Posted in: Hulu, Movies, Quibi, TV | Tagged: dane dehaan, exclusive, hulu, interview, maika monroe, quibi, the stranger, Veena Sud

The Stranger Director Veena Sud on Formatting Quibi Series for Film

Writer-director Veena Sud spoke with Bleeding Cool about her crime thriller The Stranger and its journey from Quibi series to Hulu film.

Versatile artists like Veena Sud (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo) are always looking to challenge themselves to become part of the evolutionary process of how we see TV and film. As a writer, director, and producer, she's done that through her projects like Netflix's The Killing and Seven Seconds, the film The Salton Sea (2016). In 2018, Sudd joined several filmmakers in Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi, the platform, which was defunct in 2020, that was predicated on 10-minute episodes stretched across a season, and her contribution was The Stranger, which has since been recut to a feature and slated for release on Hulu. The story follows unassuming young rideshare driver Claire (Maika Monroe), who is thrown into her worst nightmare when a mysterious Hollywood Hills passenger, Carl (Dane DeHaan), enters her car. Suud spoke to Bleeding Cool about recalling Katzensberg's pitch, how her deal over copyright allowed for ownership, how flexible she became filming in portrait and landscape formats, casting, any reshoots for the film, and if she'll take her experience into her future work.

The Stanger: Writer-Director Veena Sud on Embracing Jeffrey Katzenberg's Quibi

Bleeding Cool: How did it feel like revisiting 'The Stranger' as a film after Quibi folded?

Suud: When I first met with Jeffrey to talk about the project and learn about Quibi, one of the first things that he said besides "Have fun" and "Go for broke with this new idea of a format," was "The artist will own the copyright of the work." That blew my mind because in the TV space, that never happens. Even though it's been a fight for a long time in the studio finance world. I was right in, and I also immediately started to think about if I own it; what can I do with it when the copyright license runs out? I mean when the Quibi license runs out of the material, which was two years and not a long amount of time. I created the show with the possibility to recut as a feature when that time came.

When you filmed everything for Quibi, was everything set for the film version of 'The Stranger' or did you have to assemble the cast and crew back to shoot new scenes?

No, it was designed to be able to use the existing footage. I planned for the normal case scenario, which would be there's no money, so [I asked myself], "How am I going to do this?" The way we shot it was physical, we allowed for the left and right hemispheres to exist. We had that footage. We had a full standard landscape format that we then cut into on set. We knew what it would look like in a film. We knew what it would look like in the vertical format on a phone. We had one monitor that was one for both, so we were able to move quickly. We were able to go back and forth and be like, "Is this okay? Is that okay?" The way the story was structured was a similar thing. It could exist as standalone acts, TV acts, ten-minute acts, or take away those breaks in between and out of that could be close enough to a three-act structure, shooting something, a story that takes place over 12 hours, creates a beginning in the middle and an end.

What challenges did it create for you to make it this flexible?

It was fun to think about the vertical format. That was fun and creative. To also think about the interactivity of a phone and how we have such a different relationship with our screens than we do with the TV screen or the movie screen. So that required a certain amount of…because our eyes are like this, we see this, right?

Right.

Naturally go like that, and to create interest and a feeling of a lot of space versus less space than we're used to, what we talked about a lot was from where I'm standing deep into the screen. Paul [Yee] and I started to call it Z-space instead of X, Y, or Z, even the screen. How do you continue to have the action move like that? That meant creating spaces where we're behind cameras or following her, or we push piles of candy closer to her, so you feel it on the edge of the [horizontal] frame, [and] the vertical frame. We're always looking for seats of the train vertical frame you're feeling. You're feeling movement if you see the one you know, but it's fun.

What it's like working with Maika, Dane, and the cast on set?

They were all amazing. The entire cast was amazing. Avan Jogia was such a great actor to work with. He and Maika's chemistry was fantastic and they were funny and had fun. We were shooting all night like this was an all-night shoot, so we would rise when everyone in LA was going home to sleep. We'd be out there at three in the morning, and you needed some joy to keep you awake, plus good late-night food. It was wonderful to work with all three of them, and they're all incredibly talented. They all queued in right away for the story and their characters. They're different types of actors so they needed different things from me, but it was always in the interest of how to deepen the character, how to tell a story, how to keep things moving on.

Did you feel like you had to rewire your brain as far as with the formats and everything, and regardless of Quibi's success, was it always going to be the intention to have that full feature available for audiences afterward?

Yeah, "rewire my brain" is exactly a perfect way to put it because you're thinking you're seeing something completely the opposite. You're usually seeing it, shooting overnight, and trying to stay awake. You're in the middle of who knows different parts of LA that are usually not seen on screen and so there's this constant. Again, because Jeffrey had said that at our first meeting, I tried to build as much as I possibly could with that feature, eventually, because I want to see I want to see Chinatown Plaza wide. I want to see Amtrak at the beautiful Union Station, and I want to see the things that I love in my town.

Have you talked to other creatives, who worked on the Quibi platform and what they learned from their experiences?

It was so fast and furious between the first meeting and shooting that and writing and proving that there wasn't a ton of time to do anything but that. I met with Catherine Hardwicke briefly about doing projects at the same time. We talked visually about what it feels like to look at the vertical versus the horizontal, but I did not have super extensive conversations. I talked a lot to my executives at Quibi and my crew, the cast, and the other creatives on the show.

Do you see yourself doing a future project like 'The Stranger' with the format you had for Quibi, or do you feel it was experimental?

If it arises, right? We're seriously, like, addicted to these [phones]. This is not going away. Quibi was a revolutionary way of thinking about things. I don't think it's the idea will die because we've got these things attached. They're going to be attached to our foreheads at some point. As a visual storyteller, how to touch an audience differently is always the question. How to say something differently than and not the same old shit like how we say things. One thing I loved about the idea of the vertical format, but also the phone idea, was in terms of scary things. When I first met with Jeffrey, he said, "Do whatever you want." I said, "Okay, what if, every episode because of the creepy ringtone that Dane DeHaan and his character, Carl has? He drops his message, and something creepy happens. Every human being on Earth, we have a visceral reaction when our phone rings and it's usually like dopamine because we're like, "Oh, yeah, I got a message." If you're being stalked by a lunatic who has a specific ringtone, every time it goes off, you're going to be freaked out. It's going to get worse and worse. What if every time an episode drops in our subscribers' phones, they hear that ringtone? What if we drop an episode every hour over the 12 hours of the story?

It's almost like you're following what's happening in real-time, and by mid-season, when you're freaked out already, and your body already understands that ringtone and what it means at 2:00 a.m., you get that ringtone while you're asleep. Here's a new episode and this creepy ringtone. Will people wake up, and will they watch?" Because we get addicted to TV. Will they start watching it? Will they fall asleep and then dream and wake up again like, "I couldn't do it." They were like, "That's way too invasive and weird," but maybe next time on another show. I like the idea of Not how to be invasive but how we interact differently with material. On our regular TVs, they're like, "Pick your ending," and that doesn't seem to work ever since we listen to our phones. We interact with them in a certain way. What if we already use whatever is baked into our psyches? That was interesting to me and if Jeffrey wants to do it again, I'd be there.

The Stranger is available to stream on Hulu.

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