Terry Interviews Film Community
Terry speaks with filmmakers, producers and composers

Road Kill

Terry speaks to up-and-coming Director Dean Francis, the man who brings a stirring vision to the screen for this underrated savage road movie.

Click on the above poster to read my review of supernatural shocker ROAD KILL, a memorable film in the
recently released Fangoria FrightFest DVD Set.  Australian filmmaker Dean Francis shares his vision and
how he made the standout film.

(A break between setups in ROAD KILL as Georgina Haig ("Liz") sits in car, while Director Dean Francis rests against the vehicle)

Terry Wickham:  How did ROAD KILL project originate?

Dean Francis:  ROAD KILL was the brainchild of producer Michael Robertson who had been inspired by Spielberg’s first film DUEL. Michael developed the screenplay with writer Clive Hopkins, raised the bulk of the finance and went director shopping. I appealed to Michael because I had made some films at filmschool that were on the ‘margins’ of genre and showed that I could make something epic looking on a small budget. I was drawn to the screenplay because of all the challenges of doing stunts, working with a tight nit ensemble of young actors and I was very attracted to the “unkowing” of the story, which provided rich opportunity for suspense and mystery.

TW:  How long was your pre-production and then shooting schedule?

DF:  We were in pre-production for six weeks and then we shot for twenty seven days. It was less than a year between the time I read the screenplay and was standing on set calling ‘Action’! That’s quite unusual, especially in Australian cinema where a director is often attached to a project for five years of development before they actually shoot.

TW:. The locations were really striking.  Did you have any of those places in mind before the film or were they found by scouts?  And tell us a little about the unforgettable locations used in the film.

DF:  When Michael approached me with the the project he showed me the screenplay and these incredibly striking images of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. So the location was central to Michael’s initial inspiration for the project. I had never been to South Australia and when I arrived to take a look around I was stunned by its vastness and its beauty. I did countless location recces across this vast place looking for the perfect setting for each scene. At the beginning of the picture you see a large mass of mountains that looks like a meteor creator. It’s actually the Wilpena Pound and at one stage in history it was higher than mount Everest. It is a very spiritual place and an important part of local Aboriginal mythology, and it is of course extremely cinematic. The local people up at the Flinders are very used to film crews and extremely accommodating. Other films to shoot the year we did included Rachel Ward’s film BEAUTIFUL KATE (also starring Sophie Lowe) and Gelndyn Ivan’s wonderful film THE LAST RIDE.

(Dean Francis gives Sophie Lowe ("Nina") direction)

TW:  The cast was impressive.  How did you choose each of your lead actors?

DF:  Casting took me a long time because I was very keen to get the chemistry right between the lead characters. I needed actors who could add some depth to the cardboard cutout characters of our genre template. I was also very conscious that the cast needed to look absolutely gorgeous so that the film would appeal in its demographic. Bob Morley was the first actor to be cast and I was very drawn by his natural charisma and his improvisational abilities. It was important to me that the villain of the piece be extremely likable and I like Bob a lot. Next came Xavier whom we had to compete for with another film and it was only after our shoot date got bumped that we were able to sign him on. I had been a fan of his work and had seen him in films like SEPTEMBER, 237 and NEWCASTLE. He is a complete rising star and it was no surprise that he got snapped up for TWILIGHT a couple of weeks after we wrapped. Georgina Haig was literally straight off a plane from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and impressed everyone with her attention to detail and preparation. Sophie Lowe was the wildcard and I had a struggle convincing investors to trust her in the ‘final girl’ role because everything she had done before that was a meek and mild character, but I knew that she would be able to pull off ‘warrior woman’ with style and ease. So I was thrilled with the cast and had a wonderful time working with all of them. We really supported one another through a very grueling and challenging shoot and remain great friends.

TW:  What is your style of directing actors?  Do you really get close with them and help create the characters/performances?  Or do you leave it more in their hands?

