Timothy David, "Kangaroo Island" Press Junket | The Latest With Maya

A conversation with Timothy David.❤️ "Kangaroo Island" is out now!


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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's a latest.

SPEAKER_02 0:10

I'm Maya from the latest with Maya, and I'm so excited to be talking with you.

SPEAKER_01 0:17

Oh, cool. Thanks. Me too.

SPEAKER_02 0:23

So what about Kangaroo Island grew you to or drew you to the project?

SPEAKER_01 0:31

Um, well, we my wife and I have a house there, and we met someone who had a property that you see in the island, and it was the most stunning, beautiful property. And we were working on an independent film at the time, and we asked him, um, you know, would he be open to us ever shooting a film here? And he said yes. And uh so we pivoted and started to write a film about the themes that we that we were exploring on Kangaroo Island, which is um, you know, themes about uh how humans are are types of animals that live and share, you know, space with animals, yet we're such a different uh kind of animal. And um, what does that mean? Why are we meaning-seeking animals? And um that's uh where the story was born.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Oh wow. Um, so were there any scenes that were particularly challenging to direct?

SPEAKER_01 1:33

Um, yeah, there were. There was a night scene where um we had a snake in the car, uh, which she discovers on her foot during a conversation, and it happens at night. Um, for whatever reason, it took forever to get the night lighting right. Um, yeah, I think in the end we ended up turning them all off, which makes sense. Um and so uh but the the snake handler came, and there are only two types of snakes on the island, and it's the copperhead and the tiger snake, and they're the most venomous in the world. Anyway, the snake handler came and he brought it from the zoo, so we assumed he had one of these unvenomed um snakes, but he ended up bringing this massive python, which wasn't at all like the local snakes, and it was way too big to be in a car, and um, so that was a bit of a challenge to make that work. But uh that that whole scene, uh, it had a lot of comedy in it, but everyone was tired, cold. It was, you know, probably day 15 or 16 shooting six-hour days. So we were it that was just a tough scene to get through. And in the end, I aborted on some of the some of the humor and uh just got the bare bones that I needed for that scene to communicate its purpose in the film and moved on.

SPEAKER_02 2:47

Yeah. Oh wow, yeah. I um was uh grateful to get um a a screening of Kangaroo Island, and it's my one of my new favorite movies.

SPEAKER_01 3:01

So great, thank you. I'm so glad.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

Yeah. Um so is there someone who has inspired or influenced your directorial style?

SPEAKER_01 3:16

Yeah, I think I was first I was inspired to make a movie or to have a career in directing when I saw Hal Hartley's movie Trust in my local cinema um in South Australia. I don't know why it struck a chord with me. I think because it was so independent, it felt so achievable, and um I don't know, it just it had so much quirkiness but honesty, um, and it just related to me, and I knew what Hal Hartley, I felt like I knew what Hal Hartley um was doing, and I remember just thinking, I would love to do that. Um whereas when you watch a big blockbuster, you can be a bit intimidated by all the effects and things, well, I wouldn't know how the hell to get started on something like that. I do now. Um, but then uh so that's that inspired me, and then I saw a film called The Graduate by Mike Nichols, and I started to watch a bit of Mike Nichols's work, and um, you know, he's that film it will forever be my favorite film. I just love the um I sort of loved everything about that movie from the from how it was shot to performances to how it was edited to how the music worked, and and Mike Nichols, like me, I think has a very strong idea about music as he's conceiving the vision of the movie. Um, and I think how Hartley does too. In fact, how Hartley scores his films under a pseudonym. So uh yeah, those two those two movie makers. Um, but I also love a good um, you know, thrilling so Sydney Pollock movies. I I love um I love a blockbuster as much as I like a small independent film.

SPEAKER_02 5:00

Oh, I love that. Yeah. Um so do you have a favorite scene from the movie?

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Mine?

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:12

Um probably um probably the final scene, which is um a uh when they're on the boat in front of those cliffs, and I later found out that those cliffs um, which are right next to my property, and you can't really get to it except for going out in a boat to our property, so I knew I knew it was there. That's my favorite scene for a couple reasons. One is it was a 25-knot blasting southerly wind from the South Pole, and we had to shoot on a sky blue day in dead calm for a reason because they're tipping something into the ocean. I won't give away a spoiler. Um, and I knew that that that is the only spot on Kangaroo Island that would be dead calm because these massive, you know, 50-meter cliffs um or 100-foot cliffs that um uh would would shelter that area. Anyway, I later found out that the cliffs reveal um the geology. Is it geology? Is that rocks? I think so. Um it's it basically reveals the uh timeline of the earth in one cliff face, starting from the bottom rocks, which are black, sort of poking up out of the sand. Um, they are uh a rock that can't be um weathered away. It's pre-plants, pre-trees, pre-insects. It is the original, as original, is it half a billion-year-old to a billion-year-old core of you know uh Kangaroo Island. And then above that, you've got you know the dinosaur era, ice age, um, and all sorts of uh layers of time. And because this is a movie about the relevance of time and our place in it, for that to end the film, um, for me is my favorite scene. And I think for people that hate the film, it's also their favorite scene because it's the last scene.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Um, so were there any scenes from uh the movie that you had to do multiple takes and would make it on a blooper reel?

