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Exclusive Interview with Award-Winning Director\/Writer Aaron Mak<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam: Your recent horror film \u201cThe Seventh Month\u201d was inspired by Chinese Taoist cultural concepts and events. How did it move from concept to reality?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Mak:<\/strong> \u201cThe Seventh Month\u201d<\/em> began from an idea to bring Asian cultural\nsensibilities, particularly in Asian horror, into the Western setting. The\ninspiration was fuelled by an exploration into several classic Asian horror\nfilms that began surfacing in the early 2000s such as The Eye<\/em> (2002) and\nJu-On: The Grudge<\/em> (2002). I found that the scariest and most confronting\nelements of these films were the fact that they were backboned by established\ncultural beliefs in the supernatural, that have had a longstanding history in\nthe countries in which they were produced. The fear of such things to the\nviewers, particularly Asian audiences, are rooted in the idea that these ghosts\nand spirits are very real dangers that exist in our world. Belief in the\nsupernatural is what makes the threat feel real.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My goal for the short film was to bring the \u2018realness\u2019 of this kind of\ncultural supernatural lore into the Western world physically, by using Asian\ndiaspora who have migrated to a Western country as the vessel for these spirits\nto begin manifesting in this other domain. I was prompted by the question – how\nwould Western audiences react to direct encounters with a type of ghost (and\ncultural background) they were unfamiliar with in their familiar world. I\nwanted to further reinforce the idea of the \u201cfear of the unknown\u201d, on top of\nthe familiar suspense of being haunted by a spirit. This was why I wanted a\nsuburban setting, to reinforce the everyday element to the script, and create\nan environment that most people would let their guard down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam: Tell us about some of the main characters and the lead actors\nin the film. <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Mak:<\/strong> The three main characters of the short film are Alice, Bec and Chloe.\nAlice (played by Ashleigh Gray) is the protagonist – she is a curious,\nintroverted and somewhat naive individual, who essentially has the story unfold\nfrom her perspective. She is not a confrontational character, and would rather\nnot say anything in retaliation until she\u2019s sufficiently provoked. Bec (played\nby Aurora Lee) is mean, condescending, and a selfish individual. She only looks\nout for herself, and has a tendency to command and diminish those around her.\nChloe (played by Patrina Thi) is a bit of a passive, easily-swayed character,\nwhose family own the house in which the events of the film take place in. She\u2019s\nof Chinese heritage, but being a second generation Chinese-Australian, she has\na superficial understanding of her Chinese Taoist culture, but does not\npractice it like her family.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam: What was different about being in the director\u2019s chair this\ntime around?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Mak:<\/strong> To directly contrast this work with the previous project, \u201cCynation:\nGo Louie Go\u201d<\/em> (2018), I was actually able to sit in a director\u2019s chair,\nrather than running around the set. This project was much more contained in\nterms of space, where movement of the camera was minimal due to the confined\nnature of the house\u2019s interior. This meant that as the director, I was able to\nfocus more on the framing of scenes and scrutinise the use of shifts in focus\nand camera movement. I also had to consider a factor such as audio recording,\nwhich was not a major point of concern when working on the two music videos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It felt refreshing returning to my horror roots, and a script that took place within one location. The difference between this and my first short horror film, \u201cHouse Sitting\u201d <\/em>(2016) was the quality of filming gear that we had access to, making it easier to work in low-light situations. The way in which we worked with darkness, also helped create an environment for the actors to feel a real sense of suspense which really helped them convey their fear through their performances. Similar to \u201cHouse Sitting\u201d<\/em>, I opted to play the part of the ghost in this project, and it was on more than one occasion that I\u2019d look at my reflection in the mirror (in head to toe makeup) and admittedly freak myself out a little bit. The way I see it is – if I can scare myself, I\u2019ve got to be doing something right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam: We saw you in the LA Asians on <\/strong>Film Fest for Cynation<\/strong>\u2019s<\/strong> \u201c<\/strong>Go Louie Go<\/strong>\u201d\nMusic Video. Congrats on the Best Music Video Award win. How did you accomplish\nshooting the mv given the locations and the parkour involved? <\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Mak:<\/strong> Thank you, it was quite the honour to be accepted by the Asians on\nFilm Festival and receive awards for \u201cCynation: Go Louie Go\u201d. <\/em>At the\ntime, this music video was truly our most ambitious projects to date. The music\nvideo contained three shoot location (2 in Melbourne city, 1 in a music shop),\n97 shots, and to top it all off – we filmed the entire music video in a 15 hour\nday. It was well and truly an exhausting but incredibly rewarding experience.\nWe chose to film at Southbank and Chinatown – two locations that provided some\ninteresting opportunities to choreograph various parkour sequences, whilst also\ncapturing the spirit of Melbourne city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As part of wanting to capture the spirit of Melbourne, I looked\nclosely at architectural structures in the locations we wanted to film in, in\norder to visualise what a parkour chase sequence would look like. Our desire to\nincorporate parkour into this project was a desire to see a return of stunt\nwork to film, that was not simply created with stunt doubles, green screens and\nsafety harnesses. We were largely inspired by films such as District 13<\/em>\n(2004) and old Jackie Chan Hong Kong films.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We wanted the sensation of risk and danger to be conveyed to the\naudience, which was made possible by the daringness of our parkour artist and\nactor, Sam Carter (played Louie). He was an incredible person to work with due\nto his skill and willingness to experiment with various stunts. We wanted to\nhave a big climatic moment in the music video, where Louie makes a large\ndangerous jump over a large height in order to evade the boys. It was courtesy\nof Sam Carter who suggested a location in Southbank, in which he jumped off a\nbridge 38 feet from the ground, and landed onto a sculpture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n NY Glam: Go Louie Go also received an Official Selection at the IFFNY,\ncongrats. Tell us about what you set out to achieve with this music video. How\ndoes it differ from other music videos?<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Aaron Mak:<\/strong> Thank you so much, it\u2019s\nreally an incredible feeling to see Louie go all over the world and finally\nreach New York. The intention behind \u201cGo Louie Go<\/em>\u201d was to blend\nstylistic action elements with a layered narrative, in order to explore a wider\nsocial concept. Specifically – the nature of drug addiction and its prevalence\nin the music world, as well as the rest of society. We conveyed this idea\nthrough the way the band chases Louie (street slang for the drug,\n“speed”) through the city, despite never being able to catch him.\nHowever, the band eventually utilise the power of music to reject Louie from\ntheir lives and kick him out.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the beginning of my collaboration with the Australian rock band, Cynation, we\u2019ve set out to achieve the objective of telling stories that people often don\u2019t get exposure to and stories that make people think harder about the meaning behind the images and lyrics. At our core, honesty and a brutally raw attitude to life is a major driving force behind our approach to our respective crafts. Additionally, collaborating with Cynationhas been refreshing, as we collectively aim to subvert the mainstream association of music videos primarily being superficially flashy videos that simply visually dress songs, rather than add additional layers of meaning. Each of our music videos become an entity of its own, embracing a narrative structure in order to flesh out a story and message in order to have a creation where the visual and audial elements work together to form an uncanny harmony.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/nyglamour.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/auG83zZA-1024x684.jpeg\")