- I'm figuring you're just gonna use whatever you want
from this, and there are no boundaries.
Hi, I'm Trish Sie, and I'm the director of "The Sleepover"
and this is my mood board.
(upbeat music)
The most inspiring thing visually for this movie
was actually just being in Boston.
It's a city with so much character, so much personality,
so much history.
The greenery there, it's different than the green
where I live and all the brick and all of the stone
and all of the architecture and the textures,
everything just kind of has a very specific look in Boston
that just really had a big impact on color palettes
that we chose, the textures,
even the angles and stuff that we chose to use.
The Athenaeum, which is the library that we shoot in
and the Wang Center where we shot the interior of the gala.
Even the Finch House, there's an abundance of riches
when it comes to beautiful cinematic locations.
It felt really important that we treat this movie
like an adventure movie period,
and we not treat it differently because it was geared
toward families and children.
So I really watched a lot of just adventure stories,
action stories, comedies.
I love Edgar Wright, I think "Hot Fuzz"
is one of the most perfect memories ever made.
I also like "Scott Pilgrim".
Edgar Wright is a huge influence in general.
I just watch a lot of these kinds of quirkier action movies
that are sort of character-driven
because I really don't want it to feel
like we're pandering to kids and families.
I want it to feel like a legitimate adventure
and it doesn't really matter whether it's PG or not.
There's a New Zealand photographer named Julia Crim
and I came across this beautiful photograph
of these four kids running through Starlight, essentially.
It's like they're in silhouette and so beautiful.
And it just sort of served as a touchstone in a way,
whenever I would kind of have a question,
I would go back to that image and just look at it
and be like, does what I'm thinking live in the world
that this image represents?
And if it didn't, it's out the door,
but one thing I do do while I'm working on a movie
is I read a lot.
And one of the books I was reading
while we were making this movie
was Zadie Smith's book, "Feel Free."
I loved the spirit of it
and every time kind of like that photograph,
I kind of had a question about what direction to go in.
I would just like flip through my Zadie Smith book
and she kind of always has the answer for you.
I think one of the things that really appealed
to our costume designer, Deborah Maguire,
is just all the opportunities in this story
for cool, weird clothing choices.
You know the souvenir shop T-shirts
and the colonial costume display
and of course the gala with all of the beautiful dresses.
I really wanted to capture that feeling that I got
back in the '80s when I was watching all my favorite movies,
"Goonies", "Stand By Me", "The Princess Bride",
"ET", "Adventures In Babysitting", you know, these films,
they had these fabulous ensembles that just worked together
so well and each character was memorable,
but fit like a piece in a puzzle
into sort of a larger group.
And I just have such nostalgia for those movies.
I just wanted to create something that felt like that.
♪ I see a vision, so beautiful ♪
With everybody running around on set, doing separate jobs,
music is such a unifying force.
In the morning when we'd be setting up for the day,
I would just play music.
We would go from, you know,
Maria Muldaur to Sophie Tucker to Chaka Khan to Prince,
gets everybody kind of moving in the morning,
but it also kind of subliminally puts us all
in the same state of mind,
moving together at the same rhythm.
It was a fun way to put us sort of all on the same page,
create a tone on set that we were all a part of.
I mean, this is a movie that is geared toward young people.
It is supposed to have this kind of like whirling dervish
of energy throughout it.
So we use a lot of jump cuts.
We used some montages.
We used a lot of like very snappy edits.
I wanted it to just be so crisp, so clean.
And so just kind of unapologetic about the way
it went from one thing to the next.
Another thing I did to get ready for this movie
was look at a lot of kids performing,
'cause of course, Clancy performs
and Kevin with his bathroom dance performs,
even Lewis when he has to jump to try
and get through the window.
- Well you can give me a hand with this part.
- Oh yeah. - Right.
- You're right. - We're just watching.
- Sorry. - Okay, that's my knee.
- I'm sort of fascinated by kids
that are able to just get out there
and do their thing in front of people.
There were two kids in particular,
there's a boy name John Fe.
I've never seen anything like it.
I just, I'm not gonna say very much about it
'cause it's better if you just watch it, he's amazing.
And then there was also this girl, Sujari Britt,
who's a cellist, the boy dancing and the girl playing cello,
like watching them just fearlessly put their stuff out there
for people to watch, it was really inspiring.
We all know what stories can do
and whether we come from dance, we come from writing,
we come from parenting, we come from teaching.
So once you realize that life is all just kind of
watching people's stories unfold,
filmmaking just seems like a really unique window
to looking at it and sharing it with other people.
That was my mood board, thank you for watching.
Hope you enjoyed it
and now go watch "The Sleepover" on Netflix.
(upbeat music)