Kena spoke with director and writer Tim van Dammen ahead of the screening of his film Mega Time Squad opening the 2018 Sydney Underground Film Festival.
“Kiwi-made comedy Mega Time Squad, is about your average guy John who decides to rob the money he just stole for his boss from his boss, but on the way finds a cute Chinese trinket he thinks will be a nice gift for Kelly, who he likes. Instead it turns out to be a time travel device, which also happens to multiply you every time you use it, and so John must work together – with himself, and the other versions of himself – to secure the money and not get killed by his boss. May sound complicated the way I tell it, but Mega Time Squad is a genius, HILARIOUS film.” – Kena
How did your film career begin?
I always mucked around as a kid with handi-cams and whatever, covering my GI Joes in plasticine and making stop-motion little movies with my sister and cousins. When I was in 5th form (14-15 years old) one of the English classes had a creative thing where you could make a film – so I made a film. And everyone liked it! I got a buzz off that, and thought, ‘yeah cool, I should make more of these…’.
I went through going to uni, and I was good at the sciences even though I didn’t like them. The career advisor suggested I apply to medical school and become a doctor. So I did that, but left after a year. All the stuff I was good at was stuff I didn’t enjoy, like organic chemistry and physics. It was just like doing algebra all the time, and I didn’t enjoy it very much. I liked the biology classes… I decided to leave, and I was looking at the film school in Auckland but instead I just looked at all the films coming out of there, and out of the art school. I decided to go to the art school instead because I thought that way better stuff was coming out of there (ELAM). So I went there, and I played in a band and lived in a flat above a café with twelve other people and it was just chaos the whole time. We started a band, and then the band got signed locally, and then the UK. We went from playing in the lounge at my place to playing big festivals in the UK!
Because I’d been doing video work for art galleries, I just started making our music videos. I made a bunch, and people seemed to like them and I started getting people asking me to make music videos for them. I ended up doing hundreds of music videos and at the end of that I was always with the idea that I wanted to make films. I had already made a couple of feature length films art school but they just sucked. I realised that they sucked because I didn’t know what I was doing. The great thing about music videos is that you can build a team of people you can work with and try heeeeeaps of stuff out. You can work out what you can pull off, and what’s your sensibilities, and get a handle of how to budget, run a set etc. I got a phone call to make a film, but it wasn’t really film and I don’t really count it as my first feature. Some guys had written Romeo and Juliet into like 58 songs and they wanted me to turn these 58 songs into a movie. I thought, ‘okay, why not, I’ll try that out’, and so I did that. It was… worth doing. I realised people were sending me scripts, but I didn’t really like any of them. And so I thought, ‘Damn it, I’m gonna have to learn how to write.’
I took a few years, moved in with my parents in the small town that Mega Time Squad is set in (Thames), worked at the local supermarket, and just wrote until I felt that I finally understood how to do it. How to turn an idea into a story and how to turn a story into something worth watching. Writing was so hard, man, it was hard to learn. So Mega Time Squad came out of that, and when I came to making it I looked at all my different projects and knew I wanted to make something for the genre circuit. I’m not interested in making an art film because I did so much of that at art school, and I feel like it’s better in a gallery than a cinema. Maybe that’s not a good thing to say but whatever. So I took that and thought about where I wanted it to play – Fantasia, Fright Fest… all these genre circuits. I chose it because it’s a genre film but it’s not a horror. Genre almost means horror now, so I thought maybe that’d give MTS a point of difference to everything else. So we just made it, the same way we’d made all the music videos! I just did all the effects work, directed it, wrote it, and it was the same team that’s worked on the music videos all these years. We just had a laugh and made it.
Where did the idea for Mega Time Squad come from?
It ended up the way it ended up because it went through so many iterations. Originally, I was thinking along the amateur approach you often get told – one location, three people, and a house, y’know? And that’s why everything ends up a horror movie. I knew from doing music videos that there’s a lot of value I can add to a project with the effects work that I do, so it would be cool to have a guy multiplying himself and getting in fights with himself. I wrote it first as a really dark-comedy-social-drama about a guy who goes back in time to help himself get through a breakup, but he jacks himself off, and then he’s like ‘gross, that was shit, I need to go back in time again and try to stop that’… So, he goes back in time to stop himself from doing it, and there’s this three-way argument between them all… ‘You can’t tell me what to do…’, and then he goes back in time again to stop them from all hating each other and it just keeps getting worse and worse.
It’s a cool idea but when you flesh it out there’s not enough there to make a feature. A short, maybe. Do I wanna spend a couple years making a wank movie? So I revisited the genre concept, thinking how I could make it bigger. What if he needs money and he uses the time travel to steal the money but then doesn’t want to share the money with himself? And that’s the source of conflict… I just mucked around with it, it had a thriller tone to start with, I rewrote it again, and added in the whole Chinese element into the plot to do with the demon and the gangstas, because that was in public talk at the time. Because I was in Thames, it made its way into the story. I think when you’re writing anything you need a strong sense of place – that’s what gets audiences to rewatch films – that sense of visiting a place. I watched an interview with Jerry Seinfeld and he said that Seinfeld wasn’t about being funny it was just about hanging out in someone’s apartment. That’s it! You create a hang out vibe and people will keep coming back.
