Sylvain White talks “The Losers”

MakingOf: So tell us a little bit about how it was that you came to be a filmmaker. Did you know that you always wanted to be a filmmaker?

(Sylvain White): I think from a very young age I was hoping I could be a filmmaker someday. I grew up in France, in Paris, and, you know, coming in and working in Hollywood felt very distant, probably even more distant, and far, and unreachable than how it is when you grow up in this country. But, you know, it was kinda an idea that I thought would be someday possible, but I was never really sure. Actually, it wasn’t until I got to college that I kind of solidified the direction a little bit more. I had always been into video, film, photography. It was very much a hobby growing up. Through high school, I mean, I started stuff, exposing stuff, some of my work. But it wasn’t until college that I really found my voice. And I got really into it. And I got into music videos. That’s kind of how I got my break. Right after college I started directing some music videos for some pretty big artists. And I was fortunate to do some pretty cool work. And then I started to do commercials as well, and, of course, the goal is to make a narrative, and make movies. It’s always hard, there is a lot of music video and commercial directors out there, so how do I differentiate myself from the heard, so to speak, was to go out and I shot a film which was a half hour short film that I basically put together. And that had a really amazing festival life. I went to a ton of festivals, won a bunch of prizes, and it got me sort of exposed into the narrative realm and noticed by Hollywood a little bit. And that’s basically how I got noticed. Some agents heard about the short film and suddenly I wasn’t just a music video and commercial director, I was somebody who had a really strong narrative example. And basically after that I got my first shot at Sony. They basically heard about the short, they heard about my work, I met with them, and I got put on my first theatrical movie, which was Stomp the Yard.

MO: And what is it that attracts you to a project? What are the elements that have to be there?

(SW): I think, you know, there has to be... I am a big fan of visuals and technology. So, I typically look for stuff that allows me to develop a vision using those two components. But the most important thing, and like I said in Stomp the Yard, is that there needs to be some sort of novelty. There needs to be some sort of fresh aspect to it. On Stomp the Yard it was the fact that that art form had never been shot on film, basically. On The Losers I felt there was a very unique tone that combined action and humor which we hadn’t seen for a long time, perhaps since the 80’s. So I just thought, you know, for example on that film there was a great opportunity to sort of cater to the demand of really gritty, engaging, visceral action that has been developed in the last decade. You know, we have seen that in the evolution of the Bond movies, for example, how they have turned out recently, or the Borne series. That kind of action that is gritty and realistic that I think people enjoy. And so I felt The Losers had that sort of quality, but at the same time, unlike those movies, when you go with a sort of hard, gritty, realistic action, it is usually paired with a hard, serious tone. And I thought, wow, with The Losers you have that, but at the same time you have this bright, fun action oriented movie with really bubbly characters and great humor and I just couldn’t think of a movie in the last decade that had done that successfully, so I took that as a challenge. From that point on, we then had to find the right place to shoot the movie. The movie takes place in about... in a ton of different locations, different countries, different cities. Our guys are basically exiled and they have to find their way back to the US. The budget didn’t allow us to go and shoot two weeks in India and then shoot a week in the Figi Islands and, whatever, all the locations. So I had to find a place where I could cheat all these different locations and environments. So I went around, they sent me to all these different places. Canada, Hawaii, we looked at Louisiana, I mean, just different places. And the last destination actually was Puerto Rico. And I thought, well, you know, Puerto Rico is a small island in the Caribbean, there is no way I recreate all these environments there. So I was a little against it, I guess, initially. But surprisingly when I got there I was really amazed at the sort of infrastructure the island has and how big the city is and also how diverse the looks are. You have the northern part of the island which is very jungle, very lush. And then you have the southern part of the island which is very dry. So you have sort of different environments. And the cities are... there is like European influence, and American influence, some parts look like Miami, some parts look like Buenos Aires. I mean, its pretty cool, and because you are on a smaller island, its all within 20 minutes. So it was actually a perfect place to shoot this movie. So as soon as I locked into that I think we, basically, a few weeks later, we were, my self and the line producer, basically were on a plane back there and started prepping the movie.

MO: So tell us how The Losers all came together.

