ON WORKING IN AUSTRALIA: MICK GARRIS...DIRECTOR, PRODUCER, WRITER.

Mick Garris has worked as a director, writer, producer, and actor in film and television. His credits include 'Critters 2', 'The Others' (television), 'The Fly 2', and several Stephen King projects, including 'The Stand', 'Sleepwalkers' and 'The Shining' (television). He also directed a pilot that shot in Australia, ‘Lost in Oz’. AUSUS Magazine spoke to Mick about working in Australia, Stephen King, and what he likes to do most.

 Q: What did you do before becoming a filmmaker?

  I was a journalist at one point. I worked at the movie channel here in Los Angeles on the fantasy film festival. We ran science fiction fantasy and horror films. I would interview the guests. Spielberg was on. Landis was on. That was back in eighty to eighty two. Spielberg was already pretty established. 'Jaws' was seventy five. 'Close Encounters' was seventy seven. 'Indiana Jones' was eighty or eighty one. I was also published as a writer and a journalist.

  Q: What was your experience like working in Australia?

 I had the best experience working in Australia. Aside from it being so far away! The people were really friendly. We shot in Queensland. The crews there are great, but the main reason people go there is financial. When we were there, early last year, every American dollar was worth two Australian dollars. Now it's down to less than a dollar fifty Australian. I think that's really going to hurt their movie industry because that's the same price as Canada. Although the dollar does go further in Australia. I hope it doesn't hurt them because it is a great place to shoot. Canada is also so much closer and it's the same time zone. It's six hours to Toronto and two to Vancouver, whereas Australia is fourteen, or twenty if you have to stop in New Zealand. There's also interference with communication back home because of the time difference. Which can be a positive or a negative!

 Q: How did 'Lost in Oz' come about?

 It was a pilot for a new show that so far has not happened. They're doing a new version of it. It's being developed by a new writer right now, Linda Woolverton, who wrote 'Beauty and the Beast' for Disney. I had done a pilot a year or two before for a series called 'The Others'. It wasn't related to the movie 'The Others'. It actually came out first. Stephen Spielberg was an executive producer on it, and people had liked that pilot, and so the producers of  'Lost in Oz', Warner Bros. Television, thought I would be a good choice to direct it. A few years earlier I had also made 'The Shining' mini series for Warners. Steven Weber was fantastic in that. It's my favourite thing that I've worked on. I really thought it turned out great. With 'Lost in Oz' I didn't really want to be in the business of making pilots, but I liked the thought of going to Australia and doing a fantasy piece with a lot of visual effects, instead of a horror. It was an opportunity to do something unique and I did it. I'm really glad. Nine weeks in Australia.

 Q: Where in Australia did you shoot?

  We shot in Queensland. Warner Bros. was all booked up and it's the only studio there. It was an experiment on Warner Bros. behalf too. They wanted to see how practical it would be to get a machine up and running there, a series. That worked well but the series was never bought so they were never able to fulfil their experiment to see about doing an ongoing project. But I think it would have been fine. We were on location and in a warehouse converted to a studio. It wasn't soundproofed. When the rain hit you had to decide whether to do looping or to hold and wait for better weather!

 Q: Tell me about the actors you used for the shoot.

Melissa George played the lead. She's Australian. We brought in some Americans for other leading roles. Mia Sara, Colin Egglesfeld. All the leads, except for Melissa, were American. She used an American accent. She's been working in this country for years. I guess part of the training for Australian’s is the American accent. It's so wide reaching in it's commercial potential. If you're an actor and you're going to be shooting movies, particularly in the boom of the co productions, you'd better have a good American accent because that's where the consumption is, the U.S. We used a lot of Australian’s for the shoot and they handled the accent well. We found Melissa here. It was only coincidental that she was Australian. It had nothing to do with her hiring. The Warner Bros. people had already met her previously and wanted to find something for her. I'd also met her before. She had done a pilot called 'Hollywierd' a few years ago that Sean Cassidy was the producer on. That pilot didn't get picked up so they were going to do a completely revamped version with Melissa still in the cast. I was going to direct it but it got cancelled.

Q: What was your involvement in the casting?

