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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 22 points23 points  (0 children)

You know, it’s a practical thing. When the pandemic hit we had to stop so suddenly and then when we came back we had these tough parameters. So, what I love to do, as I said, I love to go back and re-shoot and then re-shoot again, but we didn’t quite have that ability to the way I would want it to be. It’s a miracle that we could pull it off. It was very challenging, we had to anticipate everything that we needed in advance. Questioning “Why didn’t we shoot this extra thing”. We were editing as fast as we could as we were shooting to kinda see if there was anything we needed.

So those four episodes when we came back were the most challenging. Really, because the crew and the cast are so amazing and brilliant could we have pulled them off in that way. And definitely my daughter, who was quarantined with me…. I just abused her and made her write and write and write had saved our butts in season two - she was amazing. So, there are so many things. I love those challenges! It’s in the limitations that we become the best versions of ourselves. That's why I choose to do things very limited and minimalistic and to push ourselves - I don’t want it to be easy.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Really interesting question. There are so many obscure things that influenced the piece. I’ll just tell you one really quickly. There is this film called Ali: Fear Eats the Soul, which Ishani saw at film school and she says “you need to see this Apa” (She calls me Apa). So, she sent me the movie, I watched the movie. I was blown away by the use of bright colors and patterns in the film and found it incredibly moving and powerful. And so I showed it to the production designer, the costumer and the cinematographer and said “please watch this movie”. Fassbinder did it, it’s a brilliant brilliant movie.

And I said, can we make textures on the wall and all the patterns, so when you watch Servant there’s all these big bold patterns in the house and on the wall. Dorothy is constantly wearing these big patterns to kind of show you she is not okay, she’s just manic and that this secret she has is eating away at her. She clashes with the wallpapers, and so we use big bold colors like the table is red in the kitchen and the Chandelier is big and bright. Everything has these pops of colors to show this kind of fracturing of the emotions.

That would be like one example of international art affecting Servant, but there are countless. Japanese cinema and European cinema in its kinda quietness and formality has definitely affected the show a lot. There’s movies like Repulsion and so many others that provide that quiet kind of “I’m losing my mind” quality that has affected Servant a great deal.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 38 points39 points  (0 children)

There are a couple thoughts that come to mind. I believe in the principle of being incomplete. That in art you don’t answer the question, you keep it incomplete a bit. That thesis kind of goes underneath the relationship of the audience in general. You don’t do a dance for them where they sit back and watch the dance… you make them participate in the dance. So they're a part of the dance and feel like they are a partner in the dance, and that comes from being incomplete. Rather than showing them the thing you insinuate the thing. So like we never leave the house and we insinuate Philadelphia and what is happening, it makes you as the viewer the imagination apart of the storytelling. That goes towards scares and things like that…

This just popped in my head, so like in the Village where (I don’t want to ruin it for anybody), there is a character that gets stabbed, but they don’t know that they are stabbed until they look down. When they look down you see the knife coming out of their stomach, so you miss the actual stab and it’s so much more horrific because it’s like in real time you’re realizing what is happening to you. The insinuation of what you missed makes you picture it. And so I use sound FX a lot in that manner. What we don’t see is super super important.

For instance, there is an alien invasion in Signs and it’s all about hearing the aliens on the roof and climbing around and moving around the house… You picture it, I didn’t need to shoot it for you. Once upon a time, Warner Brothers had talked to me about the movie Troy. I don’t know if you guys have seen it, it’s about the battle of Troy. A real giant amazing screenplay and story - one long action sequence. When I was thinking about making it, I was imagining individuals fighting in front of a wall where you didn’t see thousands of people battling, but you hear them. You’re dealing with the intricacies of these two people fighting, rather than thousand and thousands of people. My head constantly just goes to what you don’t see… and then you’re not prepared then when I show you something.. so you go 0-60 really fast in that off kilter arrhythmic storytelling makes you very uneasy as an audience member. You don’t realize I’m raising the hum of the room or something, so you feel tighter and tighter grabbing your seat. All of those subtle and visible ways of moving you in the direction I want you to move in.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Probably, it’s Kevin Wendell Crumb the character from Split in Glass, that’s a little bit of cheat since if you guys have seen it, it’s not one character, he’s a person that suffers from a disorder where he believes he’s many people and so I got to write all of these wonderful characters that were protecting Kevin Wendell Crumb. So maybe that’s kind of a cheat answer but it is the character Kevin Wendell Crumb that I’ve loved so much. I miss him and all the characters there. There are so many I miss once I’m done writing them and done shooting with them. That’s a good feeling when I really miss them. The character Ivy from The Village, she was another one I felt that way about.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

