Getting Hyperreal with... Lucy Owens

Hyperreal interviewer extrordinaire Justin Norris sat down with Lucy Owens, the writer, director, editor, and producer of the short film, The Magician, to talk Tarot, balancing the collaboration process, and how the making of the film was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Editor’s note: This interview has been lightly condensed and edited for clarity.

Hyperreal Film Club: Okay, The Magician! I got to say, I love the font choice for the title. I don't know whose idea that was, I'm assuming yours, I'm going to give you the credit. One of my first questions as I was watching this and rewatching, it kind of goes back to the Ruth character, and her methods throughout the short: Was that inspired by actual psychic methods that you know of? Or did you just create all that stuff from your imagination?

Lucy Owens (Writer, Director, Editor, Producer): Some of it is real and then, you know, as it progresses and gets worse, it's like, I've never heard of anyone putting something in someone's tea and then like rolling on top of them on the ground. But the tarot reading, obviously, and the breathing stuff, that's all based on actual methods that I've heard people using before. But I just wanted to make it a little bit more outlandish and fun for the sake of the film.

HFC: What kind of started me on that question was the breathing methods and just how y'all shot and edited it. That was great! I love stuff in movies like that, where it's literal back and forth, but it's not talking. How I viewed this film, this was essentially kind of a sort of a chamber piece, you know, just these certain characters in this more or less one specific location for the duration of the film. Was that intentional when you were thinking of this idea when you were writing it? Or did you kind of have plans at one point or another to maybe expand outside of that almost singular location.

LO: It was always supposed to mainly take place in one location. I definitely write to produce a lot of the time so I'm kind of thinking of what's going to be something that we can do. I also wrote this in 2020 and COVID was happening so it was kind of like, how can we make something that's really small scale and just kind of rent out a house for the weekend and just shoot in there. The office location was secondary to kind of bookend the film, but mostly, we wanted to just find one really incredible location and have the whole thing take place in the various rooms of the house.

HFC: Was this shot in Austin or was it shot elsewhere?

LO: Yeah, it was shot in Austin! It was shot in the Benjamin F. Lee house, which is a historic house in East Austin. I found it on Airbnb and the woman who owned it was kind enough to let us film in there for a weekend so it was pretty great! [Laughs].

HFC: Nice! You kind of touched on it but did you say you started filming this in 2020?

LO: We actually shot it in 2021. I wrote it in 2020. Early 2021, we started casting and we started some of the early stuff, but we waited till the summer of 2021 because I wanted people to be able to be vaccinated and for us to not have to like, do super strict like union protocols or anything like that.

HFC: Gotcha. One particular shot that I loved, was where Neil shows up in Ruth's eyes for a second. How was that accomplished? Was that just straight up film a camera on an eye? Or was that a little bit of digital wizardry? 

LO: That's all our DP, Willy. There was no digital manipulation going on there. He did a lot of stuff like that when we wanted a lot of reflections going on and that shot in particular, we literally had him just sit across the table from her, lit it correctly so that you could see his silhouette like in her eyeball and, I don't know, he pulled it off somehow! I'm not really like, a very technical person or like a gear person, I wish I could be like, “We use this lens! And this blah, blah, blah!” I really can't. It was part of the vision, and he totally nailed it. And it's still one of my favorite shots, personally!

HFC: Props to him and full props to you for agreeing with the shot in the execution because it was super, super impressive. This seems like it touches on that very personal theme of what we're doing with our lives and if what we're doing in our moment is currently what we should be doing. Was there any particular inspiration for you in your real life that came into the story of this movie? How did this film come about idea-wise?

LO: I think that's just a question that plagues me all the time like, “Am I doing the right thing? Am I on the right path?” It's not specific to me really in any way nor is it really inspired by a specific event or film. I think sort of the surrounding things of the film came first, like I wanted it to be a tarot reading, I wanted it to be an internal conflict, mostly and so the idea of this really passive character who just wasn't in the driver's seat of his own life was sort of a natural kind of way through that, and I wanted it to be relatable, and I think, you know, potentially being in a relationship for too long that you shouldn't be in any more is maybe a universally relatable feeling.

HFC: Kind of going off inspiration, whether it was in the story aspects or the characters or in the music, was there any artistic inspirations that were operating in the back of your mind or operating in the forefront of your mind while making this entire thing?

