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| Lucid Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
A struggling artist tries to simulate her creativity with a drug, only to find that there are things in her subconscious that she was never supposed to know about, in Lucid. Screening at the Fantasia International Film Festival, it’s a multi-layered film expanded from their original short by Deanna Milligan and Ramsey Fendall, starring Caitlin Acken Taylor in the lead role with her younger sister, up-and-coming star Georgia Acken of The Sacrifice Game, playing her younger self. Deanna, Ramsey and Caitlin met up with me early in the festival, all extremely excited and eager to talk about their work – despite a production process which was anything but straightforward.
“I didn't want to make a feature at all, says Deanna. “I had put my foot down about it because people kept telling me that we should do that. And Ramsey wanted to do it, I wanted to, and Caitlin wanted to do it. My daughter, Violet, also kept pushing us for that. And my other daughter Jo, as well. They were really supportive about going further with the story in the world of Lucid.
“I couldn't quite wrap my mind around it because really, the short for me was an exploration into the beautiful grotesque, which is something that I discovered was really dear to me. But then as we expanded the character and started to dive deeper into how Mia creates her work and started opening up the creative process, it became very meta. We had to become artists in the Lucid world ourselves and dig in and build everything, make the art pieces, create the set, do all of these pieces together. It started to become a way bigger place to discover as a filmmaker, to go in and try and unpack the world of creating and creation and what that does into your emotional journey. And I found that really interesting. And then once we found that, Ramsay and I started working on the ending and making this horror story that has all these dreamscapes and things in it that were an art project in itself for us, a challenge for us as filmmakers.”
There's a lot of world building involved here. I ask Ramsey if that’s what led to him moving from cinematographer to co-director status.
“It was,” he says. “I think that really did evolve with just the way that Deanna and I work. I mean, when we were working on the short, it was actually a friend of ours who was our camera operator. I think it was the first time that he met Deanna and he said ‘I think you and Deanna share the same brain.’ So to move from being just in charge of camera and cinematography to actually developing something together, where we were just constantly ripping ideas, it just seemed an absolutely natural progression. There was almost no divide.”
Caitlin was very involved in the development process, Deanna says.
“Early in our script writing, Caitlyn moved into our house. She actually came here directly from London because she was living in London at the time. So Caitlin helped build the set, with saws and hammers. She learned how to do all of that stuff. Painted the walls, drew on the walls as a character prep, where Mia actually created her living space.”
“It was so organic,” Caitlin says. “It was like we got to dream together. Every single day we were talking about this and we'd get so excited and riff off each other and say ‘Oh, well, what about this, and that? And then we could go and literally be in [Mia’s] apartment, and it grew in such a wonderfully magical way...I just felt like I kind of became her.
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| Lucid Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
“I remember one of the first things that started that off was discussing about her art. So getting to go into her psyche was, like, ‘Okay, what was her background?’ What was so special is that they already shot the flashback scenes, so I could literally watch her memories. I would think about who she was when she was growing up, and I could literally see it here and then think about now, what sort of art would she develop?
“For the first couple of weeks, I remember just coming up with different ideas and creating pieces, and I feel like that spoke volumes for where the character's going to go. And then slowly we started to see this life emerge, and it was so much fun. And then also, I got to make loads of costume pieces as well. So thinking about how she dresses herself: what sort of things does she use? What materials? It was just so nice to be able to have a safe space where we could talk so freely with each other about it. I felt like I had so much ownership of Mia, where I could be, like, ‘I know her, and this is how I think that she would behave.’ And then to be able to discuss it with Dee and Ramsey and they would be like, ‘Oh, yes, I feel this,’ or perhaps ‘Maybe this way.’”
“It was just exhilarating,” adds Deanna.
“Just to state the obvious, Caitlin's a fabulous visual artist,” says Ramsey. “We were stunned when Caitlin started drawing, and we were like, ‘These are real drawings. It's not like, ‘Help us, art department, to figure this out.’ It was like Caitlin just channeled this character and actually had this abundance of talent as a visual artist.”
