Nightlight is available starting today on VOD and in theaters, and we caught up with directors Scott Beck & Bryan Woods to discuss urban legends and their unique approach to POV filmmaking:

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us. Can you tell our readers what brought the two of you together for Nightlight?

BECK/WOODS: We’ve actually known each other since we were 11, and we’ve been making movies together as long as we’ve been friends. Throughout middle school and high school we made dozens of shorts and no-budget features, which really taught us the craft of filmmaking. We never formally studied film production aside from consuming DVD features and commentaries (“That Moment” on the MAGNOLIA DVD is beyond inspirational), so we always refer to those early years as our “film school” experience. Since then we’ve constantly co-written and co-directed all of our works, including a pilot for MTV that we shot while writing NIGHTLIGHT.

What was your inspiration for this movie? Was it based on a particular urban legend you heard growing up or did you ever play any of these games in the woods as children?

BECK/WOODS: We based the film on our childhood, playing flashlight tag as kids in Iowa, and we happened to call it “nightlight”. So as adults, we wanted to tap into that innate fear you feel when left alone in the forest, in the dark.

There were two other disparate inspirations: Gus Van Sant and the Resident Evil video games. We used to play Resident Evil all the time as kids, and we’d be more terrified by the pure suspense of walking down long corridors than we were of zombies attacking us. We started envisioning a movie that fed off this conceit of Resident Evil-esque long tracking shots, much like Gus Van Sant’s excellent trilogy of GERRY, ELEPHANT, and LAST DAYS. Organically, we decided to combine those ideas with our childhood game of “nightlight”.

Also, during the writing phase, we discovered this real place in Japan called the Sea of Trees, which is a suicide forest where upwards of 100 people go to die each year. In fact, so many people die there, that the local police don’t bother doing a sweep for bodies more than once a year. It felt like a terrifying foundation to build mythology from, so we wrote NIGHTLIGHT to take place in an Americanized version of that forest.

It's quite popular these days for filmmakers to go with a found footage-style of filmmaking, but that's not what we get here with Nightlight, which is shot from a unique POV. Can you talk about the approach you two took to filming this movie?

BECK/WOODS: Like many horror fans, we’ve felt the tangible fatigue with the found footage genre. Even though filmmakers like Matt Reeves, the Dowdles, Sánchez/Myrick and others have hit the genre out of the park, the stigma is usually that found footage is low-budget, nauseating, and anti-cinematic. We really wanted to challenge that ideal and make something that felt very visually composed and had a POV that was 100% motivated by the story.

In order to shoot the film from our unique flashlight POV, our cinematographer, Andrew M. Davis, worked with Panavision to invent new camera rigs that would sustain long takes, as well as survive being thrown down cliffs, underwater, and underneath trains. The entire film was shot in one takes, sometimes lasting upwards of 7 or 8 minutes. It was a challenge to choreograph scenes with our actors, stunts, terrain, and other elements of a film shoot, but at the same time the challenges constantly inspired us to innovate.

Putting together the right cast is always crucial and they have a great chemistry here. Can you talk about your experience in the woods with these actors? Were there any moments where they were truly terrified? How did you bring both the chemistry and scares out of them?

BECK/WOODS: Thank you, very happy you liked their chemistry. We truly loved working with this cast and we all became friends. Since we shot for five weeks on location in the woods, we needed talent that was game for anything. Low-maintenance was a key trait, but we also needed them to have an adventurous spirit. We did a lot of rehearsals both before shooting and on set, in order to make sure they felt as natural and grounded as possible.

There were a few terrifying things on set. We were shooting a key scene where Robin (Shelby Young) talks about her deceased friend, and kept doing take after take. And every time that Shelby got to the same piece of emotional dialogue, a horrifying sound would howl from the distance. Still gives us chills to this day.

What was the most difficult part of shooting this film in the middle of Utah? What was your favorite on-set experience?

BECK/WOODS: The most difficult was probably shooting everything in single takes. It requires a lot of creative energy to perfect each take, and we sometimes would shoot a scene upwards of 30 times to nail the execution.

One of the best nights of shooting was the “train game”, which is about a 6 minute take where our characters are playing a game on train tracks, and then the POV gets set down on the tracks and our main character has to out run a freight train, which then barrels over our perspective. Our VFX team was pushing for us to do the train as CGI, but we really wanted to shoot the scene practically, like our heroes Christopher Nolan or William Friedkin. We ended up doing the scene 100% in camera with a six-car freight train and a stunt performer, and the energy on set was tangible. Everyone stepped up their game, and it’s challenges like that which make film production invigorating.

With Nightlight coming out this week, thanks to Lionsgate, are you already looking toward your next project? What's next?

BECK/WOODS: We’re attached to direct XOXO, which is this brilliant script by Mark Heyman who wrote BLACK SWAN, and one of our filmmaking idols Darren Aronofsky is producing alongside our NIGHTLIGHT producer Michael London. It’s basically FATAL ATTRACTION in the age of social media, but with a great twist. Other than that, we’re writing a couple new scripts, one of which is in the vein of THE CONJURING or THE SIXTH SENSE, where the horror is as present as the emotional drama. We love to stay busy and know how hard it is to get a movie greenlit, so we always want to have 5 or 6 things going at once.

Is there anything else you'd like to share with our readers? Where can they find you on social media?

BECK/WOODS: Our Iowa-based production company is Bluebox Films (www.blueboxfilms.com). You can find us on Twitter: @scottandrewbeck, @bryanrwoods, and @bluebox_films.