LO: Yeah, definitely. So, what kind of first inspired the idea of doing a short that was sort of surrounding a Tarot reading is the opening scene of Cleo From 5 to 7. There's a Tarot reading in the opening of that, it's like in color, the rest of the film is in black and white and it's in a drama, which I thought was really interesting, because usually when you see occult stuff, it's in horror films and so it's like, a light bulb moment, like, let's make an occult drama that kind of is going to play against audience expectations of what they're about to see. But then when we were actually making the film, the main influences were like, Suspiria and like the giallo genre. We kind of wanted to make the score very loud and bombastic and synth-y and use a lot of color, just wash characters out in color, and kind of use that to contrast the more like dramatic elements. So, people kind of think that they're in for one type of ride, and then it turns out to be something else, which is really exciting to me. I think some people might watch it and be like, “Where's the blood? It's not really a horror!” but that's really the most exciting thing to me, is when something completely different happens from what you thought.

HFC: Well, personally, I thought there'd be actual magic, you know, Mind Freak-type stuff going on, so you subverted my expectations there with how it turned out! But, you kind of mentioned that one can view this as more of a drama with a occult tendencies but in a way you could also see it as still horror, because there's that scary thought of us not living up to our potential. We're just trapping ourselves in situations that we could easily get out of, so I think your short opens up a lot of that dialogue.

LO: That's definitely what's most horrifying to me so, I agree, it is a horror that you could be potentially doing the wrong thing at a given time with your short life. [Chuckles].

HFC: Do you approach your characters with a fully realized vision of each of them? Or do you kind of let these actors, whoever you bring in, come in, and let them adjust how they see fit?

LO: I definitely like to leave it open for the actors to play around with it and a lot of times my vision of the character changes a lot during the casting period once we find who they are, then my vision kind of starts to meld with their vision and it's definitely collaborative at the very end. For example, with Ruth, she kind of has that great Irish accent, which really became such an important part of her character and her character's background, and the Celtic heritage and all that stuff was just something that came along with finding her to play that role.

HFC: While making this, what was a notable challenge that you encountered that stuck out? If any! You know, maybe it was a smooth process, but who knows when you're making films, right?

LO: Yeah, I mean, there's so many challenges. Yeah, I can't even name them all! Because of the nature of the film, we wanted to shoot it mostly at night, which meant we were doing overnight shoots. Some people were going to work their jobs during the day and then coming to set at night and working all night. So, the biggest challenge for us specifically on set was just keeping morale up, keeping everybody happy even though it was three in the morning. Like, we have some great behind the scenes footage of people and they're just like, they just look dead, you know. It's like really hard to keep the energy alive when it's that late at night and keep everybody happy and managing people's personalities and stuff. So it was a blast and it was so fun but it was exhausting and everyone in the cast and crew was just a trooper for being there. We would literally show up at 6pm and be there until 6am all night long.

HFC: Kind of digging into that from your perspective, if you wanted to drop some jewels on any aspiring filmmakers potentially reading this interview in the future, what would you suggest is the key to maintaining that morale and keeping the energy up? What strategies help accomplish that?

LO: So some things that we like to do, we always like to have way too much food on deck. So, we always raid the Costco snack aisle or whatever, and just buy like a ton of food. Like we always have a lot of food leftover because we never want anyone to be running out of energy. We also always have a lot of caffeine on set because you know, that’s what makes the whole production run. We also like to play music on set during breaks and stuff to kind of keep everybody in the right vibe and I would say if you are a director, it's great to have somebody else on set who is kind of in charge of managing personalities and morale. So, for me that has been Vince, our producer, who was also our AD. I kind of gave him the task of making sure everyone's doing okay, so then I get to focus on making the film and just having that is so valuable. And I really recommend that if you if you can find a friend to come on board and take care of all that for you.

HFC: Yeah, always good to have that partner-in-crime to hold it down! Going off the credits, it says you wrote, directed, and edited this film. So you’re wearing all those different hats throughout the process. Was that by choice or was that mainly more of a necessity?

LO: Yeah, I'm a little of both. I obviously I love writing and directing, those are my two favorite things to do. The producing is by necessity. I would love if I could bring somebody else on board to produce and I've considered doing that for every project. But, budget-wise, it almost always just make sense for me to do it myself. And then with editing, you know, I have a weird relationship with editing because I edit for work, which means that it's not my favorite part of the process. But I'm also a control freak, and I am reluctant to hand it off to somebody else to do it so maybe someday… but for now, I'm just doing that because I want to be the one to see my vision all the way through to the end usually.

HFC: You mentioned Vincent, your co-producer, and he also worked on the music, right? How does that working relationship flow for y'all? And especially when it comes to the music for this film, specifically? Do you kind of let him guide himself to figure out what that music is going to sound like? Or are you pretty involved in saying “I want it to sound like this. Can you do that?”

LO: I'm pretty involved. I had very specific ideas of what I wanted the music to sound like, had some very specific influences, but I don't know the first thing about making music. So, I kind of hand him that stuff. He will sort of put some ideas together, put some things together and then you know, we live together so it's really easy for him to be like working at his desk, and then come to my desk and be like, “Hey, I found something that might work,” and we lay it down on the track and we see if it's working. If it was working, we're like, “Great. Keep going with that.” If it's not working it's kind of like, “Oh, yeah, just go back to the drawing board.” So that whole process happened countless times for the score of this film like, lots and lots of back and forth. Very, very collaborative process.

