Triangle: the geometry of co-productions
A thriller set off the coast of Florida and shot in Queensland was the first official co-production to receive the Producer Offset, and its creators told Encore how they avoided getting caught in a Triangle.
British director Christopher Smith conceived Triangle in 2004, starting with the basic premise of “being on the deck of a ship, looking back at yourself”. After completing Severance, he started developing the idea in 2006.
It became the story of Jess (Melissa George), a woman who sets sail on a yacht with a group of acquaintances. When they’re hit by a storm and board a passing ocean liner, they think they’re safe, but Jess
feels she’s been there before… and she might be right.
Producer Jason Newmark successfully pitched a draft of the script to Icon Entertainment International’s office in Los Angeles. The creative team was considering a Florida-based shoot, but when the Producer Offset was announced, Newmark started exploring the idea of making it here and contacted Pictures in Paradise’s Chris Brown to discuss a co-production opportunity.
Brown’s experience with co-productions made him an ideal choice, but Triangle was the first co-prod to utilise the Producer Offset and the waters were as unexplored as those the characters have to navigate.
“It was very complicated. I was the first person to get the banks to cash flow the offset for an official co-prod, and that required creating an enormous amount of confidence in the project. This film helped
open up cash flowing of the offset and the credibility of Australian producers to be able to do that and to pay off those loans to the banks. Financially, that was a very important achievement,” explained Brown.
For its U$16m budget, Triangle received financing from Icon, VFX company Framestore, the UK Film Council and the Pacific Film and Television Commission (now Screen Queensland).
Brown worked with Newmark and producer Julie Baines; helmed by an English writer/director, the nine-week shoot took place in Queensland at the Warner Roadshow Studios, with an Australian cast –
doing American accents, as the film is set in Florida – and heads of department (except for the editor Stuart Gazzard). The film then went back to Britain for post.
DOP Robert Humphreys shot on the Genesis to give it a look along the lines of Dead Calm, with back lighting to create an element of mystery, and an unsettling sense achieved by using light instead of shadows.
“We quickly got rid of the idea of making it foggy and using the clichés, so this cold white look is beautiful and it came from Humphreys; he wanted to have a lot of colour in the film,” explained Smith.
According to Brown, Smith was “very insistent” on shooting the film in an “old-fashioned way”.
“It was a big battle to convince people to build [three decks of the ocean liner] on the jetty, but I wanted to be at sea, because the natural spread of the ocean has an effect on the camera and the actors that you don’t get with green screens,” explained Smith.
The ship work was so remarkable that even the team behind The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader visited their set for inspiration.
BETWEEN LOW AND HIGH BROW
The film opened at number 7 of the UK box office in October 2009. IMDb reports earnings of A$909,146 for the first two weeks of release, but Triangle has generated a cult following with passionate and
detailed online discussions and analysis of the film.
“Cult guarantees a long life,” said Brown. “It’s an intelligent film, but it suffers because it’s easy to see it as just a slasher movie, with Melissa covered in blood, running around with an axe.”
Brown feels it was sold as horror to a core teenage audience, which may have alienated older viewers.
“How do you capture the older audience with a film which you know will be of interest to them, without alienating your younger audience? The danger always is that you’ll fall between the two,” he admitted.
Icon will release Triangle on April 29 as a ‘special event season’ at only three Dendy cinemas. “I’d love for it to go out on at least 120 screens, but that’s not going to happen,” admitted Brown. “There’s always the possibility of starting small and rolling it out like one did in the old days. It might find its secondary audience here,” he hoped.
