The Film Director's Craft
The Film Director's Craft
Karyn Kusama Interview
Karyn Kusama, the director of films including Destroyer (starring Nicole Kidman and Sebastian Stan), Jennifer's Body (starring Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox), and Girlfight (starring Michelle Rodriguez) and the director of the Emmy-nominated tv pilot to Yellowjackets, discusses her approach to directing : “Every director needs to get to know themselves and live by what they learn about themselves.”
00:07 - Introductions
01:54 - Pre-production
22:13 - Production
38:08 - Post-production
A video version of this interview can be found here:
https://youtu.be/8HK0n2pVMy8
Rachel Carey: This is The Film Director's Craft. I'm Rachel Carey. I'm a filmmaker but I also host this discussion with current filmmakers about the specifics of how they make their films. The purpose of this is to capture really hands-on techniques that people are using rather than focusing just on content or themes in their films, with the goal of kind of creating a record of how current filmmakers work and how that relates to the goals they have for their films. Today, I'm going to be talking to Karyn Kusama, who is absolutely brilliant, and I'm completely thrilled to talk to her. Thank you so much for joining me.
Karyn Kusama: Thank you. It's nice to be here.
Rachel: I will give a quick introduction to her work, which is incredibly impressive. In case anyone doesn't know, she is the director of films including the Sundance hit Girlfight, which basically introduced Michelle Rodriguez; the cult classic, Jennifer's Body starring Amanda Seyfried and Megan Fox, which was written by Diablo Cody; and the dramatic thriller films The Invitation starring Logan Marshall-Green and Destroyer starring Nicole Kidman.
She's also directed for some of the best television series of the past decade, including recently the pilot to Yellowjackets, which is a show she helped executive produce, and also was just nominated for an Emmy for her directing work for the pilot, because it is totally brilliant. Her directing tends to be really grounded. It's visceral, it's very human and it often focuses on characters, especially women, who are literally or metaphorically fighting for their lives in one way or another. I'm so excited to talk to her a little bit about how she works and find out more about it.
Thank you again, for willing to share. I'm going to jump right in. I like to ask folks, often there's a period of time when you're trying to get a project made, and you're sort of developing it. In other cases like television, you might be brought in fairly soon before the shoot, but at a certain point, you put on your director's hat and you start thinking about how you're going to tackle a project as the director. When you reach that point, what are some of the tools you find useful for doing that? Are you focused on listening to the script, or doing research, or referencing visually, or other projects or films? What do you find helpful for that stage?
Karyn: It's funny because I think for me if I'm engaging as a director on a script, on a story around a character, it means that I'm already in the process. In a funny way, if I read something and I don't feel that urge to see it for myself, I probably won't direct it. When I'm reading something in that first or second time, and I'm like I really am seeing this, that, for me is the first step of the director's process. I'm very visually driven in terms of, do I feel the story through how I see it? That's my first approach in a way, is to ask myself if images or strategies are coming up as I'm reading something.
I'm very bound to a script. I don't typically respond to work that's incredibly open-ended or improvisational. I prefer and require a certain amount of narrative and structural shape to a script in order to see. I start with the written word and then I start asking myself questions about what I see. Then from there, I reference other work that comes to mind. I often look at painting and photography, at sculpture, at other movies, and pull stills. I look at sequences, I revisit things.
Even when I don't know if there's a relationship but my brain has been awakened, I find that I need to immerse myself in what I call the absorbent phase where I'm just looking at a lot of work and standing in front of paintings in museums, and taking what in retrospect is probably a very meditative time. That's a really important part of the process for me. I like to just take in a lot of images and threads, and then start the slow, methodical process of trying to put things together in a more cohesive shape.
Rachel: I think often because we think about directing as so active – that there's the absorption phase. I like that concept. What about just, when you're hiring your creative team and starting to work with them -- I always find it interesting. Is there something that makes you want to work with particular people? We're talking about the cinematographer and the production designer, and costume. Can you give an example maybe of a time when somebody brought something into a meeting and you knew that they were the right person? What kind of things are you looking for?
