Interview with “Infinity Pool” Director/Writer, Brandon Cronenberg === KT: [00:00:00] Joining us today is a writer director that ignites all levels of film discourse. His first feature, Antiviral, premiered in the official selection at Cairns, also winning awards, and his second feature, Possessor, premiered in competition at Sundance. His third feature, Infinity Pool, will be in Australian cinemas, May 11th. Aesthetically. Primal, sensual, and evocative. Brandon Cronenberg, thank you so much, and welcome to the Foyer Reference Oti: Welcome. Brandon: Okay, thanks for having me. Oti: So it's been fascinating to learn about the various aspects of your film's creative process, such as cinematography, makeup, special effects, and production design. Um, could you share some of the insight on how you developed the overall visual style and aesthetic of the film? Brandon: Sure. I mean, there are kind of a few elements to it. So, so I have a very close collaboration with Kareem Hussain, my cinematographer who's done all of my, [00:01:00] all my feature films. Um, usually the, at the script stage before we have cast, before we have, uh, any kind of sets or locations, Kareem and I will work through the film scene by scene and create a kind of theoretical shot list just to talk about, you know, the visual language of the film, you know, how How we're going to shoot it gives him a sense of what lenses we're going to need, what cameras we're going to use, you know, it lets us have some time to ourselves to just kind of figure out narratively what's useful in terms of the visual language in terms of the more hallucinatory stuff. That's a bit of an exploratory process that also involves Kareem quite a lot, but also other collaborators like Dan Martin, my makeup effects artist, Zosia McKenzie, my production designer. Usually there'll be a kind of paragraph in the script that just sort of says, There is a weird deforming of the image, it's flashes of nightmare imagery or whatever, [00:02:00] and my team kind of knows, okay, we're going to, that means we're going to create a kind of experimental short film here, we're going to spend a lot of time just, uh, you know, again, I'll spend hours in Kareem's living room with, uh, gels and, excuse me, Pieces of glass and projection feedback and we'll just play around with ways to kind of deform an image and then we bring Dan and zosia on and talk about what they can what they can build uh to to help the Create those visuals KT: Um, it was cool hearing you talk about in different interviews of, you know, using different mediums and it's so interesting because I'm sure, you know, being able to present something visually is such an exciting sort of thing for the audience as well. So from a filmmaking and a storytelling point of view, what does the setting of an alternate sort of reality offer? Brandon: You know, it offers a kind of creative freedom. I mean my films tend to be kind of satirical, you know, they're often uh a discussion of the real [00:03:00] world and I think genre And sci fi and horror in particular is very useful for doing that because you kind of can take the real world and just sort of skew it. And so people, uh, you make it a little bit weird and it kind of counteracts the habituation that people have to the real world. And so they're sort of seeing it for the first time and, uh, you know, yeah, you can, you can explore reality by stepping out of it, I guess. Oti: How important was it for you to set the film in a fictional location? And what, what impact did this decision have on the story and the development of the characters? Brandon: So it. It would have been it would have been weird. It's funny. I get that question a lot, but it would have been strange in a way to to set it in a real location because of this sort of cloning technology and because of this very strange system of justice that this this country has to sort of insert that into a real place in a real culture would have would have been, uh, [00:04:00] a strange thing to do. And it would have all become suddenly a commentary on that actual place. And, you know, I don't know. So it was necessary, I think, to create an alternate world where, uh, where this sort of stuff could, could take place. That was always, uh, at the, at the center of the film because it, you know, it functioned, although it's science fiction, it kind of functions almost as a magic realism story. You know, it's sort of the real world, but there's this one absurd twist. You know, it's not really a predictive science fiction film about cloning technology. It's, it's, it's this one weird thing that facilitates the rest of the story. Uh, and so it needed a setting that could allow for that. KT: Yeah. I think it was during the L. A. Sunday. It's sort of panel with me. I got you talked about the logistical realities and not being bogged down by them. And you also talked about not being a predictive sort of science fiction as well. I think being suspended in that context. Reality, non reality allows for that. I'm a very literal person. So even like, [00:05:00] you know, tapping into a very aesthetic sort of film. Okay. This isn't a real place. Great. Got it. So I was able to like zoom in. So I think that really Oti: well. It really did. Brandon: Yeah, I'm the same sort of compartmentalize, you know, yeah, it just sort of frees you to do anything in a way. Oti: Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. That you get away from the touchy sort of geopolitical issues of a certain place. Brandon: Yeah, completely. Oti: not KT: going down wormholes yet. Um, is there an edge to, I guess, if you'll pardon the pun, your infinity pool of the creative process, like say, for example, reigning in a particular character so you can have a higher sort of impact later on in the film. Brandon: Uh, yeah, I mean, it's, it's definitely sculpt, sculpting the progress of the characters is definitely a kind of complicated thing. I mean, um, it's very helpful to have good actors. They make the job very easy. And these actors really, you know, made [00:06:00] my life easy because. When you're directing, you're trying to look at the entirety of the film, and you're trying to, uh, keep everything in mind, but the actors are just focused on this one particular... Aspect of it. And so they go so incredibly deep into their characters that sometimes they'll, you know, they'll have really good ideas about how to track their characters that might not have occurred to me or, you know, they'll bring that bring that to the characters. And then also in the editing process. There's a, there's a lot of you can really. change the intensity of, uh, of a moment. You can really, um, especially