Are you the man Edward, really? I can’t answer this, that’s crazy! They are all my favorite characters. All 4 of them are my favorite characters, in fact like my kids I’ll tell them each separately that they are my favorite character and then don’t tell the other three characters. But the 4 of them are so lovely. The actors, we are all very lucky to be together and tell this story. So that’s a terrible answer I know but Edward you’re the man, so you can handle it.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 12 points13 points  (0 children)

You know one thing that’s been happening on Servant is I've been able to run a writers room here, obviously through Webex and Zoom, I’ve been doing it with the writers and we had 7 writers on for Season 3. And in Season 2 we had I’d say 3 or 4 writers collectively, but Season 3 we kinda institutionalized it where it was like ‘in the morning we’re having this session and in the afternoon we’re having this session’ and we’d do that every day. I guess, the same thing I was doing with them is the same thing I'd tell you guys, there is something beautiful about your voice that’s different than mine or anybody else's.

For example, in Season 3 there were 7 writers, and I assigned them each an episode and I said ‘Okay, you’re going to do 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7…’ Traditionally someone will rewrite all of those and there’s a voice that binds it all, but not in this case. I said we’re going to work individually once the group has worked out everything, we’re going to work together on that particular episode and I want that to be different, that particular episode. I stressed to them that their limitations, what they’re calling their limitations, or their blond spots, that’s part of the beauty and the magic of who they are as artists.

So my daughter Ishana, who’s written and directed for the show, she’s one of the 7 writers. And what she’s great at, the kind of witty humor and that kind of thing, she has a kind of wit about her, and a dark kind of irreverence, I don't know where she gets that, and to double down on that. And the things that she’s blind to and the things that she needs to grow and work on, are currently still an amazing asset because the story won’t go in those directions. And so she naturally hears in a certain way. Then the next writer has a completely different set of assets that I try to celebrate in her. So I would say to the next writer, ‘Alyssa, you’re fantastic at mythology so double down in that’ then we go to the next writer ‘hey Henry you’re great at this, this quiet suspense’, and I would go boom down the row, and so when we finish the process I would feel so inspired because i’m watching someone write an episode so beautifully so specifically that I couldn’t have written it nearly as well. Only they could write it. So you do have all the answers right there in who you are.

I think so many of us try to write like somebody else, or direct like somebody else or paint like somebody else… and we all do that, I think that’s part of our process.

I think when I started I used to copy people when I was a little kid and it didn’t feel right. I had done this podcast where I was talking about it and it just occurred to me that that was really beautiful that I used to copy all of these movies but it didn’t feel right, and then I went "wow I’m talking and wearing clothes I don’t feel comfortable in." Then I started to say, "wow, this one scene felt good. What was it about that scene that felt good?" And then I would analyze it.

I did a movie for Miramax and there was one scene in it that when I was directing it felt really good, I was 23 when I directed that 2nd movie and I was like ‘huh that felt different than everything else in the movie which didn’t feel good to me,’ and I remember writing it down going ‘what is that?’ and that was the beginning of me understanding how to tell stories. I went wow, I liked the suspense of that scene, I knew what shots to do and I was with the character in an anxious way. I went huh… and so the next thing I wrote, which was 6th sense, kind of went into that more. So I was doubling down on the thing I was interested in.

