Having been very lucky indeed to have attended FrightFest Glasgow – even more so, given the current ban on cinemas and gatherings – I decided to stretch my luck a little more by asking Adam Stovall, director of the deeply humane and immersive indie film A Ghost Waits, if he could spare a little time to answer some of my questions. I asked about the writing process, any inspiration behind the film and the shooting of A Ghost Waits itself. The result is a great, detailed interview with loads of insight, which I’m very happy to feature here. Many thanks to Adam for his time.
Okay Adam – first question – tell us a little about the inspiration for A Ghost Waits. What was the creative process of writing this film like?
I’ve been writing screenplays for twenty years, and the process is never the same. The only thing that remains fairly constant is that I don’t really start working on a script until I think the story doesn’t work, as I then have a puzzle to solve. It’s just so much easier to not write than to write, if a story has already been told then I’d rather just pop some popcorn and watch that.
That being said, this one was completely new to me. MacLeod and I had spent a year trying to make another film, but we couldn’t raise enough money. I went home to Northern Kentucky to figure out what was next, and while I was there my friends Brian and Jenn sat me down and had me play a video game called P.T. It’s a first-person puzzle game in a haunted house, designed by Guillermo del Toro and Hideo Kojima. Very atmospheric. So I was playing that and I had my friends laughing, and it occurred to me that there might be a movie in someone like me having to deal with a haunted house. As I was playing with that idea, I read a webcomic, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, where a man asked a woman what she thought was the most American movie and she answered “Ghostbusters. Here’s a movie where you have demonstrable proof of an afterlife, but the whole movie is about growing a small business and navigating bureaucracy.” I thought, “That’s hilarious…and I want to see that movie.” So I wrote it!
One of the investors we met while trying to make the other movie remained very excited to make something. He was talking to a mutual friend one day and asked if they knew what I was up to. “I think Adam just had an idea about a weird haunted house movie,” our friend told him. So he and I got on the phone and I talked him through the story as I saw it, and he said he’d invest half our (admittedly small) budget. My Mom put in the other half, and suddenly I had a budget…and a script to start.
I knew it would be largely confined to one location, as that’s a good way to keep the budget down. I also knew the cast would be minimal, especially in terms of speaking roles. With those logistical concerns in mind, I set to thinking about ghost stories. One thing I love about genre storytelling is that it allows for a more operatic style, but your metaphor has to be strong. My first thought was that usually ghosts have unfinished business that’s keeping them here, and the idea of a handyman being presented with the largest task of his life — helping a spirit resolve their unfinished business — was exciting to me. In the original ending, Jack helps Muriel finish her business and then she leaves, because everyone leaves Jack. But that didn’t feel right. I was in Austin for Christmas 2015, and my first night there I hung out with my friend Matt. He had three movies for us to watch, but after the first one I told him I was working on a script and could maybe use his help with it. He had the idea for an All About Eve dynamic, which created the character Rosie. This created a context which could bond Jack and Muriel, and that led to the ending as it is now.
In summer 2015 I’d seen a show called “Hundred Days” which The Bengsons were workshopping in Cincinnati. The song which ends the film, “Years Go By”, is in that show. I was out with my then-girlfriend one night, and in the middle of a conversation I had the image of the garage with the song playing under it. I ran home that night and wrote the ending, and that’s when I knew I had a movie.
Of course, it changed a lot throughout the entire process. We wrapped principal photography in August 2016, and I started cutting together the assembly – which was 1:50 and not good. But the ending worked! So it was just about getting to the ending quicker. Eventually, scenes started to take shape and the edit became less not good, and eventually the film was strong enough to tell that from minute 34 on we were good, but we hadn’t earned our way there over the previous 33. We didn’t have money to bring anyone else back, so MacLeod and I reconvened on our own and figured out how to make those 33 minutes work. This worked, but it didn’t fix everything. The dreams still didn’t work, but I refused to scrap the idea because the first two dreams set up the third one at the end. So we talked through what the point of the dreams should be, and settled on what’s there now. The second dream was actually the last thing shot in the movie. We had to film it at 7:00am on a Sunday morning before he flew back to Los Angeles.
And finally we were happy with the film.
Were any other films (or art and literature, for that matter) an influence on you?
The aforementioned video game and webcomic were the chief influences on the story. I have a rule that you should never remind the audience they could be watching a better movie, so I try to avoid homage and that sort of thing. That said, we did absolutely steal one scene from another film…and no one has caught it yet.
In a more general sense, I would say the biggest influences on my writing are music, Charlie Kaufman, and the film Marty. Someone once told me, “Film is an emotional medium. You can give your audience all the information in the world, but if you don’t give them a reason to care, it’s all for naught.” Music is all emotion for me, and my brain is basically a hard drive filled with every song I’ve ever heard and they’re all on shuffle. So as I’m working on an idea, some songs will usually start to bubble up and attach to it, and that shows me the direction in which to head.