DF:  I like to get as close with the actors as they like and I think with young actors in particular it is very important that they feel supported and that they can trust their director to read their performances. The starting point for characterization is always to work off the ideas actors bring into the room and then to nurture their deeper discovery of character by making suggestions and directing improvisations. We had a very short rehearsal schedule but we spent the time we had digging into the more problematic scenes and finding the answers as to why the characters would act the way they do. Part of my work was setting a tone and a level for the performances. ROAD KILL is obviously not completely naturalistic and so you need to mediate the heightened elements so that the tone is consistent. Then you add David Argue into the mix and his performance is totally heightened so you need to make it fit with the flavor of the rest of the performances. I have never had a more respectful and dedicated cast than in ROAD KILL and they all went to extraordinary lengths to bring this film to life under very difficult circumstances.

TW:  ROAD KILL has a really great look.  Explain your vision.  What was it you were trying to do?  Your visual approach or plan?  Use of lenses, camera equipment, film stock, color correction.

DF:  ROAD KILL is a very low budget film even by Australian standards. So in order for it to compete in the US market it would need to have a scale to it that surpassed the budget. I knew from the start that this would come down to visual style and adventurous camera direction. Much like with the performances the challenge here is to not make the camera moves noticeable so that the audience is pulled out of the story, but at the same time to make the camera active in the story and use cinematographic techniques to heighten suspense that on the page might be a bit flat. I had an extremely close working relationship with my DP Carl Robertson ACS who is one of Australia’s hottest new Cinematographers. We studied countless films from the genre and realized that horror had become very hand-held and a bit sloppy and that films from the 80s were actually much bolder in their use of camera. A great example of this is THE HITCHER, which inspired me greatly. I wanted to keep the camera moving where possible and cover scenes in single moving masters, creating a sense of the camera ‘creeping’ into the centre of action. This give scenes a certain voyeurism and hopefully the sense of an unseen malevolent presence. We shot on the RED ONE camera and cropped the 4K image down to 2.35:1, so the lens measurements aren't quite the same as on 35mm. I shot most of the picture on the 25mm lens, usually mastering the scene on the crane with a second camera picking off extra coverage on a 50mm lens. For  the weirder scenes past the midpoint I would often use the 14mm lens to force perspective and subtly show the audience that something had sifted psychologically for the characters. The hand held scenes later in the film were by necessity, as the schedule meant that that we suddenly had to shoot a far greater amount of screen time each day and it kept raining on the location causing excruciating delays. But I planned it so that the scenes shot two cameras hand held were often the ones where the story had gone completely off the rails, so it makes a lot of psychological sense from a character perspective. Carl was very keen to shoot actors against the sun and also to keep the depth of field fairly narrow to isolate the characters within the frame. These choices were great and Carl ended up with a beautiful digital negative that meant we could have a lot of fun in the grade working to create a distinctive look.


TW:  Tell us your relationship with your cinematographer.  Why made you pick him?

DF:  I chose Carl because I have always thought of him as a genius! We had worked together when we were in the same year at film school (The Australian Film Television and Radio School) and Carl is such an easy, collaborative person to work with and he always brings great ideas. He’s a DP who is deeply concerned with the story, not just creating flashy images and he thinks about the subtext very deeply. I think his work on the film speaks for its self, it just picked up an Australian Cinematographers Society award and it’s been praised very highly here in Australia. I hope we are able to make many more films together.

TW:  Was there any movies in your head you were trying to capture a similar look or feel from?

DF:  Well there is a long linage of road horror movies. Locally, ROAD GAMES, MAD MAX, WOLF CREEK etc. I wanted to inject a bit of David Lynch, who influenced my choice of lenses and the soundtrack that Rafael May created with me. I mentioned THE HITCHER as a big reference in terms of overseas films, DUEL is clearly in amongst the pastiche. The Aja remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES was one that Carl and I looked at very closely.

TW:  I like the music in the film also.  How did you choose your composer and what was your working relationship with him?

