Director Kristian Mercado talks to The Inside Reel about perspective, music and environment in regards to his new film: "If You Were The Last", premiering on Peacock.
Category
🎥
Short filmTranscript
00:00 (dramatic music)
00:02 - We're not attracted now,
00:13 but we would emotionally attach.
00:14 - You mean fall in love.
00:15 - What if this awesome thing we have going on gets ruined?
00:20 - People are meant to be together.
00:22 - Oh, sorry.
00:22 Is this, is this on?
00:24 Okay.
00:25 Lame.
00:26 ♪ I want the strongest, I just you need ♪
00:29 - We're both married.
00:29 - I'm sure being adrift in space gives you a hall pass.
00:33 ♪ I want the sun, two days before ♪
00:38 ♪ Stuck inside, running out the door ♪
00:40 - You know what you wanna watch tonight?
00:41 - "Alien"?
00:42 - Never seen it.
00:43 - Why the hell did we watch that movie?
00:47 ♪ I want the sun ♪
00:50 - But the aesthetic allows for that.
00:52 You know, that's the thing.
00:53 Those spaces, those open things,
00:55 even, you know, using that sort of
00:57 almost paper machine aesthetic,
00:59 that works, but it's also using that forced perspective.
01:02 Like there's a scene, I think,
01:03 where he's tattooing her backside.
01:06 - Yeah, yeah.
01:07 - And you see her saying something and he's like that.
01:09 And it's a wonderful,
01:11 that most people, a lot of people don't use that anymore.
01:13 And it's really, really effective.
01:16 - Oh, totally.
01:17 I think like it was, you know, it's interesting
01:20 'cause as a director, you know,
01:22 doing a film where a lot of it is conversations
01:25 between two people and how do you make that exciting?
01:28 How do you make that interesting?
01:29 And I was like really challenging myself all the time
01:32 to find like ways to block scenes or frame characters
01:37 where the route, you know,
01:38 what's actually important about that conversation
01:41 is being highlighted or felt.
01:43 Like I would think a lot about their relationship
01:45 in terms of like, oh, here's the distance between them.
01:48 Here's where they are.
01:49 Here's what colors will kind of bring them together
01:52 or separate them, you know, things like that.
01:54 I think like, you know, even like,
01:56 I love that you pointed that shot out
01:58 because I love that that shot just plays out in a two shot.
02:01 Like it's just that and like,
02:03 and he's always, you know, in the distance blurry,
02:06 you know, and like, you know,
02:08 it's just so indicative of where they're at
02:10 in their journey, you know, like it's like,
02:12 you know, it's also like a way to focus on who,
02:15 you know, I think people don't think about this sometimes.
02:17 I think like some of what happens nowadays
02:19 that it's no offense to any directors out there
02:23 that have to do it or for whatever reasons, you know,
02:26 like I'm sure there's a million reasons,
02:28 but like, I think stale blocking
02:31 is kind of like a problem with films now,
02:33 like modern films.
02:34 Like I think filmmakers of the 70s and 90s,
02:37 especially particularly,
02:39 we're really always like kind of thinking about
02:42 like relationship of character, place and frame, you know,
02:45 and those are critical things to think about
02:48 when you're shooting conversations,
02:50 but we've kind of gotten into a world where like,
02:53 almost everything gets just blocked out as like,
02:56 here's this shot to this shot,
02:58 here's this to this, this to this.
03:00 And I think that was not like my inherent style.
03:03 I mean, sometimes you wanna do that
03:05 because it just depends on what you're shooting.
03:07 But like for me, it was definitely more like,
03:10 how do I play with the space between them,
03:13 you know, as characters,
03:14 like how do you, with their words find
03:17 where they're at, you know, in the blocking.
03:21 And I thought, you know,
03:22 that was like how I approached it.
03:24 You know, I think I'm glad that it showed, you know.
03:26 - It's irresponsible.
03:27 - Irresponsible. - Absolutely.
03:29 - They spent what, a trillion dollars
03:31 plus countless man hours,
03:33 not to mention political capital,
03:35 trying to get one dude back from Mars.
03:38 - Political capital, it united the world.
03:40 - Yeah, for a hot second.
03:42 But what if they failed?
03:43 Everyone would have been like, excuse me,
03:44 you know there are people dying here, right?
03:46 - People are always dying on earth.
03:47 You can't change that.
03:48 But if you get the opportunity to bring back Matt Damon.
03:51 - No, screw Matt Damon.
03:53 - That's just harsh.
03:54 - Dude, it costs an average of $1,200 to save a life.
03:57 - What?
03:58 - When you give money to charity,
04:00 the ones that are actually going to save lives
04:01 are the ones that clean water
04:02 and give out medicine and stuff, right?
