Alex Proyas is an Australian filmmaker best known for the likes of The Crow and I, Robot. He returns to the science fiction genre for his new movie Knowing.
I caught up with the director to talk about his new film, working with Nicolas Cage and his love of the sci-fi genre of movies.
- For those who haven't seen Knowing yet can you tell me a little bit about it?
It's basically about a man who discovers a series of prophecies, he is a man of science so he doesn't find them very credible, but then things start to come true and he is forced to re-evaluate his entire logic systems. It's essentially a thriller but it does have some larger themes at play.
- The story was written by novelist Ryne Douglas Person how did you get involved in the project?
Basically the script was sent to me at a very early stage and I saw something that I thought was very appealing so I took it and ran with it, into a slightly different direction.
For me it just did a bunch of fairly unexpected things, as a director you get to read a lot of scripts and so many are pretty formulaic and you know where the story is heading from page one, this had some really unexpected twists and turns that I really enjoyed.
- When you are looking for material for a movie what sort of elements do you look for in a story?
Well something that's unexpected and breaks the mould, you spend a lot of time making every movie and you always want to do something that is going to challenge you and tell a story that hasn't necessarily been told before.
Also it has to be something that I can spend some time on and something that I believe in in what it's trying to say; I believe a film should have something to say, not in an obvious sledgehammer sort of way but on a philosophical level I like ideas and strong emotions. So I look for that melting pot of all those things in that one script or project and sometimes it's hard to find a combination of all those things.
- What were some of the challenges that you faced when filming the huge set pieces, the plane crash in particular?
Well the plane crash was a real tough scene in particular because we had decided to film it all in the one continuous shot, an uninterrupted two and a half to three minute long shot.
There's a lot of on set stuff that goes on things blown up and catch fire, which of course is a very dangerous element from everyone involved, it was like staged each take like a big theatrical production like it's live and no one part of it can fail so that put a lot of pressure on every single person.
It was really exciting to do as well as being very challenging and difficult and over the couple of days and the few takes we really only got the one that worked where everything went right, and that's the one that's in the film, at one point I really thought that we would be able to get it right and we would have to admit defeat and reconceive the sequence in some way.
- How did you Get Nicolas Cage involved? Did you want him from the beginning?
Nic is someone who I have actually been wanting to work with for a long time, on many projects beyond Knowing. So often with actors it's very rare you get exactly who you want, or who you conceive of.
The logistics will mess you around you might have the best intentions to work with someone and they might want to work with you but the schedules are such that a lot of the bigger movie stars have committed themselves a long way in advance to a lot of other projects.
Nic is a guy who likes to work, he does a lot of movies, so I was really pleased when the opportunity presented itself and everything aliened and we were getting to work with each other. We had never actually met before we worked together be we knew of each other, obviously I knew him but he also knew of my work and liked my work. It was a really great match and it worked out really well we felt like we were going to be compatible collaborators and we really were.
- And what about Rose Bryne she really is an exciting actress and one to keep an eye on?
Yeah Rose is great. I have known rose for a long time because we both have grown up in Sydney and we have got to know each other through the social network, you basically get to know everyone in the Australian film industry at some point because it is such a small business.
She is someone that I have kept my eye on and thought would do really well. She started acting quite and she has blossomed into this wonderfully intense actor and I just though she was great, and when we were writing the film and her particular character she just kept springing to mind and I think she worked out perfectly.
- You also worked on the screenplay so how did you go about adapting the story and how does the writing process work for you?
It's always different because movie always come together in different ways as sometime I originate the concept other time I adapt material and times like Knowing a screenplay comes to me and I pulled it apart, it's kind of like someone gives you an old car, and it's no negative comment on the quality of the script but it’s like someone has given you an old car and you have to pull it all apart and rebuild it to make it all work really well.
Some parts of it work ok but you need, as a director, to understand every aspect of the story that you are telling and you write stuff, reconceive certain parts and then throw it all out and go back to what was there in the first place but that process is evolution and exploration and it really helps you understand the story from ever conceivable viewpoint.
I'm pretty analytical I guess and I guess I'm a structuralist when is comes to screenplays and whether I'm a director working with the screenwriter or writing it myself it's always about coming up with the perfect molecular structure for the story I'm trying to tell.
- Nic Cage's character wrestles with questions about life and the universe so how did that effect your own beliefs and ideas?
Well it's a question that I have embarked upon I'm very interested in it and it's the reason that I wanted to make the movie because it's a spiritual quest that the guy is on, he is on a quest for truth and in one way or another all my movies are about that same theme.
I guess I'm personally fascinated with why I'm here, or we're here and what is our purpose? And what is the purpose of life? Which is the grand question.
Science fiction is a genre allows you to explore those themes and the movie is very open ended it doesn’t really have any answers it presents questions and possibilities.
I want audiences to think for themselves, ideally think a little bit while they are watching the movie, and try to put things together and come out of the movie with some sort of discussion and it’s a movie that allows the viewer to make their own conclusion, that’s the kind of filmmaking that interests me.
- Your previous movies such as The Crow and Dark City have been very strong in their other worldly design but Knowing feels more set in the real world so was this an intentional shift?
Yeah I specifically wanted to do something that was very reality based the movie, in the last act, takes on this larger than life cosmic aspect and I wanted to ground the first section of the movie in as much reality as I could I wanted authenticity and to feel very believably of this world, which is very different to my other movies where I have fabricated other worlds and realities.
I guess it was a new challenge to me, I have never shot a movie in the real world they are always fabricated, and so grounding myself in that way was an interesting new direction for me. I think that the film still has a stylistic quality but I think that it is drawn from a more reality based visual.