(SW): Well I was approached by Akiva Goldsman, the producer, with the material. At the time I was developing already, I just started developing a screenplay called Ronan, which is a adaptation of a Frank Miller graphic novel and I was referred over to that project, and I pitched, and I tried to sell my vision to the producers and they really enjoyed it. So from that point we spent about four or five months working on the screenplay, basically myself, Akiva Goldsman, and Jamie Vanderbilt, who is the writer. Once we spent that amount of time and we got the screenplay to a point where we were like, okay, we can send it out to actors we did that. And the movie was extremely easy to cast. I mean, I had a very precise idea of my cast. A very definite idea. My feeling was that perhaps it would not be commercial enough of a cast for the studio, but actually, to my surprise, the studio was very supportive of my choices. So, I was really looking to get a young, edgy, cool cast, you know, that is commercial, but that is also a little bit on the left field. I had about a fourteen week prep, or, less than that actually, let me rephrase that, it was about a ten week prep on this movie which is very short for an action film. And the schedule was about also 50 days of shooting, which is also short amount of time for an action film. Typically, as well, on an action film you have second and third units that pick up the action beats or elements, etc., which we didn’t really have the money for, so I ended up having to do, I would say, 80, 90% of all the action. I had splinter units that I could use, but we did all of that ourselves. I got to say I am very proud of that because I think from the get go I think people thought we were going to fail because it just seemed so unrealistic that we were able to come in on time, on budget with no real second unit. The movie, we are just now in the finishing stages of the movie, and there was no reshoots, no pickups. I didn’t even have to go shoot any sort of tire screeching or a doorknob being opened. We got everything on the days. And I think that is pretty impressive. Not to gloat or anything like that, not to brag, but I think in retrospect, I’m very proud of that. It wasn’t a small movie to make but we had a small schedule and a small budget, and as a result now the movie looks huge, and people don’t believe we spent that little money on it. So its pretty cool.

MO: So give us a little tidbit of what people can expect.

(SW): Well I think one of the most exciting moments in the movie is, and I think it kind of sets a new bench mark a little bit in terms of boy girl fights, is a fight between Zoe Saldana’s character and Jeffery Dean Morgan’s character. It’s pretty amazing. It’s a really cool fight. It’s really believable, you know, he kind of comes in as the boxer, slugger type, he’s very strong, he’s got the long swings, and she is super fast, and stealth, and she hits the pressure points with insane precision, it makes the fight equal. and you really believe that they are kicking each other’s ass, so to speak. It’s very exciting. The room is on fire while they are fighting. It’s pretty cool.

MO: I am going to talk a little bit now about the filmmakers that inspire you. Tell us a little bit about that.

(SW)Well, I grew up, like I said, I grew up in France, in Paris in the 80’s and I was a little bit resistant to the 80’s French cinema that I was submerged with. My father is American, so he would always bring us back the cool movies from the US on video. Growing up, I really loved big American action films. I loved Zemeckis and Spielberg. All those kind of big, fun movies that they made in the 80’s that I grew up with. That is one big side of my influence, I feel, which I think gives me a good commercial sensibility. But at the same time, I love filmmakers like, before my favorite filmmakers, Bertolucci, I loved also Fincher, I loved Kubrick, Hitchcock. It really depends, I love all kinds of films. But I try to draw a little bit from all the filmmakers that I like and try to live up to the bench marks they have set up for the rest of us. I think it just depends, different times in my life I’ve liked different filmmakers, but I would say those are the one’s that have influenced me the most. There is also a younger filmmaker, I would say, that is French called Mathieu Kassovitz who made a movie called Hate, in French, La Haine. When that movie came out which was when I was a teenager in high school in France, when that movie came out it gave me a sense of hope, so to speak, because this was a young French filmmaker who had such a palpable style that was so different than the other filmmakers that were coming out of France at the time and it had a more, not to say American feel to it, but a more commercial envelope to it. His filmmaking was not as hard to reach. He really inspired me because I thought, wow, you can be French and make those kinds of movies in an effective way. It was just somebody that I looked up to. He came and he actually made some movies in the states and he still produces and directs in France, and acts as well, but he was a great inspiration. I’ve actually never met him, but as a teenager, for me, was a great inspiration, that guy.

MO: And what advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?

(SW): I think, particularly in this day and age, it sounds like a naive piece of advice, but the key thing is, with the technology that is available now, which certainly was not available when I was trying to break through, which was ten years ago, is to just shoot. To just go out there and shoot. Because now you can really go and tell stories with the cameras, with the editing, software that is out there, which basically gives you amazing tools to showcase your vision. I think that is the best way to come through people that are talented versus those who are not talented, is to really show... give people the opportunity to do something. To show what their vision is. I think nowadays, you can go and shoot a film in a day. You can shoot short films very easily. I think people that are trying to make it in the business don’t shoot enough. And that is one thing, you know, when I was coming though and coming up and I was in college, and it was just the beginning of the digital cameras and digital editing software I think came out when I was a sophomore in college, and I jumped on that. Because I thought, oh, wow, I can do this stuff myself, and it is going to look high quality. It’s not going to look like a bootleg student film anymore because I have this digital equipment. And I really tried to learn that. I was self taught on the Avid for everything that is camera oriented. I was really hands on. It really still translates for me today. So I would say, go out there, shoot short films or anything that speaks to your inner voice and use the technology and tools that are out there because now you can also... the technology doesn’t just allow you to fabricate this stuff, but it also allows you to broadcast it, to share it with people whether it is YouTube or Facebook or just the internet in general, on top of the whole festival circuit. There is really great avenues to showcase work. You will know right away if your stuff is good or not, I think. You get a pretty instant response now on the internet. You can’t always take it all at face value. I mean, I look at that stuff too. But, my big piece of advice, my main piece of advice, to students, to film students, to people just trying make it in the business, is to go and shoot and showcase your work. That is the most important thing.