Alex Proyas Talks KNOWING With Mr. Beaks!!!

Has it been four years? A little more? Guess it's time for a new Alex Proyas film! Though the gifted director of DARK CITY and I, ROBOT is quick to point out that he works quickly once he gets a project before the cameras, he can be rather exacting in development. This is hardly a knock. In an age of fast-tracked, would-be blockbusters, it's always nice when a filmmaker takes his time to refine the script and work out the interior logic - especially when they're attempting to deliver a piece of serious science-fiction. After all, if there's another DARK CITY in the offing, the wait will be well worth it. While Proyas's latest, KNOWING, definitely contains elements of science-fiction, it's also got a classic thriller premise. Nicolas Cage stars as a college professor whose son brings home a sheet of paper from a recently unearthed time capsule. On the sheet are a series of seemingly arbitrary numbers. But when the professor decides to make sense of the figures, he finds that the numbers accurately predict the dates of major disasters and their resulting casualties. Even more disturbing: those predictions stretch out into the future. And those casualty numbers... they get bigger. Much bigger. KNOWING isn't due out in theaters until March 20th, but since Summit Entertainment will be previewing the film at this weekend's New York Comic Con, the studio was good enough to put me on the phone with Proyas. As a fan of his work stretching back to his music videos (two of his best: Crowded House's "Don't Dream It's Over" and Sting's "All This Time"), I was thrilled to chat him up. In case you're reticent about reading too much about KNOWING pre-release, I was careful to keep our conversation spoiler free.

KNOWING was in development for quite some time. When you got on board the film, where was it? Did the premise change once you got involved? How much rewriting was required?

Alex Proyas: I first read the script in its original spec script form by Ryne Pearson when it first started making the rounds at the studios, um... too many years now to even contemplate. I think it was probably ten years ago. At the time, it was very much a supernatural thriller, and while I could see that the basic premise had some merit, I couldn't really see how to make it work as a film. So at that stage, I passed. Cut to many years later, a script came back to me, which was [Juliet] Snowden's and [Stiles] White's rewrite of that particular spec script. In the interim, it went through a number of different directors and writers. But it was that draft - which hadn't changed that much, but it had one particular hook that grabbed me. And suddenly I could see how I could make it work. And from that point, which was probably three years ago, we spent a great deal of time completely restructuring it - primarily Stuart Hazeldine and myself. We took it and ripped it apart and put it back together again and turned it into the movie that now exists.

Beaks: Without getting into too much detail, it was the supernatural element that turned you off that first script?

Proyas: I never felt comfortable with the supernatural aspects of it. I'm a science-fiction guy, I guess, and I like a level of reality. I feel like there are so many rules to create in genre material anyway, I like to create some level of boundaries for myself. So I feel a little uncomfortable in the fantasy genre. I feel much more comfortable in science-fiction. So that's what I turned it into.

Beaks: Tonally, the film looks very dark, if not dour.

Proyas: I think it's dark. I wouldn't call it dour - at least, I certainly hope it isn't. For me, the key to it is that there are some very strong emotions in the film. There are very strong human relationships. And the drama of the film, I believe, is the pertinent aspect of the story, and what takes you through the increasing cataclysms in the story. I think that human drama has a great deal of light and shade to it; it's pretty hard to summarize an entire story in a two-minute trailer. I think studios try these days to give away every aspect of the story, but I do like to leave a few surprises for people when they come to see a movie.

Beaks: Your career is really interesting in that you really take your time in between projects.

Proyas: I maybe take more time than some directors, but I turn around movies quicker than some others. I feel like I'm somewhere in the middle, probably. (Laughs) I do like to take my time to craft a film very carefully - not just in the writing and rewriting of the screenplay, but the conceptualizing of the visuals and my shot sequences and... everything about a film well into post-production. I guess I'm detail oriented. Some would call me a "control freak". I don't know. But I do like to have time to consider things carefully. I don't like making quick decisions. Because this stuff is going to be around long after we're gone and buried in the ground, so it better be good. Some people might disagree with whether I've achieved that on some films, but it's not from lack of trying. (Laughs) I am trying hard. And I think it's important that every detail of a movie is as well thought out and considered as any other detail. Everything is important. So with that sort of attitude, I guess, unfortunately, it does take me longer than some. But, then again, I'd rather make five great movies than ten not-so-great movies. I just feel like I'm working at the pace that suits me.