if you've been playing around a bit on set when you're, when you're shooting and kind of exploring different levels of intensity and going to different places with it in the edit, that gives you a certain amount of freedom because you might feel like, okay, yeah, you're hitting those high intensity moments too many times. It starts to become numbing. Can you kind of tone it down by using a different take or kind of cutting out some of the [00:07:00] hysteria or whatever? So, yeah, it's something that starts with writing and continues all throughout the process and into the post production as well. KT: There's got to be a beauty to, I guess, just relinquishing to whatever you're creating. Cause if you're not going to go all the way, it's not going to have that sort of, you know, impact or perhaps the vision that you had, you really need to go full balls to the wall. Brandon: Yeah, I mean, It's always better, I find, to start as big as possible and then, and then rein it in, and sometimes that happens on set, sometimes you rein it in on set, but very often, you know, you, you can always pull back, but you can't get there if you're not going to, you know what I mean, even with the, even with the cast, these are actors who go to the absolute extremes with their performances, and so. you have that kind of material, uh, you can push it to that level. But if you have actors who are too, uh, shy about that stuff or afraid, or they just can't get themselves, uh, to this, this really extreme place, then you just sort of [00:08:00] don't have it and you can't, you can't hit those Oti: So just speaking around the actors, did you have, uh, when you were writing and developing, um, the story, did you have specific actors in mind for the main characters? Brandon: Uh, so I never write with actors, particular actors in mind, because it's so hard to get any actor, like the stars just have to completely align, you know, it's no matter, It's, you know, do they want to do it? Are they available? You know, there are all these pragmatic weird things, especially with an indie film. It's like, do they have the right passport? You know, we're, we're a Canada, EU co production, you know, can't, you know, it's, um, it's so hard to predict who you could actually get in a film. And so just to, to avoid heartbreak, I don't, you know, I don't, I don't get hooked on a particular actor. And, uh, KT: Uh, is there a balance between accessibility and creativity, i. e making sure that the audience is plugged in or just, they just have to fill in the gaps as they go Brandon: that's an interesting [00:09:00] question. I mean, I think. You can give more obvious answers to your audience or not. I mean, you can, you can certainly, you know, I, I find with a 200 million blockbuster, you know, it's, it's usually very, very on the nose. Every little detail is spelled out in a way that I personally find off putting a lot of the time. But I understand that they're doing it because they want to make sure not a single person in the audience doesn't get it. No one could possibly feel alienated by it. I don't really like. KT: want an aesthetic wink Oti: So Brandon: Yeah, exactly. The music, like, if you didn't know that this was emotional, here's, like, the most, like, sentimental music imaginable. Um, I don't personally really like that kind of filmmaking. I find it kind of cloying and, uh, a little insulting, you know, to the audience. I feel like it's, to me, I like films that give the audience room to explore and to find the film for themselves and to... [00:10:00] Uh, you know, nothing makes me happier than if people disagree about an aspect of my films or the plot, you know, because I like that kind of filmmaking myself where the audience are treated like adults and they're allowed to kind of find it for themselves. And, you know, it's, it's obviously at a certain point, it's a taste thing. Not everybody is going to get a film like that. Not everybody wants to see that kind of, uh, film, but for the people who do, it's a. You know, hopefully more worthwhile than, uh, than the alternative. KT: Yeah. And I think, uh, it was a really nice experience watching Infinity Pool because again, I am a very literal person, but it was nice to linger in between the moments and I wasn't frustrated being like, what's going on now? It's like, take me on this Brandon: That's excellent. Thank you. Oti: So, um, what was your most memorable scene, um, for you to direct in this film and [00:11:00] why? Brandon: I'm not sure. It was all pretty, it was all pretty weird. It was all, it was all kind of a blur. Like we were, it's not a tiny film, but we were trying to do a lot for the, the budget. And so the, uh, the schedule was extremely tight. We were shooting in two countries and we shot the whole thing in 25 days. And so it was, um, it, it was all, Sort of memorable and I kind of can't remember any of it, uh, to a certain degree. I think there was one moment kind of early on in the process where Mia was outside the bus kind of yelling at Alex in the bus and, uh. That stood out for me just because it was so, she just hit such a high, uh, with that. It was, it was a scene that was written, you know, it is kind of as written, but I wasn't expecting it to be, um, you know, a kind of peak for her character in that way and for the film. And she really sort of hit it in this incredible way. And it's just, uh, yeah, that [00:12:00] was, that was one moment, uh, Alex fighting, you know, beating up the sort of detective character, you know, Same thing. He just went to such extremes with it in this really wonderful way and pushed himself so hard, you know, it's, it's moments like that where you think, okay, we have, we have a movie because if everything else sucks, we have these, you know, we have this scene, we have an actor doing this great thing. If my work is terrible, you know, there's this, there's this, there's a moment that makes it worth something. And you kind of collect those moments when you're shooting because they give you confidence. KT: Yeah. I think not remembering anything are the best sort of moments in life. Um, so we finish off our reviews with the recommendation. So what would you pay with infinity pool as a double Brandon: Oh, um, I have not thought about that at all. And I'm terrible at answering those questions. I'll, I'll say, I'll say the comfort of strangers, um, just off the top of my head, but [00:13:00] probably there's a better answer than that. I just, I'm awful at recommendations. KT: No, I love it. We're putting on mask and we're smashing shit. That's what we're doing. Brandon Cronenberg, thank you so much for your time. Brandon: Thank you. Thank you guys.