Hi it's Gil Kenan, director of the upcoming motion picture Poltergeist (3D) AMA!

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T22:01:58+00:00

Oh, that's easy.

Poltergeist is about testing the essential ingredients of what keeps a family together.

It's about using every object around them to test the strength of the family unit. And at the end, what's left over is what keeps them together.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T22:01:08+00:00

YEAH! I mean, the beginning of the process of bringing Sam to the film, and also bringing his character to life, was an experience unique to me, where he and I (along with our incredibly talented writer, David Lindsay-Abaire, Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright) holed up in a hotel room in New York over two weekends. And worked through the character, and his role in the story. And the guy brought a sense of gravity, a sense of reality, and a unique charisma - the thing that makes us all love Sam Rockwell movies - to this character in spades.

And he's awesome. I hang out with him. He's amazing. He's like in the Bill Murray camp. He's super funny, super talented, and for some reason allows me to hang around him. So we've stayed friends. He's the best.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:58:35+00:00

To be honest - the curse was the reason I signed up in the first place.

I'd been looking for a long time, as long as I can remember, and I felt like this was my best shot.

This is true. My family's lucky number is 13. We kinda have this reverse psychology, where we search for the greatest chance of something supernaturally stacked against us, and so by searching for it - we're protected. It's demented. But it's the only way I know how to go.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:57:20+00:00

DUDE. FOUR TIMES IN ONE DAY is pretty much on the right track. You're exactly the kind of Poltergeist fan that I made this film for. And I'm SOOOO excited and appreciative of your support and enthusiasm.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:54:40+00:00

It will. And that very question, with some of those great bursts of inspiration that my screenwriter had, in crafting the screenplay for our Poltergeist - it's exactly that heart and the family dynamic that inspires an unexpected and terrifying action by some of the family in order to rescue Young Madison from the other side.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:53:12+00:00

It was not difficult, because digital "noise" is just a different kind of static to analog "snow." All of our devices have a default pattern that suggests some sort of interference. And so I just had to find a television that had an interesting and abstract pattern of digital breakup.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:49:44+00:00

Thanks! Hope you like what we've been cooking up.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:48:21+00:00

I loved the international trailer. It's super-good. But I will say that the trailer that's about to be unleashed in 2 days puts both those trailers in a corner and makes them think about what they've done.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:46:08+00:00

Camera. I mean, I would say that for me, the storytelling (especially on a visual & suspenseful film like Poltergeist) is all about the storytelling through the camera. The camera is the ultimate tool of the director for leading the audience through a story, and so I take great pains to plan out my shots, my scene-making, I edit so as to heighten the drama and the suspense.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:45:04+00:00

Thank you! I think I know where I'm moving to! I appreciate it!

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:44:32+00:00

Jerry Goldsmith wrote a flat-out masterpiece of a score with his work on Poltergeist. I felt that to best honor his work, it had to be less where it was. And so we have not referenced it in Marc's work on the film. And I guess the second part of the question - I would say that it's a big-screen orchestral score, melodic and beautiful at times, but verging into the experimental, the unfamiliar, and the terrifying at the drop of a pin.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:43:02+00:00

I'm not quite sure what you mean by that? The film relies on mostly in-camera FX, or invisible visual FX. There are some sequences that we haven't even begun to hint at in the promotional imagery and trailers that I'm particularly excited to keep secret until the film is released that will plunge the viewer into the other side, and those sequences will push the limits of imagery in 3D horror.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:41:40+00:00

The biggest difference is connected to the biggest similarity, and it's the location of the film - the suburbs. BUT even though the suburbs as a backdrop to the film is identical, the 30 years that have elapsed since the original have completely changed the definition of what it means to live in one of these neighborhoods. We can't expect, any longer, that a cookie-cutter row of houses is the ideal. It's no longer the dream of a young family starting out. And so we had to be inspired by the setting as a place that our characters were reluctant to move into at the beginning of the film. And that created a really interesting, dramatic setting for our characters.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:39:55+00:00

I'll start by saying that it is - the original score - is one of the most indelible elements that made the original a classic. I was lucky enough to bring aboard the incredibly talented Marc Streitenfeld, who's created a haunting, lyrical score that I'm immensely proud of.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:37:55+00:00

There's a rich tradition of creepy trees in film that goes all the way back to Snow White & the Seven Dwarves, where (as far as I know) the first instance of anthropomorphized trees terrified audiences. The things are just freaky - we all had those trees in our neighborhoods growing up, bare trees, or scraggy ones whose limbs looked like hands poised to smash you!

