Interview: Albert Birney on OBEX
OBEX is currently playing at Sydney Film Festival. Addy Fong spoke to writer, director and actor Albert Birney:
Thanks for chatting with me about OBEX. It reminds me of that nostalgic era of the 80s, like D&D, something that’s always interested me in its approach to storytelling. Is that something that you’ve grown up with?
Yeah, I’ve played D&D a couple of times. I had an older cousin who played, so I played a little bit with him. I enjoyed it when I played but it wasn’t something that was a regular thing. I was more into computer games and early Nintendo games. That was where I found my escape, and all those early Final Fantasy type games, role playing Zelda games, which all overlap or connect to the D&D world. As I got older, I was always a little jealous of people that played D&D so much because I [thought] this is such a creative way of telling stories. Not that video games aren’t also creative, but there’s a little bit more of you’re passively going through a story. I think OBEX was inspired by the feeling of playing those games as a kid and feeling like there’s this huge world to explore. There’s this adventure and you have to find people to join your adventuring party and you have to defeat the bad guy at the end of the journey.
I was thinking about video games, filmmaking, and storytelling because in my mind, when people watch a film it’s a really linear kind of storytelling, whereas in a game there’s choices. Was this something that you considered in relation to your approach to script writing because in D&D, or people who play similar games, they’re very imaginative. Was that an influence or are there parallels?
Yeah, that’s interesting about movies being this linear thing. The way OBEX came about was my friend Pete came to Baltimore and we shot it in five days, just the two of us. We only had this house that I live in [to shoot in] and the first half of the movie came a lot easier and quicker and that was the first hour of the film. The second half where it was more like a video game where you can do literally anything, you can go anywhere and show anything. I think just embracing the things I love about video games, like when you go into a Zelda dungeon and there’s skeletons you stab and they turn into a pile of bones, we put that in there. We thought about what would make for a fun video game adventure. What would I wanna play and translated that into an indie film with a very small budget.
I’m wondering about your approach to making this film with a really small crew and on a small budget, opposite to what we’re traditionally taught in film school. Can you talk about how this project, given it was really small budget, was different from the usual filmmaking projects you’ve been a part of?
Yeah, definitely. I’ve made two films with Kentucker [Audley], Silvio and Strawberry Mansion, and both of those were [made with] very small budgets but they had 10 to 20 people crew. They were great experiences but you have to pay people and you have to feed people and just by the nature of that, it limits how you can do it. With OBEX, it was like a return to the feeling of when you’re a kid and you borrow the family camcorder, you’re just having fun. You’re just playing. You’re playing dress up, you raid the closets in the house, you make costumes out of whatever you have, you find props in the basement. [OBEX] was a return to that of let’s just have fun, let’s just play.
Pete was here for a week. We filmed every day from when we woke up until we went to sleep and kind of figured it out as we went. We had a rough outline but it was very freeing in that way. There’s no limitations, you really don’t need any money, it’s just use what you’ve got available. I think there’s a great freedom that comes with that.
The second half of the movie, when it got a little bigger we needed a little bit of money, because we brought one other person on to help. We brought some actors in and we wanted to pay them and we needed some bigger masks and costumes and stuff. Still, it was all very small. It was like, let’s just have fun together, let’s just do this. I think for me, there’s no right or wrong way there’s just different ways. Kentucker and I are still trying to make our third film together. We’re fundraising and casting and you know, it’s a whole process. That’ll be great when that goes it’ll be a bigger crew and there’ll be a ton of other artists and collaborators working on that with us. But OBEX felt like a very personal story that I knew that I could do in a very small way and it made sense for the story.
