If There’s a Hell Below is a tense, suspenseful movie that makes its Northwest premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival tonight. It is set in rural, Eastern Washington and revolves around a government whistleblower who uncovers a national security scandal that she believes needs to be exposed. Carol Roscoe plays Debra, the whistleblower, who is torn whether she has the trust to share her secret with an ambitious journalist named Abe and played by Connor Marx. Roscoe’s performance is particularly brilliant. It’s also a timely and relevant movie for a post-Snowden/Chelsea Manning era that raises a lot of questions about what our government does without our knowledge and consent, and what would we do in a similar situation.
To learn more about this great, low-budget, I spoke with writer and director Nathan Williams about his excellent first feature film.
Can I ask how the movie came to be or how you got the idea for it?
It was a combination of the practical and the artistic. Obviously it’s a small film. It’s a small cast. There’s no set. The sets are central Washington basically. Being an independent film maker, you’re always trying to keep that soapbox in your head realistic so you don’t end up writing a script that’s inadvertently a ten million dollar film.
It’s a culmination of a lot of things that I had been wanting to work into something and my co-writer who’s my brother as well, and we definitely … It’s definitely current in that it deal with who can you trust and how much do you want people to know about what you’re doing, but we very much want to avoid being on a soapbox. This is a what-if scenario. It is in the title, literally. We want to play with these ideas but not tell people how to think or how to interpret what’s going on in the world but sort of … You know one of the models we used was Hitchcock for a lot of ways, I mean obviously on a suspense level but also … He would make these sort of Cold War movies that weren’t really explicitly about the Cold War. There would be some micro film and there’d be Russians but there wasn’t that direct in terms of making a statement on whatever was going on in a 1956 film.
You mention Hitchcock and that’s one of the things I really liked about it was it wasn’t just what the characters did and said but also what they were thinking. I thought that was such a big part of the movie.
The suspense is anticipating and dreading what might happen more than what is happening right now. That’s kind of the difference between a suspense film and a horror film, or a slasher film. As long as people are anticipating danger constantly and you’re always in a sense of unease, then it can be a really exciting experience without necessarily having to pile up a huge body count in your movie.
I also want to ask about the two main actors that played Abe and Deborah and how they became involved with the film.
The actor who played Abe is named Connor Marx. He has been in a number of my shorts over the past few years. Some of which have played fifth, previously. I was really acquainted with him. I didn’t write the role explicitly for him but he’s one of a hand full of actors that I just love to work with and when I do find myself with a role that I can comfortable slot them in, it’s the easiest thing in the world.
He actually recommended Carol. They worked together on this Seattle-based movie slash web series called The Gamers? I don’t know if you’re familiar with it.
No, but I’ll look it up.
It’s actually quiet popular in the table top gaming community. It’s a very niche series that is made by, for, marketed at conventions, but they do really well.
He worked with her on one of these gamer movies and they’re very different tone than my film, but he said, “She’s really great. She’s got a lot of the qualities you’re looking for in this role.” Deborah’s a fairly difficult role in that she isn’t … We didn’t give her easy traits to make her likable. It isn’t like she’s putting a kid through college. She’s very obtuse and she’s prickly and at the same time she’s a human being and you need to like … When she’s in ultimate danger you need to feel for her. It’s a challenge for an actor because they don’t have anything easy to fall back on, and I thought after Carol read for it, our audition process, I thought, “She’s going to be great,” and she was. It all worked out.
I thought she was outstanding. Like you said there wasn’t a lot to work with. You didn’t really know who she was or … You learned a little bit more about Abe’s story that about Carol, I thought, with him talking about being from Chicago and working for a weekly newspaper and such.
You don’t know really where she lives. She’s very protective of so much of her identity. That’s obviously the choice by me as a writer to see how you can build audience empathy through a character that’s difficult … It’s just a kind of character that interests me.
There’s that sort of style of filmmaking where you give someone a cat or you give someone really clearly identifiable likable trait that people can just latches on to them, but trying to challenge people to want to understand someone who isn’t as easy to understand.
I thought that was great and you just saw someone who, like you said, she wasn’t terribly likable per se, but you saw someone who was like really conflicted and knew she was in over her head about the situation.