04:04 - Matt Damon's charity literally cleans water.
04:06 - So when you factor in administrative costs
04:08 and how many people would actually die without help,
04:10 that works out to 1,200 bucks for life.
04:12 - Okay, so what you're saying is you take a trillion
04:14 and divide it by 1,200
04:15 and you can save 833 million people's lives on earth?
04:21 - You just do that math right now?
04:24 - I'm wicked smart.
04:25 - The music, because obviously you have experience
04:27 on the music side heavily, you know,
04:29 so you could select certain things.
04:31 I mean, I love that Japanese breakfast cover you use.
04:35 I thought that was beautiful.
04:37 But then you also, you know, everything's around the ship,
04:39 all the different music that you select,
04:41 but it's also not cutting to the music.
04:44 It's cutting within the music.
04:47 Could you talk about that?
04:48 Because you stay on whites, but it's how they move.
04:51 Could you talk about your use of music
04:53 and how it enhances performance,
04:55 but also can sort of just sort of pinpoint performance
04:59 in certain ways?
04:59 - Oh yeah, I had a lot of fun with the music.
05:01 Like the music was like, so I love music.
05:04 I'm avid vinyl collector.
05:06 Like, you know, I'm, phew, diehard.
05:09 I have a massive vinyl collection.
05:11 New Orleans is great for where I shot the film,
05:14 was great for vinyl seeking,
05:15 'cause there's so much history music there.
05:18 And then like, you're just,
05:20 there's so many great vinyl shops
05:22 and, you know, Peach Records hooked me up.
05:25 Actually, like, I think the first week I was at,
05:29 in New Orleans, I was like,
05:30 "Oh, I gotta go get a record player and buy some vinyl."
05:33 And so I went and they were like,
05:35 "Oh, if you're like working on a movie,
05:38 you should get this type of record player
05:40 so that you can really have the best audio fidelity
05:42 so that you can really pay attention to the songs."
05:44 And I was like, and, you know,
05:46 I had bought all this vinyl
05:48 and I kept going to different shops like Domino's or,
05:51 yeah, I just jumped around tons of like places.
05:56 Domino's was like a cash only place,
05:58 which was really cool.
05:58 Like, for vinyl.
05:59 Me and the music supervisor, Megan Curry,
06:05 who does incredible films, like she's just prolific,
06:08 was nice enough to kind of, you know,
06:12 shepherd and guide that.
06:14 And I would like find songs
06:15 and we would bounce them back and forth.
06:18 And some of the songs were like my selection,
06:20 some of them were her selection,
06:22 or just like, it was a lot of curating, you know,
06:25 like finding like what's the right mood.
06:28 And like, I was really trying to go for something
06:31 where it felt like the songs felt like songs you knew,
06:35 but you never,
06:36 but you actually hadn't heard them before in a movie,
06:38 you know, and that was like, had a familiarity,
06:41 like a nostalgic quality, like,
06:44 'cause I did, we found like a lot of crazy songs
06:48 that I don't think people have used in movies too often,
06:52 or some of them are iconic,
06:53 some of them feel iconic.
06:56 And I was just like super into that.
06:57 And I think like each music selection
07:01 was supposed to pinpoint something about where they're at.
07:04 Like sometimes it was like friendship,
07:06 sometimes it was deep love.
07:08 Japanese Breakfast was like a must for me.
07:11 Like I had to do that.
07:12 Like I love Japanese Breakfast and I was just like,
07:15 but I love that Tears for Fears cover that they did.
07:19 And it's a really obscure cover.
07:22 It's wild, right?
07:22 Like that's such a, like, I liked that I found,
07:25 like, you know, that song,
07:27 which was part of like a weird,
07:29 like ensemble,
07:33 like a bunch of covers and like a record,
07:35 you know, that multiple artists did.
07:37 And I was like, something about it felt right.
07:41 And I would just cut the scene based on like how,
07:45 like almost how I felt, like, you know,
07:47 like when you're drifting,
07:48 like drifting through this moment and that song,
07:52 it just hits so well.
07:54 Like I just listened to it and it feels like the,
07:58 it just feels like love, something about it,
08:01 but like all the scary parts of love too,
08:03 but all the like hopes and dreams of it too, you know?
08:06 - I know, it's just, you look like so dumb.
08:10 - Okay.
08:11 Checkmate.
08:14 - Dang.
08:17 - Boom.
08:18 - Okay.
08:35 - You really don't think they're sending anybody to save us?
08:38 - I mean,
08:42 I'm sure they're doing what they can, within reason.
08:47 - At that leap, that perfectly dovetails with my last question.