Karyn: First and foremost, I'm looking for people I can communicate with easily. If I feel like it's a struggle to get an idea across and then have it be understood, that's probably not going to be a relationship that works for me creatively, simply because so much of what we do is troubleshoot and listen to one another, and determine as much what it is we want as it is what we don't want. It's just really important to be able to talk to a person and feel safe in that. Safe in giving any opinion. I look for that, first and foremost.
Over time, I've found that I work with a tremendous number of female department heads. I don't necessarily think that's because I communicate better with women, I just think it's worked out that way and it's been lovely to have arrived at that. I think for me, when a designer, a cinematographer, if somebody brings something to me, an image, and I just immediately feel what it does for me, feel how it speaks to the story, and I don't even have to intellectualize it or think too hard about it, then I feel like I'm probably on the right creative wavelength with another artist. I tend to like to work with the same people more than once if I have the opportunity to work with a department head I love, I will keep trying to do that.
Rachel: It's probably you have shorthand with them too a little bit about--
Karyn: Yes, for sure. An example would be when I think of Destroyer, I had initially said to my production designer, Kay Lee, and my costume designer, Audrey Fisher, and my DP, Julie Kirkwood, I had said something offhand about, "I hate pink. No pink." As we were looking at more references, and as they were bringing me more to look at, I kept gravitating to pink. In a way, I needed them to redefine pink for me and help me understand something about my relationship to a color, quite literally.
When Julie would show me the effect of a certain camera lens and how it created these lens flares, the ones I always wanted were these big pink orbs. She would just say, "I'm just going to point out, this is a pink orb. I want you to note that." Kay Lee would say, "I just want to point out that the distressed wall that you're responding to about this location is a really dirty pink." Audrey would say, "I just want to point out, there's a lot of pink in this costume that you're gravitating towards." It's that thing of you need your department heads to help guide you toward yourself in a way, toward your own almost unconscious aesthetic interests and so the good ones help get you there, even if you don't know how to intellectualize it or articulate it right away.
Rachel: I think that's an interesting choice for that film too because it's about trauma and different layers of trauma. Figuring out – maybe things creeping in that you didn't expect feels on point for that film too.
Karyn: Yes.
Rachel: How about casting? Again, I'm always interested by, over the last couple of years, there's been a lot of Zoom casting and so on for smaller roles -- but do you have particular things that you like to do in the casting process, either in the room or as part of conversations you have with actors, maybe if you have an offer out to an actor or whatever? What are some of the things you see as really useful in that part of that process?
Karyn: That's a multi-tiered question because if there's an offer out to an actor, that means it's largely contingent on a meeting of some sort, getting a sense that we'll work well together, we can generally articulate ourselves to one another. Occasionally you can have an offer-only situation where you also get a work session as part of that. The work session would have to go very, very poorly to then pull that offer. To me, I really do look to the meeting phase of an actor relationship as crucial in determining how much can I really communicate with this person.
For instance on a movie like The Invitation where we were so low budget that I didn't really even have the resources to run auditions, I oftentimes looked at a person's work first and then said, "You know what? I don't want to make this about an audition. I just want to make this about sitting and talking." It lifted the pressure of the auditioning process for some actors because I wasn't asking them to prove themselves to me. I was just asking to be with them for a cup of tea for an hour on my couch and get a sense of who they are as people, because that was the larger question with casting that particular project was, can I create what feels like a company of actors? Are each of these individuals capable of being part of a company?
Whereas something like Destroyer, we made an offer to Nicole and that was contingent entirely on a series of meetings in which we talked about how scared she was to do it, how scared I was to do it, how excited I was by the choices she made and her openness to thinking about this choice, those kind of questions.
Then in actual auditions, my number one rule is unless somebody is so wrong that it's just screaming at you, I never ask an actor to leave after they've read something one time. I always work with them just to understand what's their range, what kind of actor are they? If I give an idea or a thought toward adapting or refining a performance, can they adapt and refine quickly? If they can I note that and I remember that, because sometimes you see someone and you know they're not right for this particular role but they are going to be right for something else. Yellowjackets is an example of actors we brought in for multiple roles who we knew weren't going to be right for one thing, but we steered towards seeing how right they were for other things. It's very, very important to work with actors and respect how vulnerable and exposed they are when they're auditioning.
