Home > The M.O. > Archives > 2007 > September > 06 > Entry
Interview: Michael Davis, director of ‘Shoot ‘Em Up’
Tell me about your original animation concept and how the movie initially came to life.
It was very helpful for me to figure out the rhythms, when I needed to up the suspense, or have the clever moment. It’s literally shot for shot what was in the movie. And it became a great tool not only for me to sell the project to the studio, ‘cause they could see what they were getting, but then the actor could see, you know, Clive said, “Oh my god, this guy’s got it figured out.”
Was this the first time anyone had ever brought this type of treatment to the studio or actors?
I don’t think anybody else has ever done anything like this. I think that there’s 3-D animation programs, but the actual hand-drawn which I did myself, which is laborious, I don’t think they’ve ever seen before.
It seems like a long way from Parsons to “Shoot ‘Em Up,” but I guess the animation you used to sell the project is the intermediary of sorts.
I was actually doing animated cartoon when I was in sixth grade. My teacher gave me Super-8 camera and I was doing little animations through junior high and high school.
Now that you have “Shoot ‘Em Up” in the can and can show it to studios, I guess you won’t be needing to use animation again to sell movies to the studios, or is it something you’d want to stick with in order to get a vision for the film?
I think it helped me - forced me - to see the movie in more clarity. And also, I was able to test ideas out. There was a certain sort of Loony Tunes, sort of violent action quality to it, and I can see the rhythms better than if I just did drawn storyboards. You could see, “Oh you know what? It needs something more specific; it needs to be more energized.” It makes the editorial part of it snap. I think the animation helped me; I’m sort of somebody who believes in karma, and I don’t wanna cut corners, so I’m planning on the next movie doing the animation. But what I’m hoping to do is hire someone to help me. (laughs)
There are quite a few references to John Woo’s “Hard Boiled,” along with nods to Sergio Leone and James Bond. It’s kind of a movie for cinephiles in some ways, although almost any movie will have those kind of allusions, but how do you keep the winks to the cinephiles without losing the general moviegoer?
I think because the movie works if you don’t know the references at all. I mean, I’ll go see a Tarantino movie and hardly see one percent of the references. The movie needs to stand on its own, and in “Shoot ‘Em Up,” you’ve got this new kind of action hero who’s the ultimate underdog; he’s the homeless hero. But he has the moral certitude. Any injustice in life, whether it’s somebody driving a car badly, he corrects the situation. So I think he’s very identifiable. I think everybody in life, they go and they say, “Oh, I hate the guy who just took that handicap parking spot; I wish I could do something about it.” And it’s kind of a wish fulfillment. Here’s this guy when anybody out there is kind of a jerk, he punches them.
And if they have a gauche trucker mud-flap girl earring, he can shoot it off…
Yea, or bad toenails. Or whatever. And I think people all of a sudden, in a larger than life mythic hero, if they can find every day traits in him that they can seem themselves in him. Or a wish fulfillment - I wish I’d handled that situation that way. This angriest man in the world, meeting out justice, they like. So I think they don’t have to get any of the references in the movie because he’s an identifiable character. And then I’m giving them the eye candy - the fun action sequences. I don’t think they need to see any of the winks in the movie.
You mentioned Mr. Smith getting a second chance. If you go back to the films you were making before, this one kind of seems like a stark departure. Is there a way in which you see this movie as a second chance for you?
That’s so funny; I never really thought about Mr. Smith getting a second chance, and I getting a second chance at my career. I was about to drop out of the film business because I was making these low-budget indie teen romantic comedies and not paying the bills with what I was getting paid. And a lot of people on the internet would say, “Well, how is this guy who does these romantic comedies doing a big action movie? He’s not the guy.” And the thing that I’d like these people to understand is that it’s really, really hard to get a chance to make a movie, any kind of movie. Once you make a movie in one genre, that’s what people want to typecast you as. And it felt so hard to get any movie made. Well, if somebody wants me to make another romantic comedy, hey, I love making movies. I’ll just keep doing that. But I had written spec scripts with action heroes prior to that, but nobody’s going to give me, with no track record, a chance. So you take what you can get and you sort of go with the momentum of your career. Don’t fight the current.
But, as I said, back in sixth grade, I was writing and loving James Bond and you just need to find a way. I also feel like “Shoot ‘Em Up” is a better movie because I made these independent movies because they all were sort of quirky and a little bit off beat. I had some weird characters in there and everybody sees (names) and they go, “That’s a Michael Davis movie. I don’t know what it is, but the way you have those buddy characters talking or the way you have a little bit of a sexual frankness, there’s a specific voice” And as much as “Shoot ‘Em Up” conforms to the action genre — I’m giving you the big action set pieces, I’m giving you the mythic hero, but I’m twisting it. You’ve never seen an action hero eat a carrot. You’ve never seen an action hero who gets so angry at the way somebody is sipping their coffee.
I feel like my voice and my personality is coming through. I have an indie film voice that’s coming through in a big studio movie. And I think that makes it more fun and much fresher than the standard genre fare. The indie film experience informed “Shoot ‘Em Up.” But I’m really pleased how you talked about the second chance. I was this angry guy when I was thinking about getting out of the business. There was a time when I was at the mechanics, and I wasn’t getting any attention, and I had this tire iron, and I started yelling, and they immediately fixed my tire, and my wife said, “You’re not angry about this tire thing, you’re angry about this bigger thing in your life.” And I put that anger into the character of Clive Owen.
I understand that Clive worked a lot with you almost in a sense of being a writing partner to a degree. Clive gives such a nuanced a realistic performance in such an exuberant and over-the-top setting, it seems the movie would be hard to be pulled off as well as it was without him. How did you get him, and was he your first choice from the outset?
First off, Clive Owen, of any actor in the entire world, he was my first choice. I’d seen him in Croupier. Have you seen him in these BMW shorts? He looks so cool in those as the action hero. I knew I wanted him, and I felt the movie needed a fresh action star, someone who we hadn’t seen. And the world had wanted to see Clive as an action hero. You got a taste of it in “Sin City,” and everyone had wanted to see him be Bond. So he was my number one choice. and luckily he was the studio’s number one choice. So we sent him the script, we sent him the animation. They sent the Ain’t It Cool News article about the animation to him. Somewhere buried in there Harry said, “You know who’d be cool in this is Clive Owen.” So, I think maybe the public appeal of the desire to see him maybe helped him. Then the next thing was Clive’s biggest fear was he’s got all this action in there, and wondered “Could Michael pull this off?” And I had drinks with him, and I was all excited and showed him the animation and had all my answers. And he decided I knew what I was doing. Here’s a guy, everybody wanted him. He’s worked with Spike Lee, Alfonso Cuaron, and I’m nobody. How’s he gonna pick me at the point where he can pick anybody?
Do you ever stop and pinch yourself and think,”Wow, is this really happening?”
Right now. I’ll do it right now. (pinches self) I’m still doing it. I walk and see the posters and I can’t believe that it’s happening to me.
To view Davis’s original animation that helped him to pitch the movie to New Line and Owen, click here.
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