Encounter: An Interview

Starring Luke Hemsworth Encounter follows the premise about aliens among us. A small rock like object hits Earth and four friends have to figure out how or what it can do. What they discover is something illuminating.

Director Paul Salamoff talks to the magazine about the journey he’s been on with his film Encounter.

Luke Hemsworth courtesy of Vega Baby

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is PAUL J SALAMOFF and I have been working for 30 years in Film, TV, Video Games and Commercials as a Writer, Producer, Director, Executive, Comic Book Creator, Storyboard Artist and Make-Up FX Artist.

I am the author of ON THE SET: The Hidden Rules of Movie Making Etiquette (Now in it's 4th Edition) and the graphic novels Discord, Tales of Discord, Logan’s Run and issues of Vincent Price Presents. I’ve also written short stories and essays that have been included in acclaimed anthologies including MIDIAN UNMADE: Tales From Clive Barker’s Nightbreed and THE CYBERPUNK NEXUS: Exploring The Blade Runner Universe and I am a two-time Bram Stoker Award Nominee.

I also teach screenplay and comic book writing at The New York Film Academy and have just made my feature-film directorial debut with ENCOUNTER, an award-winning Sci-Fi/Drama based on my original screenplay that stars Luke Hemsworth, Anna Hutchison, Cheryl Texiera and Tom Atkins.

The movie really starts off so quiet and then goes to a bang of action. What was your vision when creating the rhythm and pacing of the story?

As you mentioned, the movie begins with a butterfly serenely flapping its wings on a log but then flies off in a hurry as something invades its space. It’s meant as a precursor of what’s to come and that includes the pacing.

I’m a big fan of “evenly paced” films that draw in the viewer and engage them, so when the big events happen in the third act they are invested with the characters and care about what ultimately happens to them.

This was my vision when I was writing the script and directing the film, which is heavily influenced by sci-fi films like SOLARIS and STALKER as well as the more recent films like CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, ANOTHER EARTH, MOON, and ARRIVAL.

What attracted you to this story?

I wanted to explore the themes of loss, grief and fear of the unknown. I had gone through a painful divorce where the rug was suddenly pulled out from under me and ENCOUNTER was a cathartic way to deal with that pain. I also wanted to explore hope through the character of “Will Dawkins” (Luke Hemsworth) who desperately wants to get back the life that he lost, but has created this protective bubble and because of it is a little lost.

Jessica Dawkins and Luke Hemsworth courtesy of Vega Baby

What was your working relationship with Luke Hemsworth? What were some fun moments on set with him?

Luke is amazing to work with and he’s the “real deal” as an actor. I was recommended to him by my good friend Writer/Actor/Director Noel Clarke (DOCTOR WHO, STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS) for a different project that I was developing for Noel’s company. That movie got put on the back burner and then ENCOUNTER was suddenly happening. Luke seemed like a great choice for “Will” and he really responded to the script.

He really threw himself into the role and I had a number of rehearsals with him and with the entire cast which made working with him on set so much easier as we had done the work in Pre-Production.

Luke has a wicked sense of humor and he’s also a movie nut like I am. So we were constantly testing each other with our movie trivia. He does some pretty amazing impressions from movies, my favorite being when he does Bill Paxton from ALIENS! Hilarious!

Any on set antics or fun stories to share about the show during production?

The entire cast and crew truly bonded on set, so it was a lovefest from start to finish. Everyone spent time together, so there was a good camaraderie.

Christopher Showerman (John Brandt) decided to name the alien “Larry” for some reason so that became a running gag on the film.

We also would hang out when we weren’t shooting and one of my favorite things was when we went miniature golfing together. That became very competitive (it’s one of the only sports I’m actually good at).

There are these beautifully quiet shot moments in the film what was the purpose behind that direction? It moves the viewer to see what you only want us to see. The color paired with the shots also really blend seamlessly together.

My cinematographer Denton Adkinson and I spent a lot of time discussing the visual look of the film and especially how color is utilized. Will had his own color palette, which was a warm amber to signify hope, but as reality intrudes it becomes desaturated and is transferred over to the alien. The Agents had a steel grey feel and the colors become more and more rich as the story unfolds.

