Gadgetory

M night Shyamalan doesn't need a whole lot of introduction with films like The Sixth Sense and signs he became one of the premier thriller directors working movies after that they didn't do so well and the last two been do well at all now he's back with a new secret project called the visit we sat down with him at Comic Con 2015 to talk about the movie and what's coming next so you're here primarily to talk about your new movie the visit which is a very interesting movie you kind of seem you went away in secret told nobody made this movie self-financed around five million dollars which is fascinating cuz your last couple movies were much much bigger what made you feel like it was time to kind of just go off the grid and do your own thing you know I guess it was a feeling like I just wanted to concentrate on storytelling I just wanted to concentrate on the things that make me happy as a filmmaker in the sense of like you know writing a great script not thinking about writing a script and saying how am I gonna convince someone else to make it so which is already a kind of a weird mindset to be and you know you're already not being anything using this is for me this is this is I want to I want to put as much of myself into it and then you know really you know saying it's never been about the amount of money that makes a great movie never you know and and and and I want to concentrate on storytelling how to direct properly how to storyboard and if I do all of those things right somebody will want to buy this movie and one day maybe I'll be at Comic Con and show the movie I'm interesting like you find that smaller scale like and it's a bit of a you're normally like you as a director you're very very formal in your composition yes it seems like you're look more loose like were there things about going small having more fun in this project intrigue you in particular well I'm definitely shot oriented very carefully meticulously craft the shots and that's true for the visit they're all very meetings now it had to look like it wasn't meticulously crafted which was fun it was a fun challenge I I love this approach to filmmaking and it did it was it was more pliable it was more loose because if I went you know what you know we're we're not gonna do this self a scene right now you know I have this idea I want to I want to go do that thing again that we did yesterday I just don't think we got it you know it was there's no there's no and there's no process to check with there's no one knows the countenance I just we just moved the cameras and we did it and in fact I'll give you an example of how pliable it was I I took the budget which was 30 days and I said we're gonna shoot it in 27 days and then I said to everyone the crew in the cast everybody I said we're coming back in three weeks no one take a frickin job we're coming back in three weeks and when they do the last three days so I was almost like I was cheating I felt like you know I took a test saw that saw what I got wrong and was like I'm just gonna fix this real quick and that's because it was so pliable and thin and lean and the you know small crew and small cast and it turned up to just be this fun you know you didn't you know you were really listening to the characters really listening to what you were making so it was a very it was a very rewarding process and hopefully you know audiences will sense how much fun I had making the movie and we'll have an equal amount of fun watching it yeah it's interesting like you've seen reinvigorated between this and wayward Pines you know after you know working a lot of big movies which can be exhausting us yeah the physical perspective one thing I'm curious about both this is a thriller as wayward Pines yes which is kind of like becoming your hallmark yes I remember reading yes a lot of your early scripts and you know in the 90s before The Sixth Sense you know stuff that's you know like love yes yeah exactly yeah more than first two features yes small character pieces that were fantastic and moving you know that thread is well continued in your work yes but I'm just curious it was have you ever felt like you had to always add the layer the thriller layer on top of that you know no I don't think of it like that I do definitely know myself now unconsciously I'm like I have two sides of me one's kind of a dark twisted side and then the other ones kind of like an emotional family side and those have always existed and they've existed from go as you mentioned you know I've wrote and made more dramas and more family-oriented fare before sixth sense in the year of sixth-sense I wrote Stuart Little so for me it's always been open I've always been out of the closet about this that I've had these two sides but yet they go oh no this is this is you you know and I get what I also get is I'm my baseline is more emotional than the general population I get that you know like you know I'm very you know I'm very moved very I'm right I'm ready emotionally to be involved in anything that stories and things like that and what I what I what I did I think in sixth sense was the first time I kind of took that those instincts and kind of gave them balance with other things so that there was there was the emotionality was coming this way not right at you and when it comes at you everybody does that and goes you know I'm not - I'm not gonna go there but if it sneaks up on you it's powerful and really we want to be have a cathartic experience like that that was the balance that I've learned so I don't feel like I'm not making dramas anymore you know so the visit for all of its scares and all of its outrageousness and all of its humor there's a core drama that's going on in the at the center of it you know for me the visits about forgiveness who knows if the audience will even know that but you know they'll be screaming their heads off but at the center of it is is a drama it's it's interesting you talk about that emotional accessibility that a lot of people aren't I think we see that across a lot of movies right now where there's you know you know where audiences maybe aren't as ready to go and be open emotionally to things have gotten more cynical and darker and it's rare and something actually even tries to push through that so I'm glad you're still like trying to go and do that though yeah it's important you know oh yeah by the way it's