Author/director Drew HancockS “Businessn“Is the best type of cinematic voltage tour, a combination of rom-com, heist film and sci-fi thriller that keeps the audience guessing at each turn-but still reveals at the second show for being constructed carefully so that each twist seems completely inevitable . According to HancockIt was a structure that was created by a combination of careful planning and improvisation.
“It was a strongly outlined first half,” Hancock told IndieWire’s Filmmaker tolkit podcast“And then I knew where it went and had the basic ingredients in what we would end up with. But I have written enough to know that if you describe for A lot, you stop wasting a lot of time at the end, because you usually find a completely different end while writing it. ”
For this purpose, Hancock carefully described the film’s first hour and started writing. When he had calculated the characters’ votes, and they “told what story they wanted to be told,” he closed the final draft of the file and described the second half after the first half was fully written. “It took about a month to crack, and then I opened the final draft again and started right where I quit and stopped it. And then the rewrite process was quite intense. “
One thing that continued to develop throughout the rewrite process was filmTone, which is carefully calibrated by walking a nice line between comedy and drama, imagination and reality and romance and horror. Many of the gene elements that made it the final film were not even there in the original fertilization. “The very first draft had no comedy to it,” Hancock said. “It had no Heist element in it. It was a not so good “Black Mirror” section. “
It forced Hancock to go back and think about the purpose of writing the script to begin with. “I was in a place where I didn’t get the career opportunities I wanted, and”Companion“Sprung from it,” he said. “It was just, sitting down, writing something that represents your voice. The irony of this is the first draft not Represent my voice because I have a very comical way of thinking. Many people who come from comedy think it’s simple, and that’s why you think, because it’s easy, that’s not what I should do. Writing must be tough. ”
When Hancock realized that his instincts were wrong, he went back and added comedy and tone. “In retrospect, it was obviously all these genres mixed because it could easily have been my last script,” Hancock said. “I was in the 40s and living paycheck to run with a comfortable low cost of living because I don’t have a family. So when I look back at the script it feels like, oh, this may be the only thing I write, so let’s throw everything on the wall. Let’s make it a Heist movie. Let’s make it a horror movie. Let’s make it a thriller with a relationship drama in the spine. “
The ways in which “companions” are restarting are what makes it a pleasure for the audience. It gives the viewer the same fee as early John Carpenter or Quentin Tarantino Movies in the way it returns and revives the genres on which it rips. It grew out of Hancock’s desire to break. “It was I who advertised to the world,” look, I can do all these things. “It was something I didn’t realize when I wrote it, but I feel now.”
Writing the script was one thing, but what makes “companions” really remarkable is how accurate – again, echoes of early Tarantino and carpenter – Hancock expresses what is in the script and gives it another layer through his visual language. His orchestration of production design, cinematography, costumes and other elements to find a pitch perfection balance between a related real world and a somewhat futuristic where key aspects are just a little off-carpet exhibits an impressive degree of control and taste for a first time director.
Hancock credits his collaborators by contributing a lot of the film’s ideas and explained that part of the director was not too tight a grip on what he had created as a writer. “I think the best government comes from a place to find railings,” he said. “” This is too far in this direction, this is too far in that direction. “Within this limit you can play and have fun and make discoveries of your own and figure it out.”
Hancock believes that it is especially important to give the actors both freedom and protection, a strategy that gives two exciting inventive and funny performances from Leads Jack Quaid and Sophie Thatcher. He said he told the actors “I will protect you and make sure you never color off the lines. As I write the script, I want to define as much as possible and paint my version of the movie. And then we can change it and stir with it, and I’m always open to all calls. ”
In the end, what unites “companions and gives it its impact is Hancock’s emphasis on the more founded aspects of his genre-jumping script. “There was a very specific directive,” he said. “I didn’t want this movie to look or feel like a sci-fi movie. Let’s think about this as a relationship drama and filter everything through it. You want it to be more like “marriage history” than “minority report”. This is a break -up movie in its core. ”
To hear our interview with Drew HancockSubscribe to the Toolkit podcast on AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
“Companion” opens across the country on January 31.
