2: and everything, and they just happened to be developing that
Speaker 2: with the screenwriters April and Will and said, hey, would
Speaker 2: you be interested in just, you know, pitching on this.
Speaker 2: So I read it, and as a filmmaker, saying no
Speaker 2: to some sci fi is just impossible. It's just so
Speaker 2: exciting that the things you can do with that genre,
Speaker 2: and reading that script, it was really there's a moment
Speaker 2: in that script where Maggie the wife comes home and
Speaker 2: realizes that her role as the mother has been replaced
Speaker 2: by this ai, and that to me was like, I
Speaker 2: was like, that's it, That's the film. To me, that
Speaker 2: is the core element here that it really excited me,
Speaker 2: and if anything, in terms of developing the script from there,
Speaker 2: it was leaning more into that conflict and really building
Speaker 2: that third act to be into that these two women
Speaker 2: fighting to the death.
Speaker 9: Megan's performance is fantastic and so much of her role
Speaker 9: is her and what she's bringing to it. Are you
Speaker 9: using special effects to deaden her even more?
Speaker 5: You know?
Speaker 2: We did a few things which was more like the
Speaker 2: motion of her keeping her completely still in certain shots,
Speaker 2: but also removing blinking. That was a big thing for me.
Speaker 2: And if we did have blinking in there, it had
Speaker 2: to have like a performance to it. If she's blinking,
Speaker 2: she's saying something, or she's processing something, or she's we
Speaker 2: see things happening. But ultimately, no, this was just her.
Speaker 2: I think that performance that she was doing was Yeah,
Speaker 2: she just as soon as you call action, her face
Speaker 2: would relax in this way and her eyes, yeah, they
Speaker 2: felt dead in this certain way. That just was like
Speaker 2: exciting to watch. I don't think I expected this kind
Speaker 2: of performance as we're going into it. And she said
Speaker 2: earlier on as well, she mentioned this idea of the
Speaker 2: physicality being like a ballerina and having this precise and
Speaker 2: slow movement, and I think that just informed everything from
Speaker 2: that point on in terms of the way she would
Speaker 2: speak and everything like that. So for me, the challenge
Speaker 2: was probably more allowing a certain level of emotion as
Speaker 2: we were closing in on the intimate scene, so that
Speaker 2: way they felt organic or real that we could buy
Speaker 2: into them. And a particular scene for me that was
Speaker 2: vital for that was the Casablanca scene, and we really
Speaker 2: wanted to see how much we could lean into her
Speaker 2: and this kind of even this childlike wonder of her
Speaker 2: watching the film for the first time and going through
Speaker 2: that process.
Speaker 9: I love even one of the first scenes that she's
Speaker 9: in where she's saying goodbye to the family and she
Speaker 9: has that big smile on her face, and then after
Speaker 9: they're gone, there's no reason for her to be smiling anymore,
Speaker 9: and the way it just disappears is so nice.
Speaker 4: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was something I always and I had that
Speaker 2: shot so early on. I knew exactly how we're going
Speaker 2: to shoot it and everything, and and Megan was really
Speaker 2: on the ball with that, where it was like, we
Speaker 2: don't want to there's no menace here. This is just
Speaker 2: you like allowing yourself to go, Okay, no one's here,
Speaker 2: I don't need to do this smile and it's gone,
Speaker 2: and then you turn away and you walk away, but
Speaker 2: there's something inhuman about it that feels interesting to look at,
Speaker 2: and I do.
Speaker 4: I love that shot. That's one of my favorites.
Speaker 9: Have you seen the film with an audience yet?
Speaker 2: We did a bunch of test screenings during the editing process,
Speaker 2: but it was really just like family and friends and
Speaker 2: we would get them in groups of ten to come in.
Speaker 2: But I haven't watched the completed visual effects film with
Speaker 2: an audience yet. In fact, we are next Friday. I
Speaker 2: have like our first kind of family and Friends screening
Speaker 2: here in Melbourne with a one hundred seat audience. I
Speaker 2: once a film is completed, I hate watching it with
Speaker 2: people kids. I can't change anything, but I really want
Speaker 2: to see how it goes with I got to just
Speaker 2: watch it once, as terrifying as it is to watch
Speaker 2: it with an audience.
Speaker 9: Do you have your next project already picked out?
Speaker 2: We're developing a few things currently, nothing set in stone yet,
Speaker 2: but yeah, it's exciting to look at potentially bigger projects
Speaker 2: and staying within the sci fi world. I love that
Speaker 2: genre and I'd love to play with in that sandbox
Speaker 2: a little.
Speaker 4: Bit more if people would allow me.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're currently developing a few things, so we'll
Speaker 2: see which one kind of takes off first.
Speaker 9: Having seen these two features, I am so ready for
Speaker 9: a third. So thank you so much for making these.
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: And I have to say I listened to your podcast,
Speaker 2: so hearing your voice as you're talking to me, it's
Speaker 2: quite soothing.
Speaker 9: Yeah, you might be the first person that ever told
Speaker 9: me that.
Speaker 4: Oh wow, that's good.
Speaker 9: Number one, I like, mister Dale. Thank you so much
Speaker 9: for your time. This is wonderful.
Speaker 4: Thank you, I really appreciate it.
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