- Despite all the big special effects scenes the spine of the movie is the relationship Nic Cage has with his son what are some of the interesting smaller moments that you found in the movie?
That relationship was very important to the movie again in terms of reality based it seems very natural and not like a movie relationship. Those sorts of relationships in movies, really any relationships in movies especially Hollywood movies, they all try to hit certain chords with an audience to elicit sympathy for the character and try to create this relationship, for example in this movie between father and son, I think I was trying not to do that I was trying to make it feel almost biennial in the moments that they were having.
They knew they were going to go on this pretty bizarre and wild ride and so I wanted to underplay their relationship and make it feel like we were observing, like you have a spy camera on a real father and son and you are observing a moment that may or may not be an important one, movies tend to, by their nature, tend to pick on all the important moments out of life and I guess in the relationship part I wanted the moments to feel very neutral as if they had been plucked from a documentary.
With the kids in the movie, I have worked with kids before but so many go through TV commercials they learn some bad habits and you have to knock those out of them and so it’s hard to find child actors with a level of experience that you know you can sustain a level of interest for a whole movie.
An unself-conscious approach to what they are doing when the cameras start rolling also helps and Chandler and Lara were those kinds of actors, it just felt real as they were just the same when the cameras were rolling as when it wasn’t rolling and that’s an important thing.
-A lot of your movies tend to fall under the science fiction heading so what is about this genre that you like so much?
I like that it’s about ideas and that’s it for me that is the most important aspect of the genre you get to explore some philosophical concepts and ideas and I think that is personally intriguing to me.
- Knowing is your first movie since 2004’s I, Robot so what have you been up to?
I have been tinkering on all sorts of screenplays, Knowing being the main one, but I tend to work on a few things at the same time and one of them bubbles up and I think that’s why it takes me a little longer to move onto something new.
I suppose I can’t keep up with the pace of modern directors they tend to turn out much faster than I can but I guess I’m just a bit slower and I like to spend more time on each project to think it through on every level.
- And finally what’s next for you?
Well that I can’t answer but there are a bunch of projects flying around at the moment. I’m writing a screenplay based on the novel by Robert.A Heinlein called The Unpleasant profession of Jonathan Hoag, which is a story that I have always loved, it is kind of science fiction but it’s more fantasy.
It’s fun to write and it takes me a while to settle on a project but that one is shaping up quite nicely.
Knowing is released on DVD 3rd August
FemaleFirst Helen Earnshaw
Alex Proyas is an Australian filmmaker best known for the likes of The Crow and I, Robot. He returns to the science fiction genre for his new movie Knowing.
I caught up with the director to talk about his new film, working with Nicolas Cage and his love of the sci-fi genre of movies.
- For those who haven't seen Knowing yet can you tell me a little bit about it?
It's basically about a man who discovers a series of prophecies, he is a man of science so he doesn't find them very credible, but then things start to come true and he is forced to re-evaluate his entire logic systems. It's essentially a thriller but it does have some larger themes at play.
- The story was written by novelist Ryne Douglas Person how did you get involved in the project?
Basically the script was sent to me at a very early stage and I saw something that I thought was very appealing so I took it and ran with it, into a slightly different direction.
For me it just did a bunch of fairly unexpected things, as a director you get to read a lot of scripts and so many are pretty formulaic and you know where the story is heading from page one, this had some really unexpected twists and turns that I really enjoyed.
- When you are looking for material for a movie what sort of elements do you look for in a story?
Well something that's unexpected and breaks the mould, you spend a lot of time making every movie and you always want to do something that is going to challenge you and tell a story that hasn't necessarily been told before.
Also it has to be something that I can spend some time on and something that I believe in in what it's trying to say; I believe a film should have something to say, not in an obvious sledgehammer sort of way but on a philosophical level I like ideas and strong emotions. So I look for that melting pot of all those things in that one script or project and sometimes it's hard to find a combination of all those things.
- What were some of the challenges that you faced when filming the huge set pieces, the plane crash in particular?
Well the plane crash was a real tough scene in particular because we had decided to film it all in the one continuous shot, an uninterrupted two and a half to three minute long shot.
There's a lot of on set stuff that goes on things blown up and catch fire, which of course is a very dangerous element from everyone involved, it was like staged each take like a big theatrical production like it's live and no one part of it can fail so that put a lot of pressure on every single person.
It was really exciting to do as well as being very challenging and difficult and over the couple of days and the few takes we really only got the one that worked where everything went right, and that's the one that's in the film, at one point I really thought that we would be able to get it right and we would have to admit defeat and reconceive the sequence in some way.
- How did you Get Nicolas Cage involved? Did you want him from the beginning?
Nic is someone who I have actually been wanting to work with for a long time, on many projects beyond Knowing. So often with actors it's very rare you get exactly who you want, or who you conceive of.
The logistics will mess you around you might have the best intentions to work with someone and they might want to work with you but the schedules are such that a lot of the bigger movie stars have committed themselves a long way in advance to a lot of other projects.
Nic is a guy who likes to work, he does a lot of movies, so I was really pleased when the opportunity presented itself and everything aliened and we were getting to work with each other. We had never actually met before we worked together be we knew of each other, obviously I knew him but he also knew of my work and liked my work. It was a really great match and it worked out really well we felt like we were going to be compatible collaborators and we really were.
- And what about Rose Bryne she really is an exciting actress and one to keep an eye on?
Yeah Rose is great. I have known rose for a long time because we both have grown up in Sydney and we have got to know each other through the social network, you basically get to know everyone in the Australian film industry at some point because it is such a small business.