Rachel: I would imagine that's also good if they do seem right for the role to make sure they can still take adjustment, because if they can do one thing well, then you may end up needing something else --
Karyn: That's a really good point because sometimes what you find is that an actor can come in and nail the first register of how you expect a scene to be played. That's wonderful. It doesn't happen very frequently, so it's a great thing when it happens. If you give the actor a small concept on directing them toward a different interpretation of the scene and they can pivot, even if you're like, I ultimately wouldn't use that direction, it's interesting to see when actors are really facile and open, and can make changes, or when they're really locked in and inflexible. Ultimately I think what you want is a balance between a very strong point of view on a character and a very whole embodiment of a character -- it's between those things and being willing to change things up and pivot as you're working with a director.
Rachel: Have you had a chance to do rehearsal before a shoot, because I think that it totally depends on the project. Sometimes that seems to be feasible and sometimes it's not. Have you done rehearsal and or have you ever given actors assignments to help them prepare for a shoot?
Karyn: Yes. The answer is yes to both, with the caveat that there are definitely situations in which the production doesn't allow for enough time for rehearsal, or the actor doesn't respond to the rehearsal process.
A great example for me that really transformed my thinking about working with actors was in making The Invitation, I required that the entire cast be present two days before we started shooting so that we could rehearse the script from beginning to end for two full days. We really put it up on its feet. We really worked out every single transition, every single piece of business, every time a character got up and got a drink or went to the bathroom, and we mapped out where everyone was in space and where they were in the room, and created overheads so that, one, people felt prepared as we started shooting, but also they had had that process of getting to know each other, getting to know how the others worked. By the time everyone landed and cameras were rolling, I felt like everyone had a relationship with each other. That was the most important part of the process, along with all the planning that went into those two days.Those two days were instrumental to the movie working on a technical level, and it was hard and thorny. It's hard to say to 10, 11, 12 people, "Let's put down our coffee and stop chatting, and let's commit to this."
That's, I think for young directors particularly, it's very hard to find your voice and to say we are now rehearsing, and we're getting into the bones of something, and we're going to make fools of ourselves, and we're going to have to stop and start. I'm going to have to interrupt you. You're going to have to be reminded of a line. We're going to have to take some notes here.
All of that is, what it requires, in my opinion, and what I learned from the experience is total humility combined with the confidence to be humble, if that makes sense. It requires a lot of exposure, like being at the actor's level, that vulnerable with them while also saying somebody's got to be in charge and I guess it's me. You know what I mean? That was such an important experience for me, whereas with something like Destroyer, that was so focused on one character. It was more important to me that I send Nicole Kidman a lot of material before she got to set. She doesn't respond to a ton of rehearsal. She would rather have the cameras rolling and find that spontaneous alive quality to the character in this case. Knowing that that's how she likes to work, I sent her a lot of information to prep her before she even showed up for the first camera test.
Rachel: There was a lot of backstory in Destroyer, but there was also a lot of just like a police work job and that's also very particular and so on. It makes sense too. I would think just because The Invitation was such an ensemble piece, just blocking a lot of people in a room is also a little daunting in terms of working out the space. That must have been really helpful during the shoot if you had some of that locked in.
Karyn: I think particularly young directors, but directors of all stripes and all experience levels are still often working out their relationship to the notion of coverage. When we talk about coverage and we say, we have a close-up on this person and we have a medium shot on that person. In a traditional or a classical model, oftentimes we're asked to imagine getting shots on every single character in the frame. When you have 12 people standing in a room at various heights and various configurations, that's impossible. I didn't have the time. I had 20 days to shoot The Invitation, so I knew I couldn't take that time.
What I really had to think about is, what is the point of view of the story? Where am I putting the audience? Luckily I always knew I was putting them in the character of Will's experience, and that allowed me, once I did start rehearsing, to see where he is in relationship to all those other characters, and how he sees them. Then at times a look back at him, how they see him. Blocking it allowed me to understand how to shoot it so that it still had this emotional specificity that kept taking the audience back to Will's experience of the story.