Beaks: Visually, was there a particular challenge that got you excited about KNOWING?

Proyas: I think it was just balancing this quite intimate emotional drama with this epic scope, and how that interacts and evolves throughout the film. It is such an unexpected story that we're telling, how we take the audience through that, and how we suddenly... because there are a lot of sucker punches that come at you through this film. How we guide them through those moments... those were the challenges of telling this story. I hope it rewards because I feel like a lot of them have worked out very well.

Beaks: The film seems to have a touch of Rod Serling and THE TWILIGHT ZONE. Is that accurate?

Proyas: I remember when I made DARK CITY, everyone said it was like THE TWILIGHT ZONE. I hadn't intended that, but I loved THE TWILIGHT ZONE and Rod Serling when I was a kid, so I'm sure some of it's rubbed off. But the central concept [in KNOWING] - which is this idea that someone could've written a series of numbers that predict all these disasters accurately over the last fifty years, and there's further numbers predicting further disasters - is one of those hooky ideas that does sound like a TWILIGHT ZONE episode. For me, when I heard it, it sounded more like some sort of lost urban myth. It gets under your skin in the way that Rod Serling's ideas manage to do. A lot of THE TWILIGHT EPISODES were like the perfect pop song; they just had this little concept that you could pitch someone in less than twenty words, and it was creepy and had an impact to it. I guess [KNOWING] does have that quality for whatever reason. You're probably the first person who's mentioned THE TWILIGHT ZONE to me in connection with this, but, yeah, I can see the point.

Beaks: You also shot this in Australia. Does that give you an advantage, being on your home turf?

Proyas: I much prefer to work here. Apart from the practicality of shooting a movie where you live: we spend a lot of time making films, so it is logistically easier. But I guess there's less to organize and less to arrange in your life, so you can spend more time focusing on the film. I did enjoy shooting the movie here.

Beaks: And shooting with the Red One camera. How was that?

Proyas: It was great. There was a huge learning curve. We were one of the first films to use it on such a scale, and we had quite a few of them on the production. But it is really the future. There's no going back for me now. It was my first digital film, and this particular camera is quite extraordinary; they're improving them all the time. My next film I'm going to be shooting on this camera called the Epic, which is the next generation. It's a 5K camera, so it's a step up again in resolution. I love clarity in an image. I'm a big fan of films shot in 70mm and being projected in 70mm - and all the large formats. So this film, digitally projected, looks extraordinary. There is no grain. It's got a clarity. You feel like you could reach out and touch the actors or step into the scene; it's almost a three-dimensional quality. I'm completely hooked on the format.

Beaks: After the shoot, did they ask you for suggestions on how to improve the technology?

Proyas: We haven't had time, unfortunately, to do that. There was a lot of development up front before we started shooting; a lot of things were hammered out at that stage. Beyond that, we haven't really had time to debrief. But we definitely will be doing that. These guys are learning all the time about their technology, and, really, until it's in the field, it's sort of an unproven commodity. We were quite surprised that the studio even let us shoot on the Red because it was such an unknown. But now that we've done this movie, and quite a few others have used it, I think it's going to become much more available and used by people.

Beaks: You mentioned the series of numbers that predict what's going to happen in KNOWING. How far did you go in getting the math correct?

Proyas: We definitely went into the science of how... I mean, it's all fringe science, and it's highly hypothetical and theoretical, and a lot of scientists would probably laugh at some of the research that we were doing. But we have tried to base it in some kind of believable theory. It's nothing more concrete than that. And I can't really go too much into the way the numbers work because it's something that's revealed in the film. I guess that's the difference between the story being a supernatural story and one of the science-fiction genre. When I read the first draft of the script, it seemed to sit somewhere between the two. And if felt like it wanted to hit more into the realms of science. You know, the story itself is a kind of the nexus between science and faith; that's very much the philosophical aspect of the story that's explored. So it's important to me that the science aspect had some credibility to it.

Sounds pretty cool. If you're at the New York Comic Con this weekend, be sure to drop in on Summit Entertainment's panel Saturday, February 7th at 4 PM. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks