Electrick Children: Rebecca Thomas Interview

• 9th Jul 2012

I had a chance to chat to Rebecca Thomas on her upcoming film, Electrick Children. This beautiful, sinister film about a mysterious pregnancy is a stunning directorial début for Rebecca Thomas and was funded using Kickstarter, an online forum where creatives post up projects and ask for funding from the public. The success of the film is testament to the fact that there is some incredible creative talent out there that just needs a little help in bringing their projects into the world.

Growing up as a Mormon has obviously really influenced the film. What were the similarities in the way you were bought up to Rachel’s conservative community?

Conservative Mormonisn and Mormonisn spring from the same source. When I was documenting Conservative Mormonism I couldn’t relate to the strict beliefs – but ideas about family and our purpose on earth are the same. I could have done the film with Mormonism, but it was such a dramatic setting and a dramatic story, that I couldn’t help myself!

You’ve made a film about what happens when your family turn their back on you, which looking at the films credits, seems like something you don’t have a lot of experience of!

Yes, my family is quite the opposite! I shot scenes in my parents’ house, my brother is my 2^nd Assistant Director, my sister did a lot of soundwork. That comes from Mormonism and how my parents raised us.

The film is beautiful and there is something so intimate about the locations, are they places that are well known to you?

Definitely, I wrote the screenplay with almost every location already in mind. Originally I had wanted to do the film for $20,000 so I was basically trying to get everything for free, which I did. One of the filming locations, Grafton, is a ghost town now and some of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid were filmed there, so that was really exciting. I’ve been hiking through the national park my whole life and I grew up in Las Vegas, so I knew all of those locations by heart.

I tracked you down on Kickstarter, which you used for some of your funding. What was your experience of trying to get funding?

Wow, you just have no idea. When you’re funding a movie like this and you have no idea if it’s going to be good or bad, you just have to really go for it. I just had this idea that I was going to make this story no matter what and I loved it so much. So I put up a Kickstarter page and through that we met Richard Neaustadter, who made a large donation. We got in contact and I asked if he wanted to read the script and he said that he’d donate the full $20,000 if we could make the film together, and I said yes.

That’s a great success story for Kickstarter as well as for you.

Yeah, well its great way of asking for funds in a way that’s very obvious. There are people out there who want to be artistic and this is a way for them to do that in way that allows individuals to be very supportive.

My favourite point of the film is where Rachel and Clyde are at the beach, not looking at each other and it’s so sad. Is there a point where Rachel comes to understand what’s happened to her?

I think by the end that her eyes have been opened. I believe that its going to take a long time for her to realise everything fully, but the weight of her having a child away from her family is beginning to dawn on her.

Julia Garner is just fantastic as Rachel, what were you looking for that she specifically had?

I have to tell you, I had a lot of trouble finding Rachel. I saw so many girls. I saw every Nickelodeon and Disney actress in Hollywood and New York! I couldn’t find a girl who felt fifteen and virginal and confident, but naïve. I also needed someone who we didn’t think was completely crazy. It wasn’t until 5-6 days before filming that I found her through another actor that I was auditioning.

So what’s next, with such an impressive debut I’m sure you’re getting a lot of interest of the back of this. Is there another page on Kickstarter yet?

Right now I’ve signed with an agency and am reading through a tonne of scripts. But I also have a couple of projects that I’m writing. One is a horror-thriller set in New York, and another is a post-apocalyptic mermaid movie (!). I spent about a year and a half in Japan and I love Japan, I’d love to go back and shoot something magical there!

Electrick Children is out on the 13^th July, I’d encourage you to go see it, especially at the cinema. It’s beautifully atmospheric and deserves a big screen.

Maliha Basak