Osiris

When I first came across the screenplay for Osiris, Owen had been working on it on and off for over 15 years. Originally, he really was just looking for some notes, but I took one read and knew that the screenplay was already finished. No more notes, no more rewrites -- it was ready to film. And I also knew that Owen just needed someone to tell him that.

I think one of the things that had made it so hard for Owen to finish was that in a way, he was telling the story of his own life, and that story is obviously still unfolding. At its heart, Osiris is the story of risking everything to chase your obsession. It resonated with a college-age Owen as he decided to become a filmmaker and jump an unknown future, and it resonates still with Owen as he decides still to chase that dream, despite now having a wife and child and a mortgage to take care of.

That same conflict really struck a chord with me: I come from a heavy science background, and made my own decision long ago to drop out of medical school to become a filmmaker. So I was immediately excited to tackle the science and technical aspect of the film -- but more than that I connected with the choice to throw away the future laid out before you to chase a dream. Too choose your obsession and passion over rational thought. And I have had to make that choice again and again. Every day. When do I stop risking it all? When do I get a normal job? When do I know that I made the right choice? This is not a story about chasing your dreams … it is a story about the cost of chasing your dreams.

In approaching this film, my main concern was how to present Seth with that same choice. That main drive led me to strip down a lot of stylistic visuals in order to concentrate on Seth and Seth’s world. I wanted to focus on his character and see inside of his world without the bells and whistles that you might expect from a film involving space flight. We meet Seth at a time his obsession and goals have evaporated. We see a man starting from scratch. He knows the joy of his work, as well as the joy of his life and family. And he has also experienced the pain of losing them both. So I didn’t want to romanticize either his family life or the NASA side.

I wanted to make this feel like a classic film, invoking imagery and themes from classic space films, but to put them into the modern context. The timing and pacing was meant to feel familiar and relaxed, so all that is left is the characters and their decisions. We used imagery from films, such as Apollo 13 and The Right Stuff, and scaled it down not only to fit our budget, but to take away the grandeur to focus on the minutiae of these engineers’ lives.

The non-linear storytelling was something baked into the screenplay from the beginning. And I think it works especially well in Osiris, not only as a vehicle to explore the character’s past while moving forward with the plot, but because Seth’s gamble, his choice, and his sacrifice … these are things he must face again and again. He never really knows if he made the right choice. And in the end, having lost both, he must make that choice again. Our non-linear storytelling method was used to reflect the recurring, constant, and the cyclical nature of his obsession. At the same time, I was conscious of not wanting the time jumps to be jarring, or even all that noticeable. I wanted to make them as seamless as possible, like remembering something while you’re grocery shopping. This is not a one time choice or risk that Seth is making, this is a choice he has made every day, little by little, as he chose work over family. For that reason, we strove to keep the time jumps almost mundane, to feel like a constant but natural part of the story.

In the end, I hope the audience enjoys the film as much as we did making it. And I hope it resonates in those who have made the decision to take a risk following their passions. Not to reassure, but to resonate. Osiris is a jumping off point that looks at the glory and value of our obsessions, as well as the risks and ultimately the costs. Both I and Seth will have to decide for ourselves which choice is the right one.