Interview by Rafy Mediavilla, w/ Lionsgate “Zero Contact” movie Editor, Håkan Karlsson, on putting the pieces of this Zoom thriller together. Out Now In Selected Theaters, Digital & VOD. #ZeroContact
Starring Academy Award® winner Anthony Hopkins (The Silence of the Lambs), this high-tech thriller chillingly reimagines our isolated, virtual world. Hopkins plays Finley Hart, the eccentric genius behind a global data-mining program. Upon his death, five remote agents — including Finley’s son — are contacted by a mysterious A.I. entity to reactivate the initiative, which may enable time travel. As sinister events occur at each of the agents’ homes, they must decide whether entering their passwords will save the world…or destroy it.
Criticólogos:
When you saw the script, there’s so many pieces moving. What was your first reaction? How to put this together, understanding how it’s being done?
Håkan Karlsson:
My first reaction in every work I do since, I mean, I started 30 years ago is, oh, my, oh my God, how am I going to do this and put it together? It’s always a puzzle, you know, a jigsaw thing. But this time it’s so strange that being normally I have like two actors interact and I have one camera on this guy and one guy on the other one. This time there’s like five persons is on screen all the time at, at scenes, which is quite different of course.
But I started talking earlier with Rick about the script and, and we were heading for this kind of feeling, this almost claustrophobic feeling of the cameras we have all around us. And as you see in the movie. So, I mean, almost everything is in the webcam or in the iPhone or a smartphone or security cam satellites or whatever you have around you. And that’s quite another sort of material in my hands, for sure.
Criticólogos:
What was the most difficult then? What were the challenging parts of sitting down and piecing together this puzzle?
Håkan Karlsson:
And again, I think it was to have all the actors in in phone frame all the time in the scene. So I had to you know, the shooting was separate, so they didn’t act together. We had Artie acting or reading the lines for them. So the pause and the listening for the four guys and once speaking, I mean, I had to find that what kind of reactions, not only in one person to what this guy says was the reaction for four people.
And of course, there’s a there’s a good thing with the Zoom call because, I mean, we know the computer word. I can do glitches and do freeze frames. I can do so I can switch I can switch takes whenever I want in making a scene in a way which was a good thing, but it was tricky to find. I mean, it took time to find the reactions from the other the other people matching. And they had different agendas in a way, you know.
Criticólogos:
Once you had it all together, understanding what the characters were going, did you give maybe any input or maybe I want this or that? Or did you just follow his directions?
Håkan Karlsson:
No, no. It happened a lot during the outage because I mean, it was a fast run in, you know, in a sense, too, to get this pieces together. And we were shooting my night time and I was I was talking to Rick all the time during the shooting of this film. And as you understand, I’m in Sweden. So when they were shooting daytime, a lot was my nighttime, but I was a shadow in the on set, so to say. But this virtual set that we had, so we tweet things on the way things happened about the time travel and you know, you can even be confused when you work with it because sometimes you realize that, oh, maybe is this guy here or is he in another year or whatever.
Criticólogos:
What do you want or could you expect for the story to unfold for the next two movies?
Håkan Karlsson:
Well, first of all, I expect and I know from talking to Rick that being so inventive during the pandemic and shooting this film without travel, without anyone meeting or so, I expect us to be as inventive but in a different way in how we do it. And I mean, if we didn’t meet at all in the first one, we might meet a lot in the next one and travel all over the world that we never know. But I expect it to be an inventive journey with Rick and also a story that will, you know, develop into something more than we have today from the first one.
Criticólogos:
What has been your what have you heard from your colleagues, from people? And what is your reaction to the final product? Are you content? Are you happy with how it came out?
Håkan Karlsson:
Yes, of course I am. And the people I have shown, shown it to, they being I mean, it’s it’s an amazing I mean, the story and the film is amazing and the way we did it and it’s so intriguing to tell and people get intrigued by how we did it. And I think one of the main thing for me also has been this, as I said there, the claustrophobic feeling that we are observed all the time. And it might, if I maybe I hope it affect my kids to not have their phone and send I pass up all this time I don’t know why.
You know, it’s like, yeah. I think. I mean, but you just said it. That’s the way I mentioned it to the colleagues. And I praise what you all did, because it’s basically you three, you guys, you know, taking getting creative. That’s what I saw people do by getting creative and making something out of we need to do something where some of the homeless get to do something that people that think outside the box. And that’s what I think about this movie when I saw it for what you guys did yourself and the actors. So again, and thank you once again, particularly your time of dog and I just want you to hopefully we can talk in the future for the other two.
See the interview below:
