Co-Writers/Co-Directors Celine Held & Logan George talk to The Inside Reel about inspiration, approach, tonality and structure in regards to their new genre thriller: "Caddo Lake" premiering on Max.
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00:00This is my sister's, tell me where you got this!
00:23The context and the tone of the film is very specific, but it's also about perspective
00:38and perception in many ways, with specifically two of your characters.
00:45Could you talk about looking at that concept and using sort of that idea of perception
00:52within the structure of the story?
00:54Yeah, I mean, it was a bit of an unlock for us because the first draft of the script was
01:00actually just one protagonist, and we realized we weren't, like it sort of wasn't amounting
01:06to what we wanted in terms of what we wanted to explore thematically, and then finding
01:10the sort of two protagonist version of it became really exciting because your ability
01:15to jump into and out of scenes with that intercutting allows you to build the kind of pace and structure
01:22that you want.
01:23There's a couple of sequences that, you know, have larger beginnings and larger endings
01:27to scenes, but in the edit you find that pace and rhythm, and our biggest thing was recognizing
01:33that the protagonist had to be moving at the exact same speed and like sort of ramping
01:38up and getting to their own moments at the same time, if not like just right one after
01:42the other.
01:43Otherwise you sort of lose your relationship to both if one moves ahead or if one's staying
01:47more casual but one's like already at 11.
01:51So the structure was super important and it had different lives over the course of like
01:55writing and then production, and then it's different in the edit in a big way.
01:59All right.
02:00You want to drive?
02:01Yeah, I want to drive.
02:02Just stay in the middle.
02:03I know.
02:04Hey, it's been a while.
02:05I feel guilty about the accident.
02:06Whoa!
02:07Whoa!
02:08Whoa!
02:09Whoa!
02:10Whoa!
02:11Whoa!
02:12Whoa!
02:13Whoa!
02:14Whoa!
02:15Whoa!
02:16Whoa!
02:17Whoa!
02:18Whoa!
02:19Whoa!
02:21What was the flashpoint for you guys, if you want to talk about it, and Selene, if you
02:24could add in on this, the aspect of when it said, okay, you needed that click, because
02:29both of these characters are at different life point experiences.
02:32So their idea of what they're seeing is completely different emotionally, intellectually, physically,
02:38you know?
02:40Yeah.
02:42I think it was just the idea that they both are going, that Paris starts at the point
02:51of going through a tragedy, and that Ellie does not.
02:54And so making, so keeping that kind of like, that when Ellie's tragedy happens is kind
03:00of when we are off to the races, like when they both hear that thing on the water is
03:06when kind of the film really takes off.
03:08And so making sure before then, you know, it's tough to set up two separate protagonists.
03:13Normally, you know, that takes almost about 20 minutes in our film.
03:17Normally that'll take about 10 minutes in a film, because you only have one person.
03:21So in that, like alive and interesting, and keeping the grief away from swallowing Paris,
03:28but having him like have forward momentum in that was really kind of our focus for that,
03:33those first 20 minutes.
03:34She's your mom.
03:35It wasn't your fault.
03:36She hadn't had a seizure in six years.
03:37I'm not related to any of these people.
03:38You're my daughter.
03:39So you are a part of this family.
03:40Okay?
03:41Dear Jesus, I reckon you've been testing us with this drought here.
03:42But we know there's many folks struggling in ways greater than ours.
03:43And of course, environment is so important.
03:44Obviously, the dam and I, you know, I heard this was initially a flashpoint, like when
03:45you guys saw a photograph of the lake.
03:46Now, did that have to do with the fact that you were in the middle of the lake?
03:47Did that have to do with the fact that you were in the middle of the lake?
03:48Did that have to do with the fact that you were in the middle of the lake?
03:49Did that have to do with the fact that you were in the middle of the lake?
03:50I mean, because the lake looks like it could be frozen in time itself, just in real life.
04:13Yeah.
04:14Yeah.
04:15It's exactly right.
04:17We found a photo on Reddit and we drove down and lived off the lake in Texas for a couple
04:22months.
04:23The photo itself was this promise and going there, it exceeded our expectations.
04:28It was just a stunning, we feel like it should be another wonder of the world.
04:33Yes.
04:34Yes.