HFC: With The Magician, would you say there’s a villain in this story? Would you want audience members to find a villain here? Do you kind of see that?

LO: I don't think that there's an obvious villain. I think, at times, you might think Wanda is the villain, or you might think his wife, Katie, is the villain but I think the real villain is Neil himself. He's his own antagonist. He's the one standing in the way of what, you know, is his ultimate goal, which is to be more in control of his life. So, I would say it's Neil, but I also think you can make an argument for there being no villain at all or any of the other characters being a villain.

HFC: I guess I had a fixation on the psychic character that Ruth plays because I have another question related to her. You mentioned her Irish accent was kind of filling out the character. As you all were in the process of auditioning and all that stuff or when you were writing this character, at least, were there any direct inspirations for that character in general? Were you kind of finding yourself referencing other creations in the past when making this or were there any real life inspirations?

LO: I have more real life inspiration for the character. Fortune tellers that are depicted in movies and stuff are like very, like caricature-ish. They're sort of like gypsies or they're very New Age-y. Some of the best tarot readings I've ever had in my life have come from people who are almost like, closeted pagans, people who, you know, you would see them walking on the street, and you wouldn't think twice about them having this sort of other life, but they're actually very spiritual people. And so, I kind of wanted that reflected in her and, you know, Neil in the film is very put off by the whole thing. I wanted her to be so charming and almost normal in his eyes, that he agrees to stay and have the reading from her and then, obviously, her character does a lot of crazy things from there, but I wanted the first impression of her to kind of be like, “Oh, you know, she seems fine!”

HFC: Where do you stand on the topic of psychics in general?

LO: Yeah, so I actually do think some psychics are scammers, I don't necessarily believe in fortune telling as far as predicting the future or anything like that. I do think maybe some people are legit or are legitimately in tune with something else that's going on that the rest of us can't see. But for me, seeing the psychic, doing a Tarot reading, or doing anything like that is more of a tool of introspection, and it's more of a way to sort of re-contextualize your life through archetypes and symbols and stuff like that. So, the most valuable tarot readings I've ever had in my life have not been from somebody who's like a caricature trying to sell me on something, it's usually somebody being like “Here's what I see. How does this relate to your life and the choices that you're making or the questions that you have?”.

HFC: Got you. I wanted to talk briefly about those tarot cards that you use. They were really nice looking, where did y'all get those from?

LO: Yeah, so that's the Golden Botticelli Tarot deck inspired by obviously, you know, Botticelli and his artwork. It’s one of my favorite decks but it also has that really nice gold shine finish to it that was reflecting really nicely off our lighting and off the candle light and all that.

HFC: Yeah, nice. Was that something y’all had to get or did someone just happen to have that deck of cards?

LO: I had it already and we bought another for the film.

HFC: Keeping with the whole tarot card reading and psychics would you want to know your future? Why or why not?

LO: I would not personally want to know my future. I'm a fairly neurotic person and I feel like knowing my future would only cause me to like, spiral or obsess about it in some way. I think it's much better for me to just have this story be like unwritten so to speak, and kind of feel like I have some freewill over my choices! [Laughs].

HFC: What are your what are some projects that you're looking forward to in 2023? Whether it's your own, that you may want to plug if you want to or just other people's stuff coming down the pipeline that's on your radar.

LO: Um, yeah, I have nothing to plug, unfortunately, it feels like a missed opportunity. But we're working on a music video right now that I don't want to talk about quite yet but it should be fun and I'm also in the process of writing a feature length script for the first time ever, which has been very fun but very daunting and is going to take a long time. I’d really like to get a feature length script done so that I can start development and potentially funding for a bigger project, you know, for something that is more full length. There's not a huge audience for shorts so that's kind of the direction that I'm headed in; I've done a lot of shorts and I kind of want to take a swing at something a little bit longer. But that also means it takes a lot longer with the writing, the development, the pre-production, all that, so I'm not sure when I'll actually have something for people to watch but hopefully we will be getting to screen The Magician a few more times.

HFC: Yeah, it should be exciting! And good luck on the feature! Like you said, writing shorts is hard but writing features is probably harder. So, you said you worked on a lot of shorts and you noted that it's kind of hard to find an audience for a short. While you say that you gravitate more towards that short storytelling form? Or do you kind of have a lot of ideas for longer length, feature length ideas?

