Exclusive Interview: Finn Callan Talks GUEST
With the terrifying short film Guest set to premiere at FrightFest this year, we were granted the opportunity to interview writer and director Finn Callan about the film. We discussed everything from how he came up with the idea to the process of shooting and post-production, so there are lots of interesting details included in the interview.
As you may recall, we previously interviewed Callan about his experimental horror film The Garden, so we were delighted to speak to him again ahead of the premiere of Guest at FrightFest. Despite still being in his early twenties, Callan already has an impressive number of films under his belt and is clearly a talented director, so we think he has a great career ahead of him.
If you would like to view Guest at the digital edition of FrightFest this month, you can purchase your ticket here. It will also be screened at the theatrical version of FrightFest in October. Lastly, you can also learn more about Guest on Callan’s official website.
Dread Central: I understand the short was partly inspired by the album You Won’t Get What You Want and by a recurring dream you’ve had. Can you elaborate?
Finn Callan: I’ve been debating with myself recently exactly where the idea actually came from. I think “You Won’t Get What You Want” was the catalyst that made all of the pieces that were subconscious float to the surface. I bought the album at the request of a friend and listened to it from front to back at 3am the very same day. It moved me profoundly which is odd given how shrill and out of control the music was.
The images that Daughters conjured in my head started to fit quite nicely in with a recurring bad dream that I’ve been having for a while. That’s when Guest started to exist. The film mimics the dream I’ve been having quite closely. But I did have to leave out a few things from my dream, otherwise it would have been a bit too intense. I remember playing a lot of Silent Hill 2 around when I wrote it so I think that may have added to it too.
DC: How did it feel for you to go from making silent experimental films in Black and white to making something in full colour with (some) dialogue?
FC: I found it refreshing to push into new territory on the whole. To progress and evolve and use new tools are very natural occurrences in filmmaking but to be honest I’m not terribly fond of dialogue in films. I won’t deny that there are a lot of talented people who are great at using monologues, tirades and so on to bring their films to life but that isn’t what I want to do. I try and use dialogue in my films very sparingly or not at all if I can. I think relying on it is far too limiting for the medium of film which is mainly based around images and motion rather than sound.
With colour I used to be quite naive. I would just set it at monochromatic black and white and left it at that to think about other things. With Guest I knew it would have to be in colour so I was quite interested to see what Caroline Morin, who’s our colour grader, would come up with in post. It came back with just the darkest, bleakest shades of blue and grey and black which I think I owe that to the shadows that Fyodor smothered the film in. I was really pleased with how it turned out.
DC: Did filming go smoothly?
FC: We shot the film over two days on a farm in Suffolk. We were an hour away from the nearest town, there was no phone reception and it was freezing cold. We had a blast.
DC: The film largely focuses on a character who appears to be deaf and blind. Was it a challenge to tell the story from this character’s perspective?
It actually made it so much easier to think of how to tell the story. I didn’t want the dialogue to overtake the story straight away so I made Mary unable to hear the Woman until she attached the device to her ear. Removing the audio for that chunk of the film makes it easier for me to picture the film since its not about what words they’re saying, it’s what the images give you. It’s a film where the focus is on sight, vision, the eyes. That was how I wanted the film to introduce itself.
DC: I know it’s meant to be open to interpretation, but who or what exactly was the Guest?
FC: It’s something we have in all of us. We’ve all got one. I don’t recommend looking for it.
DC: Can you describe the make-up process used to create the Guest? I’ve seen some of the early sketches in the press kit, and they look creepy as Hell.
FC: Thank you. That means it worked.
Our fantastic makeup artist Francesca Giacovelli would tell you in much more detail than I can but I can give you a basic version. I knew from the out that it had to be practical prosthetics, it just wouldn’t have worked with CGI or anything else. I put out a notice to find a suitable makeup artist and several hundred people responded. Francesca sent me an email directly and I opened the page. After a few seconds of scrolling through it I showed my friend who almost threw up. I then messaged her back straight away and hired her.