 I was very involved in the casting. For the leading roles it was very much a group effort with the final decision being made by the network. Which is apparently pretty much how it works in TV. The group usually brings three or four people to the network knowing that they will choose one, so you usually bring them all the people that you like. The networks aren't as involved in casting the smaller parts. In Melissa's case we had gotten down to the final point and we all liked Melissa best. The auditions for the main parts took place here in the U.S. and the smaller parts were cast in Australia with Maura Fay casting. We got some actors from the Gold Coast but most of the talent pool is in Sydney. We also used Kerry Armstrong from 'Lantana'. The casting director would give me people that she thought I would like and often we'd look at demos of the out of town actors. A lot of actors also put themselves on tape, which is a good idea to some extent, but you don't know the direction that we're looking for necessarily, so it's a lot better to be able to do a live read. And then during the read I can give an actor an adjustment. Sometimes I'll give a very specific set of notes just to see if an actor can adjust in that way. Unfortunately, a lot of actors will do it exactly the same way every time. Other times I'll give adjustments just to see how responsive they are, how creative. To see how collaborative they can be. Sometimes an actor can rehearse for hours on something and then get to the audition, or get to the set, and it may be great or it may be a hundred and eighty degrees the other way. '...no this is a comedy! What! I thought it was a suicide scene'. You always need context. Somebody has to provide context.

 Q: What do you look for in an actor when they audition?

 It's always different. I like someone who brings something unexpected to it. Unexpected but appropriate. I like somebody who does their homework. One thing that was very impressive about the Australian’s was that virtually every actor that auditioned did it without the sides. They had committed it to memory. I like to see that. It's happening more here in the US than it used to, but young actors, in particular, don't tend to memorize lines. Look has a lot to do with casting, but it can also be something different if the reading is great.

 Q: What do you like about Australian actors and Australian films?  

 The actors have a high level of artistry and commitment. There's a great kind of adventuresome spirit there. Australian films often take very original tacks and approaches to subjects and I like that originality. Nobody takes things too seriously there. I saw very little neurosis on the set.

Q: What's your next project?

 I'm working on an independent feature now with the producer from 'Lost in Oz', Joel Smith. 'Riding the Bullet', a Stephen King story. I love horror. I'm proud of what I've done in it and I'm happy to be identified with it, but I don't want to be defined by it. It's probably a little late for that, but you know I think it's better to be thought of as doing something well than not to be thought of at all. Horror is pretty much what I get hired to do. That's why it was a treat to do 'Lost in Oz', which is not a horror pic.

 Q: How did you come to work with Stephen King?

  I was being considered for this movie called 'Sleepwalkers'. A feature at Columbia back in 1992. I met on it and they said '...yes, we want you to do it', and the next thing I know they hired someone else! But then they called me up later because the other director didn't work out. King had written the script himself. He was very happy with the movie and our working relationship together. That led to us doing 'The Stand' together, and then 'The Shining' and we became very close friends. Nothing is more enjoyable than working with Stephen King.

Q: You've worn so many hats in this industry. How do you see yourself in it?  

Well I love to write. Fiction is great because you're writing for nobody but yourself. The problem is, the same problem with spec screenplays, is that if you do something original it may be too original to be commercial. I just wrote a novel and my agent got fantastic reaction from the editors but the next level up is the marketing people and they say '...we don't know how to sell this. It's too satirical to sell as horror and too horrific to sell as Hollywood satire'. But that's what's good about it. Eventually we'll find the right market for it. I've also had some short stories published and a book called 'A Life in the Cinema', which did well. But directing is also great because when they come to you as a writer they want to develop. When they come to you as a director they want to produce it. Things in development often just don't get made. The process is great but the end result is often not. With directing you're surrounded by all these great people, the actors, composers, the editors. You're on the train and it doesn't stop until you're finished.

Q: What do you like about directing?

 The doing. You're making creative decisions all day long. You're creativity can be limited by budget and schedule and by the people with whom you collaborate, but it could also be expanded by all those things, and that's when it becomes exciting. To me the job of a director is to find and surround yourself with the best people and encourage them to do their best work. And that's everybody in all areas, so the more knowledge you have in all these areas the better the final project. It's sometimes just as hard to make a bad movie as it is a good one, but you can try and stack the deck by using the best people possible.

 Q: Look back on your career at the end. What would you like people to say about it?