Despite having just two feature films under his belt–the second being All Is Lost which screened last week at the New York Film Festival–director/writer J.C. Chandor already has a diverse filmography.
His first, Margin Call, featured an ensemble cast (Kevin Spacey, Zachary Quinto, Stanley Tucci, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Penn Badgley, Simon Baker, Demi Moore) and smart dialogue as part of an Oscar-nominated screenplay.
By sharp contrast, All Is Lost has a cast of one–Robert Redford–and dialogue is sparse.
“I wanted to do something different,” said Chandor about All Is Lost, noting that it wasn’t part of any conscious effort to avoid being pigeonholed as a filmmaker. In fact, upon further reflection, Chandor has come to see some parallels between Margin Call and All Is Lost. “Some of the most important moments in Margin Call involved what characters left unsaid. A lot was communicated–and tension and drama were created–non-verbally.”
Another message delivered by Margin Call was the setting of high expectations for Chandor’s next feature. Besides the Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay in 2012, Margin Call earned Best First Feature distinction from both the New York Film Critics Circle Awards and the Film Independent Spirit Awards. At the latter competition, Margin Call additionally won the coveted Robert Altman Award, which is the Spirit’s Best Creative Ensemble honor spanning its director, casting directors and cast. Chandor also was named Best Debut Director by the National Board of Review.
Following up on such an auspicious first film can be daunting but Chandor was up to the task, taking an untraditional path. He penned an action/adventure film whereby audiences would come to know the character through what he was experiencing rather than the spoken word. All Is Lost finds its focus on a man who sails the Indian Ocean alone and suddenly finds himself in desperate survival mode when his boat becomes damaged and heads into a violent storm. On display are his ingenuity and resilience as well as his inner spirit as he faces the prospects of his own mortality.
With limited spoken words, Redford’s acting chops are on display. He was lauded for his performance when All Is Lost made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival back in May.
But Redford was hardly top of mind initially for Chandor. In fact, Chandor first started considering Redford based on an experience at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival where Margin Call was screened. The first day of the fest, he and other directors there with films were invited to a resort away from the Park City hubbub for workshop and lab sessions, and to hear Festival founder Redford speak. Chandor was seated near the back of the room where an audio speaker went in and out due to technical difficulties.
“Up to that point, I hadn’t zeroed in on Robert Redford in any way for the movie [All Is Lost]. But upon his great voice being taken away by the technical malfunction, I saw his nonverbal gifts. It hit me that he would be great for what we were trying to do but I didn’t think we had any chance of getting him. Still, the seed was planted in my mind.”
Two to three weeks later, Chandor–who didn’t talk to Redford at Sundance–sent the script to the actor’s agent.
“I never expected much to come of it,” said Chandor who a week later got a phone call that Redford would like to meet him. Not too long into that meeting, before Chandor had a chance to do the full elaborate presentation he prepared, Redford said “let’s do this,” recollected Chandor.
“He said he wanted to meet me to make sure I wasn’t a little crazy since the movie was such a totally out-there idea. The challenge fascinated him and he was in. I was elated. I couldn’t believe it at first. It was a bold decision on his part. This was way before Margin Call had begun to gain some traction. We were not the darling of the festival. There were many films generating more heat than ours. He wasn’t jumping on any kind of bandwagon. He just liked what we were trying to do with All Is Lost.”
Sounding off With music composed by Alex Ebert and an audio team that created ambitious sound design, a key driving force in the story, All Is Lost is hardly a silent film. But there were advantages to the nearly total lack of dialogue as Chandor could yell out cues and direction during filming. “We’d discuss what we were trying to accomplish with a scene–boredom, fear, being terrified, the emotional transitions involved–so we were prepared going in,” related Chandor. “But we would leave the timing of the events a little loose, offering an element of surprise so that Redford could react to them as they happened during the shoot. I would call out those elements out loud when they were about to take place. I was almost choreographing the action with Robert reacting to each element–wind, range, sound, weather changes. My obnoxiously loud voice would be screaming out to him and the crew. Instead of reacting to other actors, he would respond to what we’d throw at him.”
Most of the film was shot on the ocean. There was also lensing at Baja Studios in Rosarita, Mexico, a complex built by Fox for Titanic.
Lionsgate and Roadside Attractions are releasing All Is Lost in NY and L.A. this week and it goes wide throughout the country on Oct. 25. Universal Pictures is breaking the picture internationally. Unlike Margin Call where VOD helped the film gain exposure, All Is Lost, stressed Chandor, needs to be seen in a movie theater to experience the story and its full visceral impact.
Chandor said his earlier involvement in shorter-form filmmaking informed his work with Redford. While he is not personally an action/sports guy, Chandor’s prior work in that genre spanning spots and corporate films proved to be good training for All Is Lost. Rally car racing, skateboarding and adventure sports ad fare provided experience in action-driven, nonverbal storytelling, he observed.
Chandor helmed those projects via Washington Square Films, which produced Margin Call and had a major hand in All Is Lost. Washington Square’s president Joshua Blum and head of production Anna Gerb served as an executive producer and a producer, respectively, on All Is Lost.
Now Chandor hopes to get back into commercialmaking and to explore branded content at Washington Square Films. He has his first window to do so in some time as he pretty much went directly from Margin Call to All Is Lost.
“I love the collaborative nature of making commercials. I like being able to exercise your filmmaking muscles that way, working with the advertising agency creatives. Making All Is Lost went pretty quick by movie standards but it still took two-and-a-half years. I’d welcome the shorter turnaround time and more immediate gratification of commercials.”
