01x08 - The Scuba Diver

[bunniefuu]

My feet
are k*lling me, we need to stop.

Whatever.

What do you mean, whatever?

You're the one who
brought us here.

Yeah, and I'll get us home, too.

Can you just figure out
where we are, please?

Look, I know exactly where
we're going, just trust me.

I'll get us where we need to go.

We're lost.

- We're not lost.
- We're lost,

and you need to admit it.

Look, check this out, all right?

So...

I know we started here.

Yes.

So, I'm pretty sure we are...

- here!
- Lost!

What?

Dad!

- Dad!
- Yeah, I'm here.

It was a bad dream?

Dad, I was so scared!

Okay.

How bad was it, hmm?

How bad was it, one to ten?

- Ten.
- Ten?

Oh, that's pretty bad.

Remember what we talked about?

Dreams aren't real.

They scare you, but
they can't hurt you.

Okay?

- Good night.
- No!

Dad, stay.

Please stay here.

So, as long as this
line, right here,

stays connected to the diver,

he'll never get lost.

You're not scared in the caves?

Little bit.

But it's good to be
scared sometimes.

Makes you feel like you
can take on anything.

Plus when you're down here,

it's beautiful.

It's like this

amazing place. You... you
get to see things down there

that no one's ever
seen before, ever.

It's like real-life magic.

You'll see it. I'll
take you down there.

One day. And you'll love it.

Please don't go tomorrow.

I have a really bad feeling.

Is this your bad dream?

I don't wanna talk about it.

Well, I'm not going
to the caves tomorrow.

You're not?

Mmm-mmm.

Where are you going?

I'm going to the lake.

I'm just gonna try on
some equipment down there.

Dad?

Hmm?

Can you read me a story?

No. It's bedtime.

Please...

Mom already did.

But you're way more
fun when you read.

Well, that's true. That's true, but
we're not gonna tell your mom that.

Okay, fine, fine. Just one.
Pick one, but only one.

Oh...

-Good choice. This is your new one, right?
-Yep.

Okay.

"Take
a deep breath."

You think he's gonna make it?

Well...

Still plenty of
pages left, so...

I think we're good.

But what if he lets go?

What do you mean?

Like, what if he just lets go?

He can't hang there
forever, could he?

What, he just gives up?

Yeah, like...

What if he just does that?
Then it's over, right?

Well, he would probably...

I think he's gonna make it.

- You do?
- Oh, yeah.

You see this little
raccoon here?

He lost his parents, right?

So, he's gonna do whatever
it takes to find them.

Because he needs them.

Just like you and me.
We need each other.

But what if...

If he never does?

And...

He's all alone.

I'm not gonna be alone, right?

You won't ever have to think
about that for a very long time.

I'm done with this stupid book.

- I wanna read something else.
- Hey, hey, hey.

Let's go find out what happens?

Huh? Your little raccoon friend,
he's hanging there, look.

He's hanging there
with his little paws.

His little baby fur paws.

Baby fur paws.

Sometimes in life,

you just get problems
that you don't see coming.

But you face them...

You face them and you persevere.

That's what he's trying to do.

He's trying to persevere.

I guess. But what
happens to him?

Well, let's find out.

Hey!

Help!

Help me!

Help!

Hey!

Hey!

Help. Help me!

Hello.

Hello.

Hello!

Is anyone there? Hello?

Talk to me!

Careful... Get
hold of yourself.

You can do this!

Ouch!

Hey, it was just getting good.

I don't think you're gonna
like where this is going.

You want to keep
reading it, Dad.

Not all fairy tales have
the happiest endings.

Yes, they do. They always do.

Remember that book I
read you, last week,

um, Hansel and Gretel?

The one with the old
witch in the house?

Mmm-hmm. Well, in
the original story,

they never left the house.

What happened to them?

The witch bakes them into pies,

and then you know
what she does?

She took them and she...

- Ate them?
- Ate them.

Yeah, mmm-hmm.

- That's scary.
- Yeah, I know.

See, they would write
these scary endings

to... frighten the kids

and hopefully teach
them some lessons.

Like a school?

Like, don't talk to strangers

and always listen
to your parents.

Do adults learn from them, too?

What's that supposed to mean?

All right, that's
enough for tonight.

We'll finish tomorrow.

It's bedtime.

Can you stay with me
till I fall asleep?

- Sure.
- Okay.

- Good night.
- Good night.

Honey?

Robbins 29.

Robbins 29. Come in.

Over.

Robbins 29.
Robbins 29. Location, over.

Hello? Hello? Hello?

Who is this?

Robbins 29.

Can you help me? Help me.

