Blake Robbins is an an actor and director whose latest film ‘The Scent of Rain and Lightning’ is releasing February 16th. In anticipation, we caught up with him and asked him about the film. Here’s what he had to say.
Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions about The Scent of Rain and Lightning, for That Moment In. I want to start with the source material. How did you come to the project and how closely did you feel you needed to be true the book?
Sure, thanks for your interest in our film. Co-writer and producer Casey Twenter reached out to me after seeing my first film, The Sublime and Beautiful, when he served a jury member for the Kansas City FilmFest. He and his partner Jeff Robison had already adapted the novel into a film script and early in the process it became apparent that part of the value I had to offer the team was an objectivity having not read Nancy wonderful book, which allowed me the creative space to simply respond to whether I thought the movie was working. I did this with Nancy’s blessing (Nancy Pickard wrote the NY Times Best Selling Novel that was our source material). I’ll add that when I was finished with the film completely and on the plane headed to our world premiere, I did, in fact, read the novel and was not surprised that I loved it.
READ MORE: Our Full Review of Blake Robbins The Scent of Rain and Lightning
WITH THAT IN MIND, can you talk about your creative process?
As you can tell from the unorthodox approach referenced in the last question this was not such a linear thing. Nancy and I did speak several times mostly about the creative inspiration for the book. How in these small towns when something like this happens they don’t always have access to the resources necessary and sometimes (more often than one would hope), the investigations zero in on the members in that community that are already suspect from previous behavior. She also shared with me that she was very interested in how the two kids on opposite sides of this tragedy might have this oddly similar experience, a connection of sorts. These became things that I got interested in creatively. I add that because Casey and Jeff had involved Nancy in the early stages of script development we had these fantastic characters, richly developed on the page, so the goal became to add great actors and let their creativity elevate the whole thing.
The story is a mystery at heart, told in two timelines. Any issues with keeping both these two plates spinning?
Absolutely, all stories have their specific challenges, which I try, the best I can to present to my team as opportunities. These two 3-day time periods spread apart by 12 years are profoundly and inexorably linked. They seemed to need to “dance” together, offering the opportunity to give both the audience and Jody (Maika Monroe’s character) what I thought would be the most compelling journey. It helped to have a brilliant editor in Lauren Clark to constantly play ideas back and forth off each other.
The movie has a very a large cast, almost an ensemble. What were some of the larger challenges in telling a story with so many characters?
One of the things I immediately fell in love with was the idea of doing an ensemble movie in the vain of something you’d see from past cinematic greats like George Stevens, Elia Kazan, John Ford…the fact that Nancy had gifted Casey and Jeff with these very real, fully flushed out characters the biggest challenge became picking and choosing which moments to keep and which had to go for the sake of story-telling. I’m still a tad heart-sick about some of the amazing scenes and performances that didn’t make the final version of the movie.
Has to be tough, AND Speaking of cast, you’ve got quite a great list of names, including some terrific women. Would love to hear your thoughts on working with them.
Yeah – thanks for acknowledging this cast. They are all actors that I have admired from afar, so to have them take a chance on me as a 2nd time director, and then fully throw themselves into these roles, it’s truly humbling. It’s no secret that working with actors is my absolute favorite part of movie making – not to say I don’t like the rest of it because I do. But actors are a special breed. It’s not an easy thing to do with one’s life, it’s not even easy once you’ve been cast to do what actors do to make a movie. I love them, and I’d do anything to help make their job just a little bit easier. I’d consider myself lucky to work with any of the actors in this movie again.
You create tremendous atmosphere in the movie. I really appreciate the patience and somber moments of stillness you use in telling the story. Tell me about your approach in keeping the balance between the beauty and brutality.
Ahhh, you’ve stumbled on a theme of mine – if a director that has made two films can have a theme? I think I’m actually a very hopeful person that’s made two movies that deal with the darker corners and recesses of human experience, but I believe we’re always surrounded by beauty even if the characters in these two stories can’t see it. I think more often than not it’s the little things, or simpler things that contain all this beauty. I don’t know if I can adequately describe how I look to maintain that balance, like a lot of creative impulse much of it comes from below the surface. One example might be that I love sounds they feel very profound to me and so I work with amazing production and post-production sound teams to tell the sonic story of these worlds. Those sounds are as critical to me as any word any actor might say. That feels like being in balance to me – to pay attention to that.
Many probably know you from your long acting career. Now that you’re behind the camera, what do you like about this new role?
Not sure quite how to answer this one – I think most actors, no matter the perceived level of “success” they reach, will always feel like an underdog. I sometimes say we are the kids in Junior High that had nobody to sit next to at lunch…if we’re lucky, we eventually learn that it’s okay, and we may even along the way start to find our tribe, others that felt similarly and probably still do. I love telling stories that resonate, to be able to set up my own lunch table and invite all these people to come sit with us and be welcomed, loved and appreciated – well it’s a remarkable turn of events for me.
This is your second film. Are you thinking of doing more? And if so, what’s next?
I am. At the moment I have two that could happen in the next year or so – but I’ll share that two years ago just prior to making The Scent of Rain & Lightning – I had two other films coming together and I was pretty sure one of them was going to be next – sometimes the universe has a better plan and I always want be open to that.
On our site, we dedicate a lot of content to great moments in movies and their impact on cinema. I’m wondering if there are any movie moments that have had impact or influence on your career?
Oh gosh so, so many to pull from but I’m going to do the unexpected and name just one – the final scene in Splendor in the Grass when Natalie Wood’s character gets all gussied up to visit Warren Beatty’s character on his farm but finds him married with kids and so she realizes that they are never going to be together. One of the most heartbreaking moments in cinema.