"The Messengers" Special from the set - Q&A with Mark Wheaton
An ominous darkness invades a seemingly serene sunflower farm in
The Messengers, the
The movie was filmed in
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Staci Layne
both companies knew my writing when Sherak suggested me for the job and I was approved to come in and pitch my take to Sam and Rob at Ghost House.
I'd also just finished my first studio horror script - "Feral" – for Robert Cort's production company so I had at least one horror project under my belt that they could read as a horror sample. As for being a journalist, I've always tried to keep the two jobs separate - that's one of the reasons I used so many pseudonyms while working as a reporter. Most of the people I've written for haven't known or, when they find out, don't really care that I worked as a junketeer for awhile, but it's not something I've ever wanted to try and trade on.
Earlier, you told an interesting story about the guy laboriously mixing mud, as per your script, and how you never fully realized that somebody would have actually to do that -- can you tell it again, Sam?
you put forth a mandate that you want to do things that are all practical with little-to-no CGI. So, you write and write and try to make it as scary as possible. But then, it gets really interesting when you have to watch a crew of dozens and dozens of people having to figure out a way to achieve what you scribbled on paper into reality. There was one scene in particular, a scare in the cellar, that was supposed to be really terrifying so I tried to pull out all the stops - one of the side bits involving a substantial amount of mud.
But then, on set, I was watching a piece of the scene being shot and there's this guy sitting there - shoulder deep in a bucket of mud - stirring and stirring, adding water to dirt, stirring and stirring while making a royal mess out of himself. Obviously, the guy's going to want a shower after doing this day after day for a complicated scene. So, it makes you feel a little like, "Um.sorry, man. I'm the idiot who wrote it this way,
never thinking that some guy - like yourself – would then be consigned to get all messed up like this." But then I caught some snaps of the poor stuntman with chicken meat pinned to his shirt as the ravens were sent to devour him in another scene and was like, "Ah, c'est la vie."
When we interviewed John Corbett earlier, he was very outspoken in regards to major script chances that happened after he signed on... can you explain what some of those were, and how much input you were allowed to have in that process?
their next two movies - Danny shooting one and Oxide shooting the other. So, when the Pangs came on with their new direction for the movie, the producers and I had basically six months - from the blank page of treatment #1 until the first day of shooting - to get
a shootable screenplay on its feet. That meant writing all the way through pre-production and meant that some actors were reading scripts during the casting process that were outdated by the following week as we were still in the "what-works, what-doesn't-work" phase.
Some of the changes were story-related - scenes added, scenes subtracted - like
when developing any script, but some became pre-production issues, which was most interesting to me, such as learning how to write scares for budget, changing the architecture of the house to match various necessary camera angles, etc. Of course,
notes like "more crows!" were my favorite to address as I loved writing crow-madness, but a lot had to be accomplished very quickly. And yeah, you have to kind of make a leap of faith as an actor when you sign on to a work-in-progress, but I'm really glad we got Corbett. During pre-, his name came up first and everybody loved the idea from day one.
How do you feel about PG-13 horror movies - do you think they're overly prevalent, or does the rating not really matter in the end?
Wheaton: As the rating comes down to the MPAA saying trim this one scare from "four seconds" to "two seconds," it's not something that bothers me that much - though it
came up time and time again on "Scarecrow" as we had to de-gore-ify certain sequences that I'd done a little too "grim."
I remember sneaking into my first R-rated pic - "Predator 2" - at 13, lying and saying I
was "15" and having the ticket guy say, "Close enough." That doesn't happen so much anymore, so I'm glad younger horror-fiends can see more pics on the big screen. If the difference is between going gore gonzo Shaun Hutson-style and being like, ".so, the
severed head rolls down the stairs, eyeballs falling out of its ears as it goes before landing on the front stoop, bloody tongue still stapled to the nose" or coming up with another way of creeping out the audience that might not involve happy disembowelings or hasty amputations, the goal is still to send people home with nightmares.
What do you think the Pang Brothers will bring to your story, that no one else could?
back on how they'd block it, shoot it - just filled to the brim with their own take, own scares, own everything on it - and you're just totally impressed and are like, "Um, yeah! That's precisely what I was going for."
[Screenwriter] David Koepp has a cool quote about how "only a hack will just shoot what you wrote. Somebody who cares develops it into their own thing." That's exactly what the Pangs do. They bring a ton to the table as both directors, but also editors and writers
in their own right. On top of that, they have a new spin on shooting the kind of iconic, Middle American farm imagery that's throughout the movie in ways that haven't been done before. Certain things that, perhaps, a western filmmaker might gloss over as part
of their environmental frame-of-reference become touchstones for the Pangs, which just adds to the visual aesthetic of the pic.
This is an experience that's new for you: You've been on a lot of sets, but never one that's making your own movie. What's it been like? Was it what you expected?
monitors, hanging out with the producers, looking over the various sets, etc., but in this case, I know what everything is, where everything goes and all about what's shooting. So, basically, it makes me realize that I could really bang out a great story for Fangoria on the making of the movie - without having to ask many questions!
Other than that, it's just been pretty cool. Details that were just that - details - in the script being so carefully rendered into reality is nifty. My favorite thing about seeing sets has always been just marveling at the work of the design departments - production, art, greenskeepers, costumers, etc. Seeing that level of craftsmanship being brought to something you worked on is just pretty incredible.
Even though it's been changed to The Messengers now... What's the significance of your original title, Scarecrow?
seen the pic all the way through. I understand the desire to change it, but it will always be "Scarecrow" to me!
Do you have any advice for as-yet unproduced horror script writers?
forward as it's always good to get fresh, disinterested eyes on a script. If you win, it's
something extra to put on a cover letter, but for a lot of people, the precipice to leap off of is just finishing a script that you have enough confidence in to have other people who have no reason to be nice to you read - then dropping it into an envelope and blindly sending it off.
Sending specs to major producers and directors isn't really a viable option, I feel, as most are really busy reading the things already being funneled in by the agencies. Some
producers will read cold-submitted specs, but you should inquire first. And yes, you need an agent if you're looking to get work on a studio-level. That said, there are tons of indie producers out there where yourself writing a can't-miss letter of inquiry or having a solid manager might do the trick.
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