Nicholas Ashe Bateman: "The only real piece of advice that I imagine I can have for anyone is to continue and continue at all costs"
IMDBCLAPPER: The Wanting Mare is an ambitious production for an independent film, I understand most of the budget was backed by an online campaign, was it freeing or quite scary to create your own budget?
NICHOLAS ASHE BATEMAN: We were able to fund about half of the first chunk of production using the Indiegogo campaign, and without that the film would have never started. We shot the first act with no guarantee we’d ever raise another dollar, so the real panic-attack-causer was just knowing the film’s completion was being decided by how well we completed its toughest section. The margin of error actually expanded as we went on. In some ways, creating the budget was the only way in which I was able to make the whole thing work. I had one master budget that I was able to alter on a daily basis; if we saved 40 dollars on paint on Tuesday, I knew I could purchase the additional $35 jacket for costume on Wednesday. I think in this way, we were able to use every dollar possible, even for a truly terrible math student.
As a first-time director, what prepared you to make such an ambitious film?
While all the stories of production challenges are about what you’d expect for this, I think I had an advantage because this film was made so meagerly and therefore entirely from instinct. There isn’t a lot of thinking in instinct- you’re just doing what you can every day however you can do it. I was in no way prepared to make the film at all, so I didn’t really feel like I had the time or leisure to play around with the ideas and explore alternative creative choices; it constantly felt as though this was the only time I’d ever get to do it, and all my energy had to be spent to say the one thing I have to say as best as I could. The first choice was the only choice, and each part is as essential to the whole as the others. Now that I’m looking forward to my other writing I’m beginning to have the sense of opportunity, and the patience to say “what would be the most interesting choice, here?” That openness is new and freeing, but also comes with its own challenges in ‘deciding.’ I’m still wholly unprepared for whatever’s next, and that sounds wonderful.
The story, structure and narrative of The Wanting Mare is incredibly unique compared to the standard story structure in today’s filmmaking world, and every unique writer is known to have a process that makes them successful. What was your writing process like undertaking the films screenplay?
Around 2012 it was obviously a very different story, and I just carried the literal script with me as I moved around for years in constant hope of being ‘just about to make the film.’ Through that, the story just happened to change and grow as I did, and as I started to make a complete and conscious change into writing only within Anmaere, the story came along too. The Wanting Mare almost became my garden through moods and places and seasons; letting new ideas grow before dying and seeding the way for others, leaving me to arrange them as best as possible. While this sounds nice and romantic in retrospect, writing through it felt at times like a wrestling match that was incapable of ever deciding a winner. By the time we filmed it, I had a small novella of about 200 pages of prose and notes and character’s lives outside of the story, and a very very long screenplay.
Now that I’m getting some distance from it, I think that the way in which I was writing and wishing to make the film was to deal more in myth and archetype than the specifics of single characters or socio-economic structures. For better or worse the ideas seemed too big to me, too needing to be representative of the whole of what I wanted to express to get bogged down in the expositional details of the plot. In that way, anything but the core of the idea would age and fall off, leaving the story in single concentrated images. I wanted it to be alive again after all the rewriting, hopefully digging all the way down to something that was there at the core. In the end, I find myself happily confused at where some of it came from, why some of it stayed, and how it all grew into itself.
Were there any specific films or events that inspired you in the making of The Wanting Mare, and if so, in what way did they influence you?
The exterior influences on The Wanting Mare are about as varied as most debut-stories are; a complete mix of any and everything I’ve loved. However, its strongest influence is certainly Wuthering Heights. For me, Emily Bronte’s wild and unknowable masterpiece is one of the most astounding pieces of worldbuilding that I know. I consider the entire work to be a spell that she cast in the ground around her, transforming Yorkshire and imbuing the soil with something else entirely, whipping her up in the wind and taking it all away. She hasn’t created a far off place, she’s remade the only one in which she has. That is one of the most profound creative acts that I can imagine, and the reverent dedication with which she accomplished it was something that inspired me daily over the years.
Even in a more technical sense, I think she is transposing her feelings on the earth, personifying something that is incapable of expressing in language- the very texture of love- through trees and rain and ‘wuthering’ wind. The idea of this so filled and possessed me that it seemed to never age, her place and people seemed immune to repetition, constantly alive and confounding, living again on each reading. As a work of a Place, that is the highest hope. I can always return to Wuthering Heights- what a gift.
What was it like to work with Shane Carruth as an executive producer on this project?
Shane is the patron saint of filmmakers trying to make their films. His relentless dedication, his strength and courage to be committed to his own ideas is something that most of us can only do on the good days. He’s given me the greatest gift any artist of his caliber can give: he listened and cared and treated me like a peer. We made the movie with no money or real connection to the industry- no financing or producers or anything- so phoning Shane and showing him cuts and hearing him say “Keep Going!” was like receiving affirming radio communication from the only person with a map. His work is forever current, everything he’s made and everything he’ll make.
How did you go about creating the world of ANMAERE, both on the page and through it’s on-screen portrayal?
