TrueIndie Tuesday | An Interview with Walker Whited, Director of "By Night's End"
In By Night’s End, a couple struggles with marital and financial issues after moving into a new house. But when strangers begin showing up to collect something that was suspected of being hidden in the house before they moved in, the couple has to overcome their differences and work together to defend their home and survive the night.
I had the chance to speak with writer and director Walker Whited about the project, discussion the story, the characters, and the challenges that came with making this film happen.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Hey, everyone, Thomas here with ForReel Movie News And Reviews. And I'm joined today by Walker Whited, the director of the new home invasion thriller, By Nights End which is now streaming on demand. Walker, thank you so much for having this conversation with me. I'm excited about it.
Walker Whited
Yeah, thanks for having me.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Yeah, for sure. Um, I just want to start off by saying I had a lot of fun with this movie. It really was it - there's like a good amount of drama and action going on, and it's really an interesting and exciting kind of film.
Walker Whited
Cool. Thanks. Appreciate that.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Yeah, no, I really enjoyed it. Um, can you start off by telling us what the movie is about? You could probably explain it better than I can.
Walker Whited
Yeah, sure. So essentially, a couple that's kind of having marital issues and money issues and stuff, they wake up one night and there's a guy in the crawlspace. And they confront him - obviously, that's pretty creepy in general - they confront him and the wife, Heather, played by Michelle Rose - she's ex military, so she has a weapon in the house. She draws and the guy pulls a weapon on her, she shoots him and yeah, she kills the guy and they realize, you know, he's looking for something in the house and through some clues, he says they think it might be money. Since they're having issues, the husband Mark decides, what if we take an hour to search the house? We look around, we see if there's money, and then we call the cops, let's just wait a minute. So they do that, an hour pass, and then someone else shows up in the - or outside the house, also wanting to search for what's in their place. And it turns into this kind of cat and mouse affair between this crazy assailant outside and the couple inside. And it also kind of deals with, you know, their personal problems are going through their loss of a family member and past discretions and stuff. So.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Yeah, yeah. It's an intricate story and there's a lot going on with it, but it's fascinating to watch how everything kind of unfolds with this with this movie. So, I'm curious with so much going on with it. Where did the story come from? Like, what prompted you to write this movie and make it?
Walker Whited
That's funny, because when people ask me this it's funny, because the first thought I have is like, when I came up with the idea, which was - the house that we shot in is my house. At the time was my girlfriend's house, but now we're married, so that's also my house. And I was laying in bed one night, and it's like - the bedroom that you see in the movie is above the crawlspace and I thought, what if someone is in the crawlspace right now? And got up and started writing the beats down, just kind of came to me. But it also kind of came from this need to make a movie. You know in this industry, to make a movie have had to have made a movie? Or, yeah, if you go into like, PAing. And if you want to be a PA on a movie set, you have to have been a PA. It's like, well that doesn't really make sense. I mean, I guess it does for making movies. But so who's gonna give you the money? How are you going to make it happen? I've been trying to get money for movies for a while now. And it finally just came to this point where I was on a movie set camera operating and it was one of those, like, if they're doing this, why can't I do it moments, you know? And one night after set, I was laying in bed came up with that idea, like I said, and as we were on set, I would go to lunch and stuff and write the script. And like two weeks later, I think I had a draft. So.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
That's awesome. Yeah, I guess that's kind of cool that you, you know - it's kind of it kind of spawned from this, like real life kind of moment where you think what, what if? Right? And then you write it out. That's great. Most of the movie, I mean - as the title suggests, the movie is shot at night. And it happens over the course of an evening into the morning. What challenges did you experience in filming this film overall, and also filming at nighttime?
Walker Whited
I mean, a lot. So, you know, when we, when I decided to do the movie, I was just kind of writing it at first. And then one day I was with Jason, our producer, one of our producers, and he said I want to go out in the woods and just shoot something. You know, not really worry about how much money we have all that and I was like, Oh, hey, I've got this idea of in writing, By Night's End. And we can do that. You know, it's one location, it's in one house. It's over the course of one night will be easy, right? No, that was dumb. It's one location is really difficult. Part of - the most difficult thing for me was the monotony. Like, I love movie sets because, you know, every other day or so it's a different thing happening, or it's even a different location. This was different things happening, but it was always one location. So it was like, you know, we've been in this house and I live here set to sleep here. And you know, like, you know, I wrote here, I've been editing here, you know. So that was tough for me. But like Phillip talks about - our Director of Photography - he had to worry about how do you make one location look interesting, you know? In most movies, you go from the house to the beach, and then you come back to the house, it can look slightly different. But in this you go from the living room to the bedroom fact to the living room, it's got to look the exact same. So how do you kind of shoot this angle and shoot that angle and keep it interesting and looking different. So that was kind of a challenge of, you know, inserting specific shots and specific interesting like artistic shots or whatever you want to call it that kind of keep it interesting. So those are definitely challenges for me and him. And just a lot, I mean it's a tight quarters face, it's 1100 square foot house. So bathrooms, that was an issue that was challenging. You know, just keeping the crew in that space and happy and and having fun, which actually wasn't very hard. It turned out everyone had a lot of fun and it was a blast to work on.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
I mean that's important. If you have a good time making the movie then that's you know, that's what you aim for. And then obviously when it comes out as good of a movie as it did, that's always a bonus. So yeah, that's great. You know, talking about filming, I couldn't help but notice there was this like almost three minute one take of the the bad guys in the house. Kind of towards the end, not quite but towards the end and I am a huge fan of one-take shots and so I'm very sensitive to when they're happening, and they get really excited about that. I'm curious at the decision making process on - because I know you said you're trying to keep it interesting. But the decision making process on doing these longer shots in that particular, you know, nearly three minute shot, and also the challenges in coordinating that.
