Your new movie Deadly
Signal - in a few words, what is it about?
Deadly Signal
is about a woman who’s husband has been brutally
murdered and her journey to uncover his secret past. While she’s being
stalked and tormented, she begins a quest to find her new path no matter
at what cost.
How
did you get involved with the project in the first place? Luckily,
there was another female director attached to the project but was unable
to do it. I received the call just two weeks before production. I
believe things happen for a reason, I really loved the script and was able
to cast a lot of my friends who were on hiatus during their shows and the
lead, Vedette Lim, who is a very dear friend of mine. We all got to
play and create this film during the Christmas holiday. From
what I know, you've recently also directed another movie for
Blanc-Biehn Productions,
producers of Deadly
Signal, Night Visitor 2: Heather's Story - so how do these
two films compare?
They are completely different films. One is a sci-fi found-footage
film and the other is thriller psychological horror. We shot Night
Visitor 2 in one location and had multiple locations on
Deadly Signal .
Both were labors of love and wonderful experiences, but I am
definitely not a found-footage director. I love close-up and
medium shots and getting to explore more dimensions with camera angles
in a narative film. But doing Night
Visitor 2 gave me a great start
to filmmaking and gave me the confidence that I knew I could do it.
What can you tell us about Deadly
Signal's writers Barbara Stepansky and Lony Ruhmann, and what was
your collaboration with them like?
They both gave me a
great base for the film and their ideas were already fleshed out by the
time I attached myself to the movie. Barbara is a Nicholl’s Fellow
and WGA Awards winner, I couldn’t have asked for a better writer. So
when I started filming , they really took a step back and let me run the
show. I appreciate both their support in my vision and having my
back as a female filmmaker. Do talk about Deadly
Signal's approach to horror for a bit, and is this at all a genre
dear to you? I love horror. It's such a fun genre to
work in as both an actress and director. There is something
wonderful about having no boundaries and being able to bend the lines of
reality with horror. To what extent could you actually identify
with Deadly Signal's
lead Lilly, and the things she's going through?
Haha…
well my husband has not been murdered or living a secret life, but as my
background as an actress, I can get into the minds of each character
pretty easily and let my imagination go there. I think as a
director it is my strongest quality. I can identify with that aspect
of storytelling. What can
you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand? When
I am breaking down a script, I envision every camera movement and angle. I create storyboards to get everyone on the crew on the same page.
That gives us all a base to start with but I stay open to whatever
my DP can creatively come up as well. I go through every character's
purpose and goal, creating an character arc for the actor. I just
love directing and can’t wait to do more in the future. A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? I
would say QUICK… It was a fast shoot with 16 pages a day and a large
cast. We shot the entire film in 6 days. My husband and I have been
on hundreds of sets so we really wanted to create a safe environment to
create and do our best to stay on budget and on time. There’s nothing
worse than shooting an eighteen hour day on a Friday night. Sometimes it
has to be done, but we do our best to stay to manageable hours. The
$64-question of course, where can your movie be seen? At
the moment it is available on DVD, but we’ve got new distributor on
board and will have a full VOD release soon. Any future projects you'd like to
share?
I’m a series regular on History Channel’s
Six, our second season premieres on Memorial Day. I’ve created a
one-hour TV drama with my partner Jana Kramer and my husband Mark Gantt
through our Give & Take Productions, and are in the process of
packaging and pitching it to networks. We also have another show Mark
wrote called Cul-De-Sac, that we are getting interest in and I’m
attached to direct a movie called A Place Apart. And lastly I’m
having a baby boy in mid- April. So my plate is pretty full right
now, but I would not have it any other way.
Having entered
the filmworld as an actress, you've branched out into directing
only recently - so what prompted that move, and how would you describe
yourself as a director? I feel like it was a bigger
decision for myself. It was a calling from my High Power to start
directing. One day the words just spilled out of my mouth, “why
don’t I direct it?” Best thing I have ever done is listen to
that inner voice and go with it. With all my training as an actress
and working in this business for 15 years and watching on set plus my OCD
and organization skills, I just feel like directing was calling and I
never want to stop. I just love it. Actresses, filmmakers, whoever else who
inspire you? There are too many to count and name. But
I am a huge fan of the career of Elizabeth Banks and Reese Witherspoon. They both have successful production companies, great careers and
produce tons of material on film and television and they have families.
That’s the path I envision for myself. I want to do it all. Keep
working as an actress, directing film and television and producing with my
husband. Your favourite movies?
Again too
many to name, but I love Jaws and will watch it anytime it's on TV. I
could say every line in that movie. And the most terrifying horror
film for me is The Strangers. It could really happen to anyone so
that is extremely scary. Your/your
movie's website, Facebook, whatever else?
You can find my on Twitter and Instagram at @Thebriannedavis and
my website is
www.briannedavis.com
Thanks
for the interview!
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