Indie filmmaking is a notoriously fickle business. Without the corporate enterprise of a major studio, most up-and-coming filmmakers are placed forever at the mercy of frenzied schedules, frugal budgets and minimal resources, before even trying to hustle their finished project before the eyes of critics and audiences at film festivals around the world. It’s a business where flexibility, ingenuity and determination are admirable traits, but also one where a strong creative vision can propel you over the artistic hill. Speaking to FilmBunker from his home base in Los Angeles, young director Diego Hallivis walks us through the process behind his first feature film, 2017’s sci-fi time travel escapade Curvature. We discuss everything from the page to the screen: directing, scripting, production and casting, along with keeping it in the family and the benefits of a viral hit.
So, to start off with Diego, could you give us a little bit of background on yourself? How you got into filmmaking, what sparked your interest in film, and some of the features and shorts that you worked on leading up to the release of Curvature?
I was born in Mexico City. I was raised there until I was about 11 or 12 and that’s when I moved to the U.S. And, between, you know, travelling back and forth, you know, during the summer to go visit my friends and family, I went to go see the movie called Amores Perros, which is Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu’s first film. He’s the Mexican filmmaker who won the [Best Director] Oscar twice in a row recently. And when I watched his film, I realized, I was like, “Oh, wow. This is a Mexican movie by a Mexican filmmaker,” and like, “You can become a filmmaker without, you know, being an American or living in Hollywood.” I was living in Florida at the time, so it felt like a reachable dream, almost.
And there was this other movie that was very personal to me. Y Tu Mamá También, which is [Alfonso] Cuaron’s fourth film. I realized, like, “Hey, you know what? There’s this group of filmmakers between Guillermo Del Toro and these other two guys that are making it, you know, they’re doing it, so why not go for it? It’s my passion, too.” I’ve always loved movies. I’ve always loved Spielberg and so, you know, I just kind of went for it. I went to film school and then my brother [Julio Hallivis], who’s my business partner, he went to business school and became my producer for every single thing I’ve done, including all my shorts in film school and everything. Little by little, we started working together to start a production company.
When I first arrived in L.A., about seven years ago or eight years ago, I started off by being an editor for commercials in advertising, because that paid the bills. I started doing short films and working on little things. Then I was lucky enough where I did a short film based on The Joker from DC Comics called The Laughing Man and it went viral, which opened a lot of doors for me to a project going. Curvature was a project that I’d been wanting to get off the ground for a while and that short film going viral, opened up that opportunity for us to make it happen.
I think that’s an interesting dynamic. With your background in film as a director, and your brother’s background in the production aspect, do you find that that form of familial partnership has given you a little bit of an edge against those who might be going it alone? Having your brother there to bounce off ideas and collaborate together?
Oh, absolutely. I would say he’s probably my biggest asset because we sort of complement each other. We’re very different; we think very differently. So, it’s always good to be able to have someone that you can bounce ideas back and forth. And you know, because we like different things, then it becomes honest feedback, and honest feedback is one of the hardest things to get in this town, because either nobody wants to destroy your story and offend you, or because they just don’t care enough. Getting real, honest feedback is really hard, so having him in my corner is very helpful.
Also, when you talk creatively with a lot of people, it’s hard to navigate a creative space. People get offended very quickly and don’t want to work again with you. That happens a lot, especially with commercials and stuff like that. So, you know, when it’s your brother, you can literally go off on each other, and then half an hour later, you’re like, ‘Hey, you want to grab a beer and watch a movie?’ And like it’s all good [laughs].
That sounds like a healthy relationship.
I think that really is beneficial. You know? Like, anything else, we just end an argument that way. I was the one who went to film school, he went to business school, and we’re creative partners, so we’re very creative together when we’re coming up with ideas. It’s very helpful having someone like him because when I was an editor for commercials, he was actually producing commercials as well. So, him having all this knowledge about physical production was really helpful for me when crafting stories so we could come up with something that could actually be shot on an independent budget.
Having his guidance and his input, in that way, definitely helped out. Whereas like other filmmakers, you kind of just go to school and you learn about the art, you learn about the history, but you don’t really learn about the realities of what’s practical, what’s not practical; what’s doable, what’s not doable. So, having someone with that kind of knowledge definitely gives you an advantage over other filmmakers, I would say.
