“The Challenge Is Balancing Tone”: Director Mark Pellington

The communication challenge in executing The Last Word was thematic. With issues of aging or mortality, the challenge is balancing tone. That is achieved by communicating to everyone (cast, crew and, in turn, the audience) the specific tone. We tried keeping the story human and offbeat, making it emotionally inclusive, and earning the emotional...

Profound Communication Only Happens When There Is Persistence

I often ask myself, how does each of us weave our own responsibilities into the pattern of history? How can I tell stories about human rights and the quest for justice yet engage people who are uninterested or apathetic? And the answer has always brought me back to this idea of the persistence...

I Want the Viewer to Feel Totally Immersed in My World

For me God’s Own Country is an investigation into authenticity of emotion and landscape. Having grown up on the same hillside where the film is set, it was critically important to me to communicate what this very specific landscape not only looks like but how it feels, sounds, tastes, smells. The wind, the...