Slow West director John Maclean had plenty of insights for actors Ruaridh Mollica, Séamus McLean Ross, Anna Russell-Martin and Mirren Mack as well as producer Nadira Murray, writer Maryam Hamidi and writer/directors Raisah Ahmed, Simone Smith, Sean Lìonadh and Jamie Fraser, during a lively masterclass at the Port of Leith Distillery in Edinburgh.
Maclean, who grew up in Fife and was in pop group The Beta Band before turning to filmmaking, is in post-production on his second feature Tornado, and began by offering some advice to this year’s crop of Rising Stars.
John Maclean: I didn’t go to film school, and I started on music videos and my own short films that were just with my bandmates. I had to start storyboarding for practical reasons, because my actors weren’t actors and they’d get bored within 10 minutes. I had to know every single shot I was going to do and get them in and out quickly. I still have to get actors in and out very quickly sometimes, so having storyboards has been a great thing. What kind of advice would I give? Try to get to some sort of truth. If something feels in your gut that it’s not coming from a place of truth, then maybe you should question it.
Anna Russell-Martin: When an actor auditions, are you looking for a real sense of a character in that person or are they able to be themselves and then “act”?
Maclean: I could probably tell whether I like the [audition] tape or not within the first three seconds. That’s not just the way they look, that’s the way they move and the way they speak. I’m absolutely looking for someone to be themselves. You can tell the people who come in and try to be someone else and it always ends up being slightly hammy. The closer the person is to the character, the easier it is for me to direct them and the easier it is for them to act.
Ruaridh Mollica: In a situation where you can tell someone really wants the part, does it push you back from choosing them?
Maclean: I don’t mind if people are nervous or show that kind of keenness. But, in general, it’s just to be themselves. There was a part in the film I just did whose character name was Weasel. Some of the people were running from side to side and almost pretending to be like a weasel. The guy who got the part came in and just said the lines in this really quiet, weird way.
Raisah Ahmed: On career sustainability, many of us are at the point where we’re doing our first big thing, but we also know you don’t always go from your first big thing straight on to your next big thing. Do you have any advice?
Maclean: That’s a tough one. First of all, it’s looking at other writers or directors that you admire in terms of their career — not necessarily their work but their workrate — then thinking, “That’s the kind of career I want.” There are people who just write and just direct and then take time away, so their projects are five or six years apart. I could easily have said to my agent, “I want to be making a film a year.” He would have said. “Right, then we need a team of writers.” Then you’d be more like Yorgos Lanthimos, who has different writers working on projects so he can be much quicker. There’s no one route, it’s just thinking about what’s right for you.
Simone Smith: Could you talk us through your writing process?
Maclean: With both films, I’ve worked with the same script editor, Kate Leys, which has been a luxury because she’s great and she’s like a therapist/mentor. I start with a blank bit of paper and talk to her about things I’m concerned about. For Tornado, I started talking about loving Akira Kurosawa and wanting to make a samurai film but, secondly, not wanting to make a Japanese film.
I decided I could make a film about a Japanese samurai coming to Scotland, then being up against Scottish people and that was the seed. Then I wanted it to be a young girl, so it becomes about coming of age. Then I started reading books — every book that’s about a Japanese samurai — and I read books for young girls, like What Katy Did. Then I watched Kurosawa’s back catalogue in order, from beginning to end, 32 films. Then I wrote ideas and lists. Eventually some of them will become scenes. The main thing is not opening the script — I don’t open the final draft script for about a year. My script editor reads them. Sometimes I’ve got stuff I think is brilliant and then I’ve got throwaway stuff mixed in. With some of the throwaway stuff, she goes, “This is interesting, and this isn’t,” and I go, “Oh, I thought it was the other way around. Why’s that?” And she explains it to me. So, it’s like therapy, someone reading your subconscious a bit.
Maryam Hamidi: It sounds like a unique relationship with your script editor. It’s like being in a generative space before the story is created to motivate and inspire you.
Maclean: I went to her when I had already done a draft of Slow West and it was a terrible draft and she had to undo a lot. So that took a lot of time to bring me back to a place where I could start writing the script. It made sense with Tornado to miss that bit out and just go in with a blank bit of paper and start from nothing. I think we both get a lot out of it.
Jamie Fraser: What happens when it comes to being on set and you maybe have to change something?
Maclean: A good collaborator will not destroy your confidence, so you feel like you have to meet them all the time. What was quite good about the project I just finished was that because of money or something, I wrote the final draft myself. I was a little bit tentative about it, it was like riding on my own for the first time. Then I just did it and it was fine, and I relaxed a bit. Then, when it came to shooting, I knew that I could change anything I wanted, and it was fine.
Nadira Murray: How do you choose your producer and how do you know he or she is the right one for you?
Maclean: Sometimes you don’t get the luxury and sometimes it’s more of a natural process where you almost slip into working with people. It’s hard to find that dynamic, but if you find writers and directors you like, stick with them because these relationships are hard to start from scratch with a project.
Everything’s a compromise with film and it kind of has to be. No-one gets all the money they want, the right choice of actors, the weather they want, the locations. All the time you’re compromising, but you just have to turn it around to make sure the compromise is a good one.
Sean Lìonadh: Have you ever had a day on set when you feel like you’ve not got what you wanted or felt like you’ve compromised too much?
Maclean: While filming Tornado, I had a day where things just seemed to not be working and I just managed to prioritise reshooting that [scene], even though the schedule was tight. It felt like I would rather drop a shot and reshoot this. You’ve always got a choice of two things, and the job of a director is to choose the best thing.
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