Absolutely. Now, you mentioned before that Curvature was a project that had been percolating in your mind and that you had wanted to get it off the ground for some time. I’m interested to know where Brian [DeLeeux] factors into the mix here as a screenwriter for the film? Was he a friend of yours? Was he someone that you came across in passing? How did that working relationship come about?
Yeah, we’ve worked with Brian for many years now and we’ve worked on many different scripts. We’ve developed ideas together and we sort of have this little ‘treasure box’ of projects that we’ve developed with him. You know, he’s a really good friend of ours and that was a project that, when he first kind of told me the idea for it, was meant to be a bigger type of a calling card for him, like a script for a studio to read. It was big and epic, and it had all these politics involved. So, when I told him my feedback on it, which was, ‘You know, it’s a huge story. There’s a lot of things going on, but to me, what’s really interesting is the struggle that this woman is going through, and to me, that’s the story.’
He really liked it, so we slowly started talking more and more about how to approach it differently and approach it in an independent way. From there, it was completely rewritten, and you know, I would say 95% of it changed in order to just be about her. What was really interesting to us was coming up with a time travel movie where the time travel is not meant to save the world. It’s not meant to, you know, stop the apocalypse or something crazy. It was more about the emotional backbone of someone who is going through loss and suffering and depression, and how can sci-fi be applied in a dramatic way, as opposed to some sort of a spectacle. So, we started working on that story, and little by little, Curvature was born.
That’s fascinating. When I was watching the film, I immediately thought of Shane Carruth’s Primer, another indie film with a time travel sci-fi premise, done on a very small budget but with very big ideas. So, it’s interesting to hear you talk about how Curvature is not necessarily about the time travel saving the world, but more a question of morality, ethics and what we should be doing with science. I feel like you definitely get to those issues in the film and you make it a more grounded story because of that, rather than filling it with expensive CGI effects typical of say a blockbuster film.
Exactly. We were very interested in this idea of like, ‘Okay, how far would you go if you could go back in time and save someone you loved? And, at the same time, what are the ethics involved if you could actually do that?’ Intertwining that theme of letting go with sci-fi, to me, felt like a very interesting way to talk about time travel in a way that hasn’t fully been done when it comes to independent films.
I think Primer has a very specific storyline as well and, like you said, I like tackling complex subjects in a way that is not diluted for the [common] denominator, where it’s meant to be watched in a room with the lights off and you might have to re-watch it twice because you might not get something. I’m not going to spoon-feed you the information, you know? It’s not a giant blockbuster where I may need to worry about making a hundred million during the opening weekend. It’s more of a story for people who kind of like this more intimate approach to sci-fi.
Let’s talk about the film’s production a little bit. You mentioned reading the script that Brian had initially, and through consultation, changing the story and scaling back the scope of what you could achieve on film and bring to the screen. How did you and Julio approach that production aspect, in terms of kind of knowing what your budget would be, and then what you could achieve with that budget? Was that a struggle for you guys?
Yeah, I think that conversation is always a struggle for any filmmaker because there’s always the movie that you have in your head, and then there’s the reality of the sandbox that you’re given based on the budget. So, then you sort of come into the reality of it. You have the screenplay as the blueprint, then you create an additional screenplay based on reverse engineering the physical part of it when it comes to physical production. You might have to rewrite certain things to take place in sets that you already have, and it sort of becomes this puzzle that you come up with and have to solve. And then you go for the best [laughs].
There’s no guarantee of your movie being good, or actually being anything close to the screenplay that you have. You just kind of have to go for it, and, especially with an independent budget, you just kind of wing it. You plan as much as you can, and then when the day comes to shoot it, you do your best. You have all these plans, and then something might come up, might be slightly different and better, or just different, and you kind of embrace it and go with it. You know? That’s the thing about shooting independent. You have an X amount of days to make it happen, and then you’re done, and you’re left with whatever you shot and you’ve got to make a movie out of it.
Were there any major roadblocks during the production? Anything that happened that you and Diego didn’t prepare for and you had to kind of work around or was it a fairly straight-forward, nice and smooth process?
