WAMG Talks To Sam Esmail: COMET

Hurtling back and forth in time over six years of a passionate, complicated relationship, COMET is a high-style love story crackling  with brilliant repartee, and simmering with true feeling. Last week, the film made its premiere at the Los Angeles Film Festival. I recently spoke with director Sam Esmail about writing and directing his first feature, shooting in the Hollywood Forever cemetery, and working with Emmy Rossum and Justin Long. Check it out below!

Emmy Rossum is the bright, skeptical Kimberly, and Justin Long is the tightly wound Dell.  They first meet in a random encounter at Hollywood Forever, where they’ve both come to watch a meteor shower. It’s the start of a romantic roller coaster ride that leaps from a Paris tryst to a squabble in New York to the Hollywood Hills, taking risky and unexpected emotional turns with daredevil aplomb.

As a first time writer/director (which I would have never guessed by watching this) how was your experience wearing both hats on this project?

Sam Esmail : I think it’s easier being the writer when you’re directing. I’m always rewriting and polishing as the first day of shooting approaches, and the changes are almost always informed by the actors and production. Since I had a group of talented creative heads, their input on how they saw a scene would oftentimes lead to a rewrite. Knowing the characters and the world so well, I was able to change and adapt quickly as better ideas came to the surface. It’s such a great head start for a director, I think.

Your cinematographer mentioned that the hardest shots to pull off were the cemetery scenes. As a director, what were the most challenging scenes for you?

Sam Esmail : I would have to agree with Eric on that. I’m a night owl. I can stay up until whenever. But, in this case it was particularly rough because it was the last week of the shoot and the cast and crew didn’t really have time to adjust after doing tough, long days. So you’re not only battling fatigue but light as well, because we didn’t have twelve hours of night, we had nine– one of the minuses of shooting in the summer.

Speaking of your cinematographer… there is such a great tone between the timeline jumps in this film. How did you and your cinematographer work together to blend the scenes/jumps?

Sam Esmail : We planned meticulously. I am not one of those directors that likes to hand the operator the camera and find the shot on the day. I prefer to compose everything and make adjustments on set when needed. Since Eric owned the Red, we actually went to all the locations beforehand and took stills– that basically became our storyboard. From there, we could piece together shots that would cut from time period to time period, and that would in turn influence our framing, movement and especially lighting since we had a lot of contrast between the sections. During the shoot, I was very stubborn about changing anything because I feared the domino effect it would have, namely potentially causing transitions not to blend in the right way. But you can’t be too stubborn, especially if what you planned feels unnatural to the actors. I remember specifically on the train set there was a scene we blocked and storyboarded that felt very stiff and boring; Emmy and Justin came up with a great idea that immediately brought life to it. It was a no-brainer, we had to adjust and then worry about how it would effect other scenes later. But on the flip side, there was a setup against the wall on the cemetery that we planned that would cost us a huge chunk of time to light. We could have easily changed the shot to save time, but it wasn’t nearly as good and, in my opinion, would have adversely effected the feel of that scene. So, you have to pick your times to stay firm and your times to adjust– because the film had these interlocking pieces, you were never allowed to be lazy and just pick what was fastest.

You have an incredible cast, especially with Emmy and Justin. With them being such seasoned actors, was there anything you learned from them on set?

Sam Esmail : The biggest thing is letting them be a part of the rewrite process. I loved rehearsing and rewriting the script based on the sound of their reads, the flow of their back and forth, and, most importantly, their feedback. They were really my partners on the script. Lots of great detail and character insight came from our rehearsal/collaborations. What was great about working with them was a lot of the work was done before the shoot. When it came time to do the scene, they were so prepared that we could always jump right in. Also, a great trick I learned from Emmy was to not cut after a take– just quickly go again and do a series within a take. The energy level stays up and the performances become more and more interesting.

What was your approach to shooting this film, since there are multiple stages to their relationship?

Sam Esmail : I reordered the script so that it was entirely chronological; each section was strung out together as essentially one long scene. It just made everything easier to understand, especially for Emmy and Justin. Because we preplanned the different transitions, we knew we could live inside this “linear bubble” during the shoot and remind ourselves of the moments that we needed to address for time jumps. Sometimes, we’d even shoot scenes or pieces of scenes from one time period in another, just to experiment around or cover ourselves. It was definitely confusing at times– we had to often triple check with the script supervisor as to “when” we were.

*COMET made its premiere at the LOS ANGELES FILM FESTIVAL. As of June 24th, the film has yet to have U.S. distribution.