For his directorial debut, The Apparition, a paranormal thriller starring Ashley Greene and Sebastian Stan, director Todd Lincoln worked to explore the genre in a more classical style than a lot of found-footage films of recent note. I recently had a chance to talk to Lincoln one-on-one, about his movie, future projects, and the unlikely path of inspiration inclusive of Stan Brakhage and Salma Hayek that led to his career in filmmaking. The conversation is excerpted below:
Brent Simon: I know you went to film school at USC, but take me back further, because there’s usually a moment of transition where, for every film fan who devours movies as a kid, a switch is flipped between avocation and something they realize they can do for a living.
Todd Lincoln: Right, right. I was much more serious about playing with toys as a kid, and I would stage elaborate battles with G.I. Joe and Transformers and Star Wars-type stuff, and would come up with early forms of scripts. And I would get all these sound effects CDs and edit together all these jungle sounds and explosions and machine gun fire. So I started with that, and would play movie soundtracks as the score to some of these toy battles. But I wasn’t videotaping anything. I didn’t have my own video camera for some reason, so I’d borrow some friend’s, or have a friend come over with an early-era Hi-8 camera. We started to shoot some of our toy battles and even start to mess with the stop-motion function on the camera. That was for fun, and then in high school I started making deals with teachers to get out of writing big papers and essays on Shakespeare… I’d say, “What if I make a video?” I wasn’t getting that great of grades, so I started making these videos with inanimate objects and my dog and I played this back for the class and would get this great reaction from the students and teacher. I went from getting Cs or Ds on papers to getting As, so now it was in my brain, like, “I get a great reaction and people are talking to me now and my grades are going up.” My school in Tulsa was pretty progressive, and the video teacher was this very avant garde guy. He had his own studio in town and was a video artist. He showed what were new works at the time, by this teenage girl Sadie Benning who shot short videos on a Fisher Price Pixelvision camera, and while I’d grown up loving Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Terminator-type stuff I was being shown videos by William Wegman or Stan Brakhage — all this experimental stuff — and I felt like, “Wow, this counts? You can do that and call yourself a filmmaker? That’s awesome — maybe I can be a filmmaker. I can do that.” It made it seem possible. … And then the summer between my junior and senior year I went to this summer production workshop at USC, and traveled out to L.A., where you’d shoot one Super 8 a week for five weeks and then you’d shoot a 16mm film at the end. So you’d write, produce, and then edit on Moviolas. I worked on a bunch of independent documentaries and features. And then right after high school and before USC I worked on From Dusk ‘Til Dawn.
BS: Did you have any special moments with Salma Hayek and/or her boa constrictor?
TL: I was on set when that was happening, and I was like 17 or 18.
BS: And you said, “This is the greatest profession ever…”
TL: Oh, man. She, oh… yeah. I was also working visual effects department at the time time, and… well, I have to be careful. (laughs) But seeing Salma Hayek, when you’re a teenager, in states of undress is a huge thing. And there was some after-party where Quentin Tarantino was celebrating with mariachi music and Salma Hayek came up to me and pulled me onto the dance floor and asked me to dance. It just changed my DNA. (laughs) And the important thing about that film was that I worked in every single department and wore many hats and (saw) that’s how they really came at it — this close-knit circus family, with an independent spirit. So I worked in the office, on set, in visual effects, the art department, creature effects, craft services, wardrobe — everything. So that helps later on, because as a director when you’re asking somebody for something you know what it means to ask for that. Sometimes it actually hurts you, because I’m probably too nice of a guy and I know what it feels like to do all of those things, and I’m like, “Oh gosh, I hate to ask this.” But at least you know what some production assistant has to go do at three a.m. or whatever.
BS: Part of doing a film like The Apparition is deciding what you’re going to show, and what you’re going to leave to the viewers’ imagination. Digitally, you can manipulate a lot more things. But was shooting on 35mm integral to how you wanted to tell the story?
TL: Oh yeah. Right from the initial words the first time I pitched it [I said] this is 35mm, 2.35 aspect ratio, and we want to shoot on these vintage anamorphic lenses to give it a bit of grain or texture, and life to it. So that was the plan from the start, and (cinematographer) Daniel Pearl, who shot the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre and the remake, (felt the same); that guy is as hardcore about 35mm as I am, and we were really fighting the good fight, because sadly, 35mm is no longer a given — you actually get a look when you bring it up sometimes, and that’s such a tragedy.
BS: Have you worked in digital before, on commercials or shorts?
TL: I’m mainly exclusively film. I’ve shot only one or two things on digital, and I always prefer film. I think certain people have made digital look great, but I think I can tell the difference and whether audiences know it consciously or not they feel it too. They may not be able to describe it, but it’s a feeling.
BS: You had a ghost consultant on this film, but you also did a lot of reading, about documented experiences (of paranormal investigation) from the 1970s and ’80s. Through the process of osmosis, how much of that (research) made its way into the film as you were shaping the narrative?
TL: A good bit. And yeah, in fact it wasn’t just me who did the research. After we cast the movie I had all the actors talk and meet with our paranormal consultant, and we had all these files and images he would email us about how his lab was set up, and different findings and equipment, and of course terms and jargon. The actors would read through all that stuff, and they really got into it. I was just trying to keep things as grounded and real and authentic and honest as possible — for the movie, and horror fans and the paranormal community, so that they can be
like, “They got it right it!” In fact, there are a bunch of paranormal sites that are excited, and [have written], “They said the word Tolpa!” or “They’re using the right EEG headset!”
BS: This is your debut but you already have a couple interesting upcoming projects. Are you really going to be able to keep the title Twittering From the Circus of the Dead?
TL: (laughs) That’s the title of Joe Hill’s short story, and Mandalay Pictures is where that film is [set up], and they love the title. I loved the short story, and I’m a huge Joe Hill fan. It’s hard to describe, but it’s about a teenage girl on a road trip with her family, and they end up pulling off to a Route 66-type circus that’s going on and sit down and watch the show. Strange stuff starts happening, and the location and imagery and set pieces [evoke this] carnival sideshow scary stuff, but the first half is a road trip Polaroid portrait — part Sophia Coppola, part Terrence Malick, part Larry Clark, part Gus Van Sant, where no horror is happening. The first 30 minutes are like Psycho or something, and then it’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Carnival of Souls, ending on more of an Eyes Wide Shut third act. It shifts through these different gears, but it’s also very consistent and congruent in terms of style. It’s been a challenge to craft things in the right way, but I’ve closely collaborated with Joe Hill and got his blessing on things.
BS: You also have “The Nye Incident.”
TL: Yes, that’s with Whitley Strieber, and is based on real incidents of alien abductions and mutilations that are happening in this town. That’s really a grounded, terrifying new take on alien stuff — doing it as if everyone else got it wrong in all movies and TV shows, because they actually have gotten it wrong. It’s so much more strange and terrifying than anything else out there. I feel like we haven’t really had an alien film that’s knocked it out of the park in a relatable, iconic way in a while. We have go-to exorcism (movies), and vampires and zombies and werewolves, but you don’t really have that film you reach for that makes you feel like this is really going on out there. That’s the goal with that. It’s been ruined by pop culture — alien stuff is on every skateboard deck and sticker and notebook now, and doesn’t really seem scary. But this movie is going to be fucking scary.
BS: Which one is definitely next — do you know yet?
TL: “The Nye Incident” seems likely to be the next on deck. That script is solid and locked in and ready to go. I’m meeting with actors now and we’re getting the financiers ready and in order. I’m also writing some other original stuff, and I’m going to go knock out this new experimental short film to kind of balance out all this big commercial machine stuff, because (with) my favorite filmmakers it doesn’t matter where they are in their careers, they flex all their different muscles and keep it real (by) knocking out a short film or whatever.