Interview: Wyatt McDill and Megan Huber (Four Boxes)

Minneapolis-based Megan Huber and Wyatt McDill are producers, writers and directors of several short films, commercials and music videos. They also happen to be the husband & wife team who premiered their feature film debut, Four Boxes at the 2009 edition of the SXSW Festival, and are seeing their film be released on DVD as of yesterday.

Filmed on a micro budget in 2006, “Four Boxes” explores society’s obsession with the internet, and blurs the line between factual and fictional creating a suspenseful atmosphere until the film’s final act. Fascinated by the mysterious hooded character on the website fourboxes.tv, Trevor (Justin Kirk), Rob (Sam Rosen) and Amber (Terryn Westbrook) find themselves entangled in a web of reality and the internet. Relying on a dreary suburban location and a talented cast of actors, the film is part thriller, part drama and part social commentary based on the idea that what you see isn’t always what you get.

“Four Boxes” takes a while to get to where it wants to go, but by keeping the focus on the Internet site fourboxes.tv the film developes into something more than merely a reflection on failed relationships. With recent news of cyber-bullying and films exploring the implications of social media such as “Catfish” and “The Social Network”, “Four Boxes” is relatable and relevant in our online connected lives, however, the film might have come off more as a “shocker” if it was released well before online profile sites were put into place. I got to interview both members of the team.

Dionissios Kollias: Would you say that your aim was to make a social commentary on how the internet has essentially augmented a voyeuristic appetite that already exists in all of us?
Megan Huber: Low-budget filmmaking is about telling a good story without the benefit of money. One way to do that is through subject matter that resonates with what’s on peoples’ minds, and the internet (and all its implications) is definitely that. However, I would say the other consideration weighed more heavily when we started planning Four Boxes, and that was: three people watching a surveillance-cam website…three actors, two locations, very cheap to shoot!

Kollias: Hitch’s Rear Window is often mentioned in association to FB. What were some of the influences for the film’s text and style?
Wyatt McDill: Hitchcock’s film is a classic because it reduces the appeal of movies to its essentials: characters sitting in the dark, anonymously watching other people. The internet is the ultimate rear window – now we can all sit in the dark and watch anyone we want, anytime we feel like it. And in a way, the internet one-ups Hitchcock’s original, because you never know if what you’re watching through your computer’s “window” is actual, fictional, live, next-door, half-way around the world, etc. Before the internet, everybody always knew what stories were fact and what were fiction. That seems weird now! Which is weird…

Kollias: For those who aren’t familiar with Film Gris – could you outline how it relates to the film?
McDill: Ha! Well, in film noir, there is evil in the world – represented literally on screen by the color black – and that noir darkness pervades characters’ minds and lives and makes good people act bad. Film gris is a name I made up to describe the evil in “Four Boxes” – the characters aren’t good or bad – they’re isolated, they’re watchers, they’re non-participants. In other words, their philosophical view of the world is shades of gray, hence the made-up film-school term film gris!

Kollias: Casting: Tell us about the characteristics you were looking for in your Shallow Grave-like trio of players.
Huber: Justin Kirk read the script and signed on first. He’s a long-time friend of Wyatt’s from MN-back-in-the-days times, so that’s how we were able to get the script to him. After Justin was locked, the trick was to find other, incredibly hot, incredibly talented actors to play opposite! Terryn Westbrook may be new to some, but she has an illustrious commercial career playing characters very similar to the one she plays in Four Boxes, and we’d seen Sam Rosen in tons of plays in Minneapolis and knew we had to bring him back from New York. He’s got a bunch of movies coming out soon.

Kollias: There appears to be a burgeoning Minneapolis film scene – what incentives are there, perhaps for out of State film, for using this backdrop?
Huber: Even though incentives bring film money into a state like Minnesota, conservatives have recently taken a lot of the “cent”s out of MN’s incentive program. Given our budget, Minnesota’s incentive was never a huge consideration. For us, Minnesota isn’t just the backdrop to our story. It’s where we’re from and informs a huge part of our sensibility, as well as being a bedrock of support for us, production-wise. The same is true for other films coming out of Minnesota now – like Stuck Between Stations – there’s an under-appreciated network of companies and organizations in MN that support MN films in a way filmmakers in LA and NY can only dream about. Lucky for us!

Kollias: Artistically, what were some of the pros of working with such a low budget & what did you learn from this process?
McDill: We tried to make a movie that couldn’t be made better even for a million dollars. That’s why we chose an internet story – it intrinsically has a digital look and limited locations that would only get worse (in a way) if you threw money into the mix. I really believe in low-budgets – you’re forced to be more creative – cliché, but true. We never would have sunk our teeth into the semantic differences between movies and internet stories – the lack of money made Four Boxes a better, more interesting movie.

Kollias: Technically, what was the most difficult sequence to shoot?
Huber: Though it barely shows up in the completed film, the script called for “guts” at one point. Buying, keeping, and disposing of an actual sheep’s actual intestines was one of the things I remember without fondness about the shoot.

Kollias: You preemed at SXSW, circulated Four Boxes on the U.S film fest circuit — I’d like for you to highlight what it means to “support” a film well after it has been completed….
Huber: We “finished” the film almost two years ago and it’s just coming out in theaters and on DVD now. In those two years we’ve learned there’s a lot more to making a film than writing, shooting and editing. There’s film festivals, distribution, delivery and marketing. For all those steps that we didn’t know about, someone’s supported our vision of what Four Boxes could be. We’ve “sold” a lot of people on supporting Four Boxes , but when it comes to the audience – the only real test – the film’s ultimately all on its own.

Kollias: You have an interesting distribution strategy set in place: could you talk about the Range Life Entertainment road show and E1 dvd release deal.
McDill: E1 came aboard early because they believe the twists at the end of the film will get people talking (and buying)! We’re grateful for the way they see the film – like we do – as a slow-roller, a story that will creep around the internet and by word of mouth for awhile, maybe years if we’re lucky. Range Life Entertainment are these awesome young guys who started out by literally road-tripping around the country connecting with film-fans at the grass-roots level. Five years later they still do the van, but their speed-dial’s full of film-heavies who are taking serious note of the way they distribute films. We are REALLY excited to be on Range Life’s To-Do list!

Kollias: If you had to give one piece of advice for first time filmmakers from your experience – what would you tell them?
Huber: Ask me in five years! The film world is changing so fast right now that each year is actually very different from the one before. It’s exciting, but also – ask anyone – it’s downright unnerving at times. It might be a more stable profession when the dust settles a little bit on the digital revolution, although, when it does, we’ll probably all be nostalgic for the tumult!

Kollias: What are you currently working on?
McDill: We have two more scripts. Both set in Minnesota. One is a comedy with jet-pack wearing puppets called “Pinky’s Buffet” and one is a heartbreaking class romance called “Snowbird.” If the right investor comes along, we can combine them into one long, class-warfare muppet yurt-living tear-jerker. What can we say? We’ll do anything to stay in the game!

Four Boxes is now available on DVD.

Thanks to Dionissios Kollias for the interview.