Kaufman once said that he considers most films to be dead, in that it doesn’t change or move. His goal is to create a story that feels alive, in that it changes upon your experience of it. That stuck with me, as did the experience of watching Marty. I had just seen a very good rom-com where the characters bonded almost exclusively through pop culture, and then here was a movie about two adults meeting and connecting through frank discussion of their insecurities and desperate hope. It felt so much more timeless to me, and I have aimed for that ever since.
You mentioned during your FrightFest interview that your lead actor, MacLeod Andrews, improvised some of his lines during his scenes. How important to you was it to retain that kind of organic performance on screen, given how important the character of Jack was to the film as a whole?
I wrote Jack expressly for MacLeod – to the extent that had he said no, the movie would simply not exist.
We’ve been friends for a few years now, and have been wanting to make a movie together that entire time. Once this became a reality, he was very involved at every stage of writing. The character is based on myself, but it’s for him. I think MacLeod actually did a great job sticking to what was on the page, but our collaboration is very much a two-way street. We trust each other, and we speak a shared language. I cannot count how many times I’d text or email him a weird idea for the movie, and he’d respond “How does this serve the story?” and I would say “But it’s funny and weird and okay fine you’re right.” But then sometimes I’d come up with something weird and funny and he’d say, “Actually that works.”
The toilet scene is the biggest improvisation in the film. The phone call was scripted, and indeed we shot it during principal photography, but it didn’t work and so I cut it. During the editing process, we realized that we really did need the information it imparted, so during pickups we dug back in and figured out how to make it work. I cut a bunch of dialogue and we ran it a few times, and then MacLeod said “I have an idea. Let the camera run.” And then he made the toilet talk, and I had to walk away because I was laughing so hard.
For those unaware, in addition to the films MacLeod has made, he works mostly as an audio book narrator. Between those two things, he pretty much lives in story, so his instincts are amazingly sharp. He gives the best notes, too. I’m just really, really lucky to have such a staggeringly talented friend.
Your female lead, playing the ghost character of Muriel (Natalie Walker) seems to have a difficult task in that she has to enact being very detached, before showing some aspects of something else creeping through which gradually re-humanises her, but not in a sentimental or a really overt way. Was this challenging? How did you decide to manage this from the point of view of a director, and Walker as an actor?
This will surprise no one, but casting is ridiculously hard. It’s the process of looking for someone who is 100% right for a character, and the chasm between 99% and 100% is everything. Talent and discipline can get you to 99%, but it’s instinct that carries you the rest of the way.
I had written Muriel for another actor, a friend of mine, but she was cast on a TV show and was unavailable. I recast the part with a local actor in Cincinnati, but we had to reschedule and she wasn’t available for the new dates. So I went back to my desk, opened up my laptop, and cleared my mind.
I had been following Natalie on Twitter for a while, so I knew she was hilarious and brilliant. Then one night I thought, “Oh wait, she’s an actor too! I should check out her work!” I couldn’t find anything online, so I emailed her and told her about the project and offered to send her the script, which she took me up on. She liked the script, so we talked and she taped an audition, and the next day we connected on FaceTime and I offered her the role. I just had a feeling in my gut that she’d be great. She has so much vibrancy, it reminded of Robin Williams. I suspected that putting her in a role that demanded she sublimate that energy might produce similar results.
Once we were on set, it was a very small crew so I had a million jobs and was constantly running around, which left little time to sit and talk with her and MacLeod. I don’t know how general this advice can be, but in my experience casting actors with theatre background helps immensely as they’re accustomed to really digging into the script and crafting something of their own.
So much of directing is just maintaining a perspective and a sensibility. As both writer and director, and given how personal this story was, both of those things were in my bones. I quickly learned that whenever they had a question about something, I should just be honest and speak from the heart.
Did you have any misgivings about how you were going to end the film, or was this always the ending you envisaged? (I’m wary of spoilers here and I will ensure none creep in…)
I didn’t, no. I understand why some are concerned by it, or worry that it could be in poor taste. But it’s honest, and I don’t shy away from talking about the subject. Roger Ebert once said that film is a machine that generates empathy. I think if people open their hearts to what’s happening, they’ll understand that it’s not prescribing anything, but rather empathizing with a taboo.
And finally, the film seemed high on people’s lists after the Glasgow FrightFest screening – mine included. I was wondering, what would you feel was the highest praise someone has given, or could give to your film?
The best thing that could be said, was said after the premiere. People were effusive in their praise overall, but several of them told me about their own struggles with mental health, and that the film made them feel seen and heard. I have struggled with depression and suicidal ideation my entire life, and at my lowest I’ve never had the words to ask for help…but movies were always there.
At my lowest, invariably a film would come into my life that made me feel less alone, and I would make it to tomorrow. I wanted to make something that would do that for someone else, and to know that I accomplished that goal means everything to me.