08:51 I love that you mentioned New Orleans.
08:52 I was wondering if you were going to bring that up,
08:54 but the, you know,
08:56 because New Orleans is different than New York.
08:58 - Yeah, totally.
08:59 - Completely in all its different ways.
09:01 But having spent a lot of time in New Orleans,
09:03 the thing is, is that New Orleans is about memory.
09:06 It's about perspective.
09:07 It's about you at that time of the night
09:09 or that time of the morning and the person you're talking to.
09:12 And here, you know, within the movie, it's the same thing.
09:14 'Cause you're talking about his psyche,
09:16 Mackie's psyche versus, you know, Chloe,
09:19 versus Zoe's psyche.
09:20 You know, you have all these things,
09:22 but what came to mind is memory.
09:24 Memory is a tricky thing,
09:26 but it's also has to do at what point you're at.
09:29 As you say, whether you're in longing, you're in lust,
09:33 you're in aftermath, it's so many things.
09:36 Again, that's New Orleans too.
09:37 - Or limerence, which is the worst.
09:39 - Or like, yeah.
09:40 (laughs)
09:41 - Limerence.
09:42 - But can you talk about that notion of the psyche
09:45 in those scenarios and how memory, we see memory,
09:49 like the way they see the memory of that last dance.
09:52 - Yeah.
09:53 - It's much different than the memory they're gonna,
09:54 they would have in the bedroom.
09:57 Like when she was naked in the bed the one night
09:59 and she made the joke.
10:00 We see things and remember things in certain ways.
10:03 Can you talk about the notion of memory in this one?
10:05 Because it's about nostalgia.
10:07 - Yeah, I love nostalgia.
10:09 I'm obsessed with nostalgia.
10:10 And like, it's like one of the things
10:13 that I love to like explore.
10:15 And like, I think what happens with nostalgia
10:17 is that it kind of creates like a golden memory, you know?
10:20 Like it's almost like the way you remember things
10:23 is infinitely more poetic or beautiful
10:27 than it actually happens sometimes, you know?
10:29 Like our brain is sort of already at it.
10:31 And then like, sometimes what's wild about the brain
10:34 is like, you'll have a memory
10:37 and the way your brain sort of will remember that memory,
10:41 sometimes it's actually referencing that memory again
10:44 to remember the memory.
10:45 So there's this like kind of echo
10:47 that happens with memories where like,
10:49 every single time you remember something,
10:51 it's changing just a little bit, you know?
10:53 Because your brain is just like trying to like,
10:55 hold on to it as much as possible,
10:57 but it can't replicate it like perfectly every time,
11:02 you know?
11:02 So like, you're kind of sometimes trapped by
11:07 like an emotion that the memory invokes, you know?
11:11 Like, it's like, oh wow, this memory has changed a lot.
11:14 Like if you remember something from 10 years ago,
11:17 the details that you remember are still kind of foggy,
11:20 you know, but they feel real, they feel real, you know?
11:24 And I think that's like how I look at it.
11:27 And I think that's kind of like how in this film,
11:30 I explored memory,
11:31 'cause there's definitely like a feeling of,
11:33 like there's a surreal nature to the whole film
11:36 or like a magical realism sort of aspect to it,
11:39 where it's like, is the ship this way?
11:42 Like, you know, I never answer the question,
11:43 you know what I mean?
11:44 You kind of do, but you know what I mean?
11:46 Like, there's a lot of things like, yeah, like those,
11:48 I think also like at the end of the day,
11:51 I love that film is a magical medium, you know?
11:55 Like I love when a film is just saying, I am a film,
11:59 you know, like I think back,
12:02 I was talking about this recently about how,
12:06 back to the future, there's like a DeLorean
12:09 and that's a time machine
12:10 and that's such a wild, ridiculous idea.
12:13 You know, it's like so silly, like you put that on paper
12:17 and you know, you could almost imagine nowadays
12:20 is how hard that would be to get made
12:22 because people would probably like scoff at it
12:24 or be like, well, our people and audiences
12:26 are gonna understand, are they gonna understand
12:28 it's a time machine, you know?
12:29 Like, the dumbest questions will come out.
12:32 But that's what film is.
12:34 Like there's something fun about the absurdity of something
12:37 or the magic that you imbue it with.
12:40 So like, I think like for me,
12:42 it's always nice to see that films just embrace it,
12:45 you know, like don't question it, just be magical.
12:49 Like go for it. - Go with it.
12:50 - Yeah, go with it, yeah.
12:52 (dramatic music)
12:54 (dramatic music)
12:58 (dramatic music)
13:01 (upbeat music)
13:03 [BLANK_AUDIO]