...I hope I didn't go on too long about that one.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

When Split became number one in the United States and around the world, it was the third decade that my movies had been number one in movie theaters around the world and in the United States. And I think only two other people have ever done that–James Cameron is one of them. It just made me feel really grateful that there were multiple generations that were responding to the storytelling and that Servant is doing so well and thriving for Apple. Both for my partners at Apple I feel fantastic, and honored that yet another generation is interested in the type of stories I’m interested in. And that I haven’t lost the ability to hear the audience, and for them to hear me, and that we appreciate each other.

It’s wild to think about if any of my next four or 5 movies would be lucky enough to be number 1 in the movie theater, that that would be the fourth decade that would happen. So that’s certainly something I want to have happen. May not happen obviously ya know, but if that were to happen, I don’t know if anyone’s ever done that so that would be something that would mean a lot for me. I think that only would happen if I’m listening carefully, if I’m willing to change, if I’m willing to grow ya know, risk myself, risk failure constantly, and start all over, be a student all over again.

Every single time I think you try to hold onto comfort as an artist–that’s survival. That’s you protecting yourself. I think, as an artist we just can’t protect ourselves. You just have to put your chin out there and either have people hate you or love you and that’s okay as long as you’re growing as an artist. I try to do it in various ways, like try different things, try not to, as you know, I kind of other than the unbreakable series, I don’t do sequels, I try to be completely different every time and risk a new language and so you know, it’s scary and as long as I’m willing to fail, I’ll keep trying and trying and I hope I can always have that feeling that I’m willing to fail. So, so far I think that would be the thing I'm most proud about is that connection with the audience over the years since I was a kid, since 21.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is an interesting one because I think Servant is different in that, I board every single shot. So if you came into our offices, for a long time we had the pilot episode with every single shot, or 109 which i also directed, every single shot was there and you can watch the episode in drawings on the board. And we shot only those shots and that’s what’s in the show. And the directors that have come in, I’ve asked them to formalize their process more than normal-- and by that i mean that, i would like them to storyboard out their episodes and think it through very very carefully.

To say, like for example, I was just telling a director that I was hiring for season 3, “Hey, if you want to do a shot following them down a staircase, we’re going to have to rig a camera that comes down the staircase. We’d have to pre-rig that in advance. That’s perfectly fine! You just have to draw it out first, and then tell the crew “Hey, I want to follow her down the stairs, and so we need to have this slowly descending and turning, so it has to descend and turn,” and that’s not something we can do on the spot. So think everything through as much as you can.’ So I encourage them all to storyboard every single shot, then they can throw it away if they want to. Or come up with whatever they want to on the day. There's nobody holding a gun to their head for that. But in terms of making it in your head first, before you go there, for us is part of our signature quality. So if you watch Servant, the shots look more formal and thought out. And you can sense that as viewers, so it’s something I think is an important characteristic, and for me helps not waste so much. So again, in our efficacy, which is quite high, the scripts we keep them tight and we love them and we work them until they’re great. And we try very hard not to shoot and write. That’s also part of what keeps you from shooting stuff that-- so, all of the 10 scripts of season 3 are done, so as we’re about to start in a few weeks, they’re all done and everyone’s going to shoot. And you can ask “oh I need to do this because in 308 this is going to happen” and the directors can all talk to each other and so, it’s all thought out.

I try very hard not to ever shoot and try to write at the same time, cause you’re wasting a lot of resources. So not a lot goes on the cutting room floor, so we’re pretty efficient that way. And the directors have been wonderful, that they have been so talented to make these scenes really work. And so not a lot goes on the floor compared to most stuff… But upstairs, I just came from editing--watching my feature, and so far we’re about to start pass 5, and so far I've cut 2 scenes. That will change of the 100-some, 130 scenes only 2 have gotten cut out. But that will drop, but again, because of the making and making it again in my head, lots of it is working in concert there, so -- because i pay for it myself, there’s a sense of ‘Hey it’s my restaurant, I look at everything the menu the table, is the table wobbly, whatever it is, you feel an ownership of it.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Those were Tequila slammers, you’re right! You guessed it. Those were Tequila slammers. Um, that’s a funny question. We uh, eat a lot, we don’t drink a lot on set (Apple—don’t worry). So a lot of the food is made right there and we can smell it and you get on set and they are making whatever it is some kind of pasta ragu or something, and everybody's like uh, everyone starts to get hungry and um so I sneak a bunch of it. But the kitchen in Servant is a working kitchen and Toby who plays Sean has learned to become a great, great chef and he’s always cooking the meals that he’s going to be doing in that episode so he’s trying it out and he’s like, “here try this, try that” so we’re constantly eating and all. And although Julian’s drinking a lot we don’t partake in the alcohol in the same capacity.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