No, no. It’s never nice and smooth when it’s indie movies [laughs]. But I would say always fun because you’re always challenging yourself.
For example, there was one day where the truck with all our gear in it got stuck in traffic when we were doing one location move from one place to another. And so, then all of a sudden, I have an entire crew of people waiting out at a location, waiting to set up. But the equipment’s not there, because the truck was stuck in traffic. So then, you know, that takes time away from your day, and then when the truck shows up, you have only X amount of time left to finish your day. So, you’ve got to figure out the shot list that you have, what are the shots that you think are necessary to tell the story and what are the shots that you are just sort of like having as a, ‘This shot is for me, because I want to make a fancy camera move,’ or whatever. Then you still got to go and prioritise what’s important to the story.
Things like that happen all the time, with a truck getting stuck in traffic, or sometimes it rains when you’re supposed to have sun, or a piece of equipment is faulty. We had one day where, I don’t know if you remember, but there’s a moment where she [Fonseca] has this sort of like dream sequence where she’s in the forest walking with a lot of smoke. We had a fog machine that created a lot of white smoke and it looked pretty epic, and then, you know, one hour into the shoot, it just stopped working. So, we ended up using a miniature smoke machine, and because we didn’t have all the additional monitors to see or whatever, it ended up being me holding the director’s monitor, going around in circles around her as she’s walking to create sort of that effect. It was me holding it, as I’m telling her where to go, and I was operating the smoke machine (laughs).
Wow, that sounds intense.
It was pretty funny. The editor [Joel Griffen] made a little montage for me to watch, and it’s just one of those things that you just roll with.
Speaking of Joel, let’s talk about post-production. What was the relationship that you had with Joel in terms of editing the film? How did you go about creating a sense of tension and pacing… those elements that are really required in a cerebral, sci-fi thriller like Curvature?
Yeah. It was a really fun process with Joel. I had never met him, but I saw a film called Flight that he was the editor for. And when I watched it—it’s also a low-budget, sci-fi indie movie—I was like, ‘Okay, this guy has done this kind of stuff before.’ And I really liked the pacing of it. So, I reached out to him and he came to the office to meet with me and my brother, and we just clicked instantly. The way we worked was we sort of created a board with every single scene in the movie, and then it had like a little Velcro thing on the back so that way we could like move [them] around. That way we could almost edit the film in front of us, through these cards, before we even hit the editing station.
So, we have this plan, we made the board and we’re like, ‘Ok, we got this.’And then obviously, when you start editing, you’re like, ‘Oh no. This is not going to work out.’ We got to just keep editing and we got to keep scratching our heads. So, we moved a lot of the scenes around, especially the first reels. I would say the first half hour of the movie was the one that changed the most, constantly, because we reorganized stuff. It was kind of like a puzzle, but also kind of fun, you know, when you’re doing something that you are really passionate about. Even though it can be very frustrating, it’s a fun thing we’re doing, and we’re lucky to be making movies for a living.
The other aspect of the film that I thought was quite interesting was the score. I thought Adam [Taylor] did an excellent job as composer, and it was a really striking element for the tone and mood throughout the entire film. Was there any kind of particular direction you had with Adam, in terms of composing the score for the film?
Oh, absolutely. I was very specific about who we were going to choose for the music, and I actually created a whole document with different playlists and different things for whoever was going to do this, to read the screenplay with tracks of music. We kept looking for people and then I watched a movie called Meadowland, which is directed by Reed Morano. She’s a fantastic filmmaker and Adam made the music for that film. We reached out to him and when he read the screenplay, he was immediately on board. And I mean, that dude is amazing. He’s doing like The Handmaid’s Tale now. He’s doing all kinds of stuff and he’s mad talented.
I think, particularly with indie films on a smaller budget, the score is such an overlooked element. It can really change the entire dynamic and feel of a film. And if the score is, well, forgettable, then certain scenes won’t resonate with the audience like they should. Take Blade Runner for example. You can watch that iconic film and you might not really connect with the story, or the actors, or the setting, but the score will always stick with you. You’ll hear those booming synthesisers and be like, ‘Oh, that’s Blade Runner.’ There’re always those narrative beats in a film that only a score can really accentuate, and I feel like Curvature has a bunch of those.
