Hey friends! Barbarella here. I love going to film festivals, but you’d be surprised how exhausting watching five movies a day can become. Every so often, I get to break out of the theater and have a conversation with some of the film guests, and I did just that with the fine folks from I HAVE PROOF. The movie presents Alex, a man who may be crazy and getting crazier, or he may just have an ability to see things others cannot. He spends his days silently videotaping the things he thinks others need to see and understand. He believes he has proof and needs to show you.
Writer/Director James Cullen Bressack and actors Larsen Deane, Lilly Van der Meer, and B.J. Hendricks took some time to sit with me and chat about the movie. Check it out!
Barbara (to James): It feels like you're always working. Is it like in SPEED: if you slow down below 50 mph, do you just blow up?
James: Great reference. Love that movie. I have this inability to sit at home. I just have to be creative. If I'm not making a movie, I'm launching a hot sauce, or I have my podcast that BJ and I do together: The Tracksuit Podcast. I just have to be doing something creative at all times. I think that that's where I feel the most fulfilled.
I just have crazy ideas that pop into my head, and the thing about how my mind works is once I have the idea, I start to obsess about it. If I have the idea, I have to make it. I force myself to just go, "Well, you thought of it; you got to go do it." Sometimes I leave little things to chance. Weirdly with this movie - we shot the whole movie on VHSC - I was up late at night, and I had the idea, and I went on eBay and bid on a VHSC camera. I was like, "If I win this bid, I'm making this movie.” I'm leaving it up to fate, and then I won the camera, and so I'm like, "Yes! We're making the movie!"
Barbara: That's awesome. So how did this idea come to you?
James: I really wanted to make something that was about an obsessive belief and how far somebody goes to prove something, whether they're right or wrong, and does that make them a monster by getting there? The idea started kicking around in my head, and then in a world where we're flipping through our phones and seeing so much AI-generated content, I thought that audiences would really appreciate something handmade that couldn't be done with AI, and so I wanted to make something very imperfect. That’s where the VHS thought process came from, and it just all kind of started percolating from there.
Barbara (to Larsen): You almost don't say anything the whole movie. How was that experience for you?
Larsen: Honestly, really immersive. I had to really plug myself into this creepy stalker-type essence. I really had to just lock into Alex's mindset of, “Okay, I'm following this girl. I have this specific set of rules that I've laid out for myself and gathered over time that I need to stick to.” But it made it a more physical performance. Operating the camera at the same time throughout the entire thing kind of became like a split mindset kind of thing. I'm doing Alex, but I also need to make sure that we're in focus. Honestly, there was a bit of gratefulness that I didn't have to memorize a full hundred-page script. I found out that I'm filming it after first day because James and I were cuddling up next to a tree while I'm reaching around and breathing on him.
James: Well, hold up. Before we say that, I'd like to jump in. Leading up to it, Larsen kept talking to me about how he felt that the camera was an extension of his character, and he really wanted to shoot the thing. He had never shot a movie before, so I truly believe he made that first shot where I operated it as uncomfortable for me as possible so that he could go, “Why don't we just try it? “
Larsen (laughing): No deodorant that day. I was like, how can I really push this?
James: I operated the first shot of the movie, and he's pressing up against me on the tree, and we're wrapped around each other. Then he's like, "Okay, so we don't have to do that again, why don't I just try operating this next one without that?" And that's how we ended up going into it. And he did a phenomenal job. I'm glad we did that, but I definitely think he made that first shot as awkward as possible for me on purpose.
Larsen: Unintentionally.
James: Sure.
Barbara (to Larsen): Did you do any breath training for the breathing?
Larsen: That was a long day of ADR, but I used to sing. I did musical theater and everything growing up. That's how I got into the world of acting and everything. You have to know how to do deep, low diaphragmatic breaths to be able to hold out certain notes and everything. It was fun to kind of tap back into my breathing exercises. I also love meditating and stuff. It was like, “Okay, I know how to focus on my breath. I know how to do that.” Then sitting in the ADR recording studio going over all of the breathing and everything again, I would stand up and be like, "Guys, I need five minutes. I've never breathed this much in my life. Can I get a water?" But it was different than anything I've done before because I'm used to relying a lot on the lines, telling the story and everything, so it was fun to shift my mindset. It almost became like a silent film for me. It became so much more based off of movement and internalizing what I want to say outside out loud through body language, expression, and just general fear. Yeah.
Barbara: Your expressions were great.
Larsen: Thank you. I mean, that's what I'm banking on in this film.
Barbara: Lilly, how did you get involved in this?
Lilly: I had worked with a producer, Michael, on another project. James put this casting on Instagram, and Michael sent me the post and said, "You've got to reach out. I think you guys would really enjoy working together." I did, and then James wanted me to do a little tape to see an idea of the character, and then we met and talked through the film. James explained what it was going to be and how we were going to shoot it. I said, "Hell yeah, let's do it."