I was wondering because you act in the film was it easy or challenging to separate yourself as the writer/director/actor, without going insane? You as Albert the filmmaker and you as your character Conor. I’ve done it before making silly home movies and it’s awkward and challenging [laughs]
Well, I think on a base level, we’re kind of similar in a way, Conor and myself. He lives in this house where I live. He has a dog and that’s my dog. He loves watching movies on his TV and playing computer games like I do so it was quite easy in that way. Where it was a little different was that the movie takes place in 1987 so everything’s a little bit off or it’s a little bit removed from the present. The big thing is also, I didn’t wear my glasses as Conor so for me, it was very easy to differentiate between. When my glasses are off, I’m Conor, I can’t really see anything.
Like Superman and Clark Kent
Exactly. It was one of those things where it was not until we got to the second half, when I had to actually say lines with other actors, where it became a little more challenging. I realized, oh you’re right, I’ve got to memorize these lines, and I have to say them in a convincing way. In the first half of the movie, I’m just by myself, talking to my dog, which is easy to do, because that’s just what I do all day anyway. The second half, it was like, oh, I don’t think I’m an actor, but I have to, I have to suddenly be an actor.
OBEX had David Lynch, Eraserhead vibes. I was wondering about your influences on this film because it’s quite surreal, can you talk about your influences?
For this film, specifically, it was definitely Eraserhead, which is a film I saw in my 20s many years ago. It made a huge impact and has never stopped inspiring me in one way or another.
This one specifically, it was like, okay, we’re going to do black and white, we’re going to [not have] many locations, so that definitely was kicking around in the old brain.
The second half of the film, I would say was [inspired by] another film I saw in my 20s, very influential Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man. This psychedelic Western where Johnny Depp goes into the West and slowly bleeds to death over the course of 100 minutes. That film was this beautiful journey with two characters getting to know each other and [is] very poetic and dreamy and again, it’s black and white. I think those two films were films that made a big impression [on me]. Not every movie I make is responding to those two, but somehow those two came back to the surface when OBEX started to form. I think the other big [influence] isn’t movies, it’s the original Zelda, the 8-bit Zelda on Nintendo
With the Sprites?
Yeah, the little sprites. It’s a game that I played as a kid. During the pandemic, I replayed it for the first time in many years. I had a map this time like a walkthrough, so I wouldn’t get as lost. As a kid, I would get lost and [was] never really be able to beat it and get frustrated and give up. It was nice to realize, it’s okay to have a guide now and this is still very fun to go through this game. It’s as inspirational, I’d say, as Eraserhead is, and it’s as deep inside. I guess another movie, obviously, is Nightmare on Elm Street, which comes out in OBEX quite literally. Conor’s watching it on the TV and Freddy is around. That’s another movie that I saw at a very young age and is never too far from my thoughts. I’m always remembering moments from that first one and the whole series, really, all the Nightmare on Elm Street, but specifically the first one. Recently, a friend digitized all his old photos he had over many years and there’s a picture of me and him.
Oh, like a childhood friend?
Yeah. This childhood friend now lives in Australia. In one of the pictures he digitized, I’m wearing a Nightmare on Elm Street shirt and I must be like, nine years old. I have no memory of that shirt but I’m like, yeah, of course, Freddy has been with me since I was a kid. I can’t imagine my nephew or nieces now they’re about that age we were, being into Nightmare on Elm Street, it was just a different time. I think Freddy Krueger was kind of like, at least here in the States, a cultural phenomenon and kids were dressing up for Halloween. So that’s another film that I think was definitely in here for OBEX.
It’s interesting you talk about the use of black and white. The film is heavy on nostalgia even for me, born in the 90s, thinking about my own childhood with Nintendo, Zelda and Pokemon. I somehow thought the 2nd half of the film with the video game part would introduce aspects of colour in it. With the use of black and white, was it technical or stylistic choice ?
It was [a choice] from the beginning. Pete who shot it asked me, ‘do you want to shoot in color? You can change it to black and white in post in casei n the edit, you realize, oh, you do want color.’ I said, ‘No, I want you to shoot it in black and white. So we don’t even have the option.’ I think there’s a lot of reasons, again, maybe [it was] the Eraserhead and Deadman inspirations, which are both black and white. I think a big one was just the fact that these early Macintosh Apple computer games that I would play, the monitor was black and white. So to me, it just felt like you couldn’t have it be color if we’re going to be spending time watching these games.