Oh, yeah. Absolutely. And, it’s really interesting to see him [Taylor] work, because his mind works in different ways. He’s thinking—thematically—how to build certain chords or sounds for certain characters; and then within the music for the character, so if you don’t know music, when you watch it, there’s things that he’s doing that you’re not even aware of, but he’s totally elevating the story from a thematic level, as well as just musically. It’s just beautiful music. He totally nailed and I was really happy to have him be a part of the team.
That’s awesome. Lastly, let’s talk about the casting. What kind of interaction did you have with Jason [L. Wood] in terms of people like Lyndsy Fonseca and Linda Hamilton involved?
I mean, the casting process was you kind of make offers and people respond to the screenplay. I would say that Lindsay was very receptive. When I first met her—not knowing what’s going to happen or what you’re going to think—I started talking to her and realised that she had something very special. Not only is she really smart, and she understood the time travel part of it, but she could convey so much with just her eye. And I was very interested in casting someone like that, because it’s a movie that deals with the dark subject matter of losing a husband and I [knew] that could be off-putting for some people. I didn’t want her to come across as overly dramatic. What I wanted was to have someone that portrays, you know, depression and love, in a way that felt very elegant. And she can say so much of that with her eyes, so I just thought she was perfect for it.
When it comes to Linda Hamilton, we sent her the script and she really responded to it, because she was really happy to see a sci-fi time travel movie in which the female protagonist is not treated as some sort of male fantasy, ‘femme fatale’ type of character. It’s not about finding another suitable husband for her; it’s about her overcoming depression. So, she really wanted to support a screenplay with main characters like that, where it’s not a girl that’s kicking ass and looking super sexy in some outfits. She was really supportive of the deal, making an indie movie with sci-fi for the purposes of a dramatic standpoint.
I think that’s a really important part as well. Curvature is a grounded and realistic interpretation of people in those situations, but more importantly, also of women in those situations. There’s real emotion and very real layer of depth going on in the performances, as they’re kind of going through the loss of a partner and the loss of a friend.
Not only that, but I have to say, Linda Hamilton has this ability to just show up on set and everyone is just immediately happier that day. She’s so nice to everyone. When I first met her, the first thing she did, the very first thing she did, was just give me hug and she said, “Congratulations on getting your movie made.” She’s just the type of person that you want to be around, and her energy just touches everyone. During the lunch break, she would be hanging out with the crew, taking selfies with them. You know, I think that’s something that you might not find in a lot of actors or actresses that have reached the same levels of success that she has, you know? She’s just a bad ass [laughs].
To wrap up Diego, as a filmmaker, do you have those moments of inward reflection, where you watch the finished film—the product of all the writing, directing, casting, production, editing etc.—and go, ‘Oh, I wish I had the opportunity to change this or that’? Or are you just content in having the project fully realised and available for people to enjoy and make up their own mind?
Well, I guess I’m not open about the issues that I see with the film a lot [laughs]. I like to just pretend and just be like, “Hey, here you go. Check it out.” But yeah, definitely when you’re editing the movie, there’s not a day that goes by where you don’t say, like, “I wish I would have done this. I wish I would have put the camera here instead,” or whatever, and by the end, you’ve worked on it so much that all you can see [are] the mistakes. But I think, you know, it’s also kind of like if you have a pet. You know, the pet, might break your furniture, and you get mad, but whatever. It’s your pet, you know? So, you end up loving it. I’m really proud of this film, and I’m happy I learned so much from it, that I know I’m going to be a better filmmaker for my next film just for having done this film.
Well said. I’m definitely keen to see where you guys go in your career, and that’s the point I’d like to end on: What’s next for you, Diego? What’s next in line for the Hallivis Brothers?
So, we are currently cooking a horror movie. We haven’t started pre-production yet. It’s going to be really fun; we haven’t really announced much, so that’s why I can’t say too much about it. I can tell you it’s a horror that’s going to have some really crazy twists and turns, and I think it’s going to be so fun, and when it’s ready, I’ll be the first one to let you know so we can talk about it.
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