Walker Whited
There was kind of two thought processes when we did that oner which was, like, I had to wonder is essentially. The first shot in the movie is a little mini oner, and that one is a big three minute oner. And kind of the first thought process was, you know, commercially, we don't have name stars. And we don't have you know, name director all that. So we need to interest people in watching the movie. So it was like, well what if we drop these little things in like these wonders and stuff? Maybe that will interest the indie community and tone geeks and stuff. But then the other thought process was I wrote that oner into the script because I just like this idea of, you know, she's finally - it's that character moment where she's finally realizing like, okay, she's got to do this. And so, you know, it's her conscious and stuff. We're kind of her conscious moving around the house as she scouts we're seeing her military background really come in and she scouts and picks out, okay, here's what these guys are, here's what's going on. If I hide here and come out at this moment, I can strike I can, you know. So it was a mix of commercial thought and producer thinking and story thinking as well. And then - it was challenging. And we - Philip and I talked about that oner for a long time. We planned it - it had many different iterations. We walked around with different cameras, just trying to figure out what kind of camera to shoot on if it needed to be different, because obviously, it's pitch black and you know, we couldn't really hide that many lights anyway. Um, so we talked about a lot, and then we never got to practice it with everyone on the day we shot that and the crawlspace fight scene. So you know, once we got enough of the crawl fight, I was like, Alright, let's move into the water because it's gonna take a while. And you know, we walked everyone through it, because we're gonna do is how we're going to do it. And then we ran it about 12 times - not complete, but we did do 12 times 12 takes. And the last one, we got it AND on that day, we had a two hour lightning delay. So that was fun.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Oh, man, I mean, I did notice that in some of those - in that scene, it was it was raining, which I'm sure was was fun to work around.
Walker Whited
That was a whole other thing. It was - we shot three different blocks. So we'd shoot through four days over Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, take a break, Friday, Saturday, Sunday morning, but - because there was no budgets way to let people go back to work and do their own thing. But it was supposed to rain over all the blocks and then be sunny when we're on break, is what the forecast shows. Okay, let's embrace the rain, let's always make it rain. So anytime we're outside, we had hoses going, and we were trying to make it look like rain. And that was super challenging on that one. Because, you know, there are people on the roof trying to make it rain in spots, but we don't have the right equipment. So like, you know, we had to add some in post.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
No, that's great. And it worked. It was a really, really cool one-shot, I got really excited when I saw it. And I'm happy that you guys decided to make those creative choices.
Walker Whited
It's also one entire shot, there's no digital manipulation, there's no stitching.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
I was gonna ask about that, because there is a point where it gets really dark. And I'm like, I wonder if they cut it there.
Walker Whited
It literally was - I actually operated the oner. So I had to hand it off. That was the only hand off, I had to hand it off to someone else who could see to those tall windows and then they passed it back down. And we just kept it all We didn't have to cut it.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
That's incredible. Well done with that. I want to talk about the characters for a minute. You just - you mentioned Michelle rose playing Heather. I was a huge fan of her character. And I kind of wanted to discuss the dynamic between her and Kurt Yue who plays Mark - discuss the dynamic of their characters because it's interesting how, um, empowered I guess she is as as a character and how she uses that military background and it's such a strong component of her. And it really makes her kind of the stronger one of the two in the couple, in a sense, right? And I mean, that really goes to writing a strong female character in the movie and I was very impressed by that. Can you tell me how how you guys decided with this with this couple, you know what their dynamic was?