Where is the rest of your team?

There's no team.

There's no team.
I was swimming.

I was dropped off here.

And I don't know where I
am. I don't know where I am!

I need somebody. I
need someone to get me.

Dropped with what team?

- My name is...
- Dropped with what team? Over.

- My name is...
- Dropped with what team? Over.

Who is this?

- Who is this?
- USFS.

Who?

United States Forest Service.

Help me. Help me. Help me.

Hello?

Hello?

Yes, I'm getting your location

and we'll send
someone to you now.

Oh...

You
shouldn't be here.

What? What did you say?

Are you listening to me?

You're not supposed to be here.

Do you want me to read
you another story?

No.

I don't want another story.

Let me tell you a story.

My dream, I saw you.

In a strange room, a room
that could change its shape.

You stood there for so long,

for so long, you
didn't know what to do.

I couldn't do anything to help.

I could see the door
for you to leave,

but I couldn't tell
you where it was.

And every time you turned to
see that door, it was gone.

I could see on your face
that you were so scared.

Then I watched the
room get smaller...

- Honey, honey, honey.
- Shh.

Look at me.

I can't because I don't
want you to see it.

See what?

To see...

Ouch!

Okay, look at me, look at me.

Dad...

What?

Do you feel it?

Feel what?

You're on fire!

Wake up! Wake up!

Wake up!

USFS.

USFS, come in.

Roger.
This is USFS.

Robbins 29, do you copy?
What is your position?

I don't know!

Triangulating your coordinates.

Robbins 29, there is a ranger
tower half a mile due east.

We'll send a chopper...

Charlotte.

Charlotte!

Hey! Hey! Hey!

Charlotte!

Hey! Hey! Are you all right?

Wait.

Wait.

Wait!

Hey!

Is there anyone there?

Hey!

Come on.

You ready?

Are you ready?

I love you.

What is it?

Thank you.

No, leave it on.

Bye, Dad.

Bye, hon.

All right. That was "The
scuba diver in the tree."

One of my favorite,
favorite, urban legends.

It's just so completely insane,

and I'm now joined by the
director, Mike Gallant.

- Mike, welcome.
- Thank you for having me.

All right. So, there was a big
discussion about this episode.

And a lot of people told
me it was unfilmable,

or too crazy,

or, "How you're
gonna pull this off?"

And of course, the answer
is, "I don't have to.

The director has to," but I...

I fought so hard
for this episode,

um, because it's one
of those urban legends

I just wanted to see rendered.

Tell me about what
excites you about it

and what's your approach?

Like, how were you
gonna pull this off?

So, I'm actually in
agreement with you

in terms of the excitement
around the scuba diver myth.

As soon as I was told
that's what we were doing,

I was very excited because

we would make it a lot more
about the scuba diver himself

and we put our own
spin on it, whereas,

"Okay, he didn't
die from the fall.

He's actually in the
forest, in the fire

and he's using his
own oxygen tank,"

which makes sense obviously
being a scuba diver,

to keep himself alive
for as long as possible.

When I saw that we were
taking that approach to it,

I got really excited because this
sort of became a survival, uh, story.

But overall I just find that
the scuba diver myth itself

is just a really, really
great urban legend.

Is it true? Did it really
happen? Did it not happen?

Could it happen?

Yeah, it's... It is...

Well, the best urban
legends live in that zone,

- where it's so absurd...
- Yes.

That you'd think, "Well,
that could happen.

-That is a freak acc... Freak accidents happen."
-Yeah.

"The Scuba Diver," what
I liked about the episode

is that anytime you have kind of
the velociraptor in the kitchen,

you know, something
completely out of context

- in the wrong place...
- Right.

It's instantly unsettling.

If you're in a forest fire, the
oxygen tank, if it doesn't explode,

- is the thing that's gonna save your life.
- Yeah.

But now you gotta walk
around in this wet suit.

What do you do if it's burned

- and sticking to your skin?
- Yeah.

I mean, it's literally
a contained horror film.

What I love about this episode
and this story in particular

is that it falls in that
category of pure cinema.

No, dialogue, just camera work.

There's no talking. It's
all, like, a kinet...

And in this case it will be
some kinetic, visceral cinema.

Talk about that
kind of approach,

where you're sh**ting the scene

that, you know, other than
the father and daughter,

there's not a lot of dialogue.

Yeah, so you have to definitely
get a very strong performer.

That's directing 101,
I guess you'd say,

and fortunately we have
someone really great,

Nick Smyth, uh, who is carrying

this whole thing sort
of on his shoulders.

I told him, I was like,
"This is gonna be rough.

