Name: Director Explains How She Made “The Babadook” and “The Nightingale” | Vanity Fair
Uploaded: 2020-03-09T17:20:54.000Z
Duration: 15 min 22 s
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Hi, My name's Jennifer Kent, and I'm the director of the Bubba Duck Do an evil laugh.

I'm the writer director of The Bubba Duck and the Nightingale, and I'm here today to talk about how in my films, I tend to start with one idea that informs everything about the film.

So whether it be production, design or sound design thio aspect ratio to camera and lighting, all these things are governed by one central watching idea.

I guess then the next question is, what is the central idea and where does it come from?

It's not like I have one bolt out of the blue, and suddenly the idea is perfectly formed.

Things will filter through as I'm going about my day, and then I'll keep thinking on idea, and then eventually it will form enough that I know what it is, and I want to spend the next few years of my life committing to that idea.

The Bubba Duck and the Nightingale both contained central ideas that I am really passionate about with the bubble Look.

I was always quite fascinated by people who could suppress really dark, deep, painful experiences.

And I wanted to explore the idea that perhaps pushing down on those terrible experiences is harder than facing them.

And with the Nightingale, I was feeling a distinct lack of empathy in the world.

I wanted to look at the importance of empathy and love and compassion in very dark times.

I have to say at this point, this is not like a master class in how to develop a screen play or a film.

This is just my way, and in fact it can change from film to film.

So once I've developed the script to a point that I'm happy with, the next thing I probably want to do is start thinking about actors.

You be with my actors and be there in a period of rehearsal.

But I never look at the script and get the actors to rehearse the lines, because then, by the time you get to the chute, everything's completely flat and dead, so I'll pull out games and improvisations and things that work for each particular actor.

Sir, my letter recommendation Syrians do three months ago.

Now this is a scene from the nightingale between Claire and her master was carefully plotted.

Thio embody the very difficult relationship between abuser and victor.

This is one of those times where I worked with both actors to create a very specific dynamic, and I used some abstract physical exercises to get them to connect, just using their hands a certain signal that united harassment, another one that represented sexual assault and another one that represented right and what that did was it gave them a preexisting relationship.

It was only through that trust and respect that Sam could be so despicable towards Ashley's character.

Grateful Once we get on set, I don't really like to stop and start.

That much really pisses the first idea off.

But I, like Thio, allow the actor to work into a scene so we might do rolling takes.

It's all focused on helping the actor to truly give themselves over to the performance.

You don't know how many times I wished it was you, not him that died.

I just want you to be the in this particular scene.

If I actually put Noah in that situation, where s he was saying those things to him, That would be child abuse.

I just want to smash your head against a brick wall on your brains.

So we shot these scenes separately, s he was acting to a person on their knees and adult six years old and you still wetting yourself.

Noah was acting to s ee on that trolley that she was on with me sitting on there, too, and he knew that we were just playing games.

So s he was saying things that I'm gonna take all your Lego and I'm gonna shove it in a bag and pour cement in and throw it into the river.

There were little tricks that we were able to use to get him to this space of fear.

On and Fury locations are also another thing that's gonna really inform the idea in one way or another.

So with the Bubba Duck, it's a film almost entirely of interiors on with the Nightingale.

It's the opposite, it said, largely in alpine wilderness.

In each film, I think the location becomes a character that serves this central idea.

Got running through my head in the Bubba Dog.

We shot in a studio so we could move walls, make rooms bigger, smaller We could play with perspective and space.

It morphed and changed as she became more and more influenced by the Bubba Duck in the night.

And girl, we had over 100 and 60 locations.

The nature initially started out for clear is very frightening and foreign, and as we went through the film and she changed, she developed a different relationship to her surroundings.

So the landscape changed and shifted according to what she was going through.

I'm always aware of how the surroundings can influence Marley character.

He is a classic example off landscape, being character.

We wanted to shoot in Tasmania, and it made it very difficult.

Actually, it was the most difficult choice, but the best choice usually.

But you know, I think you can't cheat these things.

The other option was to shoot closer to town, but that would mean see dying out kiosk and a car park, and there really was nothing in the distance on the shots.

It was very important to the film, especially from the aboriginal perspective to film in Tasmania because these things played out on the soil.

And so, in order to really be honoring Tasmanian Aboriginal people, we needed to film in the environment where all this happened.

We enlisted the collaboration of a senior Tasmanian aboriginal elder, and we made the decision as we went along, where was most appropriate to shoot each particular scene in collaboration with the Aboriginal people later in the film.

Claire's characters have grown from this mutual hatred and racism to beginning to see each other as human beings.

To try and understand, clear it again ties into these connection with empathy.

Is it possible to empathize with someone so different?

And is it possible to have empathy in very, very difficult times?

Live ing is something also really important to supporting an overall idea on dhe with the Bubba duck on the nightingale, the lighting states could not have been more different, so Barbara is obviously an interior film, and we wanted a heightened quality.

So there was a high contrast directional light that created lots of shadows and got more thrill and more heightened As we went along.

The lighting falls off into nothingness and everything's focused on her energy, whereas with the night and girl it was more a matter of dealing with natural life.

So there it was more about protecting our frame from sunlight.

And then when we were inside, we were using candlelight.

It really is something that obviously strengthens his central idea.

It immerses you in the world of the character.

I only use music when sounds could no longer told story.

This is one of these examples where town starts to blend into musical strain, so music and sound are working together to create the horror.

Yeah, and then at the moment where he throws the firecrackers, the scythe.

It's not like you have sound and the music takes over there.

Working together, I see the Nightingale as a war film.

So I looked for other war films that inspired me and the only one that really hit the Mark Waas, a Russian film by Elem Klimov Core.

Come and see for my money, the only truly antiwar film ever made and the sound design.

There is genius, but it's very immersive.

It's very subjective, adds to the horror of his experience.

We're starting to hear the young boy's hearing become affected through this sequence.

I mean, how could watch the whole sit here for, like, two hours?

So many other elements that go to serve the central idea.

But I think they can probably all be put into the heading of visual.

So costume design production design will impact the idea in the bubble.

Don't we chose to shoot Cinemascope because there's a lot of fear in the empty frame.

I really insisted on the bottle himself, being shot in camera because I think the brain responds differently when you seeing something player in camera.

It's something more frightening about seeing something that's not see Gee, I'd that's actually riel built this scarecrow looking bubble darken, and when he collapses his crew, you know, pulling wires and strings.

What it gave Essie and Noah as actors was this feeling like they knew what would be in the final product.

They weren't having to imagine things in front of a a blue screen in the night, and girl, we chose a more narrow, higher aspect ratio, which was all about capturing those really beautiful tall trees.

And the depth of the forest color is also really important in the Bubba Duck.

I wanted to really reduce color palette, so blacks through the whites, blue pinks, Burgundies that was it drove my production designer mad, trying to achieve this effect.