“Caitlin is really phenomenal,” Deanna agrees. “It's just beautiful the way that she can do this effortlessly in all the pieces that we were doing and choreography as well. Caitlin is an incredible dancer. I always thought that Mia's secret is that she's actually a dancer and she can't figure out why the visual medium is not working. Like, she's working in the wrong medium – she's really the best with her movement, and her big emotional journey is with her movement and her dance. So, yeah, Caitlin contributed all of those dances. And there's an amazing scene in the movie where Mia pulls a red string out of her throat, and Caitlin did this amazing trick. I was so excited.”
Caitlin shows me how she hid the string, and recalls people coming up to her all day to ask about it.
“I was like, ‘I don't see it. I don't see it,” Deanna remembers, laughing. “You know, Caitlin is so capable and pushed the boundaries of what we thought we were going to do. At first we had a big, steep hill to climb because of budget constraints and things like that. We were talking just this morning about how wonderful it was that the colour palette started for the film because we only had red and green and white paint. That's all that was in the basement of our house. So we started with that, and that dictated everything. Because you used the spray paint for the clothes.”
“Yeah,” says Caitlin. “And it's just using what you've got. There's so much resourcefulness, and I feel like that's such an essential part of Mia. Mia's spirit is that she just takes what she's got. I feel like we need so much of that in our world. I feel like people feel so limited and that they need permission to create, to do, whereas really what we need to understand is that at any point in your life you just gotta look at what you've got. If there's a dream that you have or something that you want to do, just take what you've got.”
“And just start it,” Deanna adds. “That’s what we did.”
I suggest that, at least early in the film, Mia still feels like she hasn't quite given herself that permission, at least she hasn't quite found her voice. So how did you balance that creativity with not making her too competent early on before she's really found her way?
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| Lucid Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
“Well that’s easy, because that's me,” Caitlin laughs. “That's like my whole thing of just, you know, being in a place of knowing that you have these big ideas and that there's something within you that needs to come out, wants to come out, but you're not sure how to do it. You catch glimpses of it, and it's exciting. But for whatever reason, you feel like you're being bound and that you keep trying to break through that wall, but you can't. So that whole part of my artistic journey just got channeled into to hers.
“She just keeps trying, but it doesn't quite work until somebody says ‘You can do more. You have to go deeper, because I can see it in you. You have to go to that place.’ So she does.
“I wanted to do that for myself. This whole making of the movie was that for myself, because I believe that I've got something to give. I believe art is so essential and important, and it is a powerful tool for change and for hope. And so for me it was like, ‘I want to show what I can do.’ And I know that Deanna and Ramsey felt the same. We were like, ‘Let's all just do it together. Let's all push each other. Let's promise each other that we are going to do our very best, that we're going to push each other to create the best work that we can do.’
“So this was my opportunity to go ‘Okay, you've been given a lead role. Are you going to step up to it? And what are you going to do with it? This is your chance to be able to show people what you can do and how far you can take things’ – and to discover for myself, am I even capable of doing this? Because in my head, I was always like, ‘I can do this.’ But then as soon as you get the opportunity, that's your chance to really discover, can you do this?”
Ramset says that this is similar to his experience as a filmmaker. “We dream the big thing, and then we're constantly knocked back down. You know, we apply for the grant, we don't get it. We pitch a story, we get smacked down. We're constantly in a war to get these things forward. It's just such an incredible struggle.”
We talk about the flashback sequences in which the young Mia is played by Caitlin’s sister, Georgia Acken.
“To have this opportunity to have this character Mia be played by sisters is really beautiful,” says Deanna. “They had, obviously, a direct physical resemblance to one another. I think that's really kind of alarming when you're watching the film, if you didn't know that they were actually sisters in real life.
“In emotional scenes, the mannerisms that Caitlin and Georgia fall into are the same. In deep, emotional, truthful sequences, they would match physically. It was so beautiful to see that connection. But in a lot of the dream sequence pieces, the imagery was a library of images that Ramsey and I collect. And as a couple, what we like to do is shoot. So we have analog film cameras, a 35 millimeter camera that our friends joke about. It’s a point and shoot camera.”
