How did the locals around Loch Ness take to your film crew invading their town?
They did not know what we were up to, but they were pretty cool. I wish I could make this story more dramatic by pretending what happened in the movie was true, but they really were just generally very supportive. They were just happy to have a movie being made there.
We didn’t act the way we did onscreen. I mean, I think we confused a lot of them, particularly the people who worked in the hotel. When they would see us perform scenes they were like, “Huh?” They didn’t know that we were making a fictional film. They thought we were making a documentary. So when we would stage things, they were definitely confused. I wish I could tell you there was a fascinating story in their reaction, but they were actually pretty oblivious to it.
Why did you choose Nessie as the subject of the film?
If you’re going to do a movie where you’re exploring the nature of myth and of hoax, etc., what other choice do you have? It’s that or Big Foot, really. I don’t know. Nessie appealed to me more for a lot of reasons, a lot of them having to do with the cinematic nature of it. Also some of it had to do with how we wanted to accomplish the creature itself. The legend was too big to not do it about Nessie. I think I’ve always been kind of interested in it.
Is there anything you decided during the process to not put in because you figured it would take it too far over the top?
There’s plenty. Obviously one of the biggest hurdles about editing this movie, we spent a long time editing it because the tone is pretty tricky. It changes tones. The movie definitely changes tones, and that’s intentional. It took us a while. We spent a lot of time taking out scenes and putting in scenes. There’s a lot of stuff with Michael Karnow that’s very funny that’s on the DVD that we just had to cut because it was just too much for the movie. Tons of stuff. I think that’s probably true for a lot of movies but it’s particularly true here.
One of the things that we had in the movie for a long time, that’s on the DVD actually, is experts talking about whether or not the footage you’re seeing is real or fake. We had put on some experts talking about why it couldn’t have been faked. We ended up cutting that because it felt like it was trying too hard at the time to convince [the audience]. By the end of the movie everyone knows that it’s not real. You don’t want to try to convince them too much.
But that will be on the DVD?
The DVD is loaded with stuff. One of the things that was really fun is that as we did the movie, we did extra takes of every single scene to explain how we were doing what we were doing. I kind of knew that this would be a fun DVD. I felt like we wanted to preserve the secret of the movie as long as we could and part of the reason why I’m being fairly candid now is because I feel like it’s out. People have reviewed it and all you have to do is go online and you’ll find out the truth about it.
I never knew how audiences would respond to it in a theater but I kind of knew that if you’re into the movie, you would really be into figuring out how things happened. The DVD is absolutely loaded with hidden stuff. You have to actually find it on the DVD itself – they are like Easter Eggs. We’re just doing it because we want to keep the experience of the DVD similar to the experience of the movie. But all will be revealed when it comes out…
One of the first scenes from the movie is a dinner party with guests such as Jeff Goldblum and Crispin Glover. How did you select the party guests?
Most of those people are friends of Werner’s actually. We just kind of called them and said, “Look, we’re shooting a scene for a movie and we need people to be at this dinner party.” That’s the one scene in the movie that we just shot with two cameras and didn’t really do multiple takes of. It was shot more in real-time, documentary style.
We briefed people beforehand and they did their own thing. Jeff Goldblum, particularly, like kind of picked up the ball and got what we were doing without us telling him. You know what? That’s something we’ll go into more with the DVD.
Were you tempted to put more of that particular scene in the film?
Yeah, I was. And actually a number of people have said there should have been more in it. But originally there was 40 minutes before you ever got onto the plane out of LA. Editing is always about whittling down to what you absolutely need.
PAGE 4: Zak Penn on Directing and His Upcoming Poker Movie
