The Creative Minds and Unique Storytelling Behind "Fluxx"

Shelley Hennig takes on an incredible challenge as she steps into four distinct roles in the psychological thriller "Fluxx," a film conceived during the COVID pandemic. Join us as we chat with Shelley, Director, Brendan Gabriel Murphy, and members of the creative team behind this genre-blending marvel, including Kieran Murphy, Lance Paul, and Shiloh Fernandez. Discover how Shelley's seamless performances became the backbone of a narrative that traps an actress in a surreal loop within her home. This episode promises a behind-the-curtain look at a film that boldly declares, "fame is a nightmare."

Venture further into the craft of filmmaking as we explore the ingenuity behind the immersive set design. Learn how the team, with limited resources but boundless creativity, transformed their vision into reality using Shibori-dyed drapes and an underwater city set. Get insights into the collaborative spirit and technical prowess that ensured authenticity and realism with the innovative use of a volume stage. Experience the festival buzz and audience excitement as we bring you the magic of "Fluxx": a movie about movies that challenges the boundaries of storytelling.

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Transcript

Exploring Film Genres in Flux

Speaker 1 0:00

We had done something smaller, in a sense, for a show on History Channel called History's Greatest Heist, so we had some knowledge of what we wanted to do. However, it was one crazy day of filming, with one day of prep to do all this intense work. And it's in a fight scene and there's different looks within that one environment. So it's fascinating because you're creating this environment, this world for the actors to play in.

Speaker 2 0:26

This is the Cinematography for Actors podcast.

Speaker 3 0:29

More than a podcast. Cinematography for Actors is a vibrant community devoted to bridging the gap between talent and crew. Each week, our show offers transparent, insightful conversations with industry leaders. We unveil the magic behind the scenes, from candid discussions about unique filmmaking processes to in-depth technical exploration. Join us in unraveling the intricacies of filmmaking, one episode at a time. It's more than just cameras and lenses. We aim to inspire, educate and empower as we peel back the curtain on the art of effective storytelling. Now on to the episode. Hi everybody, welcome to another special episode of the Cinematography for Actors podcast. Here on the couch at Mammoth Film Festival, I am seated with a large amount of the team from the film Flux. Hi everybody, thank you so much for being here. I'm going to run through names so you know who they are. We have someone that our community knows already. It's Kieran Yep, kieran Murphy. I didn't look at you. That's a problem.

Speaker 4 1:32

This is Kieran Murphy.

Speaker 3 1:33

And then we have Lance Paul and you guys met Shiloh Fernandez already Shelly Henning and Brendan Gabriel Murphy and Jeffkins and Rick Reifel. Thank you so much for being here. Let's get into Flux. We have 15 minutes. Okay, first of all, shelley, will you give us a little logline of Flux?

Speaker 5 1:55

Tell us what it's about. No, no, no, but Brendan would love it. Okay, brendan wants to, or?

Speaker 3 2:00

I can do it, but I think one of you is going to do a much better job.

Speaker 6 2:04

That's me and Shelly's deal. I talk about Flux and she talks about the character.

Speaker 3 2:09

Okay sounds great.

Speaker 6 2:10

So Flux is a psychological thriller. It's blanketed under subgenres, so it's definitely a rollercoaster ride of a film. It came about during COVID because we were all stuck in our houses and it's about an actress who's at home, who cannot leave her home, and every time she tries to leave her home she gets looped back into her bathtub and all of a sudden you know something strange is going on and she starts getting visited by these different characters. Once you start getting through the story and you start seeing that these people that are visiting her almost has a wizard of oz kind of effect and, um, we start tying her past through flashback into the story, which, which you understand, like it, becomes movie about movies. And that's, that's the fun thing about it. It's a. It's a movie about movies and we tap into kind of the ins and outs of the entertainment business. But the tagline is fame is a nightmare and the whole thing is. I'm really trying to explore the dark side of the Hollywood dream. Okay, so that's pretty much the summary of what Flux is.

Speaker 5 3:18

That's amazing. I feel like I passed it to him.

Speaker 7 3:20

Our last interview, he finally heard.

Speaker 3 3:27

Rebecca's makes perfect by the way, shallow is my best friend, so we, we've been friends for forever so I think that it is so much fun to see movies about movies at a film festival because you know everyone here is going to just eat it up. They're going to love. But I think that something that is also very exciting is this is being talked about as a genre blending film it is what genres can we expect?

Crafting Multiple Characters in Film

Speaker 6 3:54

so, um, that's, that's the fun part about the movie. There's not, there's not many films that have done that, like kill bill is one of them. Um, but yeah, there's drama, there's horror, there's, uh, sci-fi, no, definitely noir, suspense and suspense and it's, you know, and it's a thriller.

