CraveOnline: So my point is, we don’t even need 3D anymore.
Aaron Wilson: I don’t know, I saw Gravity the other day and that’s a pretty damn strong case to use 3D.
You know what? I missed Gravity and of course I was joking about my frustration with 3D.
I would’ve taken you literally because I hadn’t seen anything until that point that I thought really made use of the 3D technology. I won’t say anything about Gravity then. I just think it did wonders with 3D.
I can’t wait to see it, I just couldn’t fit it in here. Did you consider any other scripts for your first feature?
Not really. It sort of evolved out of a short film that I did called Wind which was basically focusing on two survivors of World War II but focusing on their lives now and sort of the daily mundane activities that consume their lives, and then paralleling them to see that they go about things in a different way, but they ultimately achieve the same thing and their behaviors are all affected by their experience during World War II. It sort of just evolved as a project that I wanted to tell in some shape or form. Then I started to write this script and it felt like I wanted to explore the idea of these soldiers being in the jungle in a feature environment, but tell it with a very sparse story, just keep it very simple so I could open up the world of the jungle and make it more of a character. That’s how Canopy really evolved, rather than me picking a particular script.
Have you had any good talks with buyers here?
I’ve been keeping out of that. I’ve left my sales agent to do all of that and I’ve told him to keep me out of the loop until the festival is over.
Hopefully we’ll hear good things after.
Yeah, he’s definitely speaking to a lot of people, North America and Europe.
Were there ever versions of Canopy that had more dialogue?
No. To be honest, no. I had some scenes where I had dialogue in there and they were more for our cast to get a feel of what I was trying to convey when I thought my description wasn’t strong enough, but with the idea of taking that dialogue out.
How did you cast your two lead actors?
Tzu-yi we met in 2009 when we were at the Hong Kong Film Market. We happened to see a film from Taiwan and it had an awesome performance by the lead actor. So we went up to the Taiwan Film Commission stand and said, “How do we find this actor?” And they said, “Well, he’s actually standing right behind you.” So we spoke to his agent and we spoke to Tzu-yi and over the period of that week, he and I discussed the script and our thoughts about the subject matter and the script. We pretty quickly decided that we both were on the same page. He’s done a stack of films and TV in Taiwan. He’s a bit of a star with the teenage girls there, so after a few conversations back and forth in the following weeks, we basically offered him the role.
With Jim, I auditioned a bunch of guys in Australia. A bit of an unconventional audition process where I put them in the room, I gave them the situation and said, “I’m going to film you. I want you to stay in that moment” and I think I might have described it as a jungle environment. I said, “I’ll film you and I’ll tell you when it’s over.” That would run for about 12-15 minutes each time. It was an interesting technique to see what happens when an actor’s being watched. Do they forget that they’re being watched by a camera or does their mind drift or do they become self-conscious? It was a really interesting exercise.
Is there something more than the literal meaning of the title Canopy?
The idea of that which is designed to protect us and it isn’t just a literal canopy, it’s maybe the cover of night. Or is it the canopy with which he fell through the forest, the parachute canopy? So there’s a lot of different versions of what we think that means. Then when we get to the end when the day reveals these soldiers, the forest which has protected them for most of the evening now seeks to reveal them. It’s a play on what we think the word canopy means and what protection really means.
What are you going to do next?
I’ve got another film that we’re developing or we’re in production on actually. It’s a follow-up to Canopy so if you think of Canopy as the experience of our soldier at war, the second film will be the return home and the effect of that legacy on his family.
Is it the Jim character or a different soldier?
We’re not quite sure yet. All we’re saying is it’s the same sort of character as who we’ve seen, but it’s really what happens to them when they return to their home country and how they relate to their family.
Fred Topel is a staff writer at CraveOnline and the man behind Shelf Space Weekly. Follow him on Twitter at @FredTopel.
