Going Behind the Scenes with The Girl in the Photographs: An Interview with Director Nick Simon & Producer Thomas Mahoney

Playing as part of the 2016 Victoria Film Festival at:

The Vic Theatre
808 Douglas St.
Victoria, BC
 Friday, Feb 12 — 8:45pm

The Girl in the Photographs is making its BC premiere during the 2016 Victoria Film Festival and both Thomas Mahoney (who will be in attendance) and director Nick Simon could not be any happier. Both of these producers made this garden city their home away from home when this movie was filming here. Mahoney is one of the many producers involved this film and both have a passion for crafting many a tale of terror. Mahoney made a very Euro-flavoured tale of terror, Anarchy Parlor (2015) and Simon with Robert “Oz” Perkins (Anthony Perkins son) on several scripts. Some were commissioned, on spec. The most notable movie is Removal (2010). Although they do not work on every movie together, they’ve broadened.

Without giving away too much away about this thriller/horror movie product, I had the opportunity to speak to them about this work:

ES: How did you two meet and what attracted you to go into filmmaking and/or going into producing horror films?

TM: I went to the American Film Institute — the Julliard School of filmmaking — in Los Angeles to learn producing. That’s where Nick and I met. After graduation, I made a film in 2009 called Prototype, a small budget independent film — it had a following in Asian markets, even some places in Europe. In 2010, I worked with Nick to make Removal. We've been friends and collaborators for about 10 years now.

NS: At an early age, I was always drawn to those types of stories. My mother is a big horror movie nerd; I'd watch Halloween and the original Night of the Living Dead at a wildly inappropriate age. That immediately turned me on into the whole “being scared” thing found in films. The first time I talked to Wes Craven, I remember telling him his movie, The Last House on the Left, was one of my mom's favourite movies and looked at me like I was nuts. The movie made me want to be a filmmaker was Escape from New York. Everything about it — the movie, the poster design — really blew me away. It's one of my top 5 favourite movies of all time. I really didn’t discover movies like Psycho until I was in my teens. But that film, Vertigo and Shadow of the Doubt are amongst my favourite films.

ES: How did the script for The Girl in the Photographs come about?

NS: We worked on the first treatment of the script 5 or 6 years ago; it was more of a work that Oz Perkins (Anthony Perkins son) came up with and my thought was to bring back the slasher genre in some way. I really enjoy the 80's style horror films and we wanted to pay homage to that. We really wanted to pay attention to the details prominent for that time, but yet stay current to themes involving current issues. Thematically, this movie film is about the objectivation of women in the workplace, in photography and the fashion world.

TM: They would send the script to me for notes and my thoughts over the years. But Nick started writing the script with Oz Perkins for some time. They’ve been old friends and frequent collaborators even longer, for 10 years. We brought in a third writer, Robert Morast, a journalist and first time screenwriter who had a taste for the material. He helped filled in the gaps and put it together to where it needed to be [for production].

My goal was to make the script and the project a time capsule within the genre, which you realize it could have taken place anytime. I want people to say, “Oh wow, that felt like a period (‘80s) piece. Although there are modern elements like cell phones, new cars, and the Internet, I still wanted to have that feel. I wanted a throwback to that style of filmmaking that doesn't exist anymore. Another thing I want to mention about shooting in that older cinematic style was it was deliberate.

We had Dean Cundey as our cinematographer. He filmed Halloween and Escape from New York — his style complemented what we were trying to do.

ES: How did Wes Craven’s involvement come about?

NS: He was a mentor for a group of five horror writers signed with the Writer's Guild. Daniel Meers and myself (we wrote The Pyramid together) got into this new group and he was there by random crazy luck. Throughout the year, we had dinners at Wes' home and we just talk about what we're working on. I'd ask him every question we (as a group) can think of. The guild normally tells us to not to show him your work, but he’d ask what we're working on. I had the script for The Girl in the Photographs for four years now, and I didn’t know if it was good or not.
Wes said: “Send it over and if you want feedback, let me know.”

I said, “Okay.” So I sent it. Ten days later, he got back to me and gushed all over it. He ended the email, saying, “What can I do to help get it made?”

He was already sick by the time we started shooting, so he didn't come to location — but he was planning on it. We sent him dailies every day and he'd watch them to give us his thumbs up or down. He helped me make some hard decisions as far as like you can cut this out, or how to get to the action faster. He was very collaborative.

TM: Wes became the grandfather to this movie. We became really good friends. Me, Nick and Wes ... even towards the end, we were close. We had deep conversations about the production, and he kept tabs all the way before the final sound mix came in and before he tragically passed away. His departure struck us hard. Right at the end, we finished this movie and he was not able to see the final product. We premiered it at the Toronto International Film Festival two weeks after.



ES: What made you decide to shoot here, in Victoria, BC? 