Speaker 6 4:16

Uh, shelly plays, uh, four different roles in the film and two of the characters she plays opposite herself. And uh being able to watch her play opposite herself with, with stand-ins, and then me being the editor going in and editing it and seeing how seamless the performances are, you can't even tell. It looks like she's really there with herself, and that, to me, just blows my mind. That she can do that and just and not even that work with a double or a stand-in, and be able to give that performance when she's not getting it back and she's the one that has to give it back to herself later. That's insane to me. She was proud, though yeah that's a huge.

Speaker 8 4:54

I mean, I've never seen an actress like her, like she was literally playing so many different characters. Each character had its own identity too, and she she would ask questions she'd had. She knew more about some of these characters than I think even Brendan did, and he wrote them, and that was amazing to me.

Speaker 3 5:06

So actually, then I have a question about your process here, about this process of playing four different characters. How are you working technically? Does your communication change with the crew from character to character? Are you changing the way you're working with the lens differently? Are you making different choices about how you're, you know, revealing yourself or not, depending on the character? And is that a lot to keep track of?

Speaker 5 5:30

Yeah, when you started the question, the word collaboration came into my head. There was so much that I had to do, but I really did have the support of these guys. I'm not just like blowing smoke, like I'm not sure I would have had that same freedom on another set. Maybe I would, I probably would, but this one was, I don't know it. Just you didn't have to ask for anything twice. Everyone was respectful. You know, I had Kieran behind camera with me 24-7, brendan and I, and he, I mean, made me laugh, like I don't know, I just went with the flow, like I just there was so much to do and so little time that I did have a lot of notes, like physical notes, because all my characters are on. Either they smoke cigarettes or it's marijuana or it's. Honestly, I had to do so much research about drugs. The hardest part was doing a line of Coke in the movie. Thank you for- Online research.

Speaker 5 6:31

No, I literally have notes in my phone and it's like drugs, and then it's like all the different things how to do drugs.

Speaker 5 6:36

It was a lot of physical stuff that I had to figure out, yeah, but I just took it day by day, scene by scene. Brendan and I would talk every before every scene. We would have a little conversation, and I've never been that way, but there were so many elements, there were so many elements in this movie that I just had to not get too past. I just had to be in the moment and just take it as it comes, and I just had all the support in the world that's being able to trust your crew like that, yeah trust your crew and trust yourself and shiloh and I have been around for a while.

Speaker 5 7:13

I've always wanted to work with shiloh, so, so that was such an added bonus.

Speaker 3 7:17

That's wonderful.

Speaker 5 7:18

And I really love the way that we work and it just yeah, I'm just really really proud.

Speaker 3 7:25

Now we are so excited to have a production designer here today, because we don't normally get that. Can we actually talk about your process with Brendan, how you created this?

Speaker 9 7:39

There are so many different genres, so many different is characters, characters, characters, and I'm playing around with these two and hoping that I'm landing on some environments that work, because when you're an independent, you don't have a month and a half of prep time and previs and what do you think of this? And the actors can come in and comment. No, no.

Speaker 9 8:11

It's a 30-minute Zoom call to Hawaii and I'm meeting my set decorator for the first time, and what do I think I want to do? Do we have photos of the location yet? No, we don't. Okay, how about? So you're swinging wide and you're hoping that you get it, and in those Zoom conversations I'm very intensely writing notes and trying to see what he repeats at least a couple of times I'm like aha, pay attention to that, pay attention to that.

Speaker 9 8:39

And then you try to land on a visual or environmental thread. In this case it was water, um, because of the bathtub gag. And then there's a cool thing that happens. I'm like, okay, brendan's repeated water a number of times now, so water's gonna have to happen here. How am I dealing with water? People don't have reflecting pools in their bedrooms. Well, james bond villains maybe, but not in this circumstance. So we landed on uh, remember all the drapes?

Speaker 9 9:06

yeah yeah, 80 panels of cotton linen drapes shipped over from los angeles to hawaii. That me and my team sat and shibori dyed. Yes, I was in the dye room doing it because we needed that. Shibori dyeing will give you this image of kind of like the reflection of water on the bottom of a pool.

Speaker 9 9:26

So these were placed all throughout the main location and they popped up in other locations that you weren't aware that we were doing because I didn't tell you. You weren't aware that we were doing because I didn't tell you. So they're very secretly kind of in places to keep this wet aquatic nightmare of hers flowing throughout. So that's like one, you know. And could we expand on that? If we had a $200 million? Hell, yeah, we could. We could do all sorts of stuff. But with an indie you swing wide to try to land on something. You hope you get it right and you hope that when the actors walk into it, that it's not even something that they are paying attention to.