Rachel: That's a great way of thinking about that challenge of coverage too, is just whose moment is it? Because honestly, if you got singles of everybody, it could make for a really muddy message to the audience about--
Karyn: Absolutely. It was so much about narrowing the perspective as opposed to broadening it to everyone's point of view, because that's not a movie. I think for me it was a really great lesson in reorienting myself with what movies are, which is a specific point of view that ideally starts with the filmmaker but is funneled through how the audience experiences the characters they're watching, and how those characters see or don't see the world in front of them. It came to me at a time in my life where it was a very useful thing to be pushing myself on all of those questions.
Rachel: Let me ask about – moving into production a little – I'm curious about just relationship with crew. One of the things about directing that's often not discussed is it is a leadership role. It is a sort of getting the best out of everybody in the room kind of role. I'm curious if you have anything you do to establish that sense of the crew working as a team and moving in the same direction, if there are things that you do to signal that or to just get to know your crew so that everybody is on board for the movie or the project.
Karyn: Sure. I would say the past three projects I've done, two features and a television show, I've done what I call my color meeting. It ends up being much more than color, but I ask for it as soon as my department heads are on. My costume designer, my production designer, my cinematographer, and then oftentimes the AD will sit in on this just to hear what's happening. We usually have this meeting at the end of each production prepped week. I want to see where everyone's head is starting to land on choices within their own department.
I want to see what the art department is thinking about wall colors, about fabric treatments, about furniture, about light. Then the cinematographer can say, "If you're using that light what kind of bulb does it use? Because I'm probably going to do this with some overhead and those two lights are going to fight each other. Can you switch it out?" We start talking about-- It's a way to avoid what I find is a very common problem in television when you don't get these meetings because the pace is so fast where you show up and you're in a red room, and a character's wearing a red dress, and the lights have a red-- Unless that's what you were going for, it's like, I wish we'd all talked to each other so that this could be a more balanced color palette.
For me, that's one way to get everybody to understand each other's creative process and choices, and then to start the process of saying if Karyn loves that wall treatment, maybe I'll back off of this costume choice and find something that plays against it in a different way. It's just a way to avoid unwelcome surprises as you're shooting. Then when you're shooting, there are different ways that people are on set. There are different ways that people are directors.
I've come to realize for myself that I am a natural leader. More and more as years have gone by, I'm much more comfortable walking on and saying I feel comfortable in my own skin being the person to say, "Can we all settle down? Let's have this conversation. Lovely to be here with you all. Let's have a great day of work." I'm much more comfortable using my voice. I'm much more comfortable saying I want to keep the camera rolling. Everyone just stay right where you are. I'm finding that I'm a pretty nice boss. [chuckles] That's a really good thing to be in my opinion. I think people feel happy for the most part on my sets.
Rachel: You're dealing with a lot of creatives too. To get their best work, it's sometimes useful just to make--
Karyn: Yes. The thing about a film set is it's so many different kinds of people. A lot of what we're doing, of course though, is in service to the most vulnerable people on set in a way and those people are actors who, now that we're still in a time where we're dealing with COVID protocols, they're the ones not wearing masks when everybody else is, and they're the ones-- It really lays bare how important it is to create an environment where once everyone gets quiet and the cameras are rolling, you're giving the actor the opportunity to do their best work.
Because in the end, that's where all of this ends up is on an actor's face and in how comfortable they are on the set or in a location. It's, to me, I think, a process of making those micro connections throughout the day so that by the time the actors arrive everyone has a harmonious way of dealing with one another. Then it allows the actors, I hope, to do their best work.
Rachel: That's a good transition. There's a lot to talk about directing actors but I'll ask about like two or three specific things. Have you ever had situation where you have an actor who's brought a choice to set that was maybe excellent or interesting but not quite what you needed? How do you think about steering people who've maybe made a decision or worked on a character and then you need them to go in a different direction?