What character do you most closely see yourself in, from MTS?
Kelly. She’s sorta like rough as guts, but also like ‘what the f*ck is going on around me?! All these people… what are they doing?’ Shelton is more like my Dad and his mates – that stupidity-with-confidence attitude. And then the main character John is some of my mates… complete lack of self-awareness. It’s all an amalgamation of people I grew up with.
Obviously, you are the Screenwriter and Director for MTS, are these your favourite roles in the filmmaking process?
I’ve learned to really enjoy writing. I used to really hate it, and really find it a painful grind. I think my favourite parts of filmmaking is probably the storyboarding, to be honest. When you’re thinking about how can I execute this scene in the best way. You’re problem-solving, you’re economising… you’re trying to get that feel across. That’s probably the funnest part. Followed by the execution – working with the actors and crew. That energy, I have an awesome time, I can’t stop laughing. It’s a really cool environment. Those are my favourite parts but writing is very close behind that. I try to separate writing from any visual imagination, and that’s been the hardest thing for me. Coming from directing and music videos, I think very visually. One of the hardest things is to not do that when you’re writing and write for story, character and emotion.
What was your favourite scene to shoot?
Hmmm… the funniest things to watch were the hardest things to shoot. The amount of coverage that I needed was crazy. I didn’t want to mess it up – I overwrote the script, it was huge! I was nervous that it wasn’t going to be good and the jokes weren’t going to be funny, so I wrote way more than I needed to, so that we could just keep the good bits. I won’t be doing that again. My favourite parts were when the actors just run with the scene. I really enjoyed when they capture John and take him to that abandoned plant barn or whatever it is? The cop and Shelton talk, and that scene went for 15 minutes originally. It’s just awesome when the actors take it and just go! They started talking about the ultimate mix of Sky TV channels that would create the perfect viewing experience, and it’s just so funny. I also liked the scene before they commit the first robbery where John and Gaz are just chilling in the car trying to be like cool robbers. Those sorts of banter-y scenes were the best.
Did you have to edit some of the profanities out of the cut for international release?
I never even thought about it, right? Because when I was writing the film, that’s just the way we talk, you know? (It’s our vocabulary!) I always forget that there’s this segment of society who find swearing aggressive. In my world, it’s not, that’s just how my family speaks… It wasn’t until the sound designer played it to his kids that he noticed. He said ‘ah there was quite a lot of swearing’ and I was like ‘ah yeah there is isn’t there.’ It wasn’t until we’d already done the mix, done everything! So it was interesting putting it out into the world. I think next time I need to not do that, just for market reasons. You want the most number of people to see this film that you’ve spent ages making, but when you have a lot of profanity (without realising it), it makes it difficult for Americans to get behind. They read different swear words in different ways? They think there’s certain values attached to certain words that there aren’t in Australia or New Zealand. There’s a sense of aggression, but it’s just a natural turn of phrase for us. It makes it more difficult to sell into non-English-speaking markets, because it’s hard to subtitle. You’re getting these phrases that are so specific and while it may be cosy for New Zealanders and Australians because it’s a familiar way to speak, it’s not the same anywhere else.
When I was writing it, one of the goals was to make the dialogue as Kiwi as possible, because I feel so often in New Zealand films we write dialogue that’s trying to sound American, and they’ll just throw in a couple of ‘mate’s and ‘bloody’ or ‘kia ora’, and it’s just gross, it’s not genuine. I wanted it to reflect more of how New Zealanders actually speak to each other. But now, if I’m going to do that exercise again (which I would like to because I like the way we speak) I will be more conscious to avoid as much profanity because I realise now it culls a big part of the market.
Have we got anything you’re currently working on to look forward to?
Yeah, a couple things actually! I’ve just finished a treatment for a film that’s unconfirmed whether I’m directing yet, but that’s another comedy which I didn’t write but thought was hilarious. Exactly my sensibilities in the kind of humour and absurdity that it is. I’m also excited about another film that I co-wrote that goes into production next year, which is more a psychological-horror-thriller, which is being directed by a good friend of mine. I personally have another film which I’ve written that I’m going to pitch on Friday! That’s another comedy, but it’s about a disillusioned, obese priest who finds a girl buried in his basement and he thinks she’s an angel because she’s been there for 200 years. He tries to use her as a tourist attraction in this small town. It goes crazy, I really like it because it’s mental. The story is a lot more complicated, but it’s satisfying in its strangeness. It goes places that you’re like ‘what the f*ck’… So that should be neat.
Look forward to seeing you at next year’s Underground Film Fest then!
Well I hope I have something finished in time! And more money…
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Catch Mega Time Squad at the 2018 Sydney Underground Film Fest! Tickets here: http://www.factorytheatre.com.au/events/2018/09/13/sydney-underground-film-festival-2018