Film Courage: Did you feel it was impossible to make Hollywood movies because you're in
Sweden? You didn't know anyone in the film industry? David F. Sandberg, Filmmaker (a.k.a. PonySmasher on YouTube) It felt very far away,
very distant yes. I mean what you started seeing him especially the
YouTube you started seeing that there was hope like like Fede Alvarez who
directed the Evil Dead remake and Don't Breathe you know he made a short film
Panic Attack that went viral. That's how he got into Hollywood. Same with you know
and even scary you made mama made the short film mama made the big film mom
and now he's done 8mm you know all these things so you know you started seeing
like either like it's not necessarily that distant but you know I mean lot
that we have this sort of plan or what what our thinking was that we'd make
these skull shorts to show the film Institute that hey look we're doing some
cool stuff here give us some money and if we got some money we would do
longer shorts and maybe with that we could you know get some attention and
maybe do like a Swedish feature or two and then maybe that will get some
attention from Hollywood some you know way down the road weirdly enough that we
got to skip all that because we made this short and somebody was straight to
Hollywood so we never made anything professional in Sweden really and we
never got to know the Swedish film community or what that's like
were there unspoken rules that you quickly learned just from being here
just things they don't really tell you that are just protocol yeah I mean there
was a lot to learn coming here because I didn't really know how film set works
like watch a ton of like behind the scenes and listen to commentaries on
laser disc and then DVD but yeah there was still little things I didn't know
like you couldn't find out from there and one of them was like I didn't know
when to say action so when I was interviewing a first ad for for the
position of first ad I I would ask him like so when do I
actually say action because I've heard like there's sound speed and all these
things and and it's yeah it sounds being all and and when then when the camera
operator says that he's ready then it's then you can say action but yeah there
was a lot to learn just how it worked on a film set like interviewing a script
supervisor same thing there's like I was basically just asking what do you do
like what is a script supervisor but what I found was that yeah there was a
lot to learn with everything around it's how things work and what's how they're
supposed to do but the actual filmmaking itself feels like it never changes
whether you have no money or all the money in the world it's still the same
sort of thinking of how to shoot something how to tell a story so the
rest of it is just things you have to learn to navigate but the core of it
feels like it's the same which is good because it feels like okay that then I
know kind of what I'm doing and sorry you said previously that you were
influenced more by American cinema then it was Swedish than or not yeah I
mean growing up it was yeah American movies American TV shows lots of like
Spielberg and James Cameron and John Carpenter Wes Craven and just stuff like
that because that means Sweden it's a small country and even the sort of more
populous movies are kind of you know compared to American movies they're very
small and they're not exciting especially not when you're a little kid
and you want like spectacle and cool stuff and and you know it's also just a
bigger pool of talent just because it's such a big country and a lot of people
come here to make movies and things that's you can get more interesting
stuff full on at a time so Bergman films didn't really intrigue you I do yes no I
good I do love Bergman and like Lars von Trier Gaspar Nui I really like which you
know they do very interesting movies and then
times especially Gaspar no way like I don't think he's made something that's
truly for me but it's I'll see anything he does because I always find it
interesting you know so I I do like all kinds of movies and I you know I had a
period of my life where I was very much into just like art house and indie and
stuff like that then I kind of watching a lot of those movies I kind of because
you you know when you get into that phase of your life you're like oh
Hollywood movies are not that great because they're so formulaic and
everything is all the same and then when you watch a lot of art house movies you
start realizing well it's kind of a formula to this to there are they're
just sort of different tropes and different you know languages but it's
kind of the same thing there so then it's sort of you return to the American
movies or Hollywood movies as well and now I kind of like everything but yeah
what I like doing is quite commercial I guess at the time but I you know maybe
at some point I'll do something more art house as well and see what that's like
you