Karyn: It's complicated. If an actor has really committed to something that feels all wrong, it's important to recognize and applaud the commitment, and find a way toward something else. One way to talk about it is do a take, maybe do another take, see how dialed in this actor might be to a choice, and then say, "I see you've made this really interesting choice. What it tells me are these things. Can we try something else? Let's try this and see how that feels." I'm open. I personally like to say "is there something I'm missing here", or "something I'm looking for", and see if that helps spark a sense of freedom in the actor to try something else.
One of the things that comes up particularly in TV is that an actor often has three or four bites at the apple. They don't get that many takes. If they're seriously off course in terms of the truth of the character or the story we're trying to tell, you have to get in there pretty quickly and say, "I'm not entirely sure this was the direction I saw this character going in." You have to be pretty direct. It's good to get used to saying those things in a way that doesn't shut a person down. Instead of saying, "This is all wrong," just saying, "I wonder if we could try this," and open up doors as opposed to feeling like you're closing them.
Rachel: I think the choice there you make of letting them do a take, or do their way is also useful because then you can be like, "If it's brilliant, we have it." Then they know it's been captured, the work that they did do.
Karyn: Absolutely. That's the other thing is like, it's so important to do a blocking rehearsal before you start shooting, or I find it is, not everybody works that way, but it's just important to know where people going to be. Where are they going to land? Are they going to run at this person? Are they going to slow-walk, or are they going to stand right there and wait for something to happen?
It tells you how to capture some component of the energy you're looking at in the rehearsal. Some actors like to half-step it on an emotional level, and not give 100%. If you recognize that, you note it, and then you say, I wonder what's going to happen when cameras are actually rolling, but it gives you a little window into some choices that are going to get made. Then after that first take, I think you have the opportunity to start making adjustments.
Rachel: That's an interesting point because one of the things that's so, I think, really special about a lot of your work is that you commit to strong physical choices for the characters sometimes. I'm thinking about like in Yellowjackets, just the way the girls played soccer, it felt very committed. Then in physical action or fights, it always feels incredibly grounded. I was curious about how you pulled that off while maintaining the actor's safety, but also that level of physicality and commitment, because that's a tricky balance. I'm sure it depends on the circumstance, but how do you think about that, particularly keeping them safe, but also having them fully commit to strong physical action?
Karyn: It's really interesting because every actor is different. Nicole, for instance, Nicole Kidman, she is almost six feet tall. She's gangly. She herself says that she's a little bit, though her red carpet image is of incredible elegance and grace, she herself has this kind of wild physicality. I really wanted to tap into that for the role of Erin Bell. What I learned by working with the stunt coordinator was she does have a wild physicality, and it's going to be really important and difficult to keep her from overcommitting, because she, in some respects is less of a technical actor than she is truly a feeling, raw actor.
In learning that, we had to create a lot of protections around her because she doesn't claim to be, nor does she want to be a physical tactician. That's not her way, and it's less truthful to her. Whereas, say, with Yellowjackets, some of those girls were really athletic in real life. Some of them were like, "I will do anything in my power to never have to jog or run anywhere." Literally, just getting them to look like they were fully in their body and, say, for instance, running like their lives depended on it, because at that moment the soccer match was their life. That kind of stuff was stuff we had to do in preparation to the shoot, have them work with trainers and stunt people to just inhabit their body like athletes. Some of them were much more technical than others. You really have to pay attention to those discrepancies between actors, and not judge one thing one way or the other, but create as many safeguards around them as possible so that they feel like they can, as actors, push themselves physically but not endanger themselves
Rachel: Or endanger the shoot potentially.
Karyn: Yes, exactly.
Rachel: …because if they get hurt in take one, you're in trouble. Yes, it's a tricky balance. That's interesting though because I hadn't thought about that, but I would imagine for actors who are totally in the moment and do every take differently, it provides a very particular set of challenges for anything that's that physical where you have to make sure they’re safe --
Karyn: Yes. Nicole was a perfect example of someone who did, particularly, with the physical stunts, everything was different each time, and so it created some electric moments on screen, but it definitely kept the whole team of ADs and stunt performers, and stunt coordinator around her, and camera people very much on their toes.