Speaker 9 10:02

It just feels right and they can move along with it.

Speaker 2 10:06

We have some exciting news. Cfa has teamed up with we Make Movies to get you a discount on production management services, including access to comprehensive production insurance and workers comp. For your next shoot, visit we make moviesorg, slash insurance and use code cfa 23 on your intake form for 10 off your quote he also, um, brought that element into all the sci-fi stuff.

Speaker 6 10:33

Yeah, because the sci-fi the, the way we set it up, it's that it's a like a submerged science I totally forgot that the biggest

Speaker 9 10:40

part of forgetting about that the way so we, the vibe was all water and that.

Speaker 6 10:45

So it all kind of ties into everything and that's you know to rick's talent also.

Speaker 8 10:50

We worked on a budget, a very small budget, working on volume stages and, rick, you did amazing work and building a whole set building volume stage and then having that aquatic underwater city there were very panicked moments oh, I know, I know there was a lot of, there was a lot of stress going on this movie.

Speaker 10 11:04

But, um, I worked with rick on my first movie ever, about seven years ago when I first came to hollywood, and I worked on four. This is like our fourth project together and he's a freaking genius like he. He knows so much about movies, it's, he's so intertwined with everything you know and he's just, he's amazing and he's a god damn. He's a good friend and I just, you know, I just can't speak highly enough of it.

Speaker 9 11:27

It's a shame, because I didn't speak highly of you in that first pilot. I was like who is this long? Oh no, in a police uniform. Who cast this guy.

Speaker 3 11:36

So I want to know then, for the actors, even though you know production designer doesn't want you to walk in and be like, oh, this is water, you know, but do you feel like it informed a little bit of your decisions, like you felt that feeling when you were there on the day?

Speaker 7 11:52

Yeah, it was incredible what they did. I mean truly mind-blowing. We made short films starting like 19 years ago with nothing. So the fact that there was a real set and it looked incredible was sort of on its own just to me sort of overwhelming, you know, because you're just like wait, my friends are actually pulling off something really incredible the volume stage thing. I don't know if you guys have ever talked about the volume.

Speaker 2 12:19

We have a little bit and I wish Indiana were in here to help you talk about it because, she's got a lot to say, come on, I was literally going to talk to her and be like I'll trade you out. Talk about their volume. Top note, top note. Hi everyone. It's Indiana from Cinematography for Actors, joined with a wonderful kieran murphy, who I want to talk about volume work as well.

Speaker 7 12:35

so continue, because I know, talk about this yeah, that set was just so incredible and I think, like you know, green screen stuff has always sucked um, it's not super fun, uh. So having an environment that they created was incredible. And then to walk onto that set where you're like, wait, there's, it's a computer and it's a screen. Um, but the way that that works now and the fact that you actually feel like you're in an environment was kind of incredible. Um, and I knew that's what they wanted to do.

Speaker 10 12:59

I'd like to give a shout out to AJ wedding and orbital studios because they were an integral part of helping us out make this and from the beginning, aj and I are really good friends and that's how I met this character over here and, um, they really did, they really helped us out a lot and it was, um, it looks absolutely amazing. Yeah, orbital came through for us big time big time that's awesome so thank you yeah, I know it was.

Speaker 1 13:20

It was a lot of fun working on a stage like that because we we had done something smaller, in a sense, for a show on history channel called history's greatest heist, so we had some knowledge of what we wanted to do.

Speaker 1 13:31

However it was I mean, it was one crazy day of filming with one day of prep to do all this intense work and yeah it's in a fight scene and and it's not even that there's, you know, there's different looks within that one environment, so there's like a whole, you know, sunset scene. Then it turns it to evening, so it's, it's a, it's fascinating because you're creating this environment in this world for the actors to play in. It's like this awesome sandbox where you can just create all these little like sandcastles and stuff. But it's it's about being in it and feeling it and for them, I think, and for me, it just comes to life more than if you were enhancing the green screen or even like a practical location, because if we're able to like maintain that look consistently so that we are able to kind of move forward and as quickly as possible, green screen.

Speaker 9 14:19

Suck, yeah, garbage. Yeah, it's hard, you know, until the volume is being persnickety, and then yes choice.

Speaker 2 14:26

But you could shut it down and wait 30 minutes and it comes volume volume design is a very different horse to work on.

Speaker 9 14:35

This was my seventh volume shoot, kieran. This was your second. Yeah, kieran and I both. Well, me, kieran, this one did History Sites together. A very different way of working with the set, very different way of working with the actors, but still the same technology. So how does you know it's adaptable to a degree. You have to sort of like learn to play with it and then learn how to break it, to learn how to play with it again. You know it's big as in pre-production.

