Adam Green Reaches New Heights With Frozen

by Jennifer M. Wood | Published February 9, 2010

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AG: Well, the first thing that always comes up on an independent movie is, “Well, why don’t we shoot digital or on the RED [ONE digital camera]? We’ll save money.” But In these types of weather conditions, I did not want to be standing there, waiting for the camera to initialize and all these weird technical problems happening. I know these cameras are getting better, and I actually just shot Hatchet 2 with the RED, but whenever I was around one, it was always too hot or too cold and the camera was acting funny. So the only thing that I trusted was the old-fashioned, 35mm film. We didn’t really have to do anything too special for the cameras, because they can hold up in cold. It was just keeping the film at a certain temperature above freezing, so it didn’t get brittle and crack. That was definitely hard. All we had to do was put hand-warmers around the canisters and it worked.

MM: The film has a pretty simple set-up: Three college students stuck on a ski lift. They have a week before it opens back up. How do you keep the suspense going for an hour and a half, when that’s sort of the basis of the story?

AG: Well, in writing it, the first thing you need to realize is that as cool as the set pieces are and these suspenseful moments are, that all has to be secondary to the characters and their story. So, by making the dynamic two people who didn’t really know each other that well yet, and their being joined together by somebody that they both know very well… that really gave me so many places to go with it. It made it very unique in that way. It wasn’t three friends; it was two strangers and one person who knows them both better than anybody. When I wrote the characters, I sort of figured out how I wanted them to end up being and then worked my way backwards, so they could each have their own very big arc and be a different person than in the beginning. And that’s been something that’s really paid off almost more than anything, practically. All the mainstream reviews we’ve gotten, I never would’ve imagined a genre movie getting reviews like this. The fact that people appreciate the characters and the dialogue and recognize the performances… you normally don’t see that in reviews for a thriller or horror movie. Usually, it’s all about “Was it scary?” So I’m very proud of that.

MM: Can you talk a little bit about how you worked with your actors? Their scenes are played out in a very stationary way—being stuck in a ski lift, they don’t have the freedom of physicality to fall back on. So how were your conversations with your actors on Frozen different than on previous films?

AG: Well, with this one, because I couldn’t actually ever take them aside, they had to understand from the get-go that I would have to be speaking to all three of them at once, every time. That’s very hard for an actor, because a lot of them get defensive when they’re getting direction—and now they have to do it in front of everybody. So, thankfully, there were no egos on this. There was just a walkie-talkie in Shawn Ashmore’s coat and I just had to speak freely to whoever I had to speak to, and they all had to hear it.

One of the things we did right was that I don’t like to rehearse. I like to have lots of meetings before shooting, where we talk through each scene and hear what their ideas are and choices they want to make, and they can ask questions and argue with me about words and lines. So, by the time we get out there, everything is so thought out. One thing I did differently with Frozen was that I gave them each different backstories and they weren’t allowed to talk to teach other about it, and that made for very subtle things between them in their performances.

For instance, I told Kevin Zegers that his character was probably going to break up with Emma Bell’s character by the end of the day, because he was trying to integrate her with his friend and it wasn’t really working. And then I told Emma that he’s probably going to marry you, because now he’s finally bringing you around his friend. And that way, when the panic set in, the way he would speak to her was very confusing to her and it would become very hurtful and upsetting, because she didn’t understand why he was taking that tone with her. And that really helped add a level of tension to the story.

MM: After premiering at Sundance a few weeks ago, Frozen just came out in theaters. And now you’re already shooting Hatchet 2?

AG: We finished principal photography [on Hatchet 2] right before I went to Sundance. And now we’re shooting three more days in Los Angeles and then two more days in New Orleans, over the next two weeks. And then I’m done with that one and have to do the international press for Frozen, so it’s kind of a crazy year.