Rachel: Let me ask, what about when things go wrong on set as they often do, how do you-- A lot of times you arrive and something is different, or the lighting is different, or the weather, or whatever it may be, how do you stay creative at those moments, and just in terms of having to pivot, and think about the positives, and so on?
Karyn: I think part of the process of making stories, and the process of engaging in visual storytelling is that so much goes wrong. If you can accept that there's something fairly normal about that and then frankly move on, because one of the things I think that can happen on a film set is a hive mind of anxiety, distress, disappointment, and it colors the vibe. I am more of the camp that stuff goes wrong all the time. You acknowledge it, and you move on to plan B, plan C, plan E, whatever it ends up needing to be so that you're still moving forward.
The thing that kills the energy on a film set is stasis and just standing around, waiting for something to happen. It can often feel like that's what being on a film set is – is waiting for stuff to happen, but there are so many things a filmmaker, a director can be doing in those periods. They can be looking at the scene again, they can be reading it with a quiet, concentrated mind, asking, "I've just been told my day isn't 12 hours, it's now 8. How do I look at this scene in a simpler more achievable way that is still true to what it is? Let me look at it again, and ask myself, what is it?"
Because we make assumptions about what we need, and then we don't really think it through down that pipeline into the cutting room. We don't necessarily really get to the end, the logical ends of all these choices. Sometimes what that means is you look at it and you say, I don't need this close-up, or I really need this close-up but what I don't need is this wide shot that sees the whole room. It's very important to make those choices at times of crisis, commit to them, execute, and then move on.
Rachel: That's also a useful philosophy for the inevitable moments, where something else is holding up the whole train-
Karyn: Absolutely.
Rachel: -and you can be creative in those moments. Let's talk about post then. I don't know to what extent you feel like you're still finding the movie in post. How do you approach editing? What do you see as the important things that you're looking for in terms of either keeping it fresh or getting audience feedback, or what do you see as the useful parts of that?
Karyn: Editing to me is the third leg of the stool. It is a period where the movie truly comes together. It's one thing to shoot and to make those dynamic choices on set, and to be getting choices in performance, and making sure that you're landing in the technical specs of a shot or sequence that you want to land in. Once you're in the cutting room, you're really putting it all together, and you're forced yet again to face the work without a ton of judgment, and just say, is this working or not?
Sometimes the answer is no, it categorically, is not. Getting used to that process, it's always painful, but it never fails to visit me anyway, that feeling of like, wow, this really isn't working, I thought it would. Now, I have to mentally pivot and let go of my assumptions about what this was supposed to achieve, and ask myself in the cold light of day, what actually is it achieving.
For me, the number one thing about being in the cutting room is I personally commit a fair amount of time to being in the cutting room. I work with the same editor, Plummy Tucker. She and I sit in the room for hours, day after day refining certain scenes. There might be days where I'll say, "I'm going to leave you alone for three days and you're going to ingest all of the stuff we've talked about, all of the notes we've given each other, the thoughts we've had, and you're going to take a crack at making all those changes, and I'll watch it again."
I tend to do that a little later in the process because for me, I find a tremendous emotional and creative satisfaction from looking at all the dailies again, watching every single moment of performance again, and saying, have I missed something? Is there a look there? Is there a glance there? Is there a cough? Is there something there that could build the moment or moments in an interesting way that I hadn't seen in the heat of shooting?
That returning to the footage and watching it again with this contemplative open-minded eye is a super important part of the process for me. I would say if you get 10 weeks for a director's cut, for instance, at least as mandated by the Director's Guild skill, I would say at about four weeks, maybe five weeks, if I'm ready and have something rough but comprehensively put together enough to show, I'll show a few close people. I'll show my producers if I'm close to them, the writers if I'm close to them, a few friends who are trusted filmmakers who can see when something is rough, but also see how it could be good. That's a really hard thing to find. Sometimes you have--
Rachel: Some people are like, "I didn't like the way the sound went out on that one scene." [laughs]
Karyn: Totally. That's the thing. It's like you need to be careful with yourself when you're showing your work at this stage because while you're shooting, the actor is just exposed there for everyone to watch and pick apart. When you're in the cutting room as the director, that's when you're really exposed. It's important to recognize that that's hard and uncomfortable sometimes, and that you're going to run into a lot of feedback that maybe you don't want to hear, along with hopefully the feedback you do want to hear in terms of, here's what is working, here's where the strengths of your story are, and learning to pay attention to those things without spiraling into despair. [chuckles] That's the goal for me, is how can I just keep myself fresh and alive in the cutting room because there will be a point at which you've seen your movie now 10 times, 20 times, 30 times. How do you come at it like you've never seen it before? How do you check in with the feeling experience of watching it?
