All photos courtesy of Magnet Releasing. Samantha Wynden (Whitney Able) gears up for a trip through the infected zone.

When the apocalypse hits or aliens take over the movie versions of our world, it either looks like a dystopian, unrecognizable hell, or an extremely familiar place largely devoid of life. Because director Gareth Edwards is a BAFTA award-winning visual effects artist, it’s easy to assume that his feature film debut, Monsters, would be a garishly overdone, false-looking CG nightmare. But instead, the film eschews the typical imagery and expectations of its sci-fi genre, opting for the realistic version of what could happen if aliens were to proliferate on Earth.

With a $15,000 budget and a five-person crew (and only two lead cast members), Edwards shot a gorgeous yet simple-looking film thanks to his eye for cinematography, creative use of equipment and masterfully subtle CGI, as well a trip through Guatemala, Mexico and Belize, where the crew would shoot upon choosing each location and hire locals to act on the spot. Edwards shares his fascinating stories of the spontaneity, fun, creative thinking and mishaps that went into making “the world’s most realistic monster movie.”

The Monsters trailer.

Can you tell us the story about your experience with the fishermen, and how that inspired the way you would create Monsters?

I used to do visual effects for a living and was always looking for an idea for a low-budget film that I could afford to make with my own money if I had to. I was on holiday and watching these fishermen struggling to pull a fishing net out of the ocean. I wondered what was on the end of the net, and started to imagine filming it to see how hard it would be to replace it with some computer graphics, as if they had accidentally caught a giant sea monster or something.

The fishermen obviously could not see this sea monster, and so they carried on like this was an everyday experience, which I thought was really interesting. What kind of world is it where a dead monster with tentacles is considered “no big deal?” I started to explore the idea of creating a film that was set years after most monster movies normally end. The crude way to explain it is if Godzilla were like a 9/11 event, our film would be more like the war on terror. It’s happening the other side of the world, when people don’t care anymore, and they see it all the time on TV. I thought, “I’ve not seen that movie!” and figured it would be a great angle for my low-budget visual effects movie.

It is extremely compelling that you created this gorgeous film on such a low budget. What pushed you to just go for it, and how it was possible to make it so visually strong?

The biggest problem if you don’t have much money to make a film is that you have to shoot on video. Though recent advances in High Definition mean that you could film at the same resolution as a giant cinema screen (about 2,000 pixels wide), it still always looks “cheap.” When you shoot someone on film, then the background is beautifully out of focus and concentrates your eye on them. If you shoot someone on video, then everything is in focus and fighting for your attention, which I feel tends to make it look ugly. Yet, when you look through an SLR stills camera (like a Canon or Nikon) you see a beautiful image. Someone had the clever idea of just videoing through the viewfinder on a cheap SLR camera, and so for very little money you get a very sexy look, like with film. It was these 35mm adapters that only appeared over the last few years that changed everything. For the first time you can buy equipment for a few thousand pounds and make something that looks just like it was made with film equipment that usually costs hundreds of thousands of pounds.

The beautiful look of Monsters was made possible by Edwards’ expert CG skills, creative camera use and shoots on location in Guatemala, Belize and Mexico with minimal crew.

Monsters begins with very realistic disaster footage, rather than with an unimaginable, post-apocalyptic landscape typical of many sci-fi films. This anchors it in a reality that people have experienced, or at least seen in the news. Your mastery of CG could have led you in the opposite direction, so I wonder, what inspired you to take this route?

We had a mission statement that I wrote on the front of the story document, which said “The World’s Most Realistic Monster Movie.” I don’t believe we achieved that, but it was our guide. One thing I really wanted to see was all the realistic details that normally never get shown in big, Hollywood movies. Like, after a giant creature is destroyed in a city, who cleans up the mess? How do you dispose of a carcass that size? I filmed at waste disposal plants and everything. In the end, these details had to be cut out for time, but I still kept the scene with the firemen cleaning up in the rubble after a creature attack. I really get a kick out of things like that. Hitchcock once said, ‘Drama is life with all the boring bits taken out.’ I was really keen to add some boring bits back in, as that’s what “The World’s Most Realistic Monster Movie” would do.

Whitney Able (Sam) and Scoot McNairy (Andrew Kaulder) walk through the rubble in the aftermath of a creature situation.

Were some of the demolished buildings and rubble found locations already existing in that state? Or was it all CG?

