PRISM is an independent feature film delving into mysteries of existence

The conversation

Story Notes

I could spend a LONG time talking about this scene, but I won't. I think it stands up on its own. Lot's of people watch it over again to catch it all. But I will address a few concepts to help clarify what's going on.

The best way to think of this scene, and indeed the remainder of the film is like a high stakes chess game between bitter rivals, in which the rules keep changing with each play.

Leanna has correctly figured out that she must let a dissasociative personality come in contact with Cage, but she does not expect the dramatic result of her successful test.

The Entity immediately takes Morton over, and asserts its dominance. Leanna is caught off guard but is exactly where she wants to be. Have you ever heard that gazelle and other prey animals will follow packs of lions? They'd rather know where they are, than not know.

Leanna constantly baits the entity. Like any good psychotherapist she asks open ended questions to get the entity to talk. When he doesn't give her what she's looking for she prods and provokes.

The entity tries to set the record strait with a not so subtle threat to Cage. Leanna feels things may have gone too far and leaps to pull Morton away but ends up in his grasp. Then Cage yanks hard on the "leash." Leanna notices this and discovers that Cage is aware and exercising some measure of control over the entity.

This leads her to the key she was looking for. The hot button for the entity is pride. By his reactions to Cage, and through his constant attempts to demean her limited knowledge of the universe and its many layers of consciousness, the entity lets slip the fact that in a way it is just as much a pawn as she is.

Leanna seizes upon this and relentlessly exploits this weakness, moving in for "Check"

But the rules change slightly when the fury of the entity exploits Morton's higher emotional pitch, and it is able to un-tether briefly from Cage. What it requires is that the vessel must have a resonating frequency of ill temperament. Morton comes from a very abusive family and thus harbors feelings of vengeance and hate.

The freedom is short lived though. When it launches at Leanna the distance between Morton and Cage is too great, and the connection is lost. Morton returns, scared, confused, frantic.

By this time Sarah has called Bill and he walks in. He is NOT pleased.

Filmmaker's Notes

This is a monster scene. I'll get to the technical in a minute but I have to sing the praises of my actors. There is so much going on here. There's more than enough in the dialogue itself, but the real struggle is for the most part another layer of fencing and reconnaissance behind the dialogue. Karen and Jeremy were simply amazing.

Jeremy has been in lots of productions both huge and small. His range and his instincts are truly phenomenal. He often said he looked at this scene as a sort of one act play because there is a complex character arc and structure to it. He was a force of nature.

I'll always be praising Karen for her work, but I think this was a particularly difficult scene. She had to make sure she didn't come off merely like a damsel in distress. From moment to moment she's wily, sneaky, scared, guilty, shocked, shrewd, curious, passionate, and much much more. She plays all these layers on top of or below the dialogue, while still serving the dialogue and business of the scene faithfully. I was so lucky to have her in this role.

Let me tell you one of our biggest technical problems. Jeremy is well over six feet tall, Karen, (she'll whack me for saying this) is ...diminutive. We were shooting this scene in a small room and we had a bugger of a time trying to hide all of our lighting and sound gear from shot to shot. But once again my crew came through.

We employed our direct into camera technique again here. This is only used when speaking with the entity. To the credit of our actors, they often stood right behind camera and gave full performances, allowing their on camera partner to react truthfully.

By this time I was fortunate enough to know my actors very well which was key to how I chose to let the shoot play out. This is not the kind of scene you want to do a hundred times. It needs to be fresh and it needs to be real. I really tried to free them to open up and let it rip for each of our few takes. They delivered.

Interviews

Selected Scene Explorations

Thoughts and Spooky Production Stories:

HInts and Inspirations.