04:35You're lost.
04:36We got lost all the time on that lake on kayaks.
04:41Was the thematic of the dam, was that always like the dam of memory that it was?
04:47Where did the thematic of that came in?
04:48Because the aspect at one point when you see it in an earlier time, let's say, you get
04:54that sense of it.
04:55The idea of something that's old is new and new is old.
04:59Yeah.
05:00The dam for us, I think, was always the symbol of man's presence in the world and us exacting
05:09what we want onto nature and how ultimately there's very much about nature that we cannot
05:14control or begin to understand.
05:17And that nature will come for us all.
05:21So it was sort of like a sort of larger macro theme that was always in the background as
05:26that location.
05:27What are you doing?
05:28Man, why you gotta be such a scaredy cat?
05:29Mom, she called us home.
05:30Where's your daughter?
05:31How long has she been gone?
05:32We gotta search the whole lake.
05:33Annie!
05:34Annie!
05:35Annie!
05:36Annie!
05:37Annie!
05:38Annie!
05:39Annie!
05:40Annie!
05:41Annie!
05:42Annie!
05:43Annie!
05:44Annie!
05:45Annie!
05:46Either somebody's taken her or she's hers.
05:52I can feel my mom out there.
05:54Annie!
05:57But you also have the nature of mystery, which is key because you don't...
06:00I love the fact that you don't feel the need and there's no need to explain certain things.
06:06They just are.
06:08Can you talk about creating that sense of pace, of tone, of mystery within this while
06:13still giving those milestones that you know are so important to the story?
06:19Yeah, I think this trope of storytelling that we're exploring with, that again, I won't
06:26say for spoilers sake.
06:29We wanted it to feel, though, like the way that all the monarch butterflies go to that
06:35one mountain in Mexico, or those sheep that have walked in a circle for 10 days in Bangladesh.
06:43And I think that the earth and nature and animals, they know things that we don't know
06:49and that we'll never know.
06:50And that our ignorance, the need for us to discover and find out, that that can almost
06:55ruin the thing itself.
06:58And that in our kind of trying to tear things apart, trying to figure it out, that we'll
07:03never understand for that reason.
07:05We wanted to make something that felt like it could really exist in this place, that
07:10there was a bit of nature that was unexplored, and maybe with the right conditions, the right
07:14day at the right time, maybe it could happen.
07:17Anna, where are you?
07:31We got a positive ID on Anna Bennet's boat.
07:33Her life jacket's gone.
07:35Did you find different stuff that maybe wasn't in the script that came to mind?
07:39When you were shooting?
07:40And obviously things in the background that you probably didn't notice, although you probably
07:44noticed a lot of things in the edit that allowed it to sort of come forth even more.
07:48You know, this idea of understanding versus acceptance.
07:52You know, there's a lot of that going on in here.
07:55Totally.
07:56Yes.
07:57Yeah.
07:57I mean, we definitely weren't out to make something that could be like completely explained
08:03and tied up in a bow, because there is that sense of mystery.
08:07And it's part of what the magic of the story is.
08:10And so we want you to be asking those questions, but didn't want to diagnose it all so clinically.
08:16It was important for us that so much of it was left up to interpretation.
08:20There's also the emotional resonance.
08:23You can't make a movie like this without having sort of that grasp, those moments, those moments
08:28in between the lines, whether it be one of your characters in a hospital with his dad,
08:34or looking on the internet at something, you know, that they can't quite explain.
08:39Can you talk about finding those moments of in between those white noise moments,
08:44those moments that just sort of pop the movie?
08:48Well, that's like, that's the core of it.
08:50We kind of worked back from a lot of those moments that we were really excited to get
08:55to in the third act, because they felt like the most crucial, you know, revelations for
09:00these characters to be experiencing.
09:02And we're, you know, the characters built this story in so many ways from what we were
09:08trying to explore with them.
09:09So as much as there's the genre tropes and the sci-fi nature of the story, there's like
09:15a very human element at its core that we think is hopefully what you're taking away from
09:20it, you know, in so many ways.
09:23Something's happening, not part of life.
09:26Wolves don't live around here, so how could they be that far out in the water?
09:30What if the seizures are hereditary?
09:33I never had one.
09:34Two now.