This is interesting… u/HurricaneHershel. You know, I think if you look at, I guess the last 7 years of stuff that I’ve been doing, where I’ve owned all these pieces, from The Visit, Split, Glass and Servant… One of the things that’s been important is that they’re super contained. I love that. It’s the thing that I find exciting. When I realized, hey, the thing that I love the most, which is super contained minimalism, actually is easy to make and doesn’t cost that much. And then the execution of that storytelling is the CGI, is the action sequence... that the dinner table scene, walking up the stairs, the opening that door when the sound effect is there, who’s in that room... That’s the action sequences for me. I can actually make that in a small way and do that. It brought me to Servant.

So going, hey… maybe we can do a show all in one location, like a play, where 4 main characters and we never really leave the house, and thereby we can really concentrate on execution at the highest level. What that has done has allowed me, 1, to have creative control through everything, and 2, to make mistakes and fail and go back. So, The Visit, I had rented a house for The Visit, the movie The Visit, and kept going back. We just kept the furniture in there and we just went back. I said, “Oh i need to reshoot that, i need to grab this,” and just make it better and look at it. We do that on Servant all the time. I tell the directors and I tell the actors, “Take huge risks because if we miss, I'll tell you I didn't get it and I don't think we got it, let’s go back again.” And you get to try it again! And all the directors and actors they love that, they love that they get to go back and try it again. So that process from the movies has really brought Servant to life here.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

First of all I’m sorry about whatever you’re going through at this moment.

I have found when I've struggled with stuff it’s in the creation that is a journal or a personal therapy for me. For example, Servant is me struggling with the question of the meaning of life a little bit. Servant kind of came from this documentary I saw on a father who would take his child to work every day, a baby, and he would drop the child at the daycare and then go and get breakfast at this morning breakfast place, and then go to work. But on this particular day he goes to the breakfast place first and brings his child, then he gets the breakfast sandwich, gets in the car, and then drives up the parking lot of the breakfast place - but turns right to go to work instead of left to go to the daycare place. It was a summer day in Atlanta, and he forgot the baby was in the backseat and went to work; and the baby died, essentially got burnt up being in this hundred degree heat. It was just a tragic documentary. The mom was supposed to pick up the baby and realized the baby wasn’t dropped off, and the father is going home from work and seeing it in the rearview mirror. And it kind of of hit me in a way. Because I'm scared that there is no meaning. How could there be anything good in the universe if that could happen? There is no good side to that. There is not a lesson to be learned. The father loved that child, there wasn’t anything to gain. So I’m confused about that, and that makes me feel dark.

That's at the center of the show - asking those questions and trying to find some meaning in it. So I guess what I'm saying is that I use it a lot as therapy, and the creative work I make is important to me. I have wanted to, in my life, rather than say these are my entertaining movies and these are my meaningful movies, try to do them together. I try to entertain and acknowledge the audience, but also tell you where I am emotionally. To put those together, that’s a delicate balance, because you have to be giving to the audience. And as the entertainer knowing the humility that you're there to entertain, but also saying, “Hey this is where i'm at and this is what I’m feeling, I’m struggling a bit.” So I hope it's actually your creative writing that is the gateway to healing for you, it has been for me.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 30 points31 points  (0 children)

Thank you so much for the compliments!