actually respect what we're talking about that what you just said that the audience is saying to you to me if you make something too emotional too soft right off the bat you know if the baseline is that I'm not with you because that's not my life experience so I don't find that valid the way you're saying now if I acknowledge their their their their well-deserved cynicism of the world and I can acknowledge and I can come in with that voice and say I'm with you we're gonna we're gonna I'm gonna speak to you from this angle and then we we together might turn and find something emotional they'll go there they'll go there and I believe they even want to but again it's this there you have to acknowledge that there's we're starting all of us are starting like this yeah so it's interesting like that does factor into your writing process it does it does because to some extent it's the simplest version of it is you have not earned the right to go to that emotional place yet you just haven't earned it yet and by earning I mean you have to acknowledge where people are coming in that's out of that's respect you know and then if you can do that you can might sometime in the two hours earn your way there right well it's like it's interesting if that's the way to Surprise them it's a very similar title unbreakable work for me where people did not know they like comic book movies at the time yeah that's all they like that they're like oh maybe we do and now everybody likes comic book yes right but you had to sneak it in there it was like kind of like you know we're not really doing this thing don't look over there but away yes yeah they told from like a very serious dramatic perspective yeah you know the predominant way to tell comic book movies now is kind of tongue-in-cheek you know farcical you know kind of keeping it buoyant and entertainment saying what I think I'm says we're not taking ourselves see we're not taking ourselves seriously and that's really entertaining to watch and all that so that wasn't what unbreakable was for me that was take you know always it's taking some premise that's on the verge of unbelievable which is unbeliev but I'm gonna try to ground it you know and make it so that you walk out thinking is this possible is this this you know is what's just we just saw on the visit is that possible is you know is is unbreakable possible you know that kind of thing and so the limitations do help with that right so so talk to me much I mentioned my label of earlier there's an announcement that you're gonna be working on that possibly Willis yes yes is that still happening yeah I'm nothing I'm doing it next I'm writing a new a new thriller the problem is you know the problem with trying the labor of love is one of two screenplays that I've written since puberty that I didn't make and I won't want to make labor of love badly but it it to some extent the the reason that that worked is because it represented a time in my life you know I wrote it when I was 22 23 and I'm burning to write this thing right now that I'm that that that's telling you exactly the thing I'm writing right now will tell you guys what I'm feeling right now and the philosophies and the things that I'm thinking about right now so it feels weird to kind of go let me just go back in the time portal and pretend I'm 23 again and and ignore what's happened over the last 20 years right yeah so how do you go about when you say I came we want to revisit that like what does that process revisit like like if you want to go like redo that project you kind of sit back and get such a rewrite from square one or you go no I wouldn't that's the struggle I I you know I've almost made that movie three eight three times now three separate times it's also I'm under the quandary that that was prior to the the things that we talked about right so the audience's I you know do I now put my name on it do I you know use a different form of my name these are all the things that when if I'm gonna make a thing that's basically a flat-out romance there's nothing scary about it at all there's nothing there's nothing thriller about it at all you know how do we how what what to do it that's an interesting an interesting challenge at that point well yeah how do you how do you break that down because you know you know your name has weight you know baby items that have come out yes there's an expectation how do you how do you juggle that you know between like what you want to do yeah we're like you know we're well luckily yeah luckily if it is a box it's one that I created you know it wasn't a book that I found and I'm like oh no now what am I gonna do it's it was all things that that were parts of me that I deeply believe in my goal is to keep widening and making the box time they say they even widening although that's the case but making it more customized the box I'm happy to live in this box I created it but it should really match who I am so like I'm breakable though that day I didn't like it it wasn't scary I didn't the disabilities Gary but it's it's a mystery and a thriller and I love comic books you know and now the box becomes like you know and so you know you keep adding in the village and lady in the water these are all wonderful the Box goes chichi right do you think audiences have a hard time tracking when their favorite artists and any other musicians yeah because whatever grow and evolve oh yeah I absolutely absolutely you know I and I get that you know when we think about I mean you know when you think about like my favorite authors as my heroes I got the Christa you know she made 8080 mysteries right and then she used a pseudonym for non mysteries I mean she was very black-and-white about it and that just might be the case you know that might be the case and that's the fine I'm you know if you're an author it's it actually is not so bad you know I mean I wonder I'm like I'm thinking about like Stephen King or something like that you know an author that we have really strong expectations from and he's done a good job of keeping his the box you know more more customized for him you know like the one about Jay had the book about JFK which I love it's weird it's not necessarily scary it's you know it's weird and interesting as will stand by me and things like that so that's important for me to know that that's there as opposed to just the horror elements for him