Interview: Martin Wilson on ‘Great White’
Great White, the latest film from Australian director Martin Wilson, is an intense, brutal, no-holds-barred exercise in tense and atmospheric genre filmmaking. Set in the fictional Hell’s Reef, Great White follows retired marine biologist Charlie, his girlfriend Kaz and their friend Benny as they struggle to keep their small seaplane business afloat. Their luck begins to turn when they are commissioned by high-flying holidaymakers, Joji and Michelle, who want to spend the day on a remote sandy beach. What they thought would be a smooth and steady day trip soon turns into a nightmare when disaster strikes and the team find themselves trapped in a flimsy inflatable lifeboat with limited supplies. To make matters worse, as they drift aimlessly throughout the deep, dark channels of the vast ocean, they soon come to realize that they are not alone: a massive great white shark is hot on their trail and it will stop at nothing until it devours them one by one. We recently had the chance to speak to Wilson about everything from his favorite shark movie to the struggles of filming in the ocean. Check out the interview below:
Film Updates: What is your favorite shark movie?
Martin Wilson: It’s a really easy one. I mean, obviously, one of my favorite movies of all time is jaws. It’s a timeless classic in every aspect. The characters, the action and suspense, and of course, the iconic music; it’s an amazing film.
Film Updates: Were there any specific films that you were inspired by when you were making this movie?
Martin Wilson: John Carpenter’s The Thing, James Cameron’s Aliens, and of course, Ridley Scott’s Alien. These films are all about what you don’t see. It’s what’s around the corner. It’s what’s lurking underneath, just the suspense of all of that. So I guess what I was trying to do with Great White was to emphasize the beauty of the beguiling sort of landscape of Northern Australia, that tropical landscape where the water is so beguiling and beautiful, but what’s lurking beneath the water? What’s out there? That sort of tension that we wanted to maintain through the film was a key component in the movies I mentioned. These are the films that you always trying to absorb and emulate by following the techniques of these amazing, great filmmakers.
Film Updates: A bulk of this movie is filmed in the water. What was that process like for you and the crew? Did you face any specific challenges?
Martin Wilson: They tell you not to film with children or animals but they never tell you not to film in water! So many challenges! You’re out in the open, against the elements. You’ve got the tides, the wind. In Australia, the sun is very, very brutal. You’ve got stingrays and jellyfish in the water. So there’s all these challenges when you’re filming in the ocean, but then when you go inside to film in a tank, you’re faced with a different set of challenges. You’re working in claustrophobic environments that require actors to hold their breath, surrounded by divers and the safety elements of all of that. In general, just shooting is water is a whole new ball game. It’s a really tough endeavor.
Film Updates: When it comes to the VFX, some of it was practical and some of it was CGI. What was the process of coming up with that like for you and for the crew? Can you walk us through it?
Martin Wilson: It’s all about working from the script, and what you can achieve with working with the animatronics and combining that with some CGI elements. We had to sort of put it all together, piece it all together, like a big jigsaw puzzle. We were trying our best to make them work in a seamless fashion. It was certainly a huge exercise trying to get all these moving parts to come together seemlessly. It was definitely a challenge.
Film Updates: Speaking of the sharks, did you do any sort of research regarding their biology before production actually started?
Martin Wilson: We definitely did a lot of research, because there’s information given in the film about the sharks, their feeding habits and the environment that they live in, and that’s all true. We wanted it to be as accurate as possible. We didn’t want the sharks to just be these villains, these monsters, you know? We wanted to actually have them working or behaving in this sort of way because of what humans have done to the ocean and the environment. There’s a scene where Joji throws a plastic water bottle into the water carelessly. That’s a small example, without whacking people over the head, that there is an environmental element to the film. And Charlie does talk about that. How their seasons have been disrupted by what’s going on in the water, and what’s going on in the world and in the environment. So the sharks were like the avenging angels of the water or the ocean in a sense. And we emphasized that through the sound design as well. We used the cry of a whale. It’s very, very sad. It has a very ethereal tone to it, and we were using that to act as sort of the cry of the ocean, the pain of the ocean.
Film Updates: You’ve assembled such a fantastic cast here. What was the casting process like? How did you manage to get these amazing actors involved?
Martin Wilson: Well, it’s interesting because this is a very demanding shoot in terms of physicality, with diving, swimming and holding your breath. So firstly, we were looking at actors that would embrace the genre and embrace what they had to do [in the film]. Katrina [Bowden] was sent the script and she really connected with it. When someone does that and has such a wonderful attitude, then it becomes a very easy decision. Aaron Jakubenko was in a series in Australia where he had to do a lot of diving, a lot of swimming, so he had that on his side. He also sent in a very tremendous test tape. He has an incredible attitude. He’s a really nice, easygoing guy. I just knew that he would be able to guide the other actors and be a wonderful leader amongst them.
Great White will be released in theaters and on VOD on July 16, 2021.