The Great Charade (2019)
Director: Dan Strange, Rodeo Strange
Writer: Dan Strange, Rodeo Strange
Stars: Francesca Louise White, Candice Palladino, Ricardo Freitas, Philip Boobyer, Marcus Davis-Orrom
A psychological thriller in which the world’s two most famous actors are kidnapped. They awake, bound and bruised, with no inkling of where they are. Unable to move they are at the mercy of those who adore them the most; their fans.
The Great Charade is a debut feature film from co-writer/directors Dan and Rodeo Strange; a psychological thriller which promises plenty of blood. With the film now in post production I got a chance to ask Dan and Rodeo a few questions about how they got into film making, the process of working together on their first feature and what we can expect from the film.
Q. How did you both get into film making originally?
Film making was something that Rodeo always knew she wanted to do. She first began freelancing when she was 15, producing music videos for local bands and adverts for local businesses. She also got involved in various courses ran by BFI and BAFTA. When she was 18, she went to study film at the SAE Institute. This is where she met Dan.
Dan’s interest in film first began at SAE, where he was studying audio. Initially he had a successful career as a lead guitarist and band manager, however when his band broke up, he decided to pursue a career in audio. Rodeo and Dan began producing short films together, many of which won awards at various film festivals.
Together they then formed Rodeax®, a film production company. They continued to produce eclectic creative work while also producing projects for clients until they were able to fund their debut feature film, The Great Charade… at which point they dropped everything and immediately began producing it.
Q. You have your first feature coming out this year called The Great Charade. What can we expect from the film?
The Great Charade is our debut feature film. It is a psychological thriller in which the world’s two most famous actors are kidnapped. They awake, bound and bruised, with no inkling of where they are. Unable to move they are at the mercy of those who adore them the most; their fans.
Prepare for a covertly twisted, completely insatiable, covetous, deranged adventure. All wrapped up in a beautiful shell.
It was described by Francesca Louise White as La La Land (2016) meets Silence of the Lambs (1991).
Q. How did the original idea for the film come about?
The first spark of the idea came when we were in the car on the way to a meeting. ‘I can’t Decide’ by the Scissor Sisters came on the radio and after listening to the jolly yet disturbing lyrics for a minute, Dan turned to Rodeo and said, “What if we made a film about a kidnapper trying to decide whether to kill his victims?” Rodeo thought for a moment and then came back with, “What if the ones who were kidnapped were Hollywood’s biggest actors?”
From there the idea snowballed and by the time we got home we had the skeleton of the film’s plot. One or two details were fleshed out while we were cooking dinner or doing the laundry, but within three days we had written the first draft of the script.
Q. You co-wrote and directed the film together. What was the process like working together and do you each bring something different to the process?
We’ve been working together and living together now for about four years and in that time, we’ve definitely developed a kind of unspoken shorthand on set. We’re both the kind of people who are full of ideas, so we find ourselves discussing them every day. Every now and then a really good idea comes along, and we end up sticking with it, The Great Charade was definitely one of those.
We both think in very different ways. Which means that we both bring very different ideas to any project, however, neither of us are too precious about them and we’ve gotten quite good at discussing ideas objectively. If they’re not the right one neither of us are liable to get offended!
On all of our short films in the past Rodeo has always directed; this is the first project where we have both directed equally. However, it wasn’t all that different to our previous projects. We find ourselves slipping into fulfilling different tasks that make up the roles seamlessly. It was also, extremely beneficial having two directors because naturally, our different personalities clicked differently with different cast and crew members. So, it meant that communication on set was extremely easy. In short, we’re one of those weird couples who love working together.
Q. What were your influences for the overall look and style of the film?
The overall style for The Great Charade is quite an interesting one. Throughout the film there are dark undercurrents reflecting Hollywood’s portrayal in the media, so we really wanted to reflect that visually.
In general, we have taken influence from David Fincher, particularly the camera work and editing style of the intro sequence to Se7en (1995). However, because of the subject matter there are also certain scenes that take influence from an incredibly eclectic range of films. For example, Charlie Chaplin’s The Great Dictator (1940), Rosemary’s Baby (1968), Natural Born Killers (1994), Silence of the Lambs, Moulin Rouge (2001), the Film Noir style and various ideas influenced by Stanley Kubrick. We wanted to create a surreal viewing experience that danced on the fine line between theatrical and disturbing.