DF:  Rafael May had worked on producer Michael Robertson’s previous film BLACK WATER, and I loved the score on that picture. When I was introduced to Raf we just clicked and got on famously. We developed a very intimate working relationship and spent many days together experimenting, listening to music, watching the film and discussing. Music is a very important part of the filmmaking process for me and it’s a central collaboration in terms of telling the story. When directing, you need to be very open to the ideas your collaborators bring to you but also firm enough in your own vision to know when something works and when it doesn’t. So there was a huge amount of trust between Rafael and myself.

(Georgina Haig looks battered and bruised by ROAD KILL)

TW:  Did you give any info to the composer as what you were looking for in terms of atmosphere or mood?  Or did you let him just follow the film on his own?

DF:  It really was a combination of giving Raf a brief and letting him explore the film on his own and bring his ideas back to me. I temped the film with 70s electronic music and I think Raf watched that version but only once. I did a lot of talking to Raf and we looked at other films as references. Then I would leave Raf alone for a few days and come back to his studio and listen to rough versions of what he had done and make my comments, Raf would adjust, I would suggest and so it would go on. Pretty quickly we worked out that it wasn’t a question of which scenes would have music but moreover which scenes would not have music, which ended up being very few. There were of course musical themes that needed to be differentiated – such as the Nina / Craig love theme, the voice of the truck, the angry truck etc etc, and Raf was fantastic at coming up with really distinctive sounds for these different themes and then tying them all together very cleverly. Raf used his front gate at one stage to hit and sample the sounds to get an interesting rhythm section happening for the forest chase, so he was very imaginative. Then we brought Sophie Lowe’s song (A RUNNER) into the mix and Raf arranged and produced that with her and me. And I would write crazy lyrics for the songs the film needed and I even got in the booth to do vocals on the track you hear as the kids set off from the campsite in their Jeep! So it was a lot of fun, Raf is a dear friend and I really want to work with him again.

TW:  What's been the public reaction to your film worldwide and locally in your country?

DF:  The reaction to ROAD TRAIN / ROAD KILL has been overwhelming and has far surpassed my expectations. The film has sold in 35 territories and was released theatrically here in Australia. The US DVD release was massive and we debuted in 4,500 Blockbuster video stores and rented 8,600 units in the first day. I’m told that the UK DVD release through Optimum Releasing has also been very successful. It’s been particularly pleasing to see such a strong critical reaction, especially with local film critics. David Stratton and Margaret Pomeranz (who are like the Roger Ebert of Australia) compared the film favorably with the early works of Spielberg, Coppola, and Jonathan Demme. That bit of criticism really blew me away and it is of course extremely gratifying to when people recognize the attention to detail that has gone into the directing. To get a theatrical release in Australia is also no mean feat and something that I probably didn’t expect going into the project. Overall it’s been a really wonderful experience and it’s really empowered me as a director to tackle bigger projects in the future.

(Sophie Lowe isn't going down without a fight)

TW:  How did the film get picked up and released in the Fangoria FrightFest package?

DF:  I actually really don’t know the answer to this, other than to say that Lightning Entertainment had been our sales agent from the beginning and had been extremely supportive of me and Michael Robertson. I understand that the offer came from them. It has of course given us extraordinary market reach, much more than a film of this size from Australia could ordinarily hope for. I still find it hysterical they they had to change the title to ROAD KILL! It was originally ROAD TRAIN, but I don’t think they have road trains in America so no one would have known what we were talking about!

TW:  What's next?

DF:  I have a fairly diverse slate going right now and only one project is even vaguely in the horror genre! I started off as a director of more serious drama and really took on ROAD TRAIN as a means of diversifying. So now I feel its time to go back to my roots and tackle something with a bit more depth and personal resonance. I have had no shortage of offers to do more horror films, I just want to really think through my next step. I can confirm that I’m pretty excited about an adaptation I am working on of a cult horror novel and I can’t say too much except that it is extremely sexy as well as terrifying – and that’s a combination that sits very well with me!

www.deanfrancis.com