This is gonna be hard.
You're, you know,

you're gonna get your a*s
kicked for about four days."

- And he's in a scuba suit.
- Yes, on top of that, and...

I mean, I went outside in a T-shirt
at 100 degrees and I was hot.

Being in a scuba suit, you
know, walking and doing the shot

- of someone with flippers...
- Right.

- trying to... It's such an absurd image.
-Yeah.

And I think that the
best urban legends

- weirdly have an element of absurdity to them.
- Right.

You're like, "That's so crazy.
How could that ever happen?"

But it did happen.

Because someone you know

- knew someone who knew someone...
- Right.

That swore that it happened.

That's the thing
about this myth,

um, I would say
even more so than,

uh, all the other
ones in my opinion,

my humble opinion, is that

everyone swears
this has happened,

you know, California or France
were these big locations.

It happened in the '80s.

Somebody swears by it.

Planning a sh**t like this,

how much is practical fire?

What can you do
with a flame bar?

What are you doing
with LED screens?

What's CGI?

How do you break that
down in your head?

And as a director, what
do you like to use?

Right. Well,

in terms of the
locations that we were...

They're very fickle about

just how much we are able
to bring fire into it,

understandably in the
middle of the summer.

Um, so we're using a
lot of visual effects

to portray the fire itself,

- but we're using a lot of smoke machines.
- Mmm-hmm.

- Um, and our great DOP has flickering LEDs that...
- Mmm-hmm.

Not just LEDs but
bigger lights than that

that we're sort of lining
our whole forest set with,

so that it's constantly flickering
on the scuba diver as he's going.

And we were having a
lot of conversations,

and, you know, finding the best
angles and everything to utilize

and just make it as believable
as humanly possible.

I was going through a lot of different
films for references for this.

And obviously nowadays they play it
a lot more safe and lot of CG fire,

which is completely
understandable.

But when, you know, you
think about stuff that

performers such as
yourself go through

because you had to deal with
Tarantino's wall of fire

while you were sh**ting
Inglourious Basterds,

- and...
- I almost died.

- Yeah.
- Crazy.

- Not on purpose, but...
- Of course. Of course.

If the fire got much closer.

They'd done, like,
a bunch of tests,

but they never tested the fire
with the flags on the scene.

But even on camera when you
see how close you are...

- Yeah.
- To that wall of fire,

you know, it just...
It makes you unnerved.

I had no frame of reference

for what that level of pain was.

'Cause it... They... It was...
They said, "It won't get

closer than 20 feet," and
it was right up over us

and I couldn't gel my hands...

Yeah, that's the thing, right,
you didn't have protection.

- My hands were so burned and...
- Right.

I passed out after it.

They said another... It
was... It was multiplying.

You see a swastika
fall in the film.

That wasn't supposed to happen.

-Oh, okay.
-The steel liquified. It was 2,000 degrees.

They said that
another 30 seconds,

the structure we're on
would have collapsed.

So, Mike, tell us,
uh, just a bit about,

for people that aren't
familiar with your work,

that are gonna see this
episode for the first time,

tell us a little
bit about yourself,

where you started,
what you're doing,

other work of yours
that they could see,

where they can find your stuff.

So, I've... I've actually
worked a lot as an editor

so I've, uh, edited a
lot of feature films

and many horror films, actually,

so that's sort of how I
got into the whole thing.

How did all those
years of editing

prepare you for directing?

I think literally editing
is probably one of the best

ways to learn how to
direct, personally.

Uh, even writing, too, because
you see all the mistakes.

And then you see how
you have to fix it.

You know immediately if
you're sh**ting something,

"All right, that's not
gonna make the cut.

That's not gonna work."

We don't have the
reverse of that.

I need a transition from
this scene to this scene."

As an editor now directing, do you
pre-edit a scene before you go sh**t it?

Do you, like, play it
in your head going,

"I need that, that, that, that"?

Or you're doing that
while you're cutting?

I believe when I sort of
make my shot list initially,

that's sort of
where my head is at.

When I'm on set, I try

and just sort of live
more in the moment

and just make sure
that the performances

are getting out. Like, I really
care a lot about performances.

So, where can people follow you?

Yes, so I'm on Instagram,

Helix Reel, R-E-E-L, Ent.

- I'm very, very easily, uh,
Google-able. - Awesome.

Easy to find on Google.

No, I want people to watch
this and check you out

No, I want people to watch
this and check you out

and follow you and
see your other works.

I really appreciate that.

I think your stuff
is really fantastic.

Thanks, man, I appreciate that.

Great job, man.

It was, uh, really a pleasure
to sit down with you.