![\"sinister](\"http:\/\/behindthelensonline.net\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/sinister-ciaran-foy.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nDid you have any kind of trepidation stepping in to the SINISTER franchise?\u00a0 Obviously, once we get past 1, we\u2019ve got 2 coming and we\u2019re looking at franchise.\u00a0 And it\u2019s Blumhouse.<\/strong><\/p>\n Right.\u00a0 I was initially quite anxious from a number of standpoints; one of them being the fact that the creator of this franchise [Scott Derrickson] was gonna be a producer and a writer, and how would that work.\u00a0 Would there be collision there?\u00a0 That anxiety went away very quickly when I was on set and he would see what my choices were and what I was doing and how I was directing the actors.\u00a0 Scott would say himself that \u201cCitadel\u201d gave him the confidence that I could make a movie like this, but seeing me on set was a great source of relief to him.\u00a0 He was like, \u201cYea.\u00a0 This guy\u2019s got it.\u201d\u00a0 I think because it is a Blumhouse movie and because it\u2019s quite a low budget and you have 30 days to make the movie – I had 23 days on \u201cCitadel\u201d and this was 30 days – this is kind of a little bit easier.<\/p>\n But on top of the inherent logistics of directing any film, let alone being a horror film for Blumhouse, you\u2019re working with seven kids in this movie.<\/strong><\/p>\n Kids\u2019 schedules means you\u2019ve got pretty much half a day with them.\u00a0 So you\u2019re block shooting and it\u2019s messing up your schedule and we\u2019re shooting 4, 5 pages a day.\u00a0 That can be hard because you want to make the movie visually interesting so you have to have the courage of your convictions that actually this shot that I see in my head where we track into this table and pan off to the left, for example, that that will cover the scene and we\u2019ll get a reaction shot and we\u2019ll move on.\u00a0 You\u2019re so nervous that you almost have to fight the instinct to just play it safe and shoot a wide shot and then a close up and then a wide shot and a close up which would make it a visually boring movie.\u00a0 So, I think that\u2019s another thing on \u201cCitadel\u201d was a big lesson that I took to this movie – almost cutting the movie in your head before you shoot.\u00a0 My background is in editing and I think that serves me well on such a tight time frame.\u00a0 And I was also nervous about the fact that this is a sequel and there\u2019s a certain established tone to the movie.\u00a0 How do I pay homage to that without repeating it?\u00a0 Every director is different and no matter what I do, I\u2019m not trying to \u2018ape\u2019 another guy\u2019s work.\u00a0 It\u2019s got to be it\u2019s own thing.\u00a0 Scott was very encouraging with that.\u00a0 He was like, \u201cThis is your movie.\u00a0 Go run with it.\u201d\u00a0 But I also knew that there\u2019s a lot more comedic beats in this than in the first.\u00a0 And James [Ransone] is a very funny guy and some of those [beats] we came up with on set and others were on the page; some survived the edit and some don\u2019t.\u00a0 But getting that balance right so that those moments hit but at the same time it felt like a SINISTER sequel with the right amount of feeling of dread and the disturbing quality to the kill films – getting that tone to work where you\u2019ve got such an emphasis on children, they\u2019re sort of the main characters in the movie, and the relationship between Dylan and Milo was at the center of it – and you could argue that Milo\u2019s the real villain in the movie; Baghuul is there, he\u2019s back, but he\u2019s more a puppetmaster specter in the background manipulating things, but Milo was the face of the antagonist.\u00a0 So, what was different about this than the first SINISTER, they made me nervous because I knew I had to make a movie that would appeal to fans of SINISTER and what they liked about and setting that tone and also from the performances and how authentic they felt in the first movie, that\u2019s something I wanted to bring to this.\u00a0 That\u2019s something all my favorite horror films have this authentic real feeling behind the drama.\u00a0 But to take these components and get that mix right so that the end movie has a nice balance between the drama, the comedic and the terror.<\/p>\n One of the great things about SINISTER 2 is that we actually see more Bughuul here.\u00a0 But in seeing Bughuul, having Nick King reprise the performance again with the prosthetics and costume, his physical nuance is minuscule, but with the hands spreading and the stiffness, the deliberateness of the nuance tells and speaks volumes.\u00a0 It says so much about what is unfolding or the telepathic manipulation of Milo.\u00a0 How important was it to you to have Nick come back as Bughuul?\u00a0 Granted, he\u2019s in prosthetics, but so often filmmakers might have somebody else come in to step in and do something but the physicality, the essence, is never right.<\/strong><\/p>\n That\u2019s quite right.\u00a0 Absolutely.\u00a0 I think there was one day that we had a stand-in for Nick.\u00a0 It was a kind of mess up on behalf of a few people.\u00a0 But the schedule didn\u2019t say that Nick was due on a day he was due.\u00a0 We had a stand-in for Bughuul instead and we put the prosthetics on him.\u00a0 But, it\u2019s surprising.\u00a0 He\u2019s just standing there in the background and he was to do this thing where he brings the rats forward with his hands, and it just felt wrong.\u00a0 It looked like Bughuul but it felt wrong.\u00a0 In the end, we had to go back and shoot it again with Nick.