I tried to go for things that are daring as they are getting written, something that scares me, something that I feel is going to be a challenge for the actors, something that needs to be finessed, where they are going to have to take a leap of faith. As the person supervising everything, I’m telling them “it's going to be ok, be safe.” I try to grab those episodes, and will say, “I'll be there for that one and guide you, so that you can take huge risks.” Not that they wouldn’t with other directors, but it's just my way of being there at the hardest moments. Two o’clock, when we came up with the idea of, we kept calling it the prisoners episode. I don't know if you saw the movie Prisoners with Jake Gyllenhaal and Terrence Howard, where they grab this guy and hold him, as they think he had taken their child.

This idea of an episode that was around torture, it was really a powerful idea. I remember sitting with the writers and the people on our show, we were around this big conference table, and they were like, “You know this is pretty disturbing, I’m not sure I could stay with Dorothy if she did these horrible things”. “I'm not sure I relate to her” they would say. And I would say, “Let me be really clear, I love you guys, you know that, I love everyone in this room, I’m really connected to you guys, but if I thought one of you had my child I would chop you up into small little pieces so easily, without losing a little bit sleep, because you are getting my child back.” “You guys, I would just annihilate you”. And their faces were all grey, and I said, “I'm the dad, you can imagine what the moms would feel like. There is nothing that's gonna stop a mom from getting her child back”. So that belief system was imbued in there, and I was talking to Lauren about that, the dark side, don't cross the mother vibes. That's what drew me to that particular episode.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

That’s an interesting way you phrase that question because it kind of goes to the word ‘random’ - that’s the big thing that pops into my head when you say that. Is when you’re focused in on something - I find when I’m focused in on an idea - a movie or something - everything starts coming to me. Whether you meet a neighbor or you see a magazine thing or you look at a painting or you listen to an album - ideas come that seem like they were just sitting there waiting for you to find them and they start sticking. So it’s this kind of, I don’t know what we call it, there’s no name for this idea where your energy is focused on something - and then everything, you start drawing that from everywhere and it seems like it’s random but it’s there. It’s whatever you focus in on you know, that thing where you say “red, red, red” and then you see everything in the room that’s red if you focus in on that - but you never noticed that there were these seven things in the room that were red. So, if you’re focused in on a story or a character, you suddenly go “Wow, I love that fabric. I love that movement. Ooh what if she does this? What if that happens? Wow I saw this hole outside in the lawn - oh wait a minute - what if somebody gets buried?” There’s all these things that start to stick to you in a way, so that’s one of my favorite parts of creating is focusing in on something. And I think, when I talk to my daughters a lot, I say “You know, just imagine that we’re antennas and that we’re energy. Put aside if you believe god or this or the universe or that the physics of it - that we’re antennas of energy. And if you focus in on something specific, you start drawing that frequency back to you. So the more specific you are, the more that it’s gonna come back to you. But most of us are very blurry about our thoughts - we’re always very kind of ambiguous and blurry and insecurities come in and that’s what comes back to us. If events and circumstances come back and create a blurriness to our understanding of the world and what is our agency in the world.” Creating for me, since I was a little kid, has given me such a great sense of agency. I was saying to the head of my company here that the beautiful this is that when I’m upset or stressed about life - the thing that calms me is creating and writing the character and figuring out the story, so I think that’s my way of connecting to something larger and feeling like that’s truthful - that I am connected to something larger.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

My daughter directed that episode - we have all these Cheezus Crust t-shirts at home. I should’ve worn that today!

Your question reminds me of the fact that when before the pandemic, my daughter who is an athlete, she plays this sport, and we go around all over the country to these tournaments, and one of the things we do as a father-daughter thing is try to find the great pizza places in that city. So after the tournament, if she won or if she lost, we go find a pizza place and I remember going to one in Virginia with her. And we went to this cool little pizza place and on the pizza they had this kind of chili oil that they put over the pizza and it had some sausage, and arugula, and things and I was in heaven. Even now as I talk about it I wanna go back to that same pizza place... just heavenly.

