Last week, on a Thursday morning, I met up with Loren Taylor. It was 11 am. I told her I had just finished watching her latest award winning film ‘The Moon is Upside Down’. She wasn’t expecting filmgoers to see this film before 11 am, she joked, DON'T WATCH IT BEFORE 11 AM! This must-see film is hilarious, but we all know, the truth hurts, so you've been warned, watch it after 11 am.
Loren is so cool. I don’t say that very often - cool, is such an odd way to describe someone - but truly, what a clever, funny, deep, brilliant, vibrant, and generous woman. She offered us personal perspectives and lessons for our readers for which I am very grateful for.
And somehow we started at sex…
Many of your scenes are done with a wide, spaciousness, but with your sex scenes, they're all really close up. There’s no getting out of it. Tell me more about this. True! The location was the size of a shoebox. The rest of the place worked really great but the bedroom was tiny. So, we didn't really have much of a choice.
It totally works, doesn't it? You know, sometimes when it can just all feel very long and very… you know… And with that school of clown where the longer you hold the gag at some point it goes through discomfort to comedy, to discomfort to hearing and maybe into feeling, and seeing if you let something roll for a while, if you can carry people.
If I understand correctly, you've written other features? I have a story credit on Eagle vs Shark, which is Taika's first film. I was alongside him for every step of that film. Technically, this is my first feature, but I'd been there before. And then I'd improvised one, a film called Kombi Nation by Grant LaHood, which is a very old film about Kiwis doing the OE around Europe, so I had dabbled around the place.
Can you tell us about the process of writing this? I think I started writing it about nine years ago. I knew that I wanted to make a multi-narrative film. My sister had written a beautiful book of short stories that won an award and was gorgeous, and one of the stories was from that. And then I was collaborating with a friend of mine, Glenn Moore, who's got a story credit too, and he had the idea of the mail order bride, which was based on a true story that he'd heard. The other storyline was merged around some story Glenn had heard where someone had died in a flat just around the corner from where we lived in Newtown. So, it was a pretty mercurial kind of soup, as far as how we got to where it is now, a lot of iterations.
You managed to weave all of those little stories together really well. I'd read a beautiful thing that desperation is the origin of comedy. I also think humans are just hilarious and we make extraordinary messes of our lives. So, I kind of wanted to be in that territory and then I had some kind of soapbox political stuff I was wanting to kind of shoehorn in there too.
What was that? The housing crisis, industrial agriculture, privilege, you know. I don't want to say patriarchy, but you know, being what it is to be a woman, menstruation, sexuality, romantic love.
You've got three stories, some political and societal challenges, how do you merge it all together? Because I was an actor first, I feel like being in the body. I have to find something through the body of the character. So, I can have lots of ideas, but I need to find a body first. So, finding characters that I could see and feel was very important. And obviously I had my sister's story that already had a beautiful psychology that I could pull from.
I had all those ideas, but starting with character as far as the writing process goes, seeing what they could do and how far I could push them and where I could put them to play in the kind of territory I was interested in.
At what point did you bring in producers and funders? Straight on, actually. Georgina Condor first, because I had worked with her forever. Then we got EDF funding and I put my first draft in and they sent a message back saying, Hey, do you want to apply for this fund for female filmmakers? We really like your script. It's a one, two, five fund. And I said, OK. And then we got it! And I brought Philippa Campbell in at that point because I thought she was an amazing person, and an amazing creative producer. And yeah, and then we decided to go with that low budget because I was adopting a child and I wanted to make the film before I picked up my little one.
Because of the timing of the world, I thought I could get the low budget, make the film, finish the film, then I could become a mum. No, says God. Oh no! So, six weeks into pre-production, despite it being a global pandemic, we got a call to say, you need to come and pick her up now. I managed to put it off and I traveled five days after we wrapped to go and quarantine in Thailand with my husband, and then quarantined with her back in Aotearoa and then tried to edit the film while in quarantine being a new mum. It was all a bit mad to be honest. It was the pits. It was the pits. Not the way to do it. Becoming a new mom trying to edit a film. I had a 6 month break. It was very slow to edit because I was editing around the needs of my little one. The beauty of having George and Philippa, they're both moms too, and they really understood this is just life and this is how it goes. And, you know, the priority has to be your kid. And it was. Yeah, thank God for them.
Wow! What a story. That’s where aligned producers can make or break. I’m pleased you had a supportive team on your side. Was there a challenge that you faced in the writing process or any other part of the process where you felt like there was an impasse? I think creatively it was kind of OK. Like the writing felt good, we got the funding and that all felt good. I guess the pandemic happened and there was a lot of extraordinary safeguarding you had to do. We cast someone who was overseas, in Poland, and then we realized we couldn't bring her to quarantine. So we ended up casting the extraordinary Victoria who plays Natalia who's in Sydney and so she quarantined to come to us but we had to have a Kiwi person in case she couldn't make it to set. So, we had to do all the classic pandemic filming. The whole thing was pretty tenuous.
