If you haven't seen the film yet, "Woman of the Hour" is Anna Kendrick's directorial debut, where she also stars as Sheryl, a woman who was on the popular TV show The Dating Game, as a way to put herself out there on TV and break into the entertainment world. But one of the bachelors that she was testing was actually Rodney Alcala, a serial killer who was at the height of his crimes at the time.
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Short filmTranscript
00:00I was really blown away by all of your very deliberate shots and cutaways and reactions
00:05that work to build tension.
00:09The work you did with your DP, Zach Kuperstein, stands out because every single shot conveys
00:16an emotion, whether it's fear or trepidation or embarrassment.
00:20Zach was incredible and so organized, but I spoke to him early on about the way that
00:26I hoped to use reflection and distortion in key moments, a woman through a camera lens
00:35or through a mirror or a car window, in moments when she's being really missed as a whole
00:41person, in moments where she's being looked at but not seen.
00:47Because it's tricky to put that across in a film without using a kind of established
00:53visual language of the way that a predator might view a woman.
00:59If I use his literal perspective, am I contributing to a normalization of women being objectified
01:08on film?
01:09And it was just tricky.
01:10And so that was, you know, a way that I wanted to attempt that.
01:15And then, you know, you sort of add in these moments with performance where, for example,
01:19Tony Hale's character, like, seemingly won't look at me and will only look at me through
01:25the mirror.
01:26And I keep trying to get him to actually just look at me.
01:30And that, I thought, created some fun performance moments.
01:34And I'll say that, you know, getting certain things across to the audience, look, I'm biased
01:41because this is what I've devoted my life to for, you know, since I was 12.
01:46But I always think that performance is king.
01:50To me, like, the whole reason that movies exist is as a vehicle for great actors to
01:56give great performances.
01:58And I love that every department in the movie thinks a movie is a vehicle for great production
02:03design or great costume design or great cinematography, which is exactly as it should be.
02:08Of course, I'm the one that's right.
02:10But...
02:11Sorry.
02:12I think that's good.
02:13That's good.
02:14I'm into that.
02:16There were certain visual things that felt important to me.
02:22You know, I remember when I was pitching myself, I think I talked about the parking lot sequence
02:28at the end and how I could imagine this frame where, you know, you kind of see Cheryl and
02:34Rodney and it's, you know, the expanse of the isolation that they're in in that moment.
02:41And knowing that even if Cheryl ran for it, she wouldn't even make it out of the frame
02:46before Rodney was on top of her, you know?
02:49And really giving you that visceral sense of the kind of physical danger that she's
02:53in.
02:54You know, then on the other hand, I think about the tiki bar.
02:58And while there were, you know, very specific visual and production design things that felt
03:03important in that scene, I changed that to, you know, making it a little bit more
03:09I changed some of that scene, like the night before we shot it, to just make it significantly
03:17more subtle.
03:18And I think if you read that scene on paper, it would sort of feel like a scene where nothing
03:23happens.
03:24And I was really, really trusting that Daniel Zavato, who is extraordinary in the movie,
03:31and I would be able to make something happen that felt really grounded, but also really,
03:38really real and present.
03:42Excuse me, ma'am.
03:44Can you give us another round?