TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE INTERVIEW SERIES 9: THE GRANDFATHER creator Graham Reznick

TALES FROM BEYOND THE PALE INTERVIEW SERIES 9: THE GRANDFATHER creator Graham Reznick

I Can See You director Graham Reznick discusses his episode "The Grandfather" starring Angus Scrimm

Vegas Outsider: To provide context, could you briefly summarize the basic plot of The Grandfather and how this story was initially developed?

Graham Reznick: The Grandfather is a story about an elderly man who is being visited by his daughter's family. When his young grandson reveals a terrifying secret about his fate, The Grandfather is determined to stop his daughter and her husband from making a horrible mistake. He consults with his dead wife through her beloved cat, and begins to try and set things right before it's too late. It's a story in which I wanted to explore a series of events from the point of view of someone who is not seeing reality the same way as those he is interacting with. The Grandfather may be suffering from dementia, but then again, the rest of his family may be under a terrible spell.

VO: The episode’s main performer, Angus Scrimm, is of course a legend in the horror community given his famous role as The Tall Man in the Phantasm series. What made you interested in him for this particular role and what do you feel he brought to the performance overall?

GR: I had worked with Angus on a number of projects for Glass Eye Pix as a sound designer, and I loved the tone and cadence of his speech, so I wrote the part specifically for him. He's well known for playing a number of roles as a menacing figure, but I've also had the pleasure of seeing him take on benevolent roles as well, such as in Jim McKenney's Automatons and Satan Hates You. He has a kindness to his voice that is both soothing and captivating, and yet, he's able to turn on a dime and crank up the menace. A lesser performer would not have been able to carry out the delicate balance between innocent guardianship and malevolent confusion that is intrinsic to the plot of The Grandfather.

VO: Given your sound design work on other Glass Eye Pix projects, The Grandfather is no different in terms of its meticulous soundscapes and attention to detail. How was the recording process for this episode and creatively, how has this experience been for you creatively working on a project that relies wholly on sound to communicate to its intended audience?

GR: I had originally pitched a number of ideas to Larry Fessenden and Glenn McQuaid, some of which used sound far more narratively, like using telephone conversations or radio call in shows as a basis, but it was this almost play-like pitch about a grandfather that really stuck with them. It was not one that I had thought would use sound as main narrative device, I always imagined it would be carried by dialogue and words. So I had the challenge of also making it aurally interesting (which is one of the reasons Angus was a great fit). I've also spent a lot of time composing synthesizer music, usually for my own projects, but I've also contributed tracks to Ti West's films to work alongside Jeff Grace's amazing music, as well as scoring Ti's web series Dead & Lonely. That's something I wanted to play with more in a longer narrative piece.

When the main element of the medium is the disembodied human voice, soundscape, music and mix play an large role in shaping every perception of the space and emotion of a scene. On screen, you have the luxury of using camera angles, lenses, lighting, and editing to alter space, time and emotion, but in pure audio drama, you have less tools. But the tools you do have become more impactful. Suddenly, allowing a character to "walk offscreen" has a much bigger impact. Or hearing the reverb on their voice shift from a tight kitchen to a large outdoor space leaves a big impression and grounds the audience spatially.

Likewise, subtle changes in music and soundscape can completely alter the listeners perception of the story. Recording was done in a somewhat piecemeal fashion over a few months. We recorded Angus in late summer, by himself. It wasn't until months later, in November, that we were fully cast. Due to scheduling we mostly recorded everyone separately (though Matt Huffman and Kate Sheil read together). I was worried that it might not cut together, or that the performances wouldn't sync, mostly because I'd never recorded anything in this way. But everyone was so good that it came together really well.

Editing was hard in the sense that I had a lot of material and different line readings (due to my worry that things wouldn't match up), but the performances we so consistent and emotionally sincere that I was generally making a tough choice between two great, subtly different line readings. This was true of everyone - Angus, Matt, Kate, Brenda Cooney and Michael D'Addario. It feels strange to ask actors to take away everything tangible for them to play off of and ask them to still believe in the world they are portraying, and yet, these guys all did it so well it made it seem easy - which it's definitely not.

VO: It’s interesting to note how The Grandfather feels thematically linked to previous works of yours like I Can See You and The Viewer in that much of the tale revolves around a singular, warped perspective and brings into question notions of sanity and reality. Do you feel this is a fair assessment?

GR: Yes - this is something I'm very interested in: subjectivity. Much like how I feel 3D can establish a palpable connection between the audience and the screen enhancing the possibility of subjective exploration, audio-only drama diminishes (and dismisses) a sense that might allow the audience to more easily escape a subjective grasp. When you are faced with only one sense, you can't cross-check your facts with another. With visuals and audio, music/sound typically enhances subjective emotion (fear, elation, the excitement of action) while the visuals ground us in a relatable reality.

You can see that a character is in a kitchen when they say they're in a kitchen. The visuals could be lying, but the experience in the moment is that they are in a kitchen. When you only have the audio telling you the story, you have no way of knowing what a place or a person really looks like. You're entirely dependent on the audio, and what the narrative voice is choosing to tell you. We are misled more easily, reality is less concrete.

VO: Listening to the completed episode, do you feel that you were able to accomplish what you intended from the beginning and what would you hope the listener takes away from it, if anything, besides an entertaining experience?

GR: Tying in to the last question, the subject of subjectivity interests me on the whole because we have such a tenuous relationship to it. At any moment, a loss one of our senses can instantly change the way we perceive reality. We will, in a way, stop existing in one reality and begin existing in another. It's a terrifying possibility - but it's also exciting, like we're living on the edge. To know that reality could fall away or become unfamiliar makes me appreciate the world I live in now. In "The Grandfather," we follow a character that must make choices based on the reality in which he inhabits, flawed though it may be.

His choices might, from the perspective of another's reality, be horribly tragic, but he believes he is doing the right thing. What the listener takes away from a story like this is up to them, but I think the idea of recognizing that while we may all live in the same space, we live through different realities, is an important one. In our modern, networked culture of superimposed nationalities and ethnicities, where sometimes the actions of others seem incomprehensible, I think this is particularly relevant.

To listen to this episode, go to www.talesfrombeyondthepale.com