Barbara: When you were shopping, were you just picking random things that you like or were you picking specific products?
Lilly: Specific products for my character. Yes. Yes. It was really fun.
Larsen: The grocery store was insane. That was so fun to go through. I'm in black latex gloves and a beat-to-shit hoodie, and she's dolled up looking lovely, and I'm just following her around the grocery store.
Lilly: And we’re not making eye contact. It's as though we don't know each other as well. It looks very suspicious.
Larsen: Exactly. We had one security guard that came up to us and was like, "What are you guys doing?"
Lilly: We said, "Oh, we're just making a Mother's Day video."
Larsen: It was a week before Mother's Day. “Everything our mom taught us about grocery store shopping, we wanted to really encapsulate in this video.” And he was like, "Okay, good. I just wanted to make sure you guys weren't doing anything weird."
James: And let's just say they were so lucky the security guard didn't ask them to play back footage.
Barbara (to Lilly): Do you live in the States now or are you still in Australia?
Lilly: Yeah, I live in the States. I've been here for five years.
Barbara: I've been to Australia three times. I love Australia.
Lilly: Isn't it amazing?
Barbara: It is. I'm surprised people move out of Australia.
Lilly: I know. I know. And the film industry is so awesome there too.
Barbara: Yeah. You were on a soap opera there, right?
Lilly: Yeah, I was on Neighbours
Barbara: What was that experience like?
Lilly: Oh my gosh, that was amazing. It was the first professional set that I was ever on, and I did that for four years, and I'm still just so close with a lot of the cast and crew from that. I just can't even put it into words how much I learned on that set. I'm so grateful.
Barbara: How does working on something like this compare to that?
Lilly: Oh, I mean, this is such a joy because we really had just the seven days that we were shooting to go around LA and just be fully immersed. We were just so immersed in the story and the characters, and I really love horror, so getting to play in this genre was so much fun. Yeah, it was amazing.
Barbara: BJ, what was your experience like working on this?
BJ: It was amazing. I've known James for maybe almost twenty years. James always was doing amazing projects back in the day that were really for a lower budget, and what he could create was amazing. I literally had this conversation this morning with Larsen, where James has the ability to finish everything. There are even projects that I've had over the course of time where James has had to step in to finish the project, to actually get the project done. He never lets the ball drop. I got involved by... We usually talk every week and this particular day I call James, we're having a fun discussion. He's super happy and he's opening boxes. [I ask],"What are you doing? "He was like," I just got this vintage VHS camera that I bought. I want to do this movie, and I want to go back to my roots of doing some kind of old-school horror things that I first started doing in my early career. I was like,"If there's any way I can help, you let me know. "And sure enough, we had another phone call later where he was like," If you're serious, let's make a movie. " I was just so excited to be part of something. One, I love found footage. Two, I love James. And then just to be able to do something that would be shot all on VHS is something so unique for today's audience. It was a no-brainer for me and my partner in our company to get involved. We just love doing movies with Bressett because he's phenomenal, but this movie is completely unusual, a super unique movie for today. I just feel like it's going to be a movie that is unique enough for the younger audience to watch. It's kind of got that... I don't know, it's something old for something new, if that makes sense.
Barbara: What is this experience like having this movie play at Fantastic Fest and being here with this film?
James: I mean, it's a whirlwind. Fantastic Fest, in my opinion, is the greatest film festival in the world. I mean, I've done so many, but this one is near and dear to my heart. When I made my first movie at 18 years old, MY PURE JOY, I desperately wanted to get into Fantastic Fest, and I didn't get in. It took me 15 years to get into Fantastic Fest, which I did when I did THE WORKOUT. This is my third time playing Fantastic Fest, and I could not be more excited because this is my first time playing it with a horror film.
Lilly: Oh my goodness. This is my first time at an American film festival. It's been such a joy so far. I'm so in awe of all of the cast and crew and everybody that I've met so far. Just to have a film premiering here at a horror festival, I just am so grateful. I'm so excited to see this with an audience and to experience the film as they see the trajectory of what happens and where it goes. I think it's such a brilliant, wonderful, creative film, and I'm just so excited for tonight.
Larsen: I love it because it's such a welcoming festival. There isn't a competitive nature here because of how they've structured this festival. Everyone is so welcoming. It's not like you're meeting people that are your competition or anything. It's just, "Oh, I love horror. You love horror." It's a really fun community to immerse yourself in for a couple of days, and you get to meet a lot of really beautiful artists and get to just share with each other in this community. It's really sweet.
BJ: Super excited. I'm the most excited. We did THE WORKOUT that was here before, and I was excited about that because that was my first time at Fantastic Fest. But this time, I’m so much more excited about it. I want to see what comes out of an audience being able to see the movie on the big screen. I'm so proud of James on everything he's put together for this movie, and the cast and crew is absolutely outstanding. To be able to hang out with the people that you care about and do movies with your friends is kind of the best thing to experience at Fantastic Fest as a payoff.
