Interview: Jordon Prince-Wright on ‘Before Dawn’
Described as an epic retelling of one of Australia’s most extraordinary military victories, Jordon Prince-Wright‘s Before Dawn is a gripping, harrowing and surprisingly emotional tribute to a story that has rarely been told before. Starring Levi Miller (A Wrinkle In Time), Travis Jeffery (Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes), Myles Pollard (“Home and Away”), Tim Franklin (“Home and Away”), Jordan Dulieu (Everything in Between), introducing Peter Sullivan, with Ed Oxenbould (Wildlife) and Stephen Peacocke, the film is not only a haunting, bruising exploration of the costs of war, but also a moving character study of the countless young men who risked their lives to achieve said victory.
Before Dawn tells the poignant story of Jim (Miller), a young man who embarks on a harrowing journey from his isolated sheep farm in the Australian outback to the tumultuous western front of World War I. Driven by a deep sense of duty, he joins his fellow countrymen in the trenches. However, the brutal reality of war soon becomes apparent as he is thrust into the heart of relentless trench warfare. The film vividly depicts his struggle to survive amid the chaos and carnage of the battlefield. As Jim confronts the constant threat of death and the agonizing decisions required to preserve both his own life and that of his comrades, he is forced to grapple with the brutal realities of trench warfare, including a near-constant battle to keep himself alive—without leaving another man behind.
Prince-Wright’s fascination with this untold story was born out of a field trip he took to a museum when he was 15 years old, where he came across a number of diaries written by the soldiers who took part in the war. “One thing led to another and I got to read other diaries eventually,” he reveals. “The more that I read, the more I started to see the same events, but from different perspectives of different soldiers, different nurses. I was like, ‘Okay, these are quite remarkable events here,’ and then I started talking to people going all, ‘What do you know about WWI?’ A lot of people would come out with something like, ‘Yeah, Gallipoli,’ and I’d be like, ‘No, no, no, there’s actually more to WWI then Gallipoli. That was one of the driving forces [of me making this movie] and I kid you not, there was even some people that I would speak to that didn’t have much awareness of WWI. So that was that first initial spark to [make me] go, ‘This is a story that needs to be told because of the sacrifices of those men and women.’ But at the same time, I was just taken by those diary entries and how raw they were. I thought, ‘We’ve got to put this on the silver screen for the world to see.'”
And while the film is based on a true story, the main character of Jim Collins, expertly played by Levi Miller, is largely fictional, an amalgamation of several soldiers whose diaries Prince-Wright read in preparation for the film. Asked about his decision to center the film on a fictional character rather than one of the actual real-life people involved in the war, Prince-Wright says that, while they wanted to make the film as authentic as possible, they still wanted to make it an entertaining experience for the audience rather than simply a historical retelling. “We initially went into the process thinking, ‘Okay, this is this is a feature film. We’ve got to have that creative license,'” he says. “We’re not making a documentary here. We’re taking an audience on a journey, and we want them to go on that journey and walk out of the cinema and feel excited, upset, etc, you know? So that was the initial mindset. But the more we started to read the diaries, and the more we started storyboarding, the more we realized that what we were doing here was straight out of the diaries. It’s very authentic.”
With a bold, fearless approach to the filmmaking behind some of the more visceral scenes in the film, Prince-Wright says they tried to go for a practical approach when it came to the film’s battle scenes rather than rely on CGI or VFX to capture that element of this story. “If we were making the story authentic, then we wanted to make everything else as close as possible, as authentic as possible,” he elaborates. “Those that know me know that if I can stay away from CGI, then I will do it. If we can do the stuff for real, then we will do it. We got to blow up an entire hill! I wasn’t going to say no to actual explosives!”
“I guess the best way to put it is that I grew up watching Steve McQueen and John Wayne movies,” he says. “I’m only 28 but my old man used to get black and white movies for us to watch together. I used to sit there and watch all the behind-the-scenes footage and what fascinated me was how they made the film. So for me, it was like, ‘Okay, if we’re going to make this film or any film that I’ve done, I want to be able to make it in such a way that in 20, 30, 50 years from now, you can still sit there and watch it without feeling like the CGI is outdated or the animation is outdated.’ We wanted to make this film to raise awareness and educate people so we want it to have such a long life. So being able to do everything authentically, from the pyrotechnics and then right down to little things like the uniforms was very important for us. We had at one stage, I think, nine historians on set. It was quite interesting because sometimes we’d have nine different opinions and we had to go, ‘Okay, well actually, what’s best for the story here,’ and make a decision based on that.”
Prince-Wright made sure to capture the battle scenes as viscerally and authentically as possible; so much so that he even ended up unwittingly causing an earthquake in the small Western Australian town of Esperance, where most of the filming took place. “For the Hindenburg barrage, when they’re all charging up the hill, [that scene caused an earthquake that was] 2.7 or 2.8 on the Richter Scale,” he reveals. “It was good six to eight months worth of planning. We knew it was going to be big, we had all the correct authorities on standby. We press the button and then all the charging and everything happens. And then we got the phone call. It was the Bureau of Meteorology asking, ‘By any chance, was that you guys at 7:27am?’ Yeah, that was us! We just caused an earthquake!”
In addition to making sure to capture the authenticity of the actual events that took place, Prince-Wright also worked hard throughout the casting process of the film, assembling a team of actors that were as dedicated as him in bringing this unforgettable true story to the world. “As a director, I’m a strong believer that if you cast correctly, half of your job is done,” he explains. “And then the other half is pulling out that performance from those actors that you need. We did auditions and then we also did callbacks. There were a lot of Skype or Zoom calls with the actors because I needed to know if I could get along with them. Because if I can get along with them really well and we’re going to be friends, I’m going to be able to pull out the performances I need. But also, this is going to be the hardest thing I and they have ever done because it’s real rain. It’s freezing. We shot in the wettest, coldest winter on record in the area that we shot in. So when we say we were freezing, at times I had four or five layers on and they were just there in the uniforms shaking. The first few days, they all had on thermals, and then they realized they weren’t getting the performance they wanted, so they took the thermals off to try to get as close to the characters as they needed. I take my hat off to them because that shows you that passion that they had. But yeah, it was a good six months worth of casting, and then once we got the casting, then we did some various rehearsals the first day on set absolutely hammered down with rain. That’s when I realized that this is how this shoot was going to go. It’s not going to be an easy shoot but we were in it for the long run.” Despite the unforgiving weather conditions, both the cast and the crew had a pleasant enough time working on the film that they’ve already reached out to Prince-Wright, hoping to also be involved in his next project. “A lot of them have pretty much been knocking on the door going, ‘Let’s get on with the next one,'” he reveals. “So yes, it’s quite exciting!”
Before Dawn is now playing in theaters and is also available on digital. Purchase or rent here.
Ahmad W.
Aspiring critic and poster designer.