Collider Interview With David Slade for Eclipse DVD
Posted on 30. Nov, 2010 by Amanda31 in News
Collider was one of various media outlets that had the chance to talk with Eclipse Director David Slade in advance of the December 4 DVD release:
Earlier today, Collider had the opportunity to do an exclusive interview with director David Slade, in which he talked about all of the special features and extras that even the most hardcore fans are sure to enjoy, how every aspect of making the film was daunting, that one of his favorite scenes was the kitchen scene between Bella (Kristen Stewart) and Charlie (Billy Burke), and how he doesn’t judge a film by it’s financial or critical success, but rather how closely it achieves his original vision. He also said that he’s currently narrowing down what he’s going to be working on next, and that all of his choices are very different from his previous work.
… Do you feel it was a help or a hindrance with Eclipse that the cast had already been together for two previous films?
SLADE: It was a bit of both. Yes, there is something absolutely wonderful to build upon because they’ve done it before. But, the way it worked for me was that I met each actor individually and asked, quite honestly, what worked and what didn’t work, so we could excise what didn’t work and build upon what worked. And with so little time to shoot the film, and pressures of the schedule and weather, and all the rest of it, it certainly wouldn’t have been as successful, had they not been through this before. But, to an extent, this is also the most mature of the films so far, so there wasn’t too much to be done to look backwards. It was mainly, essentially a process of growing forwards from where they came from. But, it’s good to know where you’ve come from.
Was it fun, as a filmmaker, to get to show some of the characters’ backstories and bring that new aspect to the story?
SLADE: Yeah, I actually spent the most time, when I was reading the book, really researching and going back and re-reading the stuff like Jasper’s (Jackson Rathbone) backstory and Rosalie’s (Nikki Reed) story. Those are the ones that I actually had the most fun reading in the book as well. At a certain point, I remember that there was theoretical talk about cutting one or another of those scenes out because they weren’t essentially that critical to the main three characters’ story, but we kept them all and they were really fun. It’s one of those things, when you have a novel and you have source material, where you can actually really go and explore that stuff. You’re not actually pulling it out of your own ass. You’re actually referencing something. That’s as close as you get to doing historical drama without doing historical drama. And we had Stephenie [Meyer] there all the time, so even if it wasn’t clear in the novel, she would always have such a clear picture of this world and this universe, and she can answer any question. You could ask her a year apart and it will be the same answer she gives you, every time.
You can read the full Q&A here.
