Paul Solet: Director

Interview: Paul Solet [Part 3]

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Paul Solet's short "Grace" made the rounds in 2007, garnering critical, festival fan, and industry accolades.

Since then, the first-time director has secured studio funding and is in the final week of editing its feature-length incarnation.

Cinescare spoke with Solet in Los Angeles, as he pushed through the last 72 hours of posting "Grace." He had much to say when it came to integrity, funding, his crew, and the almighty script.

He also offered readers a glimpse of the new, full-length "Grace."

Cinescare: You're working on the feature-length version-the reincarnation-of your previous short, "Grace."

Paul Solet:  "Grace" was a pitch film that we did in order to raise interest in financing for the "Grace" feature, which I wrote a couple years before the short came to be.

Cinescare:  So, the script has been there the whole time. Then you've had a chance to go back to it, take it and what's happening with it. In what studio or what area are you filming?

Paul Solet:  We're currently posting the film. We shot in May in Canada. We shot in Saskatchewan and now we're posting it right back in town [ed. Los Angeles].

Cinescare:  Can you tell me who's in it?

Paul Solet: Playing the lead is Jordan Ladd, whom you may know from "Cabin Fever." She was in "Hostel: Part II," and she was in "Grindhouse." This is really her first time supporting a whole picture. She's really done an excellent job.

Cinescare:  What's the timeframe of shooting?

Paul Solet:  We had three weeks of pre-production. We had a run-and-gun three-week shoot. The editor started cutting his assemble while we were still shooting. I joined him directly after the shoot. So, we've had like four weeks to deliver my cut. I deliver my cut at the end of the week.

Cinescare: Is this still an indie project, Paul, or are you with studio, now?

Paul Solet:  It's co-finances by the cable company Starz Home Entertainment. They have co-financed the film with a company called Leomax. So, it's technically a studio picture. But, I mean, you know, we're kind of under the radar. It's certainly a low budget film. We've got a lot of creative control. Everyone's been very supportive. The people at Starz, they're really fans. They really get the genre. When the project came to them, they were just so thrilled with it. They've been incredibly supportive and hands-off. They've let us do our thing. We've really had the luxury of making the film like an independent picture.

Cinescare:  Talk about how the script and the story has changed since you've taken it from the short to this next level.

Paul Solet:  It's always maturing. When I first wrote the script it was like a creature feature. The baby became monstrous. It's gone pretty far from that. It's become a lot more about: You put a relatively ordinary woman in a completely horrific scenario and then you just let cause and effect take its course. That to me becomes much more interesting. It's become much more about the core theme, which is the uncanny bond between a mother and a child, and the power of that bond. You hear about it all the time, all these clichés about mothers lifting cars off babies. So, it's become a lot more focused on its thematic core. It's become more sophisticated. It's become more accessible, just because we're now dealing with this ... fundamentally intriguing idea. You really can't help but have this intensely strong personal reaction to the idea of a relationship between a mother and a child. Everybody understands that. We're hardwired to get that. And I think what "Grace" does is it pulls it into the genre and it takes an idea that is already intriguing and it peels the ceiling off of it, because there are no rules in the genre. We can make our own rules. As long as the universe we make is consistent, then we can do whatever the fuck we want. We get to kind of explode the thing open and explore it on this kind of exponential level.

Cinescare:  One of the things we talked about when we looked at the short was about synching the special effect in the genre film to something that's very powerful as a theme. Has there been an opportunity-working with a broader canvas with some studio backing-to do something that you really thought the short might have benefited from but you held back because the effect or sequences would have been impossible on the budget you were working with back then?

Paul Solet:  That's a good question. Limitations are what makes an independent filmmaker, or breaks and independent filmmaker. Learning to kind of embrace and exploit those limitations-if you're rolling with the punches-it pushes you to make story decisions ... it pushes you to think harder. If you can add a car chase, add an explosion, add a big special effect, you're that much less likely to think it through. You might not go back to the character. I really try to hold to that discipline, now matter how broad the canvas. I think I've been faithful to that concept, here. I've taken great care to make sure the script is as tight and finely tuned as possible. I don't buy "figuring it out in post." A lot of people are very anxious to get something going in front of a camera, to just get to it. There's this feeling of some kind of ticking clock. I would encourage any filmmaker to fight that. The script is your only luxury. If you don't have it now, if you don't have it before camera, you're not going to get it afterwards. We've been able to keep it about choices, and to really try to stay faithful to the characters and what they would do. I focus on that stuff rather than, "Now I can do this. Now I can do that." It's really not about showcasing special effects.

Cinescare: The fortune you had to work with Liza Weill and Brian Austin Green on the short kept that film from ever really being a deep, underground independent effort. There was some cachet that came with their presence. Here, you're working with someone who steps out of an environment of very well-publicized films like "Hostel: Part II." Are you anticipating getting to see this on the big screen?

Paul Solet: I don't know anything about the release, honestly. That stuff's not my job. I leave that to the producers to deal with. I have amazing producers on this. Adam Green and his partners have been guardian angels. It's kind of a director's dream to be able to focus on the work. Do the project. I've been able to work purely on the creative. From the start, everybody fell in love with the script. We've been really blown away by what we're seeing, so I don't see any reason why it wouldn't go theatrical.

Cinescare:  How many hours a day are you pulling at the editing bay? What's it like at this point?

Paul Solet:  We'll pull a 21-hour day every once in a while. It's not work. It's not work to anyone on the project, really. Right down the line, from the financiers down. Everybody is just psyched to be here. From the outset, people have come in early and not put in for [overtime]. It's such a team effort, here. Everybody caught the magic of the project. That shit really comes across on the screen. You see that love, and you feel it. We were taken really good care of, up in Canada. I did not know what to expect. I've never worked up there before. I was blown away by the crew we had up there. I brought my director of photography and my production designer, who are just irreplaceable. My DP, Zoran Popovic, he shot "The Lost" for Chris Sivertson. He's just fucking amazing. Martina Buckley, she's just unbelievable. I was really blown away.

Cinescare:  In the short, there's a behind the scenes segment where you say, this short film is complete. This is not a glorified trailer. You say, "Where would the feature go from here?" Have you any hint you can give our readers as to where the feature goes?

Paul Solet: The pitch film was designed as a stand-alone project. It was distilled from those key events in the first act of the feature. The feature basically encompasses, in the first act, those same beats. As I said, it's grown significantly and changed, and matured. You're going to see something very different. The short was a much more expressionistic take on things. It's a different medium and it had a different purpose. It had to kind of hit you with a gut punch, to kind of demonstrate very quickly-for financiers in particular-that as a first-time director I have chops enough to handle my shit. In the feature you're going to get a more impressionistic take on things, as opposed to this kind of pure surrealism that you see in the short. The second act picks up where the short ends. Madeline takes her baby home and she does her best to take care of the baby. She's willed this baby back to life, and there are consequences. There are some sinister consequences. She's kind of torn a hole it what nature intended, and it has a ripple effect.


James O'Brien
Cinescare Staff

updated 2 years ago