We also discussed the pacing of the film. It was always meant to be a “slow-burn” film, but one that moved along at a good pace and would never be boring. I’m a big fan of movies that take their time to build character and tell their story. Unfortunately some people equate “slow-burn” with boring and that it not the case if it’s done properly. Movies don’t have to be non-stop action to be entertaining. At its core ENCOUNTER is a drama about a group of broken and lost people and this fantastical element comes into their lives and it’s how they deal with it. The pacing comes from the dramatic tension and the fear of the unknown.

The score and sound effects seemed to be a very important aspect of the film as well. What did you hope to bring to the film with that aspect of production?

There are two people on my team that I have made it clear that I will not work without (assuming they’re available of course) and they are my D.P. Denton Adkinson and my Composer Penka Kouneva.

Sound design and score are so important to a film because at the end of the day you can save a bad image with great sound, but the best looking film is doomed if the sound is bad.

Unfortunately Composers get the bad end of the stick sometimes as they are typically brought in towards the end of Post-Production when there’s no money and time and are expected to work miracles with limited budgets and resources.

That’s not the way I work. Penka was brought onboard during Pre-Production and included in the entire process. During Production she worked on the motifs and the themes for the characters. Once we started assembling the film we’d send her sequences where she could start conforming those motifs into the score and we would adjust as we went on.

The great thing about Penka is that we could discuss the music in terms of emotion and intent in very layman terms. So any adjustments were of a surgical nature where it might be a few seconds of music that we would tweak as opposed to ever having to start from scratch with a cue.

I wanted the music to be present and not just sonic wallpaper and as I mentioned most of the characters had their own motifs. The music was never designed to manipulate the audience; it was used to weave a tapestry of the characters.

And Penka’s score to ENCOUNTER is brilliant and takes you on a journey as much as the story does. And it was no surprise that it got an official release by NoteForNote Records, which isn’t always the case for lower-budget films.

How long did it take to create the film from pre to post?

It was almost exactly a year from when I wrote the first draft of the script to when we locked the film in Post-Production. It all went rather smoothly as the movie came in on-schedule and under-budget, which is something I’m very proud of as a first-time feature director.

We spent a lot of time in Pre-Production and I storyboarded the entire film and I had a very clear vision of the film. The advantage of that is time is not needlessly wasted when you’re actually filming the movie as everyone understands the movie that we’re making.

Ultimately I got to make the movie I wanted to make with almost no compromises. We shot everything we wanted to on a 15 day schedule and because I brought it in under budget I was given 3 more days of additional photography to expand and sweeten aspects of the story which made the movie that much better.

With your vast experience in the industry, what has been one of your favorite films you have worked on whether it be as a writer, director or special effects artist?

As an FX Artist, I really loved working on THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. I’m known for making the fake dogs especially the dog in the cast that was used in the film’s marketing. We filmed it in Florida and I got to work with Ben Stiller, Cameron Diaz and Lin Shaye earlier in their massive careers. They were all very fun to work with. The Farrelly Bros sets are like families and I learned a lot about working collaboratively from them and their crews. I wound up working on 5 of their films and out of that came my book ON THE SET: The Hidden Rules of Movie Making Etiquette (which is now in it’s 4th edition and used in film schools around the world).

As a writer, I’m most proud of my graphic novel series DISCORD for Markosia Press out of the UK which I feel truly represents me as a storyteller. It’s a fairly unique concept of a superhero team like the Avengers who die fighting their enemy when they crash-land on an alien planet. The indigenous life forms on the planet collect all the “useable” bits and assemble and resurrect what they think is a human. So the main character wakes up to discover he’s now a Frankenstein-ian creation made up of not just his fallen teammates but also his enemy. It’s all about loss of identity and how you define yourself as a hero.

It was critically acclaimed and I followed it up with a prequel series about all the individual heroes called TALES OF DISCORD. Each one-shot comic was drawn by a different artist with original DISCORD artist Giuseppe D’Elia providing the art for all the wrap around stories that take place in the present.

We just announced DISCORD II which has a really crazy and challenging story about identity and the bonds that tie us to each other.

Do you have any advice for the young filmmakers out there wanting to create their own (Sci-Fi) movies out there?

I hope if you are inspired by sci-fi that you explore the sci-fi of ideas or “thoughtful” sci-fi. Unfortunately most people have come to believe that sci-fi is all about space battles and evil aliens bent on our destruction. But science-fiction as a genre has so much more to offer than that.

