Just watch the beginning of his feature film debut, Esme, My Love, and you’ll know that there’s a special talent behind the camera. Cory Choy–who has an Emmy under his belt for sound mixing–recently made his directorial debut: a supernatural thriller about a mother and her daughter that is as eery as it is profound.

Cinemacy spoke with Cory Choy about all things filmmaking: how he began making movies, developing his first feature as an indie director, working with a nearly all-female crew and cast, and the production issues he faced that nearly ruined the film (“It just goes to show that even when it seems like all is lost, there is sometimes a way forward.”). Read on for our full interview.

 

Where did you grow up, and where do you currently live?

I grew up in Silver Spring, Maryland, right outside of Washington DC. I currently live in Bedford-Stuyvesant, also known as BedStuy, in Brooklyn, New York.

What film made you want to make movies? 

I don’t think there really was a single film that made me want to make movies. But I can say that a huge influence on me, in general, is my parents. My mother is a playwright and author. My dad was a computer programmer, and they are both musicians. My father plays guitar and my mother plays accordion. Because of them, music and theater were a big part of my life growing up.

As a result, I always had a love for storytelling. Because of my father’s programming influence, when I was in middle school, I actually designed my own video games in Macromedia Flash. They were hosted on the site Newgrounds, and I believe you can even find one of them today online (it’s called The Chickenator 2000). From there, I developed a love of animation. I think that was one of the big reasons I ended up going to film school; I wanted to pursue animation–I thought.

Some films I loved as a kid in no particular order: Edward Scissorhands, The Phantom Tollbooth, Pink Floyd: The Wall, Dumbo, The Goonies, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic: UHF, Léon: The Professional, The Ring, Fight Club, Beetlejuice, and Wayne’s World. Video games also had a huge impact on me, particularly the cinematic and iconic Lucas Arts games like the Monkey Island series, Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max Hit the Road, and Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis.

You are an Emmy Award-winning sound mixer. When did you realize that you wanted to direct?

Although professionally I got my start as a sound person–both on location and in post–I’ve always been working on my own projects. Oftentimes, small animations songs, or podcasts.

At that time, because I was focused professionally on developing my craft and making a living in sound, I really just found that I didn’t have time to work on my own films full-time, and realized that I wouldn’t ever unless I made a concerted effort. That probably happened around 2013 or ’14 when I realized that my sound studio and business were finally stable enough so that I could finally work on a doc I wanted to make for a long time: a doc about the coffee house musical performances my parents were putting together and running in Maryland for many years.

What steps did you take to develop your earliest projects?

I think I was pretty acutely aware that to make a good film, it was of utmost importance that I had the best possible collaborators. So when I decided to start directing my own projects, the first thing I would do would be to think about finding the best collaborators to work with. People who were both talented and on the same page as me, but who also would be willing to help me out since I didn’t have any sort of huge financial backing from anyone.

Having run Silver Sound and worked as a sound mixer and designer for many years on many people’s projects, I realized that I had a large network of eager people who I had done many favors for and who would probably be more than willing to return some of those favors when it came to helping me make a feature film.

I didn’t want to ask everybody to work for free, though, so I still needed to raise a good amount of money. I was extremely fortunate to find two main investors who put in roughly half of the shooting budget of $90,000 and I raised the rest on my own.

How did you first conceive of your feature film directorial debut, Esme, My Love?

The easiest inciting incident to pinpoint for wanting to make this movie was speaking to a woman about an experience she had with her first daughter that to me sounded terrifying, but to her was one of the most amazing experiences she ever had in her life. I won’t go into super extreme detail for privacy reasons, but basically, she had an encounter with an angel, and to her, it was absolutely glorious. However, to folks who heard the story, the circumstances seemed absolutely terrifying. This made me think about how two different people can interpret the same things very differently.

Another thing that I wanted to explore was the mother-daughter relationship. There comes a time in every person’s life when they realize that their parents are not infallible. It’s usually a pretty important moment, a coming of age.

What made you want to make this story your first feature film?

Part of me wanting to tell this story is from a thought experiment: What would you do if you thought you had to kill the person you loved most in the world to protect them from untold suffering?

Esme, My Love stars Women, was co-written and co-edited by women, with cinematography by a woman, and a score composed by women. Was that intentional, and what dynamic do you think this brought to the film?

This is a story about a woman and a girl, and it was absolutely critical to work with a woman co-writer (Laura Allen). Fletcher Wolfe–my cinematographer–Charlotte Littlehales, and Stephanie Griffin–my composers– brought so much to the film in terms of quality and… vibe? I guess it’s kind of the word, but not exactly. All the love and empathy are channeled by Charlotte’s voice, while the strings bring tension and fear.