TH: It fell upon us by circumstance. I personally knew that Victoria was the right place to come shoot. I loved it. I love the Pacific Northwest. There's something really majestic that I think, if captured correctly on film, can be made for great cinema.

NS: We originally talked about South Dakota — where I am from — but ultimately it became difficult to shoot there. We looked at other places in the US, like Michigan and Georgia but it didn't have the look and feel l wanted [to replicate the Black Hills and Badlands from home]. Victoria felt like a heightened version of South Dakota. There are areas where it feels like you've gone back in time. We shot at Wellburn's Market, which felt like a very vintage grocery store from the 80's, which is perfect... that's where we shot a good chunk of the movie. Every time you turn a corner, there's even places where you'd swear you're in Seattle.

ES: Getting into this movie, I found a good part of the story and the terror is very grounded in reality. Why did you approach making this film this way?

NS: After growing up with my mother as that kind of horror/true-crimes enthusiast, I just grew up knowing all about that stuff and I wanted to make a story that actually scared me. We wanted things that could possibly really happen, like home invasions. That kind of thing terrifies me more, like with how the Manson murders took place. There are real horrific stories happening all the time and that's more terrifying to tell.

TM: I think the horror landscape of modern cinema is very predicated on ghost stories. Because of all those movies like Insidious, Paranormal Activity, Sinister — we kind of lost the classic serial killers / slashers that once graced the screen. There are no more Jasons, Michael Meyers and Freddie Krugers — though these character’s behaviour can sometimes be more surreal than serial. We lost that style from films like Black Christmas. They’re just not made anymore. Our goal is to bring that genre back.

ES: Were you going for any deeper meanings in this movie's title? One detail I really appreciated is in how the film begins with a quote by William S. Burroughs. I thought that was deep.

NS: Finding it was kind of an accident. I was reading his stuff at the time and came across that while we're in the edit stage. I was blown away by it. I remember calling Robert Morris and said check out this quote. I said: “How creepy does this relate to our story? We should use it and put it in the beginning of the movie.” I used a quote too in Removal, and its effect worked really well for that. These lines do set the tone and for The Girl in the Photographs, it did the same thing.

TM: I believe that line just describes the nature of photography. The art of, beauty of, and the power of what it can be used for — good, bad, evil — I think that was specifically a quote Nick chose to get the point of what this film explores.



ES: Concerning the heroes, Colleen (Claudia) — the damsel being targeted — and Peter Hemmings (Kal Penn) — the big city photographer who comes in to investigate the slasher crimes taking place — which character is central to this story?

TM: We consistently tell Colleen’s story throughout. I think Peter becomes a larger part of her story so that's why he becomes a bigger character. In reality we're tracking her from beginning...

ES: Concerning the two bad guys, Tom and Jerry, who are the killers in this film, how did their genesis come about? They wore masks and when watching their portrayals, why did the stronger of the two behave more feminine?

TM: There are a lot of studies that highlight the fact that serial killers are most likely homosexual or bisexual. A detail that sometimes gets typecast is that the killers are burly and masculine ... we're trying to turn the genre on its head a little bit, and show something that's a little more true to what's out there, and realistic. We're going for stuff in what's seen in real life society.

NS: There's definitely a love interest between Jerry to Tom for sure, and Tom is the master manipulator. You do see him not physically kill anybody. Between the two, he's the artist and Jerry is the murderer. There is something of a love story where audiences will see that Jerry is in love with Tom, Tom is in love with Colleen — it's a weird triangle.



What we did was develop a Mice and Men type of relationship between the two men and that happened just within rehearsals and shooting. There were versions of the script where there was a lot more information about them and we started taking away that information. The less you knew about them the better it was — one of the notes from Wes was that you know what they want, you know what they're like, and you know where they live: that they're monsters and that's all you need to tell audiences.

ES: When listening to the music, I thought the background music really worked create the tension. Is Nima a regular in your team’s work?

TM: We’ve known Nima Fakhrara for a while. He's a Hans Zimmer protégé and he's done work in The Dark Knight. Because of his experience, he has a real sensibility for genre and horror films and in where to go with these types of scores. Not only that, I think we have a lot of good songs in the movie. It'll give you a good feel for the product [on top of all the background music that's playing].

ES: In closing, do you have any final words you like to say?

NS: To make a good horror film is such a hit and miss thing. People will either love it or hate it. I guess that's a good place to be. If it's fairly polarizing, at least you're evoking a kind of emotion out of them, and that works for me.

TM: We've been lucky enough to have an awesome executive producer, financier, and performers ... Alghanim Entertainment — they definitely were amazing to let us flow creatively to put the best product forward.

The Girl in the Photographs at the Victoria Film Festival: A Girl in the Photographs at the Victoria Film Festival

Ed's review of The Girl in the Photographs can be found at Otakunoculture:

A Girl in the Photographs Review at Otakunoculture


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Posted in: 1980's,2016,crime thriller,director interview,independent,indie,interview,producer interview,victoria film festival,wes craven