There was a mix of both. We actually were on “hurricane watch” the summer before we flew out to Mexico. At one point in the film, we had to create a post-apocalyptic suburbia. Hurricane Ike had just hit Galveston, Texas, and we talked to their film council to check that it was OK to shoot there. Though the plan was to save time on CG, it wasn’t until it was blown up on the big screen that I noticed a freeway with a stream of cars in the background of one scene. It didn’t fit in with our story, so I had to paint them all out by hand. It’s the kind of visual effects I hate doing, as it feels like a lot of effort for no reward.

How did you create the adult creatures? Were they all CG?

Yeah they were. The real Aliens in Mexico are only 10 meters tall, and ours had to be 20 meters, so I had to CGI them! They were actually created in 3ds Max and Adobe After Effects. It took me a while to figure out how the hell to do them, especially the tentacles. The software has a plug-in for simulating rope, and one of the settings you can change is gravity, so I whacked it to zero, and hey, presto, the ropes suddenly undulated and moved like they were floating in water. That was a real break-through moment for me. You know your life is getting dull when you get excited about rope simulations.

The signs throughout the infected zone inspire anxiety and seem to play a pivotal role as a vehicle for ambiance and storytelling for this inexpensive film. Did you intend them to spark certain feelings and ideas in viewers?

All the signs were done in Photoshop. I’d just constantly film real signs on location and then figure out how to replace them with our “Infected Zone” warning signs later. I love the contrast between the beautiful locations and sometimes light-hearted moments and the ominous warning signs in the background about these giant aliens. I feel like that’s what it would really be like. If this situation were real, people would adjust and get on with their lives. But strangely, the more normal people act around these surreal things, the more scary it becomes.

McNairy in front of a wall depicting the creatures, which have become an accepted part of life.

One of the signs referred to fighting for “our world,” and the much exalted US border inspired mixed reactions among the characters at different points of the film. How did you approach the delicate balance of acknowledging the tumultuous political issues looming behind a trip like theirs, without being overt about it? Have you gotten any backlash yet?

Well spotted! Yeah, I think you can’t avoid the political issues that come when you make a film like this. But some of them are not as intended as others. I think we would have built a wall wherever we chose to film. For instance, if it was Australia then I think people would say “is it a comment on the way we treat Aborigines?” Or if it was England they’d say “Is this about Eastern European Immigrants?” So I think you can’t avoid that kind of issue. However, one idea I did consciously want to explore was the way the west behaves when tackling a threat to our countries. If you’re trying to wipe out a ‘monster’ because it kills people, is it worth it if you kill even more people by bombing it? or does it not matter because those people are not western? I think questions like that are important to raise, and with this film all I wanted to do was raise them. To go beyond that would become preachy, which I tried to avoid. I hope people can watch the film on various levels. But the last thing I wanted was to feel like it was preaching a message to anyone, I know I hate it when people do that to me. I think it’s best to just raise the questions and let the audience make their own minds up.

Actors McNairy and Able, who were already a couple when they joined Monsters, improvised in their acting and conversations throughout the film.

Was a lot of the character conversation improvised? What inspired the scene where the characters evade a dark moment with a conversation about practicing laughing?

A lot of the film was improvised. This was all part of the “realistic” approach we were trying to take. I find that when script writers have months to write something, it can become so perfect and clever, that it never actually sounds the way we talk in everyday life. One common problem is that in films, people always tell you how they feel. But I think in real-life people try really hard to hide how they feel. I think during the scene you’re refering to I liked the idea that the characters were trying to ignore their dark situation by changing the subject completely. Whitney (the actress) just came out with it from nowhere. I later asked her if she’d ever “practiced laughing”, because to be honest, it’s a bit weird. But then she reminded me she was an actress and practicing various emotions is what they do! But still, it’s still weird, but also one of the best lines in the film!

Director Gareth Edwards

What were your favorite experiences shooting on location?

The night we drank 20 tequilas and danced all night.

What were your least favorite location experiences?

The morning after we drank 20 tequilas and danced all night… I had my phone stolen and had to cancel all my credit cards.

What was the biggest lesson learned on your first feature that you will apply to the next one?

Be REALLY careful thinking up an idea that doesn’t fit perfectly into one genre category. Marketing people don’t like that. Some people on the internet don’t like that. It’s kind of the ultimate irony of filmmaking, is that if you’re a filmmaker of any worth, then surely you want to do something ‘different’, but if you do make something different, then how the hell do you explain it to people so that they understand what it is they’re getting before they buy it. At the end of the day, I guess you just have to make a film that you yourself would really like to see, then pray that there are enough people out there that are as warped as you are!

Visit the official Monsters website.
Read Flux’s interview with Monsters score composer Jon Hopkins.