I don’t think that my cinematographer necessarily needed to be a woman. It just so happens that Fletcher was absolutely the best person for the job. The music, however, I do think was important for someone who had the experience of being female to write, since so much of the “maternal love” aspect of the film came through the music. One of my editors, Ellie Gravitte, is a woman, and so is my UPM (Crystal Arnette), my production designer (Kyra Boselli), casting director (Catherine Corcoran), and sound mixer (Ash Knowlton). Did these roles need to be fulfilled by women specifically? No. These folks happened to be the best suited for the job. But it makes me proud that so many of them were women.

What was it like working with your two lead actors?

Audrey Grace Marshall is an absolutely unique talent. She was only 9 years old at the time of filming and she might have been eight years old when she auditioned. Even at that age, she was already a very professional presence on set and I would credit that to her acting coach and guardian, her mother Heidi. When working with Audrey, because she was so young, I wasn’t just working with her, I was also working pretty closely with Heidi. She didn’t like to over-rehearse things, or even really do them that many times so that she was able to keep things fresh and just be in the moment. Moment. Once I was able to embrace that, it became much more fun to work with Audrey and Stacey, who plays her mom. 

Stacey was a real trooper. The role of Hannah is extremely physical and you have to be willing to get in the mud literally and also emotionally. Also, the practical special effects makeup at one point basically erases Stacey’s face, rendering her blind and only able to breathe through narrow slits in real life. When we filmed that day, she had to be guided by the AD by hand to get around. Something like that takes an incredible amount of professionalism and trust.

Among some of the production issues you said you had to overcome was the picture car’s engine dying, as well as the underwater camera casing not working–which you only discovered after you brought everyone to the island for shooting. What were those moments like to endure on the day, and what did it teach you about the importance of resiliency?

One of the things that I learned is that if you can avoid it, you shouldn’t try to both direct and produce at the same time. I tried to do both and I ended up extremely stressed out because it’s just too much for one person to take on. There were a lot of challenges on set, and I think it would have been a lot easier to deal with had I had someone producing for me, and being able to focus solely on directing. Because I was producing and working on a very limited budget, I had to make sure that most of the crew was released before overtime kicked in. 

One day we needed to shoot one of the opening shots, the car driving around a bend down the mountainous road. However, I had run out of time and had to release the crew. My DP stayed on board, generously, and I was going to drive the car because my actresses also had been released by that point. And of course, that is engine decided to kick out. But we persisted, and the light still works. Thank goodness, so I literally got in the car and we rolled it down the hill and I was straining with the non-power steering but we managed to get the shot, and it’s very important for the opening of the film.

The underwater housing thing was bonkers. There’s a water scene that is very pivotal in the film, and the location we had to go to. We could only go to once. It was the last day of shooting, I believe. So we went through a lot getting everything moved on this boat to this small island where a dock was shallow enough to be safe but also deep enough to be convincing. And then of course, after we got all set up, the underwater housing for the A-cam failed; it was leaky. I was devastated. But the first thing we did was shoot as much as we possibly could from the surface without going under because the B-cam was lighter.

We also sent the DP into the water, just very, very careful to get some surface-level shots that way as well. Then, as if to add insult to injury, one of my crew members accidentally drops her phone into the water. I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” and she goes, “Oh no. No, don’t worry. It’s one of those new iPhones that’s waterproof, so I think it’s going to be fine.” And I was like, “Wait a second–your phone is waterproof? Give me that phone.” And we actually ended up shooting some underwater stuff on the phone. Not a ton of it made it into the actual finished film, but a few split seconds did. Being able to film underwater just brought the morale back to the crew and cast when we were all in a pretty dark spot. It just goes to show that even when it seems like all is lost, there is sometimes a way forward.

What have you learned as a filmmaker, artist, and storyteller after making this film? 

I learned so much about everything while making this film. It’s pretty hard to quantify, but I think some of the big takeaways are, definitely have a good producer and enough support people. There are many different roles in production and they all have a purpose. If you are eliminating a position, you need to make sure that the folks who are picking up the slack are able to handle it. I learned that sometimes it’s more important to take the shot than wait for it to be perfect before you shoot. I also learned that working with more than one editor can be extremely rewarding perspective-wise.

What have you learned about the business of filmmaking that people getting into filmmaking should know?

One of the most important things that I learned is that your movie can basically be sold or taken on a track to be sold before you shoot anything. If you decide to go in on your own, you’re going to go through the process of trying to distribute and show people things on their own as well. If you come in with a team, you are going to finish with a team and you’re going to be in a much stronger position.

What is one message that you wish audiences would take away after watching Esme, My Love? 

I think more than anything else, I want people to watch my movie as a total sensory experience. I want them to feel the sum total of all its parts: the music, the sound, and the visuals all join together to not just set a mood, but also tell integral parts of the story. There are some things in life that are impossible to completely explain with words, and that is one of the reasons why I love filmmaking so much.

Watch this movie at the highest resolution possible, on the biggest screen possible with the best sound system possible, preferably in a place with no outside noise or light; it will make a huge difference.

For more information about Cory Choy, visit his website and IMDb. For more information on ‘Esme, My Love,’ visit the film’s website.