|
|
Director Dave Chlystek Talks "Frozen Out" and More Static! by Jim Harvey Toon Zone was able to catch up with Dave Chlystek once again about the much anticipated "Frozen Out" Static Shock episode airing this weekend, as well as the future of the critically acclaimed Kids'WB! series. What drew you to the script for FROZEN OUT? Well, we as directors are assigned scripts as they come in. But from the moment I read the script I knew we could have a very special episode. Having been a board artist on Sons of The Father, (which I thought was brilliant writing by the way) I pride myself on being able to spot a good script, and Len Uhley really outdid himself on this one. The script had just enough of everything, and was very well balanced. It is a socially conscious episode, but one that never gets too preachy, and we played up the action. Every act has at least one really cool action sequence in it. I would say that it has more action than Big Leagues. Overall, I would have to say that it is one the most well balanced shows I've ever worked on. (And I've worked on a good deal of very good Batman Beyond episodes) The Pathos of the character Permafrost was most compelling. She is like most of us do sometimes, in the sense that she feels out of place in the world. And the fact that she is "homeless" makes her all the more invisible. I really wanted to address the issue that we really do "ignore" our homeless. One of the storyboard artists on the episode, Marcus Williams, who does a really great chase sequence in the show, had worked for years with the homeless, and he brought enormous insight into the show from his experiences. I told my crew that I didn't want this episode to feel "forced", that we were trying to be preachy. It is to everyone's credit that the show doesn't feel that way. We let the story unfold as Len had written. I looked at it as a challenge to do a really great show. We pulled it off. And I say that with all modesty. I was very fortunate to have some great talent at my disposal, and they all rose to the occasion. Were there thing that you know you could or couldn't pull off when doing FROZEN OUT? There is a death scene in the show. We had to be sensitive to how we staged that. That is without a doubt, though, my favorite scene in the episode. Probably my favorite scene out of all of the Static episodes we've done. It was so well executed in the storyboards by Eddie Lin. It is a very powerful moment in the show. I also knew that we had to be sensitive to how we handled the homeless. I wanted to be as accurate as possible to their situation. I had my amazing coordinator, Jackie Olsommer pull as much reference from the web and video regarding the homeless as we could find. We researched this as if we were doing a live action film. The results will speak for themselves. When approaching a serious episode such as this, do you find you had to change your directing style? Not at all. I really was able to flex every directing muscle I had on this baby. It was a pleasure and honor to work on it. One of my proudest moments so far in this industry. Comparing this episode to your other recent effort "The Big Leagues", which one did you find more challenging and why? While "The Big Leagues" was challenging in many aspects, this episode was a real challenge. We had no "special guest stars" or "villains" to fall back on. It was really a sink or swim kind of episode. As I stated above, we could have easily fallen into a cliche' d, stereotypical treatment of the homeless and the episode never does that. We all knew that the show could be something special and we worked really hard to make sure that that happened. The big challenge was in not making the Permafrost character seem like the standard villain. You really feel for her. And I have to say that Hynden Walch, the actress who played Permafrost, was absolutely brilliant! As we sat in the recording studio, I got chills listening to her performance (no pun intended). Alan Burnett, Len Uhley, Scott Jeralds, one of the network heads, Jessica Pinto, and myself all would constantly turn to each other and just have this look of our jaws hitting the floor at this woman's performance. I don't say this lightly, her performance made all of us step it up a little bit more, Hynden was electrifying. It was as pure an acting job as I've ever seen. I must also give high praise to one of our background guys, Bill Proctor, who designed the only background I've ever seen the network actually comment on how lovely they thought it was. It was a background of Permafrost's living chamber. Bill just did an amazing job on it, and I can't thank him enough. And as usual, Tristin Roesch, our brilliant color stylist, just rendered the hell out of it! Thanks guys! Will you be directing any upcoming Static Shock episodes? Two more episodes, one which Len mentioned "Attack of the Living Brain Puppets", and a Chris Simmons' penned show, "Trouble Squared". Is there any upcoming non-Static Shock work you'd like to give us the heads up about, as well? I am talking to Warner's right now about a couple of projects that I can't reveal much about. But the fans will sure love em', no matter who is involved. Originally posted on TZN on 02-20-2002. |