\u00a0 I\u2019m doing very little direction with Nick.\u00a0 He is Bughuul.\u00a0 He knows that character inside out.\u00a0 So once he understands what the shot looks like and what I\u2019m trying to do, because once he comes to set in his full prosthetic he can\u2019t see anything.\u00a0 But I go through the shot with him before he goes off into make-up and tell him \u201cThis is what I\u2019m gonna do\u201d.\u00a0 He just brings it.\u00a0 Nails it.<\/p>\n Do you think it helps his performance when he cannot see; much like in the film\u2019s climactic scene, that we\u2019re not going to talk about because it is a spoiler, with actors heads’ covered with burlap bags?\u00a0 Do you think that helps fuel and add realism and authenticity to the performances that you got from your actors?<\/strong><\/p>\n Absolutely.\u00a0 I think that people in the \u201ckill films\u201d – each \u201ckill film\u201d except for the snow one and the electrocution – people have bags on their heads.\u00a0 I think that a lot of performers that we got for those kills, they\u2019re extras.\u00a0 You can\u2019t say \u201cWe\u2019re gonna cast a bunch of people for the family that are going to be electrocuted, for instance.\u201d\u00a0 But I think that in doing that, in making the scenario feel real, absolutely you get a more authentic performance.\u00a0 And I think the way that those \u201ckill films\u201d were shot – I have a pretty good idea of how I\u2019m going to shoot everything in the movie.\u00a0 I\u2019ll shot list and I\u2019m lucky if I get 60% of that shot list.\u00a0 But how I approached the \u201ckill films\u201d was that I didn\u2019t even think about how I was going to shoot them until I was there on the day.\u00a0 I said to myself that there is a 10-year old shooting this movie and because we create the scenario, it\u2019s not like we\u2019re shooting on a two-wall set.\u00a0 It\u2019s there.\u00a0 It\u2019s happening right in front of us and you have to light the room so we can just walk 360 degrees around it. [I]t\u2019s right there in the moment, that\u2019s when I\u2019ll come up with [the scene].\u00a0 If I was 10-years old, what would I do?\u00a0 Would I walk over here and get this angle or whatever.\u00a0 So you\u2019re kind of ad-libbing it.\u00a0 But because that whole mise-en-scene is real and is organic, I think the performers totally feel it.\u00a0 We played some creepy music on set as well which helps them to get into the right zone.\u00a0 I think making the world real you\u2019re gonna get a more powerful performance.<\/p>\n Along with the realism, you also create a real timelessness in the look of the film.\u00a0 The decision to use anamorphic lenses, for example.\u00a0 How important was that to you to get that cinematic texture and grain that we associate with the genre and the franchise – it could be the past, it could be the present – it adds a whole other level of suspending disbelief.<\/strong><\/p>\n Right.\u00a0 Yeah.\u00a0 In \u201cCitadel\u201d I had the same objective which was to create a timeless feel; timeless in a sense that even in a movie like \u201cChildren of Men\u201d, there\u2019s something about the costumes in that that it could be from the 70’s, it could be from the 90’s, it could be from 20 years from now.\u00a0 I think that timelessness adds a really subtle \u201cTwilight Zoney\u201d feel of disorientation.\u00a0 We don\u2019t quite know when and where we are.\u00a0 I think when you\u2019ve got the more modern touches you put into things or the more modern speak you put into things. . .the more you do that, the more you date the movie.\u00a0 The anamorphic thing was something that actually began as a conversation with Bill Boes, production designer.\u00a0 We were talking about some of the design in \u201cClose Encounters\u201d, I think, and Bill was referencing the house in \u201cClose Encounters\u201d.\u00a0 We were talking about mixing up some eras because ultimately, they had moved into a house that hasn\u2019t been occupied since the 70’s.\u00a0 So we talked about that.\u00a0 Then I spoke about the anamorphic lenses and how I would love to use lens flare and stuff like that because for me anamorphic always says \u201cmovie\u201d.\u00a0 Bill was like, \u201cYou should shoot on anamorphic.\u201d\u00a0 I knew there were so many visual effects in this movie, a lot of visual effects in this movie, like 200 shots, so I knew that anamorphic is always a bit more of a headache for CGI artists and I thought I\u2019d be told no we can\u2019t do that.\u00a0 But when Amy [Vincent] came on board, she was \u201cAbsolutely.\u00a0 It has to be anamorphic lenses.\u201d\u00a0 So, yea, we shot with them.\u00a0 It was so cool shooting with them.<\/p>\n Talk about the church.\u00a0 I know it\u2019s a converted old barn.\u00a0 What were your thoughts with Bill Boes in designing that?\u00a0 It is so exquisitely designed with the stained glass windows and the altar and even the hardwood floors and some of the light streaming through the stained glass.\u00a0 It is so cinematic, so beautiful.\u00a0 What did the two of you discuss to arrive at this look and design?<\/strong><\/p>\n Well, myself and Bill tend to talk a lot about emotion and what we want people to feel as opposed to how cool something looked.\u00a0 We spoke about what kind of church this would be.\u00a0 We spoke about the color because for us the color of red or rust was the color in the movie of something that\u2019s tainted, \u201cthat which is tainted\u201d we said.\u00a0 So if you notice in the movie, Clint is always in different shades of red.\u00a0 So is Zach.\u00a0 The opposite of that was blue.\u00a0 Dylan and SO & So wore shades of blue.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n