“It's really heavy, giant, heavy 35 millimeter camera,” Ramsey explains.
“We like to go on the road and shoot something,” Deanna continues. “Or if it's snowing outside, we like to go out with a camera and shoot something. Or we'll create a scene where I'll dress up in a crazy costume and we'll shoot something. We have been collecting these images for a long time. A lot of them, images that we've been doing for years, ended up in the movie. And then our actors that played the parents are great creative collaborators of ours.
“Amber Dandelion, who plays the mother, Solange, had never been in a film before. She's a psychic medium. When I met her, I thought ‘Wow!’ With her empathy and her amazing energy’ I thought she would be incredible actor. So we tested her, and she was an incredible, amazing, natural actress. So Bobby Cleveland, who played the father, and Amber did a song together in the film that our composer wrote.
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| Lucid poster Photo: Fantasia International Film Festival |
“And it's a ballad kind of argument in a song. The rehearsal process for that, for the actors, was very powerful because it's how they first met. They were sending the audio file back and forth with each other before they even physically met, where they would harmonise these threats with one another. So it's like, it was such a beautiful way for their chemistry to meet. And then the three of us went to this small island that's nearby here called Salt Spring to record the song and rehearse it. And then those guys did that live on camera. It was the first thing we shot on 35mm.
“We were all overcome. You know, some of the crew that worked on this had never shot anything on film before, so even just the sound of the film camera, when it turns on and it's whirring, it's such a magical experience because you really feel like you're really making something. It’s a different feeling. So that sett the tone for all of us at that point. And then the rest of the weekend was scripted elements that we were working on and some dream pieces that we wanted to do, but we were allowing a lot of time for experimenting, so we were able to try and get some incredible stuff that all ended up in the film.”
“I'm going to add one other little thing too,” says Ramsey, “which is interesting in keeping with Georgia. We used a little bit of the footage that we had from the short, so we actually see Georgia get older. Because when we were shooting the short, Georgia was 12. This was three years later. So in a miniature way, we kind of did a Boyhood thing where we were recording at different ages, which was pretty amazing.”
“It was the same thing with Bobby,” says Deanna. “Because Bobby's a friend, a collaborator of ours, we could call him up at any point and say ‘Come on over. We have an idea. We want to shoot something...’”
“’We're going to light something on fire.’” says Ramsey.
“He also looks different ages in the film, which is great for memory stuff,” Deanna observes.
There’s the memory stuff, and then the distortions or odd experiences immediately after taking the drug. And then normality as well, to the extent that it ever feels normal. How did they approach the different looks for each of those things and how they knit together? There’s quite a bit of ambiguity in places.
Deanna nods. “There was a lot of background work with the story. This was one of the hardest parts.”
“I think it was the hardest part,” says Ramsey. “We had all this material and we had an idea. We didn't just randomly gather things. There was an idea behind where we were going with those pieces. Some things came in that were a surprise, but we also had the thing where it had to feel like there was a progression as well. There's the first time she takes lucid dinner. There's the next time. Then there's more, and there are more memories that are revealed. So there was a lot of room...”
“...for a long time performance,” Deanna says. “That's where we were at in character development too. Caitlyn and I took two massive cork boards and then put all tiny little cards – I always do that when I'm doing screenplay stuff, to map out when things were happening and how we wanted Mia to grow. Like how certain things change her – because we had to shoot out of order.”
“That was the only way we could really keep track of that. That was a big concern for us,” says Caitlin. “Trying to remember, like, ‘What day is it? How long has it been? When did this happen? What is the emotional state?’ And just trying to make sure that when it comes to the edit that it's all going to make sense.”
“To make emotional sense,” Ramsey clarifies. “It didn't necessarily have to make chronological sense, but you had to feel your way through it. Like a dream. You understand the dream, but you don't understand the dream. It has to be.”
