I had the opportunity to interview Director Frederick Cipoletti of the new thriller, "Desolate" featuring Tyson Ritter, James Russo, and Will Brittain. The film follows a family of farmers as they struggle to survive in a barren landscape marred by drought and riddled with danger. What I loved most about the film was the haunting landscapes and the desolate feeling that Cipoletti conjured with color correction and score. The film felt neo-noir, dystopian, raw and hallucinatory like something Ridley Scott or David Fincher would have concocted.
Emily Clark: What inspired you to make the film?
Frederick Cipoletti: I was living in Southern California about three years ago and there was a big drought going on. Me and my co-writer [Jonathan Rosenthal] were coming up with a concept. I was driving with my wife to go to Northern California and the rolling hills were all dried out and it sparked the backdrop of the film. We rolled with that. We [asked ourselves] what about a family of farmers surviving a drought? We thought that could make for a very interesting story...[a very] relevant [story.] What happens when you're trying to survive that and have a family? That sparked the writing of it. Obviously, [we were] trying to make it our own, make it interesting...and come up with each character's dynamic.
Emily Clark: I moved from Southern California about a year and a half ago and I do remember seeing the hills and everything.
Frederick Cipoletti: We filmed on location in Northern California. That was one of the hardest parts, honestly. Because the locations are so remote. It's not the easiest with an independent film to get the equipment out ... to locations. We spent the time meeting everyone and hear their stories and understand it from their perspective. A majority of the extras were from the town we filmed in--Gilroy California. Hearing their stories, we got a lot of locations from the locals and everyone was on board. Hearing their stories was really inspiring, understanding how this was effecting their livelihood. These farms have been in their families for forever and that was all they really knew...how they were going to get through this drought. That was the first step. Going up there, talking to everyone and understanding the situation from their perspective.
Emily Clark: We had The Dust Bowl and we had The Great Depression and all these things are part of the American landscape and our history. I noticed you have a lot of really interesting elements like the old technology...pointing to a bygone era like the rotary phones and the VCRs, and to me, watching it, it helped contribute to a feeling of isolation or a place that had been left behind in time.
Frederick Cipoletti: I'm happy that you noticed that. I wanted to make that a point because it's accurate. When you're a farmer and you're living in isolation like that...they are very removed. It's interesting because in Northern California you have San Francisco right there but an hour away in these farm towns, they are very isolated. They don't really venture out of those towns that often. I found that surprising because you're right near a major city but they barely leave their towns. [We were] just walking to the houses and meeting with people. [With] the TV's that they have, you're almost going back in time. They don't have DVD players, they don't have flat screens, they don't have new technology. They have landlines. Their farm is everything, their family is everything, they're working nonstop. [And] especially a couple years into a drought, even if you did have technology, that's gonna be the first thing to go... it's almost like that drought has put you into even more isolation and you're becoming even more desolate as those things move away. People move out, technology moves out... you're left with nothing at the end of it. Where are you gonna go when you don't have any money to even move? That's...the real reason they're trapped there. Once they try to sell everything off, they're stuck there. The few that were left behind... that's what happened to them.
Emily Clark: I think that it's really interesting that you had this group of brothers. The younger character, the Billy character and his betrayal by his brothers... what prompted that decision?
Frederick Cipoletti: I watched a movie called "Shotgun Stories." I just love family dynamic. I think every family is so different. Every member of the family is so different the majority of the time. Living on the farm in this tough environment, the more brothers the move diversity you're going to have with those brothers and the harder it's gonna be for a young brother to try to go [along] his own path. Maybe it's that he didn't want to be a farmer any more and wanted to do his own thing and he moved away... that's where the dynamic came into play. Usually the younger generations are the ones who say, I have my life and happiness for me is, in Billy's situation, to be with my girlfriend Kayla and to try to get out of this situation and start a new life. So that's where the dynamic of the family came into play.
Emily Clark: What would you say your process is like as a director?
Frederick Cipoletti: Long, very long. Obviously it starts with the story and you have to be inspired by something. I like to come up with a location. Once you have that location you can build the characters and the world. Is it going to be present? Is it going to be past? Is it going to be future? ... We did near future... even a lot of the bikes that we had were from local shops up there, a lot of the picture vehicles were from locals up there. We didn't bring anything in. Whatever we had there were our resources, so we used those to make it as authentic as possible. That and then you're building up the characters and finding the locations. I think that's what took the longest because you have to cover that ground, you have to drive and a lot of the places are not on maps. So you say this road looks interesting! Let's turn left here and drive as long as it will go. Oh, there's a farmhouse there. Let's knock on the door and talk to them. Once we found those locations we could build the story a little more. We did rewrites on set nonstop. Just because the location might not have been how it was written in the script.
Emily Clark: In working with Jonathan Rosenthal, had you written together before? What was that like as a collaborative process?
Frederick Cipoletti: We'd never written anything together. We've wanted to work with each other for a couple of years. We finally had the opportunity. We decided to write together and come up with a different story, and throw a bunch of ideas out and watch a bunch of movies and figure out what we wanted to do. Honestly, we both saw eye to eye on this world that we wanted to create and went from there.
Emily Clark: In terms of your casting choices and working with Will Brittain, tell me a little about that. Had you worked with him before?
Frederick Cipoletti: No. Will was brought to me very early on. He was the first to come on board because the Billy role is so important and we wanted him to get that right. We cast Will first. We just sat down and we really hit it off right away. He was the first person I met with also. When you know you know...we just jumped on board and kept moving from there. Getting him on board early really helped with the character and gave him time to get in character, and understand the character and make tweaks to his physique. He wanted to lose a bunch of weight because obviously going through a drought there aren't all these food options... it gave him time to get prepared for the role... he was on board from the beginning. He really got it and we hit it off right away.
Emily Clark: Any memorable moments on set?
Frederick Cipoletti: The dynamic between all the brothers and [seeing] everyone's development. You know these people before, and to get on set they're completely different characters. A lot of them would stay in character throughout [the filming process.] [Seeing their interaction and how they behaved, how they became these brothers was interesting.
You're all a family, you're in the middle of nowhere and everyone's doing their own thing that they would [normally] do on the farm.
It was interesting to see them transform into their characters and make it their own and see where they took it. A lot of those things aren't written. You're going to venture off and find one person all the way in the hills laying in the field and another person working. It's interesting to see how they got into character. They're bonding. There were so many [memorable moments.] The whole process [was memorable.] Being on location with everyone and everyone being together. I didn't want to leave. You get so close. Especially... being on location... We were so far out. The closest hotel was an hour away. There's nothing you can do but stay on set and bond and get to know each other. Even the crew, everyone was so close. Everyone got along. We had a lot of fun. The scenery is so beautiful. The sunset, the yellow hills. It's all dried out so all the grass is all yellow, the rolling hills and the sunset. Everyone's taking photos because it's so beautiful, and everyone's taking photos of each other and sharing those. Everyone felt like a family. It was just amazing.
Emily Clark: You said that some people were working? You mean, working on the farm?
Frederick Cipoletti: A lot of the characters would help the crew out a lot. They would see them carrying something and they would carry things. That's the character of a farmer. You help each other out. You move things and things are heavy. That's your instinct...to help in some way. Some people would push a tractor around or push things around, or throw a couple bails of hay... they would throw those, get sweaty, get dirty...get that dirt under the nails... everything was very authentic. It was a cool experience.
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