SPEAKER_01 7:42

I wish. I actually um I asked an assistant editor to find some bloopers and we didn't we didn't have much luck. We were shooting so fast that there was really no time for those funny little uh accidents to happen. I mean, there are the odd little hiccup where, you know, there's a lot of emotions going on. So when the antagonist Lou, um, who played by Rebecca Bridge would be sort of storming through the house calling for her sister and can't find her and comes back, she would there were two big pillars in the middle of the house and she would bang into them and we'd have to reset, which was quite funny. But um no, there's nothing that really springs to mind that was funny. It was a typical, you know, six-day six-day week um shoot days, a lot of hours and night shoots, and it was yeah, intense and and unfortunately not a great deal of fun, although everyone did enjoy it. So, but but no, no, no major blooper laughs.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Um so what do you hope people take away from watching Kangaroo Island?

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Um I just want it to be a film that stays with them. Um, and from what I heard, or from what I'm hearing, it is that. So to me, that's the most important thing. I I mean, emotionally, what I want them to take away is that life's valuable. Like life is more valuable to me now, having seen that film than it was before I saw that film. Um and I think we're we're seeing a little bit of that. Personally, I I really wanted to uh uh make a film that people would love seeing a second time. Um, and again, we're seeing we're seeing that, so that's great. In fact, people say they like it more the second time, which is great. So, yeah, I just wanted to make sure it wasn't a film that anyone could say it's slow or it could have been shorter. Um in fact, I was so determined for this not to be a film that no one could accuse it of being too long that I I edited out a beautiful moment um in the shed scene that I will forever wish I didn't. And and again, that just comes out of an insecurity where we came out of a screening, everyone was praising it. It's the first investor screening, family and friends, literally everyone was loving it, and then there's this one person who is a you know in the industry, and sure enough, I just noticed that she didn't, you know, wasn't that um joyous about it. Uh, but I think that's more to do with you know the personal dynamic between us. But I just said to her out of my own insecurity, yeah, I think I could probably trim a bit off it. She went, Oh, definitely, yeah, you could definitely trim a lot out of that third act, especially. And it stuck with me. And so then I went really hard and tried to find things to cut. And I made two cuts that I'll I'll always regret. Um, and if I had asked other people that loved the movie and like me as a person, you know, they would have said, Don't touch it. Um, in fact, they did say don't touch it, but I was really, um, you know, that's just one of those lessons you learn where you don't want to um try and please everyone. Having said that, no one who watches the film misses what I took out. Um, it just uh I just wish it was back in there. But um it's certainly it's not a weaker film for it not being in there.

SPEAKER_02 11:04

Um so what uh genre of movie would your life story be told as?

SPEAKER_01 11:14

My life story. It would be the most boring. Um, well, it'd be a short story because nothing eventful happens in my life. So I've had a very sheltered, a very sheltered, nice upbringing. I was probably gonna be an accountant. My mum said, you're a great artist. Why don't you get into logo design? There's a course in Adelaide you can do the degree of design, so I did that. Um, and then after that, I got work experience and found out that there was actually an industry where you could shoot commercials, so I got excited by that. So I started making commercials, won awards, and then I um started a business which kept me far too busy to get into film. And um I had a film agent for the longest time, but I was just reading scripts that I didn't like or connect to. So that sort of never happened, and then I eventually just thought, oh, to hell with it, I have to I have to make a film before I'm dead. So at 50 I made a film. Um, and that's that's my story. But no, I was I was very fortunate to have um a really strong family foundation, you know, very sheltered, nice upbringing, good school, quality friends. Um so my life is very boring. I'll never be I I was never one of those filmmakers that could uh rely on personal experience to to create art. I it was always for me philosophical and thinking. I'm a thinker, so I love to, and I'm a creator, so I love to think and create. And the stuff I I I come up with, at least in the commercials, has been really successful. So I I for whatever reason I have an ability to connect with an audience with with what I do. Yeah, um, but my story's very unremarkable.

SPEAKER_02 13:09

Um, so if you had a warning label, what would yours say?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

You've got the best questions. Thank you. Um uh a warning label. Um it should say dark humor sometimes doesn't always land. Um so or humor does not always land. So I again sheltered upbringing. Um I, you know, I I I find things funny that other people might find inappropriate. And um it's taken me many years to work out that laughing at such things can hurt other people because they haven't been blessed with such a fortunate life. And so it can sting. Whereas I kind of uh having had the fortunate life I've had, I can witness life and just go, well, that's absurd. Like all these ridiculous things that happen. And it doesn't mean that tragedy hasn't happened to me. I mean, I've lost um close friends and and you know, a parent, obviously. Um and so you have sadness and you have breakups and you have heartache and you get dumped by, you know, and you can never um uh you know have the relationships you want as a kid. But um yeah, I I I just find the only way to get through life, and it's in the film, the only way to get through life's tragedies is to laugh at it. And um, but not it not everyone thinks that way. So uh, you know, when you are like that and other people aren't, they can they can laugh at the time, but then you hear afterwards, oh, they're already upset, and it's like, oh, okay. And it's never personal, it's just more generic philosophical stuff, you know.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

Yeah, yeah, that's my family and I have a very dark sense of humor because we also were like you have to laugh at things.