Originally, there was going to be a lot more of the game OBEX. Pete and I were filming day three and realized, oh, actually, if the game is really good, that he gets in the mail, then we have to show him just sitting here [and] that’s kind of boring. If the game is bad, he stops playing it and then we can have fun around the house some more. Also, in a strange way, the cicadas, the bugs in the backyard, to me, even though some of them have red eyes, they just feel black and white and they feel kind of dirty or grimy. Also TV static is black and white on those old TVs, when you are on the wrong channel, it’s just beautiful black and white texture on the TV screen, or all the VHS tapes are black and white. It’s all these things that makes sense to put this world in without any color.
I thought [about] your point of making color in the second half, that would have been really cool but ultimately, I think it would have been harder for us to do. There’s something nice about committing to it and saying, this is a black and white movie. Working with such a small budget with our props and costumes and masks and things, they’re so much easier to make in the black and white world and make look impressive. I love color and the film Kentucker and I made before Strawberry Mansion is really colorful. It’s got all these neon bright and glowing colors. The next one we’re trying to make will be just as colorful. Again, it’s an intuition thing. Whenever I started thinking about OBEX, it always felt like it was black and white. I think that was the main reason, it just felt that way.
In the film, Conor is bored or trapped in his world, and he wants to escape through playing this video game. I was thinking about how people who use video games or films as escapism when they’re battling with mental health, when they’re struggling, they seek refuge in community. Can you talk about the film’s metaphor of mental health, the idea of fantasy as escapism? Is that an aspect you explored in your story?
Yeah, definitely. This idea first started in 2020 and 2021, [during] COVID with just being at home. I think a lot of people were watching more movies than they ever had before, connecting with friends on Zoom, you’d have Zoom hangouts with other people and playing more video games than ever. We all were kind of forced to be in our own world. I think screens, at least for me, helped me get outside myself a little bit or my own small little world. So definitely, you know, [OBEX] was inspired by that. Also, I think Conor in the film seems like someone who hasn’t really gotten over loss in his life, the loss of his mother or his father leaving. I think Sandy, his dog, is definitely helping him as a companion, someone to give love to and feel needed by. But ultimately, I think he’s become a little stuck, he’s a little stuck by the screens. Even though [the film] takes place in 1987, before the internet and the world as we know it now, I think he still is using the fantasy games and the movies to kind of, you know, forget his own sadness, his own trauma, as it were. In the end, it’s Sandy who kind of helps him get outside of that, leave the house, and go have an adventure in real life, you know, go to a beach. I think it’s with anything, there’s probably a point of moderation, that’s the healthiest thing. You can play games and watch movies, but you’ve got to somehow get outside, get away from the screens and go see real people or as some people were saying in the comments, go touch grass which is probably something I need to remind myself of sometimes the movie is serving to maybe remind myself. I love having Dorothy, our dog, because two times a day she makes me go on walks and I go on long walks with her.
What’s your dog called again?
In real life, her name is Dorothy like the Wizard of Oz which is, another inspiration. It’s the best movie of all time. I always think about it as a movie that feels like it’s from the future. It never feels like we’re going to catch up to it because it’s just so perfect in this kind of heavenly way
The Judy Garland one? With the Technicolor?
Yeah. The music, the songs, everything, everything is perfect in that film and it’s got a great dog, Toto.
I noticed you’ve got a keyboard in the background. Do you play in a band? That excites me cause I’m curious about your creative practice.