Are there things that you have learned inside those relationships with your producers to impart to others? They've been so extraordinary (Phillipa and Georgina). With everything, it's about good communication and kindness and acknowledging that stress is an inherent part of the industry, or the pursuit, so trusting that you've got good enough communication and that there's foundations of care and love that can get you through.
Now being a writer and director in this space, you would have had a lot of leadership into this team, was that a space you were excited about? Yes, yes, yes, yes to that, very much so! I think one of the things of having been an actor and coming to directing through having been an actor and a coach for many years too, is that you've been on lots of different sets and you really know what feels good. And you know, you're very sensitive to what doesn't feel good. And so really trying to create a space which does have warmth, care and gratitude. I really do feel like working from a place of kindness is so important. And gratitude that we get to make art for a start in this world feels like an incredible gift. And then yeah, being caring of people, because it's tiring. They're long days and it's very tiring. People put their lives to the side when they're doing a shoot.
Having a chance to run a set in a way with a kind of an ethos that feels right to me, I felt really, really glad to do that. And I think everyone had a good time. I think we all had a good time, even when it was hard. There was a huge amount of warmth and positivity.
So are you excited to be in that space again? Yes. And write and direct again? Yes. At the moment I am writing more. I do feel like being a mum, that really is the priority. I think with directing, it feels like a lot: the traveling and the leaving and the long hours and stuff. So, I'm pausing on directing for a bit. I think having a young kid is a really good time to write. It's lots of time to think while you're cleaning up a house and running after someone else. I feel like it's a really good time to be with what's gonna come from my head next.
How was directing yourself? It was easier than I thought it was. When you're inside a scene, you can kind of feel if it's going okay or not. I don't know if I'd do it again. No, maybe not, I don't know.
What's the defining difference that you feel? I have less curiosity for myself. I feel like with someone else they bring their soul and their spirit and their life to you and there's an alchemy that can happen between you, but if it's you with you, the conversation is just a little more one sided.
Did you have people that you would bounce it off? I had a wonderful director's attachment, Catherine Bisley, who's a filmmaker, so her and then Philippa and Georgina, so I had them too, so they were all eyes on it.
Because it was your first directing of a feature, did you have a mentor to go through that process of directing? Because of Eagle vs. Shark, where I was literally there for the scripting, the shoot, the editing, the post-production, I'd really done it. And I'd collaborated on many things as a coach. So, I'd been sitting behind monitors. And then I'd been a casting director for many years and worked in reading rooms. So I felt like I was really well exercised for directing.
Did you discover any major hurdle during shooting while you were directing that you were not expecting. Feeling like not having the time to get exactly what I want, which I guess as directors feel like. I just wish I had more time and then I could really perfect this, that was more the feeling.
What is the importance of storytelling to you? I was raised by alternative environmental activists, political people, and there was a very strong belief that art was very important and that's where change can happen. Art helps with making change, societal change. It's good food for the planet. I really believe in the importance of it. And, I think after being an actor and spending many years being in stuff that I felt like wasn't what I wanted to see, what I longed to see. You know, that thing about someone being able to mirror back to you some things about your own being can be very nourishing and useful and provocative. The films that I really love are films that are political and poetic and funny and intimate. That's what feeds me.
Did you always see this as part of your trajectory in life? Yeah, definitely. After Eager vs Shark, I had to face some very big trauma that had happened when I was a teenager and then I got breast cancer so I couldn't really work for most of my thirties. I feel like my creative trajectory stalled, but it was a really useful and very profound time. I think had that not happened, I would have done a bit more, but I'm glad it happened because it informs what I do now.
This thing where there's just not enough time on set, do you have any thoughts around what that challenge is and what could change it? Doco crews are much smaller and they're attentive and there's a different kind of energy and they can be incredibly cinematic and beautiful. I don't think it doesn't mean that you can't make cinema with these tiny crews so I do wonder if just making the whole thing much smaller. If it's smaller, maybe we can move a little bit more like water and have more time.
You feature nature, animals and bugs, in a unique way. Tell me more about this choice. I believe that our relationship with nature is where you heal. I believe that our disassociation from nature is what's ruining our planet and each other.
What would you say to someone behind you in walking a similar path? Make what it is that you long to see,and don't try and make something that someone else has made. Listen to yourself and feel what it is that is calling to be expressed through you. And also, it’s fundamentally a collaborative process, so really learning how to communicate with care, and that will create the most beautiful work, and the most beautiful process.
Loren's honesty and openess was vivid. I could have talked to her for hours. I can see how her perspectives are informing her unique voice as a director. Now, if you haven't watched 'The Moon is Upside Down' get to it, but not before 11am! There's tickets to GIVEAWAY below.
- Nina Reed