Walker Whited
That's a good question. I mean, I guess from the start, I never really thought about it being - her being male or female. So it was just always like, okay, she's just going to be the strong military lead. And I always knew like they both needed to have complications. You know, and it's not to say that PTSD, which is her - not problem, but her...the issue she's going through - while he is dealing with the issue of the loss of the family member. I never wanted to say one was greater than the other or one was worse than the other. It was really just that, like, both of them have issues they need to work through. And the main point was like, they need to be able to communicate about those things, and they need to - and I've never been to war, I don't have PTSD, but I'm very empathetic to those situations. So I really wanted to kind of show that empathy, where it's like, you know, again, neither one of those issues is bigger than the other. But I wanted, I just wanted it to be talked about that, what if we talked about these things? What if you communicated with your partner about these things? Could you - maybe not get through it - but could you find solace in each other? Yeah, but the dynamic between the two, I don't know if that answers what you're looking for.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
It actually does, because I think that's a great answer. The fact that you didn't have to think about it, I think that's what I appreciated about their characters is that it's so organic. She's, you know, she's the better decision maker. You know, I think she has the defense skills, and she is kind of, she's protecting the house. And he's there. He's supporting her. And like you said, they are trying to talk through the things that they're dealing with and work it out throughout the course of this movie, throughout the course of the story. But yeah, I do, like how you're explaining it, how organic, it was, like, this is just her character, she just happens to have these, you know, these particular skill sets. This is his character. You know, he has decision making faults. He's not the, you know, the most defensive person here I guess I appreciate that.
Walker Whited
And she struggles with it at first, but then that was the other thing. Like, she's got to slowly, like, come into it. We're at the beginning of the film, he's making the decisions, but they're not the best decisions. They're kind of bad decisions. And she's just kind of going along with it, which gets them into trouble. So then she's got to step in play and really unleash your military background and like, embrace it. And make the right decisions.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Yeah, absolutely. Let's move on to Moody, played by Michael Aaron Milligan. What a character. I'm very curious, because he kind of has this eccentric personality in this movie. And it's such a fresh take on a antagonist. You know, for this kind of one set, small confines kind of film. I'm wondering if that's how you always envisioned this character or the demeanor was something that Michael crafted for this role.
Walker Whited
I had no idea what I wanted this character to be. I literally said to my - to the costumer, Emily, I said, he's going to have a hat and he's going to have this kind of military slash modern, contemporary look to his wardrobe. And in the script, sometimes he was British, and sometimes you have Southern, and I didn't know which to stick with. So what I said to Milligan was I said, Look, I don't know where I want this guy to go. And I want you and I to figure it out. And I really want you to make him what you want him to be. Like in the script. He is titled The voice. His name isn't Moody in the script. I said, after we started going I said name this character, like, you've done all the work for him, name the character. So we would have long conversations about what he should be. So like, one of the things he talked about was, he probably goes to therapy when he is not doing crazy stuff. So like when you see his tics and he's like, correcting himself before he gets too angry. You know, there were things like that that we would kind of come up with or but there there's it so much of it is just Milligan making it up as we figured it out, like him turning and whistling for his people to to you know, shoot them shoot at them and they stopped and I was like, I didn't know you could whistle like that. He just kind of made it up and did it and had all these - or that scene where he's gone through the mail. You know, we had - we did that on set we had kind of established his character and he was a little wild. So what we were doing wasn't working as I said, we'll just rifle to their mailbox that seems fitting for this guy. So we did that you know. And then again, we got through a lot of it and I said name a character and he was like, I like the name Moody let's go with that. So.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Awesome. I'm happy to hear how much kind of creative control that Michael had over that just because what he did with it was so like I said was so fresh and entertaining to watch. Really he was a really fun antagonist for this movie.
Walker Whited
It's funny because as we were shooting like especially that back porch scene when they first meet him, a couple of us are going, "oh, I don't know if this is gonna work." And then we started putting it together like, oh, it does work.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Very cool. Um, you know, I'm interested - and maybe you touched on this before already kind of with the dynamic of the of the couple - but is there anything in particular that you want people to take away from this movie or anything that you were trying to communicate or intended the message for this movie to be?
Walker Whited
Yeah, it's funny in a lot of my writing, I think one of my main themes is just like communication. We just have so much issues with communication, and we can't talk to each other, especially nowadays, and like, especially in this like, political environment, it's hard for us to talk to each other. I think that's the main thing, if we can just talk about stuff calmly and efficiently like, we could, we can figure it all out. I think that was probably one of the main main things I was going for.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Awesome. And I think you nailed it. This was such a, like I said, a really fun movie to watch. Very entertaining. Interesting. So yeah, I'm excited for other people to see it. And, and Yeah, I think so that those are all the questions that I have. Was there anything that you wanted to say about the film or anything that you use any last words about this?
Walker Whited
Yeah, I guess I mean, so we shot - I haven't really been telling people this, but we really, we shot this movie for under $30,000. So hopefully people can learn that and go holy crap. Look what they did. That's like, my main thing right now is like, hey, look what we did for no money.
Thomas Stoneham-Judge
Well congratulations. That's that's quite the accomplishment. So awesome. All right, everyone. I'm gonna wrap this up. By Night's End is streaming now on demand. I'll be sure to post the links on where you can watch it. I strongly recommend it. And yeah, thanks Walker for for taking the time. I really appreciate it.
Walker Whited
Awesome. Thanks so much for having me.