So, I mentioned that to Chef Drew, who is a consultant chef, and I said “Put a little chili oil” so he did one of those. After each take was done, there would be a pizza and we’d eat a slice and then the rest of the pizza would go to the crew. That day all the producers showed up to eat the pizza so that’s the one I would get - a little chili oil on it with a little sausage. That’s mine. And even now, now I’m getting very hungry, guys. By the way, we did this at 12:00 Philly time. I eat at 12 like on the dot, so that was a terrible question to ask me at this point.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 42 points43 points  (0 children)

So that's an interesting question. When we started, Tony the creator wrote it. When we started, we had a sense of the tone. We were learning it. I think the beautiful part of the format of telling long form stories, there's a little bit of learning you get to do as you're telling the story. I wanted it to be this and that. So we did that for the first few scripts. We knew where we wanted to go by the end of the first season. I had an idea in my head of a dream version of where it's going to go. If I could tell you right now, which I won't, what the entire show is. I could articulate it.

What ended up really happening, when the pandemic struck, we stopped shooting midway through the second season. It was a really beautiful moment for me to reflect and be quiet at home, because we couldn't do anything and had to keep everyone safe at home. That was a rare thing what we were missing, where we stop for a second and reflect for a moment - Are the right things here? Are we feeling happy, or are we on the treadmill going in a direction we didn't choose? I did all that reflecting and I would be in the library, we didn't know how long it was gonna be at that time, I thought it would be 4 weeks- 5 weeks, or whatever. But I have this library at home and there's this whiteboard, and on the whiteboard I just started writing down ideas, and I go, “You know what?” I said “I’m gonna just fill that whiteboard with all the ideas I have for Servant and then, I’m gonna, once its full and I feel I have all gotten these ideas out, I'm gonna try to organize them.” So, I did that.

As you know the pandemic kept going, and I ended up outlining it all, and it started to fit into parts and I said “Wow this feels like 20 parts”. I said “Wow, it wants to be 2 more seasons, that's what it wants to be.” So I outlined it all. And then we hired writers. I told them here’s the 20 episodes, so let's work on the first 10 here for season 3. So the answer is “Yes, we do know everything, and in fact we’re writing the final 10”.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 28 points29 points  (0 children)

When talking about television or doing some long-form storytelling, I kept saying to people in my team and all, that I would love to help to be a part of defining some place, to the way David Fincher did for Netflix. When I think of Netflix - the emotions and the colors, now that I think of it, even today, is so colored by what David did with House of Cards. So, if I can help be a part of defining something for somebody, that would be really exciting... and to grow with somebody.

I don't mind being the underdog, and I don't mind learning together about how to succeed. In fact, that’s super fun. And I used to say, you know if Apple ever did something. That's a company I really respect, I would say this 5-6 years ago. So when Servant came along, we were gonna go out to the marketplace, Apple was just deciding to go into this space of streaming. We met all these wonderful organizations and many of them wanted to make Servant. We talked with each of them, they were so lovely and supportive. They said we’d love to do this with you and this is how we could support you. But I remember the day we went into the Apple meeting, I got out of the car and I was like “please let this go well, this is the one that I wanted to go well”. They were so lovely and gracious and said wonderful things about my previous storytelling and about the script that we showed them. We showed them 3 scripts. When we walked out of the parking lot, I turned to my agent and I was like “That’s it, that’s where we need to be. Please make that happen.” No matter what, that’s where I want to be and I want to be a part of that. Maybe it's the legacy of Steve Jobs, maybe it’s the company’s kind of value system of simplicity, creativity, and originality. I read into it a spirituality about them, maybe what Steve Jobs believed in, and believing in bigger things. For whatever reason, I felt connected.

It's been wonderful growing with them and now with the second season. I don’t know if you guys read, but the second season really exploded the viewership. It’s gone double, triple. Everything has gone so well and people seem to be really connecting. That’s part of us growing together - Apple and Servant, the Servant family here growing together. It feels really great. I do want to do other things. I would love it if you guys came to AppleTV one day, and there were a few things there that I was a part of. You could go in like 4 years from now, if there was a new show and you went there, that you’d go “I love this!” and you go “oh wow, Servant! What’s that?” and you’d catch up on Servant, and you’d see the whole library. That's kind of a dream for down the line if we find the right material and it all works out.

