So tell us about the genesis of Tim Travers. Where did the initial idea come from and, Samuel, how did you get to be involved?
Stimson Snead: Well, it started as a short film, which I wrote out of the best of all creative places: deep annoyance with other creatives. I had seen some time-travel films that I did not like, and because there is real scientific theory that I found interesting, I wanted to write a story exclusively about that. Originally it was just going to be a short film; I wrote the rôle for myself to play…and then immediately came to my senses about what a bad idea that was, and because the pandemic was upon us I shelved the script and it was, I think, a couple of weeks later when I was at a festival and I met Sam. Sam, I’ll let you take it from there.
Samuel Dunning: Yeah, Stimson happened to see a short that I had made and put myself in, called “Rick and Ruby”. We were part of the same shorts block at this festival, and he liked my performance in my film enough that he blew the dust off his script of “Tim Travers” the short, sent it to me and said, “If you like this, let’s make it!” So we ended up making that, and it did well on the festival circuit and – not to speak for you, Stimson, on this portion of things – Stimson’s next project didn’t come fruition, and so he said, “Hey, I still have the production company on the hook to make a feature. I’m going to send them a handful of ideas, one of which is a Tim Travers feature film – do you have any thoughts?” We started spitballing, and landed on, “What if this was a screw-up take on learning to love yourself?”
SS: What amazes me is that I think that was a twenty-minute conversation, and everything was born of it. One: If we decide to do this, are you available and willing? Two: If you are available and willing, you played the character – what stuck out in your mind and where would you want to go with this? That twenty-minute conversation led me to pumping out a script in less than a month. It was not my best work, but it was close enough that we could start pre-production and polish up the script. I think Samuel, didn’t you say that you had decided not to try learning your lines until a month out, because you knew how much I was going to be rewriting?
SD: Yes, I knew what a huge amount of work this was going to be and I was like, “There’s no sense in adding to my pile of work by learning lines that are just going to be changed in a few weeks’ time.” So I waited until the last possible moment to start prepping the script, and it worked out fine I think.
SS: Well, the good news is that it’s not like you have a lot of lines or anything(!).
SD: Nah, I just showed up, did my job and went home.
SS: But it is, that script is wall-to-wall Sam talking to himself.
Stimson, have you known anyone like Tim in real life? Samuel, did you model your performance on anybody in particular?
SD: I think we probably have the same answer.
SS: (laughs) Yes, I do know somebody like that! Tim Travers is a fairly blatant writer insert of a character, right down to how he speaks and the long-form speeches he tends to make. That was why I originally planned on playing the character – before I came to my senses.
SD: Yeah, the deeper I got into the feature version, the more I was like “Obviously, this is Stimson.” I wasn’t trying to do a Stimson impression, but I know how you speak and that helps with the cadence of these long-winded exposition dumps.
SS: I always think Tim Travers is me, but taller. And with more hair. More handsome.
SD: Worse eyesight though.
SS: Actually, I have prescription glasses now. I’m just not wearing them.
That leads into my next question. Samuel, you have to play multiple iterations of the character – about two or three dozen – what was your approach to that and to differentiating those characters?
SD: First and foremost, going from the short to this version, I realised that it’s kind of impossible to have the whole thing under your belt at one time. It’s better to compartmentalise it. You know, I knew the script and what kind of journey I was going on, so I tried to just worry about the next day and literally take it one day at a time. But I always had a familiarity with what the scene was, what we’re trying to accomplish, and the plot. Then I could break it down even further: What’s the first scene of the day? I will run that over and over and over again in my head, and then as soon as we’re done shooting it, throw it away and not think about it ever again. Then, when it came to keeping track of all the different Tim Traverses – thankfully, they are all the same guy separated by mere minutes. That’s a benefit and also kind of a negative, because it’s very easy to go, “Wait…which one is this one, though?”
SS: And you can’t do it like Rick & Morty, [rural accent] “This is Farmer Tim!”
SD: It got to a point where it was a combination of my brain, Stimson’s brain and our script supervisor’s brain – at any given time, one of us knew which Tim was talking. Often I’d just yellow out, “Wait, is this the dumb one or the mean one?” and someone would chime in, “It’s the dumb one. You’ve got it.” “Great.”
SS: It wasn’t until we were done with the production that I realised how warped my brain had become in the course of that shoot, because even though it’s all Sam, I really was starting to think of, like, Gamma, Iota, Rho as different actors on set. “Let’s get the stand-in for Gamma over here!” It was weird, it was like there was a switch in my brain that stopped me from thinking of it as weird at all.