Show us something that we haven’t seen before. Push the boundaries of storytelling and aim for the unique. Those are the movies that endure. Those are the movies that people want to revisit. They may not be the most commercially viable films to be made, but I’ve always been about telling compelling stories and let the audience find you. Maybe not the best advice for a budding commercial filmmaker, but I see film as artform first and foremost.

Brain Place: An Interview with the Creatives

"Brain Place" is a stunning view of ordinary life on the edge of collapse told through a music video of Dru Cutler's songs. Jesse Newman the director and Kaela Hill producer worked with Dru Cutler to bring his robotic paradise to life. 

Jesse Newman (director) and Kaela Hill (producer) - Photo Credit Vladimir Weinstein

Who are you and what do you do? 

We are Jesse Newman (director) and Kaela Hill (producer) - and we are a filmmaking duo. Our recent creative work has been primarily music videos in the last year, and we also run a digital content + video team at a branding agency part time. 

How did you get involved with the music video project "Brain Place" by Dru Cutler? 

Dru is a long-time friend of Jesse; they've been collaborating on music videos for the past 10 years. He came to us an open brief for the video, so we got pretty ambitious with it. 

What was the production process like? As in how long for prepro/prod/post? There's a lot of visual effects and I'm curious how long this all took to put together. Embarking on a narrative project like this (vs. a more visually focused concept) requires more conceptual and pre-planning work.

We spent a number of months in the pre-production phase - ideating concepts, writing and optimizing the script, diving into the themes and symbols we wanted to bring through in our vision, figuring out the production design and styling, getting our cast and crew signed up, etc. Production took us about 6 full-on days over 2 weekends. In post, we got our storyline in place in a matter of weeks, but we finessed visual FX over the course of 2 months. 

What made you want to blend motion graphics with visual effects in this video? 

Since we didn't have the luxury of working with a “movie-sized” budget, we had to really get creative with building out our sci-fi world and enhancing the technology and city through the lens of visual effects. 

What inspired the art direction?

We generally like the sci-fi realm of things, so there was a lot of inspiration from a number of different sources combined. We didn't reference anything specifically, but we did want to play with the idea of a world where we are only slightly ahead of today. Shows like “Black Mirror” and movies like “Her” start to guide your imagination of what could be in the near future. Thinking about how we spend most of our time on our phones these days, we wanted to take that tech to the next level in an immersive AR/VR experience – creating a contrast between living in the digital realm vs. the real world. You almost have to choose which realm you want to be in. 

What was the collaboration process like with Dru to create this vision? 

Dru is an amazing collaborator. He really gave us the reins to develop our own concept, but he was an active participant in brainstorming as we started developing the story. 

Any fun or crazy stories to share on set while shooting?  

Yes! One of the hardest styling challenges was getting those cloudy contacts in people’s eyes. Dru never wore contacts before, so we had him laying on a rock, in the middle of the forest, trying to jam them in his eyes. We were racing the clock for sunlight, so the stakes were pretty high. Both Jesse and our makeup artist Brandie were trying to pry his eyes open. That same day, we made him jump into a freezing lake and swim out to the middle…but he only lasted about 10 seconds before swimming back, shouting obscenities. He was a good sport for doing it at all. 

Dru Cutler - Photo Credit Vladimir Weinstein

What was the hardest part of making the music video? 

The hardest part was trying to do a lot of advanced ideas within a short amount of time, a tight budget and a small crew…so we were always thinking on our toes and trying to make things happen.

What's your favorite shot in the video? 

The last shot is one of our favorites…the lighting outside turned out to be better than expected, and we had to get it done in one take. The dinner scene was a fun one to film! 

What made you want to direct music videos? 

Music video work tends to be highly creative and fun, as well as fast – you typically have the freedom to throw out some wild ideas. The launch timing is also pretty fast, so it’s great to work really hard on something and see it live soon after. 

Fun questions

If you were stranded on an abandoned island what five items would you want with you?

• solar panels

• a house, obviously

• rain water filtration system

• seeds

• copy of “The Art of the Deal” …to keep a fire going

If you could grab lunch with any film director living or dead who would it be and why? 

Spike Jonze. We love the wild cerebral and visual ideas behind his work. Would be great to absorb anything from his head.