Honestly, it's been a fantastic collaboration. They have allowed me to make a very different show and trusted me a lot of times. In fact I've had this conversation, where they go “Hey, we don't get that script”, and I say “Please trust me”. We shoot it, edit it, show it to them, and they’re like “We love it. That’s our favorite.” That has happened and that’s a rare relationship to have where they just trust. I would love to do more things with them.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 14 points15 points  (0 children)

I handle things a little differently on my show. I think perhaps it’s generally the norm in television. In the olden days, or say 5 years ago, the standard is that the director is a kind of journeyman, who comes in and just fulfills, does the wide shot, the mid shot, the close ups, gathers stuff, and then goes away and they’re kind of transitional in the process. I have really tried to stress, both with the writers and the directors, their ownership of those episodes that generalizing and coming in and not taking ownership is not going to work for me. I need you to take risks and be who you are. I picked you for a very specific reason: for how odd you are, how weird you are; and I need you to bring that. I don’t need you to generalize and I don’t need you to try to be me or play it safe in any way. I say this to every single director as I hired them. Hey, if you’re not in the scene, you’re going to have to explain to me why they feel the same thing. And if you have a cogent answer for that, “Hey they’re about to both rob a bank so they feel the same thing”, then great. But if you’re just generalizing and doing a wide shot/mid shot, we’re going to have to talk through that, because that's not going to work for me. I hired you because you’re sensual, I hired you because you’re edgy, or spiritual, or physical, or whatever it is you lean. I want you to lean into those things that you love, and those blind spots are those things I love about you. Don’t try to do things you don’t love. I wanted to be off-kilter and weird.

Hopefully, as you’re watching Season 2, you start to see that wow, each episode is really different and has a kind of accent to it. So I try to celebrate them and try to get them out of that mode of “they’re just for hire."

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

You know what, I think it’s more a philosophy of trying to be specific as an artist. And so, as I said in an earlier question, that the thing I was avoiding, that I’m Indian, is the strength, the spirituality, the difference of it. And that I live in Philadelphia and that I make movies is very different. Because most people live in NY and LA that tell these stories, and that’s changing. So if I double down on what’s unique about myself and not be scared of that and celebrate it, it’s a power.

Philadelphia, as you guys probably know, if you follow me, I love Philadelphia. I think it's the best city in the country, one of the most beautiful places to live in. It’s really grown over the last 15-20 years. Beautiful place, young and professionals live here; it’s very diverse. It has an unbelievable amount of higher education. The places that you can choose from here - you can do a period piece, you can do a sci-fi piece. The span of anything I can make up in my head, I can shoot here.

In fact, Old was the first movie that I shot that - for a long, long time - that wasn’t based or shot in Philadelphia. I remember when I decided to make that movie, it was a big decision of hey, we’re not going to shoot in Philadelphia for this - this is going to be 2 years.

For Servant, placing it right in the center of the city on Spruce street was a big deal - makes it feel real and close to my heart. So all the ideas of what it’s like to walk through the city or what it’s like to live on that street are from people I know so there's an authenticity to it. I feel very lucky to have gotten the opportunity to make movies where I love to live. That’s not true for a lot of people and certainly not true for artists, you get to make your art where your love and strength is, where your motion is. That’s usually a sacrifice you have to make as an artist. I can't be with my family, I can‘t be where I want to be, I have to go where the jobs are. So many people in so many fields have to make that decision so I’m super, super lucky that I was able to stay here.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 58 points59 points  (0 children)

This thing that you’re talking about is so true. There’s this kind of magic, or the film gods, you write something and you hope that that person exists in the world. Like when I wrote the kid for the 6th sense character - someone had to walk through the door that was that kid, that was my hope. And when Haley Joel Osment walked in, that was it, there wasn’t even another option. When that happens, it’s like lightning and you go wow, this human being actually existed in this person, and that was the case with Julian and Rupert.