The city of Whithren is quite different than all of the other places within Anmaere. Whereas the others are a bit more developed with systems and governmental structures, economies and politics- Whithren is chiefly a place of heat and feeling. It is geographically sealed off from the rest of the world and my other stories, and I would hope that the feeling of being in Whithren incites ideas of what else happened in Whithren. The goal (both through our restriction of resource and the original intention) was to create a fantasy of suggestion, to literally force you to fill in the spaces of the story, and in so doing, create your own experience within the place and mood. Who raised him? Where in the city does he live? What was this room like when it was full of crowds and tables and clinking glasses? Are there huge herds of horses running? How are they trapping them? Where was she all this time? Who is her father? I have my own answers to these things, and I believe most are evident in the film, but I don’t believe they are exclusive truths. So, really I’m just trying to clean up for everyone else to move in.
I’m also really not trying to be obtuse, I’m genuinely just trying to invite you into a place that has the structure and cohesion for you to move around in your mind, to see a small alley behind Eirah and let yourself wander into it, to think up all these eras and people that are suggested and dream up all the things that have happened here that we obviously didn’t have the ability to make. I’d hate to ruin that experience with sign-posts and empty explanations and simple plot developments to just shuffle you through the ride for the first time.
Before directing The Wanting Mare, you worked as a VFX supervisor on many notable indie films (including the upcoming A24 Film Green Knight). How would you describe the experience of staging the majority of the scenes in an industrial warehouse compared to the practical real-world scenes?
I was actually never hired as a professional visual effects artist before we were a few years into The Wanting Mare. I had worked for free trying to teach myself vfx on numerous productions that didn’t have the budget for professionals, and did everything I could to try and catch up. It’s still very much the same though, right now I’m somehow working on The Green Knight and I’m googling and youtubing videos every morning.
The warehouse section of production which was the main share of the second chunk was actually quite wonderful. For us, it was the first time we’d ever been able to build any sets at all, and we got to do way more lighting and way more physically creative things. It does seem somewhat silly to look at the pictures, but at the time we were just overjoyed that someone gave us the time and room to build a little porch step. Mainly, I’m a theater kid, so this mode of working was really great for the actors. I think if we had been on a real cliff somewhere far off and only a few hours left and it’s cold and windy- all of that would have been great- but maybe not the same sort of hot sticky tired feeling of the movie. It was really quite wonderful and freeing. We didn’t even put marks down for the actors, so Ger Condez was operating the Movi Camera and David A. Ross and I were able to talk to him in his ear, choreographing the movements as the actors were performing while Gaffer/Producer/VFX Z. Scott Schaefer was pulling focus. It was really a joy, and we hope to do a much more expanded version of that in the future.
What are your opinions on entering the Hollywood system versus taking your time and making smaller micro-budget independent films?
I don’t really think too much about the difference of a preferred structure as much as I do about the ideas. I know I have a set of my own ideas that I am solely committed to and each of them have their own unique challenges. I would not be surprised if some of them are large enough that I’d need to go a more traditional studio route to get them accomplished- but that seems very exciting to me. As long as it is a continual challenge, everything has its advantages. The studio system is overflowing with incredible and dedicated professional artists, I’d be so very lucky to get to work with them and bring them into our core team.
What advice would you give to young filmmakers who are trying to get their ambitious projects made?
I have to admit that reading that question is very surreal for me, because it will be quite some time before I feel in any way outside of the category of “young filmmaker trying to get their ambitious projects made.” I can tell you that the sudden attention of the film has been astounding to me, and it is largely some of the first enthusiastic things we’ve heard about it. We’ve heard over and over from many types of people for many years the reasons why it would never work, and why it was never working. For the most part, I don’t believe anyone is naturally geared towards disliking work: so when people don’t respond to something- I’m always genuinely looking for what they’re not seeing. Obviously, you can’t change everything for everyone, but you can always listen- if you already know what you’re trying to make, listening to criticism can only help.
The only real piece of advice that I imagine I can have for anyone is to continue and continue at all costs. The only piece of pleading in that advice is to treat the people who work with you and for your ideas with grace and gratitude; it is their gifts that will make it so someone can ask you to give advice to other filmmakers one day.
What is next for Nicholas Ashe Bateman? Can you tell us about the next film you are planning to make?
I really have no interest in making anything outside of the world of Anmaere. Everything I can imagine wanting to do can be done over there, all the genres or periods that interest me always get funneled through that other history. That sounds like so much fun to me, and I really get excited about the idea of committing to one big canvas.
Currently, I have three films written that are complete and ready to go, and a big mound of concept design behind them. They mostly take place on different parts of the central continent of Levithen. While the people of Whithren (who have never really been to Levithen) consider it a mythical single city in constant winter, it’s actually just a very large continent with different climates and interacting cultures and people. So, the next film is a horror set in the far north. It’s quite rainy up there.
THE WANTING MARE is currently at CHATTANOOGA Film Festival. Read CLAPPER’s review here