She’s constantly ready to pull the plug on the whole thing. At any moment she’s saying, “This is a terrible idea. Should I have done that?” Where Abe is, to a certain point, is blissfully unaware. He thinks it’s a great idea.
I want to ask about the settings. I love that part of Washington. Eastern Washington, where there’s miles of almost nothing. How did you film that and how did you arrive at that location?
Like a lot of people, you’re familiar with it. It’s been fun showing this movie in different parts of the country where people have no idea where that is. They identify it as the American West but they don’t know Washington state, and what they associate with Washington state is western Washington, it’s lush, mountains terrain.
In driving back and forth over the years, it’s the stretch of I-82, south of the Tri-Cities, where it’s very that kind of rolling rippling hills and there’s very little active farming left because they over farmed and now they’re not allowed to grow things anymore. Then this kind of new, wind turbine project up on the top of the hill. In driving by it so many times I sort of became enchanted with it and said, “One day I just want to set something here,” and then as this story was kind of taking place, wanting an environment where you could see a long way, where you felt very exposed … The story would play very differently driving around in the Olympic Peninsula with every time you turn a corner you can’t be seen. Also not wanting to have that pure flat, Utah salt flat thing where there’s just no definition of the landscape. The landscape is kind of a character in the movie.
It just sort of felt natural. It was very easy, as these things go, to shoot out there. People were very accommodating, very … The County Officials, law enforcement, the folks along the farms, everyone was very accommodating and excited we were shooting a movie out there. They just wanted to make sure we didn’t start any wild fires, which we didn’t. As long as we held to that they were all very enthusiastic.
I’m glad to hear that. It seems like that’s a really great place to shoot. There are some other movies that have taken place or have been filmed out there. I think it’s gorgeous and I think that like you said, it’s its own character and you kind of … When you see another car it really makes you suspicious because there’s not much out there.
Just scouting locations, the rare occasion I’d see another car it would creep me out. I know why I’m here, what are you doing out here? Obviously there are still some active farms some places and there’s people that live out there on farm houses, even thought they’re not farming there’s retired folks and things. It isn’t truly a ghost landscape but it is very very rare you see someone, which on a practical level just meant we didn’t have to stop traffic. We didn’t have to worry about noise. Our sound recordist was very happy with the environment and that kind of stuff.
I’m glad that worked out because I know you didn’t have a very big budget. I know you raised some of the money online.
We did a equity component. Fairly small and industrious as these things go, and then we did a crowd funding Campaign which was a lot of work but it was it was pretty successful and it was fun to help us understand our audience through the crowd funding campaign. It’s an audience building campaign as much as a fundraising campaign.
Is there anything that you want people to know that I didn’t ask about? Is there something you want people to take away from when they watch this movie?
That’s a good question. In terms of your audience, just like all the cast and nearly all the crew were Seattle based. We shot entirely in Washington state but we are really proud to be a local production. We didn’t shoot in Seattle, we shot out in central Washington. We’re very excited to be another voice in this really growing, exciting, diverse film community that’s generating a lot of momentum here in Seattle. We’re excited to be a part of that.
We hope people who are interested in the subject matter but also just interested in supporting locally made productions, come on out and help us keep that momentum going.
I think that’s great and I’ve heard other film makers, they say that Northwest film crews are just … There’s just something different about them. That everyone really, really cares and works hard in a way that’s sort of different than LA or wherever.
I can’t speak as someone who’s made a dozen films in LA, but I know that Northwest film crews are … It’s very easy to put together a harmonious crew of people who are very skilled and at the same time they’re there for the right reasons. They want to make something good. They want to be supportive. It isn’t, “I’m going to build my reel or build my resume.” I’m sure those are the practical considerations, but it really feels like a team. We were out, effectively in the desert. It was 100 degree days. It was hot and dry and we were far away from the comforts of civilization and we were our own little team out there. We were very self supporting. It was stuff like that. It wasn’t clocking in for a job but we were all there for a singular mission.
As a director, feeling that everyone there is working to make the best film possible and wants you to succeed and isn’t just sort of going through the motions. It really helps you do your job even better. I know that’s the case of a lot of Seattle filmmakers, which is why even the ones that may have work that takes them down to LA, you come back here and you shoot there, because of that supportive cast and crew environment.
{If There’s a Hell Below plays at the Seattle International Film Festival May 25 and 26, tickets and more information can be found here.}