David Hackl Interview - Exclusive Interview
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Staci Layne Wilson: You’re best-known for your work as a production designer, so can you talk a little bit about what visual things that you bring to your own directorial debut?
David Hackl: Sure. One of the things that was really important me was that was my art director for the past couple years, came on as my production designer, which for one thing added a huge level of comfort for me. Because Tony and I had a shorthand that I have had with few other people that I have worked with. We worked very closely to develop the ideas and developed a style of the film. To develop the over all look in the sense that early on in preproduction. Tony and I both did our own research and really brainstormed, what we wanted this thing to look like. There is a five person game in this movie that we wanted to make sure with just the right tone that set apart for the rest of the film. So that it was something that was very distinct. So every time that the camera arrived there, every time they cut to that part of the movie. People would right away usually go "ah, we're back, we are back in this environment!"
So, are you going to keep up with the awesome segues the Saw movies are so well-known for?
David Hackl: Oh, yeah, Yeah. We have to, to an extent. I let go of the transitions quite a bit, because in some cases... I've often argued with the directors, when I was production designing that if a transition becomes something that makes you fall out of the suspension of disbelief, you are ruining your own movie. And so I did not want that to happen. Some of the things that I have done in this movie are much simpler. Just the kind of thing where you can from one side of the room to the other. Very, very simple. I didn't use them all way through the movie. There are just a few places. It was really just a way of making a scene more interesting by wandering around the room.
Well, with all of your experience on this franchise. How do you anticipate what the fans want from this installment?
David Hackl: It's funny you asked that, because that is one of the things that we really thought about. What kind of tone do we have to put to this film that is going to make it so the fans are not disappointed by it? I mean, that was my biggest thing. I wanted to make sure that there were no fans who watched this film and went, "Ugh, they did what I thought they were going to do." I think that we achieved it. I think that we took a lot of care to ask ourselves the question early on, what are some of the lingering questions that the fans will have? And I think we answer a couple of very big ones. How do we support those questions, how do we present those questions in a story form? I also wanted to make sure that the emotional context of this film was very strong in the sense that I wanted to make sure that people connected to the actors are emotionally. So that they would feel for them when they were in traps. When they were in the situations that they ended up in. I wanted them to have a strong emotional tie to all the characters in the film, not just the good ones but the bad ones too. I wanted their impressions of the character to change through the story as well. So that was something that was a very big element that I wanted to pull through this whole thing, was the emotional context.
I am curious to know about a lot of other franchises that we see go direct to DVD. You know like, the Hellraiser ones and so on. So, what's the life of this in the theaters, do you think?
David Hackl: I think for one thing, we work really hard to make these movies smart. The Saw films are a thinking person’s film. We don't just write a simple story and put a bunch of gory details in it and a bunch of gory scenes where someone loses a limb or has their head chopped off or something like that. We really try hard to make it awful. To not insult fans. That's one of the most important things, I think that the Saw fans are a very clever bunch. And I don't think that we want to risk insulting anybody because we do not want to be insulted. I mean, for me to have the passion to make the movie. I have to also want to see that movie. And I want to see that movie finished. So I think that one of the things is that we enjoy making so much that comes across on film. And it's not just myself, I know that all the crew members and in this case, on this movie, I know that I have heard from a lot of the cast members that they really enjoyed making this. People like Julie Benz; some of the people may have thought would never have been in a Saw movie, but she was having a great time. She was in there and she worked so hard and was stupendous. Her character was very strong. And I think that was important to me as well, was making the characters really strong so that the actors could have something to hang their hat on when they are performing. You can't just say you have to walk out the door, you have to tell them why they are walking out the door. You have to help them know why they are walking out the door.
The old, “What is my motivation?” right?
David Hackl: What's my motivation. Exactly. Without sounding cliché, that is exactly what it is.
And that still holds true after all these years.
David Hackl: It really does. And at the same time, this was a cast, that really brought a lot of that to the movie as well. It was really important for all of them as the pros that you are to find the motivation as well. We talked about it a lot. We talked about it every day. We talked about it for every scene. And every one of them is like that. There was one just through their lines out on any given day. Everybody had a really good cognitive understanding of what they were doing in that scene, why they were in that scene, what the scene was about. I loved it. That was one of my favorite parts was working with a cast so closely in helping to make a movie become better and better by every scene. Because they were so dedicated to it, really.
There is such a quick turnaround on these films, too. Did you guys already have the story together while you were filming Saw 4?
David Hackl: We started very early on. At one point, I was possibly going to direct Saw 4. And I started to develop the story ideas for Saw 4. Dan Haffner, who is the executive producer, line producer, and has been on all the Saw movies, Dan and I worked very closely to put together some story ideas for Saw 4. Many of those ideas made into 4, but then what Darren's changes to the concept, some of them skipped over and became story ideas that we actually used in Saw 5 to an extent. Just like small elements here and there. There were not big through lines but little elements that we said "Oh, now we can use this, now we can use that". So some of the research started to develop almost 2 1/2 years ago. And then as soon as it was apparent that I was not doing 4, of course, they offered me Saw 5. So for the past year it's been really working on it nonstop. So even while I was doing Saw 4, and working on Repo. I was pretty much spending my weekends and spare time on it.
I loved Repo. I think it came out amazing. The visuals are stunning. So can you tell me a little bit about your influences when you looked at that film from a production designer’s point of view? Maybe a little Dario Argento influence in there for the opera stage scene?
David Hackl: Oh, yeah, absolutely. For me, I think that one of the things that was very important is that I talked to Joel White the cinematographer about making things look very painterly wanted images to look like still life paintings. Joel chose to use straw gels and lights that are type of gel that have more natural colors and more natural tones to them than the regular theater gels or some of the regular gels that we use in film. It was really something that made everything look a little more natural. That's what was interesting, to have this juxtaposition of this completely surreal setting. And then have these very natural tones to it helps to make a little more real, so I think that it could have been almost too cartoon otherwise. And that was something that we did not want to have happen. I wanted people to take a look at the circus scene, and for all the colors that is in the carnival scene, outside of the opera. It would look almost like not primaries, but secondary colors and tertiary colors that may get rich and very festive. But I wanted it to be a little bit down, a little bit darker and a little bit more of a natural tone.
Definitely, you can see that.
David Hackl: Yeah.
So, have you got your next project lined up?
David Hackl: No, but I am reading scripts like crazy.
Q: When do you sleep?
David Hackl: I slept a little bit on the airplane today. And I'll sleep when I'm dead.
Q: Thanks for not sleeping during this interview!
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