“In that sense, we won't explain everything either,” says Deanna. “So some stuff we would let go, like in a memory. How sometimes when you're digging around in there, there's some pieces that you pick up and maybe you put them back down again because they're too painful. I think Mia has a lot of those. She's sort of picking up the pieces she can handle at this time, and there'll be other ones are still there. She doesn't get to unpack everything. That's a Hollywood movie, and this is not.”
I observe that some filmmakers do treat dream themes as an excuse to pretty much do whatever they want and to have things that are inconsistent for the sake of it, but in this case it’s clear that they tried to make something that was a bit tighter than that.
“I really wanted it to feel like it wasn't just crazy,” says Ramsey. “It had to feel impactful, but it also had to have its own dream logic. It had to have its own progression. It had to feel like if you're a dreamer and you observe your dreams and you see things evolve over time. That's really what we wanted to try to accomplish with the dream.”
There wasn't much opportunity to experiment on the day,” Deanna explains.
“We had a locked script that we were working with. We would deviate a little bit sometimes with dialogue, if the dialogue wasn't working. We would rehearse and change some of that stuff as we were going. But once we had the script sorted, that was amazing.”
“There are add ons and things. But the real gist of it is all there,” says Ramsey.
“Yeah,” says Deanna. “Because part of the dreams also, if you look at them, they're mapping out the creative process for Mia. So whatever she's being inspired about to create work on next, she's dreaming about those things. She's just putting them into her work.”
“it’s like Mia's subconscious,” says Caitlin. “So like, what's her whole life? What's going to be in there? And then the effects of the lucid as well – would that change some of the core memories that she would be thinking about? There’s a field of daisies. Did she even experience that or is it from her mom who's planting those other memories?”
“We were playing with an idea that Solange was trying to keep covering up the bad memories that Mia has with good memories,” says Deanna. “So Mia can't easily access things. And Mia's very frustrated because she thinks she's a regular artist that's having trouble accessing - yeah. It's a bigger box. It's a bigger problem. That's why it became difficult to figure out what elements to have. And it's more of a feeling that we were trying to create as well. With the first dream, I feel like you really do get the sense of, like, ‘Oh no! What just happened to me? Was I hypnotised?’ You feel like you have been attacked by something in that first dream because you weren't expecting it. You thought you were in a coming of age film, and then you realise suddenly you're unsafe.”
They’re over the moon about getting to Fantasia.
“We were wishing and dreaming the entire time that we were filming that we could get into Fantasia,” Deanna says, and admits that they resorted to a bribe of sorts. “We actually had a couple of the characters have cat jokes. My daughter Jo plays one of the goth girls in the film and she has a line where she touches Mia's nose.” She demonstrates on Caitlin. “We were imagining an audience at Fantasia meowing back because that's their thing.
“That's our audience there. We're speaking directly to our audience the whole time, which we feel is like a female-identifying group of people that are into art. And we know that those folks are at Fantasia and we think that'd be a great place for them to find us.”
“We went to the Shorts to Features lab in 2022 and it really got the ball rolling,” says Ramsey. “It was the thing that finally decided us: ‘Okay, it's time to make Lucid into a feature.’ We couldn't deny that anymore. And that was really thanks to Fantasia. They supported us beyond measure.
“We do want to make more films with this group of people, these artists that we have all fallen in love with,” says Deanna. “We're a family now. We all call it the Lucid family. There's 25 of us coming to Fantasia to watch the film in the theatre. It makes me cry. It’s so overwhelming. But we're so lucky. So, yeah, we do want to make another movie. We're into Eighties cults right now and we live in a place that was the centre of satanic panic in the 1980s.”
“Yeah,” says Ramsey. “We grew up in the world of the Michelle Remembers phenomenon. That actually happened just a few minutes away from where we live, and we all grew up with the spectre of like, ‘The Satanists are going to get you!’ So we love that.”
“Yeah, we're diving into that,” says Deanna. “So there'll be something in there, but I think the film's going to be called Lucky.”
