Fantasia 2019: Interview With SATOR’s Creator Jordan Graham
Jordan Graham, writer, director, and cinematographer (among other things) of Sator, shares the fascinating story behind his haunting feature, which premiered at Fantasia International Film Festival. If you’re not curious as hell about this movie after reading our review, then I promise you will be after the interview.
Dread Central: I understand this film is very personal, as it was inspired by your own family experiences. Are you willing to share how those experiences impacted you and drove you to create Sator?
Jordan Graham: I think it’s best if I first tell you briefly of my grandmother’s history. My great-great-grandmother heard voices in her head and ended up in a psychiatric hospital. My great-grandmother also heard voices. It was frightening for her, as she didn’t understand her illness. She was also placed into a hospital for a short time and when she was released, she committed suicide, leaving behind my grandmother at the age of 7.
In July of 1968, my grandmother came into possession of an Oujia board. For the duration of that summer, she began conjuring up voices in her mind, all of which had different names and character traits. The leader of those voices was ‘Sator’ and she was eventually able to communicate with him via “Automatic Writings.” She would go into a dream state or trance and with pen in hand, ‘Sator’ would take control and begin writing for her. He convinced her to do many things, which I don’t wish to share at this time, but by the end of summer, she ended up in a psychiatric hospital because of it.
I didn’t know any of this until I found her journal while making this film. Originally, my grandmother wasn’t going to be in the film more than just a quick cameo. I was using her home as a location, but once she began talking about the spirits in her head, I knew this story’s focus had to change.
DC: What were the difficulties in balancing a narrative with fictional and factual elements, along with honoring the memories of your family?
JG: The most difficult part was getting the story to make sense, at least to me. My grandmother was always so excited for us to come over and shoot, but once the camera started rolling, she would totally forget that the people around her were acting. For this reason, I couldn’t feed her any lines and had no idea what she was going to say. In the first scene we shot, she mentioned automatic writings, which I loved and wanted to incorporate. That meant having to take a break for a week to write this into the story. I thought I had it all figured out, but the next time I shot with my grandmother, she would say a whole slew of new information that I had to figure out how to make work. It was extremely challenging.
There are so many subtle personal things that are in this film that people won’t know about unless I say something. For instance, there is a Rachmaninoff Piano Concerto No. 2 in the background of my grandmother’s scenes. That’s the song she listened to over and over again while doing her automatic writings in 1968. Also, the reason I reworded Bible passages in the radio sequences is because it is known within my family that in 1968, my grandmother tried to rewrite the Bible.
I didn’t include ‘Sator’ into the film until post-production. I always knew he was my grandmother’s “guardian” but nothing more until she had to be moved into a care home after I finished shooting. While we were cleaning out her house, I found two huge boxes hidden behind a chair on a bookshelf. One box had all her automatic writings that my family thought she had burned, and the other was a thousand-page journal describing her journey with ‘Sator’, who lead her to a psychiatric hospital. I decided ‘Sator’ needed to be a part of this film, so I rushed to get all the information I could out of my grandmother before dementia took over. All the automatic writings you see in the film are hers. I didn’t create any of those.
DC: Sator has a unique look and feel. Why did you employ two different aesthetics: black and white in 4:3 and color in 16:9?
JG: This is briefly touched on in the film, but this is the best I can explain it: Before I wanted to make movies, I wanted to be a clown. In a 6th-grade talent show, I juggled while riding a 6-foot unicycle. I have a vivid memory of me doing this. I can see the image in my brain now. There’s a home video of me at the talent show and those are the images I’m actually seeing in my head… the home video, not the actual memory of it. The more I think about it, I don’t actually remember that day. That’s just something that messes with me. You think you have a memory, but the photographs are what you are actually seeing. So Adam in the film, being away from his family for so long, remembers them and the home he lived in a certain way… these 4:3 black and white images.
How I came to use Hi8 footage is pretty cool. My mom had many old home movies from the early ’90s transferred to DVD. I was just browsing through them one day (not looking to use anything for the film) and came across a birthday party set in the house I was using for a location. The house didn’t change at all in nearly three decades and the way my grandfather (who passed in 2006) and grandmother were recorded made it possible for me to create my own scene while using that footage. So, I bought the exact same Hi8 camera and tapes that were used to film that birthday party. I made a similar looking cake and presents and shot a flashback scene with my actors while simultaneously incorporating footage from over twenty-five years ago. Some people at Fantasia thought I was just really good at making my grandmother look younger and said that it was seamless.