Speaker 1 15:04

So you really you're thinking about what you want and it all has to happen beforehand, because that's what's showing up on the screen Right, so there's. Whereas green screen you can be like, oh, maybe I have some city in the background and there's the sun or something. So for this you really had to be specific, and Brennan and I had talked about this for a long time. We saw some concepts. We're like, oh, what would be cool for a futuristic apartment. And then, sitting with Rick, we're like oh, we want this.

Speaker 9 15:27

Yeah, something different, neat, and I gave you this. This was the fun part of this. Yes, I took a hundred and thirty year old trick that george millier invented and married it to 21st century. We had a hanging foreground ceiling.

Speaker 2 15:44

So when you see the film, I was gonna yeah, the ceiling is amazing, a one-quarter scale.

Speaker 7 15:48

Yeah, all forced perspective yeah that was the most incredible thing yeah I'd ever. I was like, like you know it was like a model.

Speaker 6 15:56

It was a model in front of the camera that made it a ceiling.

Speaker 2 16:00

It was so, because you have to get it right in camera and it worked.

Speaker 8 16:02

Yeah, george Melier, yeah the crazy thing was we had this. We had the model like two years before when we first initially started shooting and I remember Rick was telling me, oh, putting out the money? And I hadn't seen it and I had no idea really what the hell it was and he kept telling me it was forced perspective. So then we get there and I see this model, I'm like, and I see what the shot looks like it was so amazing.

Speaker 2 16:23

It is one of those things where you have to see it in camera to believe it, because you look at it from the three-dimensional world outside of the camera and you're props that we're going to interact with. Here's the physical set. How much depth do I want to create? And then, what is the responsibility of adding in all the unreal artists and everyone in order to create the world behind us that is going to sell when we look through that viewfinder?

Speaker 9 16:42

well, there was a bigger reason to do the model too, because we've all seen, you know, behind the scenes on the mandalorian with the led ceiling. Yeah, led ceilings are a pain in the ass unless you have something that reflects onto it. Yeah, dps don't like them.

Speaker 4 16:56

Yeah, because you cannot get light over, or you can't do anything interesting.

Speaker 9 17:02

So I was like I can't tie Kieran's hands. There are battle scenes, there are like private scenes between two people that are very intimate and dark, and you know we're not gonna be able to pull that off with a ceiling. So I did the hanging foreground miniature, opened the whole space up for him that way and he had a whole new sandbox to play with I hope it's nice when it's just an extension of the set.

Speaker 1 17:23

You know, instead of being the whole unreal like world yeah there's nothing against that, but it's nice that it wasn't green screen and it created that. So when they were looking out the window, when shelly sees this whale coming across, they're actually physically have an eyeline and a movement of what's going on, instead of being like a tennis ball or somebody in the background walking like you know, in a green screen suit or something.

Speaker 9 17:43

Oh, there's the whale you know, yes to the tennis ball. Shelly emote to the tennis ball.

Speaker 5 17:48

I mean, I'm used to that that's usually what the experience is. I mean, look, kieran, you, you made this indie look very expensive. I mean, you all did, but you're lighting all day it was a teamwork.

Speaker 7 18:00

Do you remember the whale, though? Brendan wanted your hand at a very specific place and even though it was there in real life, we couldn't get the hand. I'm like she'll just put your hand down. I know he wants you. I know it looks like I can't. I know, I know I try I try, oh no fair.

Speaker 5 18:17

Maybe you didn't give me enough props to work with, throw another prop in there.

Speaker 2 18:23

You all rock and I can tell that this was a wonderful collaborative piece because of just like the relationship on the couch and the chemistry here. So thank you so much. We are so excited to see it. I think we have tickets tonight for it. So tonight is at 8 pm, or 8.30? 8.30. Tickets tonight for it. So, um, tonight is at 8 pm, or 8 30, 8, 30. So flex tonight 8 30, um, and I'm sure you'll be able to see it after mammoth, uh, every festival, um, and if not, I'm soon for distribution, so thank you.

Speaker 6 18:45

Just a real quick shout out to everybody who could make it because of the blizzard like my sister caitlin midwell, and you, just you know you ever miss it our co-writer, uh because the blizzard, and our and our uh composer, nicholas fitzgerald, uh mary simmons, one of our actors, and uh emily tremaine fernandez who's having a baby shower tomorrow baby shower tomorrow. The whole gang, the whole gang. We love you and miss you all fantastic.

Speaker 2 19:10

Congrats everybody. Amazing. This is all good news today. Thanks everyone so much. We'll see you next time. Bye everyone, bye everyone, bye-bye.

Speaker 4 19:17

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