LO: When I first started making shorts my tendency was to make them really bloated and really over ambitious because a lot of my inspirations are feature length films. But over time, I think I really hammered in on how to make it shorter and how to cut down on extraneous things and trim the fat or whatever. So, I feel like I've learned how to craft a short script but that almost hurt me because now I have a hard time letting myself expand on the story. And so that's been a challenge is trying to get myself out of the headspace of writing shorts and into the headspace of writing a longer narrative.

HFC: Are there are there any shorts that you've already worked on that you would maybe want to think about expanding into feature length or thought about expanding into feature length?

LO: You know, I'm not thinking about any of them like that at this point in time. My feature ideas are different ideas. The Magician, I feel like, works very well as a short and I'm not sure how I would really expand on it, because it's really centered around the one scene of them at the table. It would be interesting to explore those characters a little more, or maybe add Katie in as her own, like three dimensional character, but that hasn't really been on my mind. I'm working on some new ideas.

HFC: What does your writing process kind of look like?

LO: So with The Magician, like I said, it was early 2020, it was COVID so, I had a lot of time on my hands. I was trying to occupy my mind with writing, and I don't know, The Magician was an outlier because the whole script basically came to me in one afternoon of just like, really frantic writing and like drinking caffeine. But, you know, typically, it's a little bit more arduous than that. You know, you kind of get an idea, but it's not fully fleshed out so, you write a first draft, that kind of sucks, then you come back, you write a second draft that sucks a little less and you keep doing that until you get a draft that's good enough that you want to show somebody else the draft and then they give you notes on it. Then you just keep drafting until it's where you want it. And sometimes I'm drafting up to the day of the shoot, you know, making little tweaks and things.

HFC: Do you have any writing rituals, so to speak, like, do you play music in the background all the time? Do you have to have headphones? Do you not have music? Do you go somewhere else? You know, do you have any stuff like that that you keep consistent?

LO: I definitely write at home most of the time, and I usually have music. There is almost always an album or a playlist I've made that I will listen to while I'm writing something. So, like when I was writing The Magician and doing a couple of rewrites, I was listening to The Hurting, the Tears for Fears album the entire time. The song “Mad World” off that album was originally what we wanted it to be in the end credits. We even went through the process of looking at licensing and all that but it didn't work out and the piece of intro for that is so great but that's how into that music I was when I was writing it.

HFC: Where would you have wanted to put that song in the film?

LO: It would have been in the end credits. Like, when the other piece kind of starts when he's crawling out of the house and through the credits flashing up. It was actually in the rough cut as a temp track!

HFC: Are there any dream projects for you? Any dream ideas you would want to tackle or dream adaptations or anything along the lines of that? 

LO: I'm a really big fan of Luca Guadagnino.  He did this really great thing with Call Me by Your Name where, and even some of his earlier works, where he sort of almost like reinvented the Eric Rohmer film for a new audience by throwing in some kind of modern touches and some pop music and stuff and kind of allowing people to re-fall in love with that kind of movie. And I would love to do a similar thing for pretty much any of the weird kind of obscure stuff that I'm into that a lot of my friends and family don't really like. I would kind of love to take some influences and serve them up in a way that people can access a little bit easier.

HFC: Kind of going back to the fact that you've written, you've directed, you've edited this, etc. Of all the hats that you've worn throughout your filmmaking career so far, what would you say is your favorite hat to wear?

LO: I love directing. If I could do just one thing, it would be directing! I love you know, [being] the one with the vision and kind of conducting the orchestra and I love working with actors. I don't know, I love everything about being a director. And if I had to pick one, it would be that. 

HFC: First question is, if you had the chance to bring any well-known actor into any of your previous works for one specific role or maybe a role that didn't make the cut, who would it be?

LO: You know, this is a compliment to Ruth because she definitely gives these vibes, but I would love to work with Toni Collette, and I would have loved for Toni Collette to play Wanda in The Magician because she's so good at being both the very sort of friendly, almost like motherly kind of type, and then she can get really scary. So yeah, she's one of many people that I would love to work with.

HFC: What were some of your favorite pieces of art from last year in 2022? That can mean films, books, music, you know, literal pieces of art.

LO: So, film wise I already mentioned Luca Guadagnino, I'm a massive fan, obviously, Bones and All was one of my favorite movies of the year. In 2022, I also really loved Triangle of Sadness. Those were my top two favorite films of the year! I've seen Triangle of Sadness three times, [it’s] just really hilarious and Bones and All is also just super inspiring. It's exactly the type of film that I would like aspire to make. This is random and out of left field and has nothing to do with The Magician but I'm a huge Kendrick Lamar fan, and I really loved his album, Mr. Morale and The Big Steppers, that he put out earlier! Opportunity to shout that out I guess.

HFC: I’m a big Kendrick fan myself! That album’s been growing on me. 

LO: I immediately fell in love with it! I think it’s such a work of art.