I had an idea on what it would look like but I had nothing concrete. I went over a few different possibilities with Fran and gave her a few loose pieces to work with; examples of what I wanted the eyes to look like, the ears and the skin tones and all that. I was thinking of something among the likes of the Draags or the Fishermen from Balance. Christiane Génessier, Pyramid Head, Salad Fingers and Slenderman were in the mix too. I wanted a pastiche of all these acknowledged, terrifying, ghostly things. She came back to me with an initial rough sketch and there it was. The Guest was born.
Once we had cast Anna Fraser as the Guest we brought her in for the initial mold session. Francesca basically took a plaster death mask of her face and then based the entire sculpture of its head around hers so it would fit perfectly to her head. She kept me updated constantly with advancements on the skin, the eyes and everything in preproduction so I wasn’t worried that it would be shit. On set, Anna and Fran were locked in a bathroom together applying the face onto her, which included flattening her hair, applying it, blending it in with her skin and then arduous painting. It took about 6 hours in total to get the entire thing done. When she walked out of the bathroom and everyone saw the final product the atmosphere on set changed. People knew that this was something different.
I felt bad for Anna throughout shooting. She compared the process to being buried alive. She also couldn’t see through the face so she needed help from other crew members to walk across the set. I remember asking her after Fran took it off if she would do it again and she said “definitely.” I was proud of everyone on set that day but I was most proud of Francesca. She brought my nightmare to life, exorcised it from me and for that I could have kissed her.
DC: And I understand you also have an all-female cast?
FC: Yes, we did have that. It wasn’t a conscious decision at all but I found it a refreshing thing to make a film with only women in front of the camera once we all arrived to the set and the camera started rolling. Weirdly I find women more interesting to make films about than men. I’ve known the male outlook my entire life but writing from a woman’s perspective changes things. It makes things a lot more interesting and dynamic. I’m of the opinion that women are not marketing gimmicks and they shouldn’t be, ever. They should be three dimensional people with personalities, flaws and humanity that can take you through an alien experience and bring you to see the world as they do. That’s a massive responsibility for a director. Knowing that more and more films now are taking on these perspectives both in front and behind the camera is so exciting to me.
I wasn’t worried after I cast any of the roles though. Working with Melania, Jessica and Anna, to flesh out these characters and give them an honest, human (and in-human) performance made me so happy. They were just so ready and willing to perform and I will happily work with them again in the future.
DC: The aptly-named band Oxxymoron composed the soundtrack, and I thought they did a great job. Can you talk about their involvement and their work on the film?
FC: Oxxymoron is my stage name for when I make music. I stuck to the idea that the film would have little to no music in it which was in place since I wrote the script. When music was going to play a part in it it was more on the incidental and ambient side, I didn’t want the film to rely on it at all. I wanted more focus to be on the quiet, the silence, the lack of music to fill the scene with eeriness.
When music does occur its in moments they were to aid to that nightmarish feeling. They were achieved by messing around with various classical instruments and seeing how to turn an organic sound into something a bit more cold and strangely lifeless. The first use of music was the reverberations of a grand piano’s bass notes that were reversed unto themselves over and over done to create the feeling of crashing waves. The second was an off key cello doing a C chord but pitched down and then stretched out which is known in the world of hip hop as chopping and screwing.
DC: What do you hope audiences take away from Guest?
FC: If it doesn’t stay with audiences I at least hope it’s unmatched as a constipation aid.
DC: Are you excited for the FrightFest premiere?
FC: God yes. FrightFest is one of my favourite film festivals. When I received news that Guest was in the official selection I felt so happy. The community and the organisers are among some of the kindest and most considerate in the festival circuit. I was bummed out when I learned that it would be delayed to October but it only made sense given this whole global catastrophe we’re in right now. Holding it digitally in this month was a very good idea so the spirit of the festival is still here. I hope to see all the other filmmakers and the community in October.
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