A lot of the fear about being a first-time director is just starting with a completely blank slate and thinking: 'Is this going to connect with anybody?'
— Leigh Whannell
Writing a screenplay is an act of faith. First, that it's interesting enough that anyone would want to make it. Secondly, that anybody would want to watch it, let alone enjoy it.
I'm not actually terrified of technology. Though I'm certainly not an early adopter, either.
It is nice to be validated by audiences and have people come up to you after a screening and tell you that they loved the movie. It never gets old.
For me in a horror film, just looking down a long corridor and seeing somebody standing there, the simplest thing in the world, has a really seismic impact to me.
It's always an interesting experience with the 'Saw' films, when a sequel comes out that I didn't have anything to do with, creatively, because here's this idea, this story, and this character that I created for James Wan, but now it doesn't need me anymore.
I'd always had this romantic idea, ever since I've been writing scripts, that I would travel one day and pull up stumps, as we say in Australia. It's a cricket reference. You can Google it. Pull up stumps in some country like Italy or Spain and do my little Truman Capote thing.
James Wan is somebody who doesn't have any problem coming in and directing somebody else's script, he'll be the director for hire and he has his own style and he loves that.
The movies sort of tell you what they want to be as you're writing them.
The great thing about 'The Exorcist' is it's dead serious horror. No comedy, no self-reference, it's a documentary style.
I always say that the horror genre and the comedy genre are close cousins because they are the two genres where you are attempting to elicit an involuntary vocal response from a crowd of people and you instantly know whether it's working or not.
What I feel like science fiction fans respond to is just people trying to hit them with something new, something they haven't seen. And if you do that you'll be okay.
I like pointing the camera at the actors and letting them fight. Don't let the camera do the fighting for you, and don't let the camera give them the adrenaline hit. Let the people in the frame do that.
You never meet other screenwriters because it's such a lonely profession.
I'm still a big believer in movie theaters, and going to see movies in public.
Somewhere along the way, the ability to make terrifying big budget films like 'The Exorcist' or 'The Shining' was lost, and I don't know if we'll ever get it back.
I feel like with the first 'Insidious' film we had a massive cache of stories and scares that we'd built up over the years. It was like a band, you know they say a band has forever to write their first album because no one cares.
I mean I met James Wan at film school. That's where we met. I didn't go to film school to find someone else to work with. I was thinking I would go and learn to direct and go and be a director like everyone else at school.
Usually with me, the ideas I have for movies just sort of pop into my head. I've read a bunch of screenwriting books over the years and, to be honest, they're mostly pretty crappy.
When I directed the third 'Insidious' film I loved it so much that I decided this is what I want to do from now on. I don't even think I would write something as a screenplay now with no intention of directing it.
Saw' was a film that James Wan and I came up with back in Australia and we were just hoping anyone, literally, anyone would make that film and if nobody would give us the money we were going to shoot it in a garage somewhere.
I will say that when it comes to the horror genre, for me, the scariest thing is when something is actually in the frame.
If you look back at a film like 'Dawn of the Dead' - You can either watch it as a straight-up genre film and have fun with zombies being shot, or you can look at it as a metaphor for consumerism. Or a metaphor for the Vietnam war.
The good thing about directing a screenplay that you've written is that you see the film in your head as you're writing it and then you see those decisions through to the end.
I really liked that documentary, 'Room 237.'
I think that's the problem, when you're a young filmmaker and you're starting out, you don't know people, you're easily lead, you don't know the right people to talk to, you really need guides.
Well you know, the big trick with 'Saw,' the sleight of hand that you have to pull off is that - spoiler alert - the bad guy, the antagonist, is right there in front of your face, literally.
The most fun part of making a horror movie is watching it with an audience.
Every now and again, something will pop into my head when I'm driving or I'm in the shower, you'll just get an image and it stays with you. It doesn't have to be much, it doesn't have to be a story, it could just be an image. But it won't leave your head and that's when you know you've got something.
The thing I love the most about low budget films is the creative freedom.
Creating 'Upgrade' was really something I enjoyed even though it was stressful. I would do it all again.
I always want to fulfill genre expectations and think that should be the bedrock of any film - then you can layer in thematics.
That's what I love about writing is you don't need anyone's permission to do it. You can just get up in the morning, grab a pad and pen and start writing.
I love watching audiences scream.
I think I've had a lot of experience with watching other people shepherd my ideas with the 'Saw' films. They made four 'Saw' movies without me. I never really had a protective or fierce policy towards that. I let it go.
Like everyone else, I use my phone a lot, and being a screenwriter, my laptop is my life.
Prior to 'Insidious Chapter 3,' I was happy to write movies for James Wan to direct as I felt very much that I was one half of a duo. I looked at us as a team who works together and I was happy to be part of that, I was happy to effectively be the bass player in The Beatles.
Maybe I'm a product of my era, but I just enjoy the practical effects of 'The Thing' more than CGI aliens.
I mean, I certainly wouldn't want to paint myself as, you know, the evangelist for practical effects or some sort of anti CG guy because it's really a tool. Like filmmaking is this toolbox and you use what's appropriate in relation to the story.
If you have a year where a few good horror films come out, all of the sudden, horror is back and everyone's talking about how it's a vintage year for horror.
The good thing with 'Insidious' and 'The Further' is that it's so nebulous, this supernatural world, that it allows you to bend things. There's a lot of room, it's very malleable, like how in the second film we had a lot of time travel.
I don't think humor is something to be afraid of.
Australia, most of the filmmakers there write a film and they direct it. There's a lot of writer/directors there, because nobody wants to write a script and then let it go when they've had that much of a personal investment to it, because you're not getting paid huge amounts of money in Australia to direct.
You know, by the time you get to the fourth film in a franchise you're really mining for something different. You're really looking for a way to go about things that the audience hasn't already seen.
I remember when James Wan and I did the first 'Saw' movie, a lot of people would say to us, 'Well, you left the door open for a sequel.' And we would say, 'No, we literally closed the door!' We thought it was a nice ending. Little did we know that the producers had other ideas once the film was a hit.
If I'm going to live in Sydney, I want to live on Bondi Beach.
A lot of low-budget genre films you see are horror movies, because horror is the friendliest movie to lack of money.
Upgrade' was a hard one to make.
I don't know if I can see myself writing another 'Saw' film. It's such a special part of my life, and I almost don't want to ruin it by going back.
The problem with acting is that there's really no control. You're at the behest of others.