I would say as a general rule of thumb, when you're reading the script, when you're in prep, when you're on set working with actors and looking at the monitor, when you're now in the cutting room looking at a cut, it's so important to be always trying to experience the feeling of the work and honestly, whether you are feeling anything. Sometimes if you're not feeling anything, it's because it's not there. The emotional special sauce that you're looking for doesn't exist. If that's the case, that can be a real problem. It's checking in with that without feeling like you also have to self-flagellate yourself into helplessness.
Rachel: Because you are the first audience, in a way, in the sense of having to have that reaction. If you don't have it, then it's going to be hard for anyone else to either.
Karyn: For sure.
Rachel: Let me ask, is there anything you feel like you had to unlearn about directing? This is something I'm always interested in because most people go in thinking it is one job and then realize there's something they didn't know, or some aspect of it that they were surprised by when they actually got to do it.
Karyn: There's so many things I've learned and unlearned. Sometimes those things end up happening across different movies in different ways. I think I learn something on one film and I unlearn it on the next. I would say that as a general concept, the thing that we want to believe about directors is that they know exactly what they want and they're totally in control. That occasionally is true. I would say very occasionally. I think great directors have moments where something is out of their control and they find something true or real, or authentic, or emotional anyway when it's out of their control.
In my opinion, pretty well-adjusted directors can have an idea exactly of what they want, and when they don't get it, they don't just fight, but they embrace the thing they do have and figure out how to make it work or not. For me, it was learning that it's okay to not have an iron fist around every part of the process because, one, it's not advisable, and two, I don't even think it's possible.
To keep learning this flexibility and openness to what other artists bring to you, whether it's the actors on set who are interpreting a line of dialogue completely differently than how you had seen it, or the designers who have a concept they want to bring to you that you have to steer back to the thing you want, everything is a process in which your engagement in it is key.
You don't walk into a situation with every box checked off. You, in a way, are the agent of making that stuff happen. It doesn't mean you have to be unkind or unfriendly, or unappreciative of people's work, but it does mean finding some space to hear your own voice. That can be really hard. That can really require a lot of work to hear your own voice. It's like, how do you make the space for that? That's the thing I keep learning in a way.
Rachel: That's a balancing act too between your own voice and also making sure you're getting the best work out of everybody.
Karyn: Absolutely.
Rachel: That's really interesting. Is there anything I may not have asked you about that you feel like you do that a lot of directors don't, or many directors don't?
Karyn: I don't know if it's different from other directors, I just know that it works for me, is having extremely comfortable shoes. [chuckles] I personally, if I have a week of shooting ahead of me, I like to know what are my five outfits for the week? I don't want to have to think about it. I drink probably three times as much water on set as I do in regular life because when you're dehydrated, your energy starts to sag and your brain function starts to just get dampened.
A lot of water can just keep you alert and fresh, and alive to the moment. I know that sounds crazy, but I swear by it. I look at getting a good night's sleep every night while I'm working as literally job number one. I could show up to set unprepared but having had a good night's sleep, and do a better job than showing up prepared but sleep deprived. For me, I know this about myself. That's what I would say, is every director needs to get to know themselves and live by what they learn about themselves.
Rachel: It's very good advice. Thank you so much for joining me today for this discussion. It's been really fascinating. I appreciate so much that you took the time to just be really specific because I think that's helpful, particularly for young filmmakers just to hear about how you put together a process, and to learn about how very specific mental approaches can really pay off for the film as a whole.
Karyn: For sure. Thank you, Rachel. This was a pleasure.