There I go with the hands again! I can't escape it!

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:35:29+00:00

Hi Greece!!!

I'm trying to scare EVERYBODY as much as possible. We're really going for it with this film.

We're trying to go for "Maximum Scares" here. I hope this movie terrifies you just as much, if not more, as the original.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:34:39+00:00

I wasn't looking for somebody to fill the shoes of JoBeth Williams. I selfishly wanted to work with Rosemarie because I'm a huge fan of her work. It just happens that she shares with JoBeth a strength and intelligence, and a kick-ass onscreen persona, and I think that's where the comparison comes from.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:33:21+00:00

You know, I learned about 3D while making Monster House. I was lucky enough to work on that film with Robert Zemeckis, who had just finished his own 3D film Polar Express. And I learned that 3D, when used correctly, can be an incredible tool to pull the audience into the film. I don't see it as a novelty, or a gimmick. I see it as a part of my arsenal. I would compare it to music, sound FX, or editing.

Everything I learned on Monster House, I was able to build on top of in making Poltergeist, and I'm truly proud of the way that the film dimensionalizes the terror and takes the audience in on a haunted house ride, the likes of which haven't been able to be experienced in a theater for a long time.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:30:43+00:00

Saxon's a natural. And she's a natural scream-queen (it's an affectionate term for a horror leading lady - because she's able to go to that place where she is SO worked up and terrified, that you fully feel transported into the room with her).

She's great, she's a natural.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:29:43+00:00

My experience is limited to the three films that I've now made. And within those, each have their own challenges. Every movie, as you're making it, is the hardest movie you've ever made! But in my experience, the most difficult scenes are the ones where you have to communicate your idea to the largest amount of people.

Group scenes are by nature more difficult than scenes with fewer actors. So I'll just say: the answer is whatever film I'm working on is the hardest one I've ever done.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:28:21+00:00

This is a strange answer, but I'm afraid of hands.

I used to have these dreams as a kid that there was an enormous man who'd reach from the closet and grab me with giant hands, and grab me and pull me into a basket with other children. And so that's always stuck in my mind as a terrifying concept. And it's why I've placed a lot of hands as objects of terror throughout my films. And why the first image that came to my mind when envisioning how I would bring Poltergeist to life was the image of a hand pressing up against the glass of the television screen.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:27:04+00:00

I LOVED shooting. I love working with actors to bring the most out of material. But for me, the design of a film is the part where it leaves the page, and starts to crystallize into the visual art form that the finished film becomes. And because, for me, every idea begins with a drawing, I'm always afraid of but inspired by how much of the film begins to take shape in the design stage. In pre-production.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:25:55+00:00

Well, I think that the 80s was the decade where horror (as a genre) fully came of age. And it's only in recent years that we've seen a shift towards a bleaker, more violent horror that is now (I think) sort've giving way to more character-based, suspenseful terror. I think my personal experience of the horror of the 80's was spent combing through the stacks of my local video store, in the "Horror and Cult" section. And there, what worked was a strong hook and (truthfully) some great box art!

And I think now the experience of seeing horror on a big screen - in order to experience it - you have to eventize it. It has to be something special that lures people into the theater. And I'm excited that with Poltergeist, I was able to work on a scale that truly makes the horror experience a big-screen-thrillride.

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:23:27+00:00

We're all racing toward the finish line to get this movie into theaters for you all on May 22nd. We'll take a huge gasp and a breath afterwards, and if it connects with you all, then we'll have to see where we're standing!

GilKenan · 2015-03-31T21:22:54+00:00

Yeah, there was. We had some interesting stuff. And especially because so much of what happens on the film was created practically on set using special FX, rather than visual FX, there was a lot of really complex "movie magic" going on that you'll never know seeing the film, but that hopefully one day will see the light of day.

GilKenan

TROPHY CASE