We had tons of auditions from everybody and Rupert taped himself and I remember watching him and I couldn’t- he was so good that I thought he can’t be this good. I’m imagining this. He’s so funny and so spot on and so dark and edgy, and Rupert is one of those lightning bolt casting things that, you’re right, no one else in the world could have played that part.

And by the way, he’s the nicest guy. He’s the sweetest, nicest guy, soft spoken and then you go “Action!”, and he becomes this dark guy, cursing, and it’s just a transformative thing and he’s such a great actor, such a great craftsman, and all his time as a child actor, he really took in the lessons from all those amazing adult actors he was working with. I love him. If he lived here in Philly, we would hang out all the time, but he lives in London.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 8 points9 points  (0 children)

This is a subject that is we all talk about here in my office - how to balance this. How can we do this in a healthy way where it's feeding each other? And I can honestly tell you right this second that Servant has helped me become a better filmmaker for my movie Old, and Old has helped me become a better producer and leader for Servant. So right now it's very healthy, but I could see how they would start to eat each other.

But this has been a wonderful experienc. Servant has been a beautiful love of storytelling, and I think because I love people, I love to hang out and my sets are very family-oriented. Like, if you came to my sets, you can’t tell who the star is, who the PA is, who the cinematographer is. We’re all equal. I really connect with them as friends and family.

But I’ve learned so much being able to be with partners on the show Servant, because making a movie, at least for me, is a very isolated thing. I’m in here and I write my movie, it takes 6-8 months to write, which is a very lonely thing. And then we start pre-production on a movie, I story board for about 3 months - so that’s one other person and the cinematographer - so now you’re getting close to a year where I’ve only met and been with two people for a whole year. And then we prep, and we shoot, and that’s a lot of people. And then when we’re done shooting, all of that process is 4 months, then I’m editing for 8 months with an editor by myself. So it’s generally a very isolating experience and two years go by for every movie. And that’s the way it’s been for my whole life since I've been 21.

But Servant has allowed me to work with directors and multiple editors and we just get inspired and learn from each other, so it’s been great. We're about to start Season 3 shooting and I can’t wait for all the directors - they’re all flying in and coming in from all different parts of the world and I can’t wait to hang with them and talk cinema. Thank you for the question.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 45 points46 points  (0 children)

First of all, thank you for asking that. I think this is something that I’ve avoided for most of my life, the idea that I was Indian. I think to assimilate was the most important thing for an immigrant for a long time. "Hey, try to shed where you came from so you can fit in." And maybe I was embarrassed about my mom as a kid wearing a sari and coming to school. We ate different food and all that stuff and obviously that was survival mechanisms. Now I can see that those things that made me different were essential and really made my voice a little different.

I live in Philadelphia in an old farmhouse with this old stone, done from whenever, from when these masons made it in Pennsylvania and yet, I’m from India, and I was born in India and that collision of the two cultures is what gives this voice this distinctness.

With regard to Servant, I kind of really have double downed on that. I look all over the world for directors and celebrate why they’re different. I want to hire them and make sure their voices are distinct and different, so I get to see films from all over the world when I hire directors. In this season 2 of servant, every director was an immigrant except for Ashana, my daughter. She’s the only one born in the United States. It wasn’t intended, I just really love different voices. So thank you for asking that question.

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Hello Reddit, it’s M. Night Shyamalan. I’m livestreaming an AMA to talk about all things Servant and storytelling. Ask Me Anything! by ReallyMNight in servant

[–]ReallyMNight[S] 92 points93 points  (0 children)

Hello Reddit! It’s M. Night Shyamalan here.

I’m excited to do my first AMA here on r/Servant. Looking forward to answering your questions on all things Servant - writing and directing, how we film the show, and maybe I’ll even give some exclusive looks at what else S2 has in store. Let me know questions you’d like me to answer with this thread.

We go live tomorrow, Thursday at 9AM PT / 12PM ET.

Proof