I’m not in a band per se but I play music and I record music with friends and I really enjoy music. To me it’s just another thing to pass the time that I really enjoy. There’s a lot of overlap with filmmaking. My friend, Josh Dibb, who did the music for OBEX, who’s brilliant, I would go over to his studio and I would sit behind him and he would play things and I’d kind of [be like] ‘oh, that’s great, do that.’ Our time together finished and he was doing something else and I had a deadline so I just started playing really quickly a little song. I recorded it and it ended up being the theme you hear in the second half of the movie, as Connor’s walking into the woods. It is a very simple little synth song. I love making music and specifically trying to find the right tones and sounds on a keyboard that will work with the image to unlock the whatever the movie is, it’s like that thing where, again, it’s like intuition, you’re not sure what you need [when] all of a sudden you hear something like, oh, that’s the right direction. Then, if you’re lucky, you record it and you don’t lose it. On OBEX, which kind of came together really quick and fun. It was nice to make music that way with Joshua, which [was] we’re just we have a couple of weeks to do this, we’re going to just do it, not be too precious with it and I think it turned out great.
I love the idea of play but I wondered because you said you filmed it in five days or did it take longer? How much longer in post-production? Sometimes you do a crazy one day shoot and you spend like a year trying to fix the things in post
So the first half of the movie, first 45 minutes or maybe a little bit longer, was five days. I edited that for about seven or eight months. In that time figured out the second half and wrote like a 25, 30 page script for the second half of the movie. Pete came back and we shot that for about two weeks. The second half we shot for a lot longer because it was more complicated and there was more characters. When that was done it was almost another about a year of editing and special effects. Because we made it this way, there was no one telling us to hurry up or demanding certain dates we had to make in the edit. It was just like, let’s just edit this until we’re happy with it.
We had a version of it that was maybe 9 – 12 minutes longer that just didn’t work as well. It was much darker and the ending was way less satisfying. We submitted that version to a festival and didn’t get in but we got feedback from one of the festival jurors who said many of us felt that the first half was very tight and the second half was a little bit less successful. Just hearing that lit a fire under us. Pete and I went back into the edit and we cut out nine minutes or however many minutes. It was pretty substantial chunk and [we] rearranged some scenes and then all of a sudden it clicked. You realize, oh my gosh, there’s the movie that I’m a hundred percent happy with. I mean, of course there’s people who don’t respond to it or won’t like it or think the first half is better than the second half or the second half is better than the first half.
I guess using your own funds you don’t have any financial or other pressures, you’re free to do it on your own terms and be like ‘we’re just a bunch of dudes who had fun together.’ And that’s the main point of filmmaking right?
That’s exactly it. It’s a reminder, why’d we start doing this in the first place? To have fun, you know. It takes you back to that feeling when you’re a kid making movies and you’re not too precious with it. You just have an idea and you make it as quickly as you can and then you get to watch it back and you show it to a couple other friends and everyone’s laughing and you’re having a good time. I think this was definitely a return to that. I think it’s the kind of thing you see more and more, people making movies this way. The old way feels a little bit harder to achieve these days where you have to get a huge budget together and get investors, A-list celebritities, and certainly those movies are still happening, but just starting out you go through film school you just have a camera and some dreams, and there’s movies you can make with your friends. To me when I see one of those movies I love watching it. You can tell the passion of a group of friends who are just having a great time together. Hopefully OBEX will be that for people where you can just have a very small crew, a very simple story but it’s fun to watch cause you can tell it was fun to make.
That’s the tagline. You’ve definitely inspired me cause I have a similar approach to filmmaking. I love DIY, low-budget resource cardboard sets and stuff. I’m really excited. The joy of the storytelling is something intuiative you can’t buy as they say
Yeah definitely. Years can go by and you’re thinking ‘oh my gosh in that time I could have been doing this other thing’. I think both can live together – you can write scripts and try to get it made that [traditional] way but that takes time. In the meantime why not get a couple friends together and make something, you’re going to have a great time. That’s what I always tell people, you’ll never have as much fun as when you’re working on a small movie [with friends].
Find out more about OBEX and what else is playing at Sydney Film Festival here.
Interview by Addy Fong.