DC: All the key creative roles behind this film were essentially filled by you. Congratulations on this crazy accomplishment! Did you initially set out to make this film on your own? Why did you make that choice? Or was it more of a natural evolution of getting the movie done than an intentional choice?
JG: Thank you! There are three reasons why I went that route:
1. I had no money to pay anyone, and I hate using people unless I have something to offer them.
2. It’s been quite difficult to break into the industry these last 20 years, so I really wanted to show that I care deeply for this art form and that maybe I have something of value to offer.
3. This was the deciding factor: Like most filmmakers, I was really struggling to get any type of funding for this film. After a failed Kickstarter, I was in a low place. Local filmmakers in my area reached out to me and offered to give their advice. I love collaborating and listening to people’s ideas, but when I met with these individuals, they all told me it was impossible to make something of quality unless I had this and that. Basically, telling me I wasn’t good enough. So already being in a low place, I said to myself, “If I ever get funding for this film, I’m going to do this myself and prove them wrong.” I don’t know if I succeeded, but being invited to Fantasia and the positive reception the film is getting has boosted my confidence that maybe I did something right.
DC: Spanning the five years it took to complete this film, what were some of the biggest challenges? Were you ever doubtful that you’d finish?
JG: There was never any doubt! I don’t give up on things I start, but this film did beat me up physically. Gear is heavy and without having any help, I threw my back out constantly. While building the cabin’s fireplace – involving literally carrying backpacks filled with river rocks up the side of a mountain – I developed something called costochondritis, which is an inflammation between my sternum and ribs. You are supposed to relax so it can heal, but the film would never get finished if I did that so I powered through and now the pain is permanent.
There were so many challenges, but most of them were just tedious. I had one major rule while shooting: No sun peeking through the trees, so sometimes the actors and I would wait for hours until the light was just perfect. Having to dolly the camera forward on a dirt-riddle track while keeping the actors in focus and watching their performance was frustrating at times. During pick-ups, I was able to borrow an electronic slider, so having the camera move on its own gave me [the] freedom to run around and do other things.
Grading the film took me 3 months of trial and error in a blacked-out room, and I nearly lost my mind with sound. Besides my grandmother speaking and some flashback footage, the entire soundtrack was created in post, and since I wanted to create everything myself, I recorded every sound from scratch without any sound libraries. Every little click, clank, creak, crunch, breath, grunt, clothing movement, etc, was recreated. That process took me a year and three months, recording every night from 11 pm to 4 am. Isolating myself like that for all those years definitely took its toll on me mentally.
DC: Would you make a movie by yourself again?
JG: Absolutely not! Mainly for the physical and mental reasons mentioned above and that it just takes so much time. But there are still a few hats I would like to wear for my personal films. Directing is obviously number one, and unless I find a DP who can capture exactly what’s in my head, I’ll continue with the cinematography as well. Cutting the film together is also one of my favorite aspects. Just please don’t have me do sound again! Having a production company who is willing to take on a project of mine would be so beneficial. I would love to just be in a creative mindset most of the time and not need to deal with the logistics of every little thing.
DC: Do you have a vision for your next film?
JG: Oh yes, I just finished the screenplay in time for Fantasia after working on it for over a year now. The story is more straightforward this time around and will hook people in pretty quickly. Beautiful imagery is important to me, but I’m stepping out of the forest landscapes and into small corridors and maze-like structures. The beauty will be more in set design and shot composition. The theme of Sator was mental health. The next one is parenthood and whether or not you are ready for that commitment, which is also personal to me. The logline is: “An unplanned pregnancy traps a young couple in an occult adoption program.”
Major influences in writing the screenplay have been Ari Aster, Gaspar Noe, and Lars von Trier, but the biggest influence has been my grandmother. She changed how I approach everything now. I want to keep the realism she brought to Sator but have a solid story before shooting this time. I set up interviews with people who are similar to my characters and record them bickering about their beliefs on certain topics involving parenthood and have incorporated their views and arguments into my new script. This really helps bring real people to the story. I’m now hoping I can find someone to help get this project made.
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