Nikolai Mather: Hey Alan! How's it going?
Alan Neal: It's going good! Thanks for having me.
NM: So give us a synopsis of your film Last Straw. What is it about?
AN: Last Straw is a thriller that is about a waitress working the overnight shift at her family's diner, and a small town crime spree lands on her doorstep. And it's about her fighting back to survive the nights while we have different things in store for people. And everything's not what it seems.
NM: That's awesome. So this is your first feature length film. What are you most excited for the audience to see?
AN: Without giving too much away, directing this project allowed me to really push myself as a filmmaker to try to use different visual languages for different characters, so you could really get into their headspace – their emotional headspace. And that was kind of the exciting thing that drew me to this project. Especially, you know, from a screenwriting perspective. Our screenwriter Taylor Sardoni wrote this amazing script. And it really kind of like messes with your expectations of what a horror and a thriller should be.
NM: So you live in Brooklyn, but you're screening this film at Cucalorus this weekend. What made you want to return to Wilmington?
AN: So I went to UNCW from 2005 to 2009. And I trained and learned filmmaking here. And Cucalorus has always been near and dear to my heart. They've played all of my short films. And they've been a very big supporter. They actually kind of allowed me to make this feature. The connections I made were through this film festival to help finance the film. And this just felt like the place to bring it back. We've screened in Spain at Sitges, we were in Beyond Fest in L.A., then Austin, and now we're bringing it back home for homecoming. So, very excited.
NM: You've also done a lot of work in casting prior to this feature film, with shows like Euphoria and other films like Uncut Gems. How did that inform your work on Last Straw?
AN: I never thought I would wind up in casting! But somebody offered me a job after seeing a film that I cast and they liked my eye. And over the past like eight or nine years, it's really given me an opportunity to work with actors eight hours a day, really hone the craft of directing… and then also watching these really amazing filmmakers that I admire work with actors in the room in front of me. So, it was almost like a masterclass in filmmaking in itself. And I've actually saved a lot of the actors that I cast in my film. [They] were people that auditioned for other projects that I was casting and I saved their auditions. And so, when I knew I made mine, I just kind of plucked them out of the folder.
NM: Something that really piqued my interest when watching the trailer was the score. Tell me more about that – how did y'all develop it?
AN: Yeah, Alan, I've always admired as an artist. And I had this dream where I heard his synths over the movie. And I just – on a whim, I reached out to a friend of a friend and I said, "Hey, I've made this movie. Would you be interested in it?" He watched it and fortunately, he actually wanted to be a filmmaker and wants to be a filmmaker. He's working on the film. And so he was just like,"Yeah, that seems fun! Like, yeah, let's do it. I love thriller horrors." And developing the score itself, I really wanted something that was kind of a cross between New Order and Tangerine Dream. And I couldn't think of anybody else better suited for that than Alan.
NM: Alright, anything else you wanna share? Any plugs?
AN: Last Straw screens Saturday night at Thalian Hall, 7 p.m. You can buy your tickets at cucalorus.org. And I hope to see you there.
NM: Alright Alan, thank you so much for coming by.
AN: Of course! Thank you.