SPEAKER_01 15:10

Yeah, I mean, that's that's why we were given laughter. Um, and no one's owed anything, and someone's always got it worse off. And it doesn't matter, like I just thought, you know, if I can just make a film, then I've done everything I've wanted to do in life, and even if it sucks, at least I did it. Um, and then you make the film, and then you have to deal with the film and its life and getting it out there, and because it's been perceived by audiences in such a positive way, you think, oh great, let's get it out into the world. But you just met with so many, with so much hostility and so many blockers that it becomes an awful feeling. It's like, wow, why why are people really trying to attack this film? What's it ever, it's a film, what's it done to them? When audiences are giving it nine out of 10 plus, by the hundreds in exit poll surveys, why would someone who's a reviewer for a pretty average Australian magazine give it one out of 20 and call it a piece of shit, the worst Australian film of all time? It makes no sense. But there it is, and that's so when you're dealing with that stuff, your life just becomes uh you get annoyed by it. Fortunately, not for very long, because then someone, you know, like you says it's one of my new favorite films, and then you just realize, oh yeah, there are there are smart, intelligent people in the world, and you don't have to worry about the the morons. Um, but yeah, so the point being, no matter how happy you are in a moment, you're gonna be unhappy soon, and then you're gonna be happy again, and then you're gonna be unhappy. And I think that goes for whatever your circumstances are. I think we're all born with that balance, um, unless we're unlucky. Um and so laughing through that is the only way.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Which is why there's humor in the film.

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah. There's um one of my favorite scenes is there's like this very serious moment, and then like immediately after a light-hearted kind uh like comedic moment. And I just I love the whole film, and that that's one of my favorite scenes.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

At the end with a policeman. Yeah, I figured. Um, well, that was I learned something from watching Barbie, which wasn't a film that I loved, but I did see it after the hype. I probably would have loved it if I saw it before the hype. I love what it was doing. Uh, I love the concept of it. Um, but I was really not liking the film. I thought, I just can't believe you know, this is an Oscar favorite as I was watching it. And then towards the end, the very last line of the film when she goes to the gynecologist, I think. No, she goes to the doctors and we don't know why. And it says, What who do you want to see? And she goes, a gynecologist. And then we would work out that Barbie finally, you know, is a real woman. Um, and it just made you laugh. And it was the very last moment of the film. And then I thought afterwards, oh, that was a good film. And so it's really funny. So to me, that was a really big lesson in if you can just get people to leave the film experience on a high, I think it carries a whole lot of um uh other baggage. It just removes it all. Uh, and then um, yeah, so to me that was an interesting lesson because that was a risky joke to put in that film because it was such a you know, such an emotional, powerful moment of the film where literally everyone in the audience is feeling shockingly sad. And that's a great, it's a great place for a script to get the reader or the audience to that spot. That is an achievement in itself. And so to then give a the biggest laugh of the film at exactly that moment, you just don't know if it's the right thing to do or not. And um, we tried it and it just made everyone laugh. And it worked because it was honest, it wasn't trying to be funny, it was very on theme with the rest of the film, yeah, and it's very on theme with people make mistakes in life, and this is just another one of those honest mistakes that the policeman made, and um, it's been earned, you know, it's a joke that's earned. It it it's it's right for that very funny joke to be at that exact moment.

SPEAKER_02 19:40

Yeah, yeah, I love that. Um, so I just have uh one final question for you. Um so today, what are you uh most grateful for?

SPEAKER_01 19:58

It's you know the funny thing is when you said that, my instant gut reaction was this moment. So there you go.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

Well, I'm uh so grateful to be talking with you and thank you so much for um taking the time to answer my questions, and I can't wait for everyone to see Kangaroo Island.

SPEAKER_01 20:29

Oh, thank you. Are you in LAX? I mean Los Angeles.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Uh I'm in Denver, but I usually I travel to LA a lot. So okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:39

Chicago used to be one of my clients. I think they started in Denver.

SPEAKER_02 20:42

So oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 20:44

Yeah. I'm I'm a big fan of Denver for that reason. But um, I'm staying in LA at the moment and I I I love LA.

SPEAKER_02 20:53

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

I've forgotten not everyone does, but um staying in Santa Monica just reminds me how much I like the like the people here and Americans. Because we used to my wife and I wrote the film in New York actually.

SPEAKER_02 21:04

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

We used to live there and then we moved back to Australia and now you know being back here is just nice.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Yeah. Oh thanks.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Yeah, it was so good meeting you, and I look forward to um um yeah uh looking into your stuff more now that I'm aware of it.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Oh, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

No worries.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

And thank you again for um taking the time to uh talk with me.

SPEAKER_01 21:28

So of course. Thanks for watching the screener and and reaching out.