Did you make any changes from the original script during filming?
We always find ourselves making a few changes on set, and this one was no exception. While most of the script stayed the same, there were a handful of moments where the actors improvised something too good to cut, so naturally we adapted the script around them. We’re never too precious over our scripts as we firmly believe that the more ideas you have thrown into the melting pot, the richer and more interesting it will be. Thus, we always encourage our actors to improvise or change lines if they don’t feel natural, and we will always listen to anyone’s ideas on set, no matter who they’re coming from.
Q. Did you experience any difficulties whilst making the film?
We try to prepare for as many possible problems as we can during post production, so when it’s time to shoot and we encounter a problem we know exactly how to deal with them. For example, after a mishap involving a wall a few shoots ago, we always carry Polyfilla and white paint. We also make sure we have duplicates of costumes, key props and set pieces just in case anything should go wrong.
When we do encounter a problem, we’ll usually discuss it between ourselves, not alerting anyone who doesn’t have to know so that the atmosphere on set is untainted. That way there are no extra worries distracting any of our cast or obstructing any performances. The main problem on set for The Great Charade was, “exactly how much blood can we pour over the floor?”
Q. What were some of your favorite moments during filming?
None of us will forget trying to film a certain dream sequence involving 300 Christmas baubles. It took us over two hours to film a simple 5-second section because nobody could stop laughing, including ourselves. Candice Palladino’s perfect comedy timing and line delivery accompanied by everyone else’s perfect reaction made it so funny. It probably didn’t help that by this point it was about 4am so we may have all been past the point of tired where you just turn stupid.
Q. In addition to your crowdfunding campaign the film is produced by your production company, Rodeax Ltd. How did the company first come about?
We basically formed the company straight out of university with the short-term aim of producing adverts to pay the bills. We did however have the long-term aim of producing feature films and growing our name to the scale of Blumhouse or Bad Robot. We want people to recognise the name Rodeax and be excited for our films, without even knowing what they’re about. We don’t do the business and corporate stuff now, because quite frankly we got incredibly bored of it. It
served its purpose of funding our first step into directing feature films and we’re now focusing all of our time into being the best directors and writers we can possibly be.
Q. Do you have any other projects which you are working on?
We always have a few ideas swimming around in our heads and now is no exception. We’re currently writing another screenplay, which we are really excited about as it requires a much larger scale production than The Great Charade.
We do also have one or two feature-length screenplays that we’ve already written and tucked away for rainy days when budget and resources allow. (One of them is a gritty British gangster flick reminiscent of Snatch (2000), and another is a supernatural sci-fi thriller… so they’re suitably eclectic.)
We have a clear vision for what we want to do in the future. We have the scripts written and just need to have the right conversations with the right people in the right companies to get the first one in production and if that goes well it will give life to a whole new fantastical franchise. (Warner Brothers, Universal, Lionsgate, if you’re listening…?)
Aside from future film projects we do also produce a spooky supernatural podcast called Tales From Wytch Haven which is available on our YouTube channel. Also, on our YouTube channel you will find a series of short horror stories under the banner, Tales From the Fireside. One day we’d like to turn both of these series into a TV series. We have also just finished writing and illustrating a children’s book about a bear and a koala. We wrote it as a present for our soon-to-be-born niece or nephew, but we thought we’d release that as well. It will be available on Amazon, kindle and all the usually places very soon, so look out for that.
What advice would you give to someone who is looking to direct their own movie?
In our experience, the best thing you can do is just go for it. Do whatever it takes to get the resources you need and just put everything you have into making it happen, because the chances are that whatever point in your life you are when you make your first feature film, it will probably be mostly off your own back. If the first one doesn’t work out, that’s fine. You can learn from the experience and come back stronger. At the end of the day there will always be a hundred people saying you shouldn’t go into film with one person saying you should. Listen to that one person, the only person that really knows what you are capable of is you, so be honest with yourself and go for it.
You can find more about The Great Charade and future projects on the website rodeax.com
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