SD: That’s how it is for me when I watch it now. It’s all me talking to myself on-screen, but watching it I’m like, “Well there’s me right there, and a bunch of other people I’m talking to.”
There are so many scenes in which Samuel’s acting against himself, what was the process of creating those shots?
SS: There’s a lot that went into that, but the biggest advantage right out of the gate was the short. Everything that we could do wrong, we had already done wrong. There was a lot of stuff going against this movie, but the big thing going for it was that we had done the technical side of this before and had the chance to polish and to learn what worked and what didn’t work. What we did is, we did all the tricks – facial replacements, body doubles, split-screen – but there was a rule that we kept to in the edit: we’re trying to never use the same trick two times in a row. We’re trying to keep the audience as confused as possible as to which is which. So, one shot it’ll be body doubles, the next it’ll be a split-screen, the next shot it’ll be a facial replacement, the next shot it’ll be a lookalike actor where we didn’t even bother doing a facial replacement because they’re standing far away in the background and we don’t give you time to register that: that’s just a different guy! In a wig! We tried to mix it up so much in the edit that the audience simply stops noticing, and accepts all of them as Tim Travers. And if there is a moment where anyone notices, it’s a rare moment where maybe one particular shot does stand out a little bit. There are 540-plus effects shot in this film, slightly less than the last Godzilla. We worked with Mode FX, the same company that worked on the short, who are great to work with, and a lot of it’s just going through and being patient. For all the split-screening, we would still have body doubles. The biggest issue wasn’t really the tech – because we knew what we were doing with that – it was making sure that we weren’t leaving Sam to drown. With all the people he has to talk to, if you just have the script supervisor shouting at him from across the room, that would mean giving him no feedback, performance-wise, no good eyeline match…it was very important to me that, even if we’re editing these other people out, always to give Sam people to actually be an actor with, at all times. And as a result, he has great stage chemistry with himself.
Did you always know that you were going to direct your own script? Could you see the script in the hands of another director?
SS: No. Over my dead body! I have wanted to direct my whole life. It’s what everything in my life is geared towards. I’m not going to say it’s where I’m at my best, but it’s certainly where I’m at my happiest.
There are some fairly big names in the supporting cast, how did you go about casting those actors? And what it was like to work with them?
SS: All of them were a joy to work with. You always hear horror stories about celebrities, especially when you’re working on these little grindhouse, indie films like Tim Travers where everyone else is incomparably more successful and more powerful than you. With that kind of power imbalance, you hear these horror stories. We had none of that. There was not one person who set foot on set who was not an absolute pleasure and a delight to work with. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. The actual casting – we always get this question, and I’m always sad that the answer is so boring. We had an extremely respected, reputable casting director, Ronnie Yeskel, who did Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, a legitimate legend in the industry, who reached out on our behalf and gave me the credibility that my own name alone did not have. Then it was literally just a matter of showing their agents the script, the actor would read it and if they liked it, we negotiated, and if we were able to reach a level that made everybody happy, that was that. The only really weird thing about the casting was because our schedule was so truncated, the casting was happening at the last second. There were several of these celebrities who were cast while we were already shooting. I did not know that Keith David was going to be in the movie until three days before he was on set. And I didn’t actually find out that he had said yes to the rôle, because I was driving back from that night’s shoot, until he called me to ask some questions about his character, and I nearly crashed the car when I heard his voice. The only bad part about it was that for all of those rôles, we had already cast understudies just in case. Every one of those understudies is still in the movie, we just moved them to other characters, because we really appreciated that they had taken the time and so we wanted to give them other rôles. Like, the bartender who’s covered in blood is actually the woman who was cast as Felicia [Day]’s understudy.
Thank you. Finally, are we going to see a sequel?
SS: I would love to revisit that character. This is an indie grindhouse movie, and as everybody working in the indie scene right now knows, it’s really easy to get your work seen but it’s extremely difficult to get your work profitable. The future of Tim Travers is going to depend on if folks like your readership, and folk coming to GrimmVision, help build support so we can revisit this character down the road. Speaking for myself, I would love to revisit Tim.
SD: Same. It’s an actor’s wet dream of a rôle, where it’s all about you.
SS: That said, if I revisit Tim, I don’t know if it’s going to be another multiple-Tims story.
SD: Yeah, I think we could try something else. There’s definitely more sandbox to play in.
SS: Exactly.
Tim Travers and the Time Traveler’s Paradox (our rating: ★★★★★) is on digital now from GrimmVision.