London Film Academy recently welcomed BAFTA-winning filmmaker Babak Anvari for a masterclass with our BA6 Filmmaking students, following a screening of his recent ticking-clock thriller Hallow Road.
The film stars Academy Award-nominee Rosamund Pike and Emmy-winner Matthew Rhys, who play parents Maddie and Frank as they race against time to reach their daughter at the scene of a car crash in the woods. Hallow Road released earlier this year to strong reviews and left a lasting impression on LFA students at the screening.
Shortly after the film, eagle-eyed students were quick to quiz Anvari on the methods behind his filmmaking – and the director was all ears.
Differing approaches to writing and directing
One of the key questions was about Anvari’s approach as a writer, versus as a director. Anvari wrote and directed his first three films, including his debut feature Under the Shadow, for which Anvari scooped up the BAFTA Award for ‘Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer’. However, for Hallow Road, he served only as director and was working to bring a screenplay by William Gillies to life onscreen.
When asked what his personal process is like for writing, and whether he sticks to a set structure or follows his intuition, Anvari said:
His approach differs for directing, however, at least in the early stages of development:
This mentality was applied to Hallow Road, which Anvari shared had just a 17-day shoot and only one week of rehearsal time. This beat his personal record from his first film, which took 20 days – a point of pride for the British-Iranian filmmaker.
Anvari added that he was lucky to have such team players onscreen, as well as off:
The methods behind Hallow Road
The evidence is onscreen, with Hallow Road proving an intensely claustrophobic and, at times, psychedelic experience. Anvari deploys a wide variety of techniques to visualise the imaginary, as Maddie and Frank descend deeper into the forest – and their shared state of hysteria – as they try to find their daughter.
The intense close-ups and hallucinatory visuals were realised by Anvari in collaboration with his longtime cinematographer Kit Fraser, whom he met in film school and remained firm friends with.
Describing how much he values their partnership and friendship to our BA Filmmaking students, Anvari said:
One aspect of on-set collaboration that Anvari appreciates being on the same wavelength as his crew on is establishing tone right from the get-go and sowing that into every aspect of their craft during the filmmaking process:
Nowhere was the need for establishing tone – as well as undertaking rigid rehearsal – clearer than in the film’s sixth scene, the car scene, which is 55 pages and comprises almost the entire film. Anvari made clear his desire to start off grounded, only to slide further into the “expressionistic and fantastical” as the scene plays out.
Crucially, Anvari made sure not to overdo it, working closely with his editor Laura Jennings (Edge of Tomorrow, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) to strike the right balance:
Anvari left LFA students with some practical advice, stemming from his time working at MTV for several years while he sought to get his filmmaking career off the ground. The director implores students and young filmmakers to throw themselves into any opportunity that comes their way, regardless of how detached from film and TV it may seem at first. Anvari said:
We’d like to thank Babak Anvari for coming in and sharing his film wisdom with LFA’s BA Filmmaking students, and for doing so with such infectious enthusiasm and energy.