{"id":143541,"date":"2014-06-09T14:50:14","date_gmt":"2014-06-09T21:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=143541"},"modified":"2014-06-09T14:52:47","modified_gmt":"2014-06-09T21:52:47","slug":"william-eubank-the-signal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2014\/06\/09\/william-eubank-the-signal\/","title":{"rendered":"Interview: Director William Eubank On Going From Panavision Prep Tech To The Signal"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/a>It isn\u2019t easy getting your first feature off the ground, but William Eubank<\/strong> managed to pull it off and in a rather unconventional manner. He didn\u2019t attend a traditional film school or track down an industry contact willing to give him a shot. Eubank entered a Red Hot Chili Peppers music video contest \u2013 and lost. But he did wind up with quite the consolation prize \u2013 the band Angels and Airwaves agreed to both produce and score his first feature, \u201cLove.\u201d<\/p>\n

After four years of work that included building a fully realized space station set, writing, directing and shooting the film himself, Eubank wound up with a final product that would go on to collect laurels from Toronto After Dark, Fantasia, Fantastic Fest, Sitges Film Festival and more, and ultimately afford him the opportunity to move forward with his sophomore effort, \u201cThe Signal<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The film features Brenton Thwaites and Beau Knapp as Nic and Jonah, two MIT students traveling cross-country with Nic\u2019s girlfriend, Haley (Olivia Cooke). When their hacker rival gets in touch with them during the trip and reveals that his location is within driving distance, the guys just have to check it out. However, upon their arrival, things go awry to say the least, they black out and come to in a hospital of sorts, surrounded by men in hazmat suits who refuse to divulge why they\u2019re being held.<\/p>\n

Roughly five months after premiering at Sundance, \u201cThe Signal\u201d is getting its limited theatrical on Friday, June 13th and Eubank credits persistence and resolve for helping him get there. <\/p>\n

\u201cYou gather stuff from all these experiences, so I guess no matter what choice you take, you\u2019ve just gotta keep going cause that\u2019s the hardest part; no matter what you do, you\u2019re gonna get to a lot of nos and it\u2019s important that in those nos you keep chasing until you get to a yes, you know?\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Brenton<\/p>\n

By chasing those yeses, Eubank got the chance to put his technical prowess to use and show off some outstanding ability as a visual storyteller while also enhancing the experience by placing prime importance on using narrative and emotional subtext to streamline his characters\u2019 motivations as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a director, you\u2019re just trying to be the guy who is, #1, you cast it okay, so then the next step is just making sure, especially on an indie film where you\u2019re shooting it all out of order and there\u2019s crazy things going on, that the motivations stay true.<\/p>\n

So you\u2019re trying to kind of stay up in your director\u2019s helicopter and you\u2019re overviewing the story and you\u2019re like, \u2018Oh wait. We\u2019re just coming from this scene, we\u2019re going to that scene, he\u2019s this way right now, which he\u2019s doing a believable job, but we\u2019re coming from here.\u2019 I feel like as a director, you\u2019re just trying to motivate the pacing, keep things moving and also keep them true to where they need to be in the forest, if that makes any sense.<\/p>\n

And then the final part, the final part is the minutia of a scene or the minutia of a performance. And hopefully you don\u2019t even get to that part because that\u2019s all happening. Do you know what I mean? I feel like as a director, you always think, \u2018I\u2019m gonna be directing the actor. I\u2019m going to be making him act a certain way.\u2019 And the irony is, that is probably the last job that you have and if you have to be doing that, you\u2019re in trouble already, you know? You\u2019re just really more worried about the motivations of something and keeping the story flowing because you, as a director, have to keep your eye on the forest, you know? Not just the trees.\u201d<\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And that approach really is vital to the success of \u201cThe Signal.\u201d When Nic wakes up in captivity, Laurence Fishburne\u2019s Dr. Wallace Damon isn\u2019t giving him any answers. The only way you\u2019re going to figure out what\u2019s really going on is by assessing the past and the current situation right along with Nic, and that makes the film a particularly absorbing and suspenseful experience.<\/p>\n

Are you ready to get agitated with Nic and see what \u201cThe Signal\u201d is all about? You can catch the film in theaters this Friday, and, while you wait, be sure to check out our full chat with Eubank in the video interview below in which he discusses building his very own nonlinear editing system, the mix of sci-fi and horror, working with Thwaites, Fishburne and more.<\/p>\n