Crisis Point

At its core, Crisis Point is about humanity. Everything that happens and everything that is mentioned is about some variation of the human animal. It could be identity, vulnerability, mortality, love, trauma, et al. Every single thing is about... Well, US. People.
So, with that philosophy in mind, it wasn't really a choice to format the film as a faux documentary. Complete with staged photographs, “found footage”, damaged audio, and interviews (not with the actors as themselves, but with them in character). I mean, Crisis Point itself IS a piece of fiction. But it's stitched together from a string of true stories. It's a fabric bound together with the souls of affected generations of women. Over the course of production, I probably came off as insane for making a film like this. And some might still think so. Nobody really understood what I was doing because I wasn't telling everyone everything. They knew exactly what they needed to know and that was it. In retrospect, I don't know if I can explain properly why I felt this film needed to be made this way. But I'll try.
Before Crisis Point finished shooting, the world changed dramatically for the better. Two massive events unfolded in 2017. They were the #metoo movement's broadening scope, and marriage rights being awarded to the LGBTI crowd. Because of this, I knew that Crisis Point had power. But this film wasn't originally meant as a targeted statement. It was meant to show the raw and edgy side of life through an examination of the two protagonists, who happened to be women. That was it. Moreover, I wanted to revise what the horror genre had become and perhaps breathe a little more life into some of the dwindling sub-genres. Personal horror, for example. I wanted to showcase the horror of real life predators' disgusting primal urges. And the consequences of their perversions. And how, even years after a traumatic event, the victim can be... and usually is... still affected. So I decided on a minimalist color palette, using only primaries (i.e. - red, blue and yellow) along with black-andwhite scenes. I was first influenced to try this approach years ago when I saw Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers. I'd experimented, mostly failed, with this style on several occasions. In fact, this time is the closest I've come to success. I also wanted to show that violence didn't necessarily have to be shown on screen for it to have a very high impact. This is a concept that seems more and more filmmakers are failing to grasp, or forgetting entirely. And it's diminishing the way audiences experience cinema. If everything is a spectacle, nothing is. All through cinematic history there have been films that were more brutal in concept rather than execution. Films like Taxi Driver and Raging Bull. And Full Metal Jacket. Even Psycho. And, while I won't begin to compare my film to Scorsese or Kubrick's work... or Hitchcock's for that matter. I most definitely was inspired by these masters. At least in character development. Visually, I was inspired by Dario Argento and Lucia Fulci.
Over my lifetime, I've researched many different countries' approaches to film making. And my favorites, for the last decade, have been Italian and French cinema. Crisis Point adopted a more surreal structure because of my appreciation toward Fellini's films 8 ½ and Le Dolce Vita, and Michel Gondry's work. Gondry is actually my personal favorite filmmaker. The visual aesthetic on the other hand is pretty much stolen entirely from Giallo horror. But my biggest artistic hurdle was reasoning. My mind works 100 million miles a minute, and I'm always coming up with cool new ways to do things. But if there isn't a reason, then it's pure madness. I knew I didn't want to make a
horror film. I knew I wanted to make something dark and emotionally intrusive that would crawl under peoples' skin, and impact upon them in a more meaningful resonant way. And this is something I couldn't quite grasp until the world forced me to. So Crisis Point definitely became something else, which was not particularly dictated by my direction. Although I did steer into it and dragged my cast and crew kicking and screaming with me. But instead, it was the gravity of contemporary socioeconomic upheavals. Ironically, Crisis Point is about people (two sisters) who are trying to change their bad luck in life for a more positive future. Art imitates life imitates art, I guess.