Alumni Nominee Thordur Palsson

Hannah Brecher, the Head of Alumni Relations, sat down with series creator, filmmaker and Watersprite alum (2014) Thordur Palsson to talk about being a multi-hyphenate, the differences between movies and television, his experience of Watersprite and much more.

Q: The Valhalla Murders was the first ever co-production between Iceland’s pubcaster RÚV and Netflix (and the second Icelandic series to be featured on Netflix). This was your first project after film school, how was your experience?  

TP: 

Anything seemed possible at school, but after you graduate you wonder, “What now?”. I was lucky enough to live with an actor who did commercials and he had these visual documents for his shoots. I hadn’t seen anything like that in film school. 

Inspired, I started writing up a show that I wanted to see. The process was an accumulation of a lot of things that I didn’t know before- like writing treatments, character breakdowns, series overviews, directors statement, creators statement. Basically I learned how to make a bible. And I learned to bring that to someone straight away even if it is not quite right. 

I had a meeting with a producer, we got lucky and took it to MIPCOM (where people show their projects to get presales). We actually  got two or three presales from the bible. Then we went to Iceland, had a writers room and got the pilot written. Then there was the financing stage, and then Netflix came in. 

I think it's important that a person is willing to learn. I actually did it all on Powerpoint. We now need to learn how to use these programs to get our vision across; it's not just having a good story, it's about how you curate it. So it was quite a learning curve, a lot of grey hairs came from making VALHALLA - I didn't have any before.

Q: Could you share some of your memories of Watersprite in 2014 and its impact on your work since?  Your film A HARD WORLD won for fiction, but it was also nominated for acting and directing.

TP: It was great. I had never been to a festival and I loved everyone that I met there. My friends came with me. I had just got into the National Film and Television school and I’d never been to Cambridge before. It wasn't just the festival, it was a moment in time that was very beautiful - everyone watching all the films, the big hall that they had for the awards. It was the beginning of a lot of things for me, I was very honoured to be nominated for the awards and then to win one. Just a very, very lovely memory and a very, very lovely weekend. Everyone at the festival was so nice, and it was nice that people liked my short film. 

 Q: How was your experience of transitioning to a large series after making short films? What aspects of shaping the story are different between the two formats?

TP: Shaping the story was so much harder [for a series], but  a day’s work is a day’s work on set. You have a limited amount of time and budget, but shaping the story was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life, it didn’t seem like it would work out. We needed eight hours of material; it’s quite a lot. In hindsight, once I broke the story, I didn’t think the show had enough threads to keep the audience going and guessing. So, it was a struggle, especially with finding the personal problem for the protagonist to have/her arc in the show, and how that problem is reflected in the crime she is investigating.

Another aspect of a cop show is that you want a protagonist that is flawed, but good at her job. You want her to make mistakes, but there is a limit to those mistakes because at a certain point your audience will think, “Oh no, not again”. There was some misogyny [from the audience] that had to be portrayed in the writing  as well. A guy can be alcoholic or a  cheater, but if you give the same problems to a woman, she gets judged a lot more. 

Short films- you want them to be fifteen pages, mine in film school always ended up being 20 minutes. I was always trying to make a film in a short film. I didn’t understand that I just needed to introduce the problem, watch them try to work through the problem and not show the resolution. That is what I believe a good short film does; you don’t have to give the audience a third act in the short film. Having made the show, I look at it like another film school for me.

Q: When making something that has a real life story behind it, like THE VALHALLA MURDERS, how do you balance between what you feel is the duty towards the truth versus the need to make that truth accessible to an audience? Or was it more of a fiction, where the real crime worked as a jumping off point for your characters?

TP: Well we weren’t making a documentary. I saw the documentary about these boys [that are the basis of THE VALHALLA MURDERS], who had been abused in an institution in Iceland, and who were trying to make their way back to confront their pasts. But one did not come because the thought of going was too unbearable, and they committed suicide. 

We have to make the audience understand how horrible it was, to give the boys empathy and the space to act. So that was the jumping off point. A lot of the things that I have been working on are usually based on real life or an old story I heard or Icelandic mythology or ghost stories. 

Q: You are working on a feature film THE DAMNED currently, whose story you initially developed in 2016. Could you tell us more about it?

TP: The film is based on a series of stories that happened in Iceland and also Icelandic ghost stories. It was inspired by the marriage between the two. So some of it is real, some of it is not. I basically finished working on this two weeks ago. It took a long time to develop it. I worked with a fantastic writer Jamie Hannigan. The producers of this film, Emilie Jouffroy and Kamilla Hodol, were those I went to film school with.

We have been working on THE DAMNED off and on for eight years. It just takes time. When I finished my TV show I had nothing, since then I have been kind of developing and now I have a couple pitches that seem like they might work. If things don’t happen quickly it doesn’t mean they may not  happen at all. 

 Q: You are a writer and a director. While writing can often be an individualistic activity, directing is much more collaborative. How do you juggle that contrast and being a multi-hyphenate?

TP: I like collaborators that take the lead. I'm good at certain things. I don't believe that I am a fantastic writer. Thus, I get fantastic writers to work with me. But I just [try to] understand my strengths. I figured out quite quickly that when I'm not the best at something, I want to try and find someone that's better than me. For every collaborator, find someone that's better than you. And then when you're working with them, let them think. I don't think I micromanage. If I’m working with a writer, I don't want a ‘paint by numbers’ thing where the collaborator is just doing what I wanted. I want the collaborators' voice, the way they see it. So I think people need to get comfortable with that kind of collaboration

I like working with people with strong opinions, I like creative producers. Again, it’s just finding the right collaborators.  Some people are not great on story, but they're great on other things – that’s the kind of working relationship I like.  If I have to micromanage something, it's not fulfilling to me.  There’s nothing more exciting than to leave a writer alone. I don’t want to be told what the writer is planning to do, I just want to read it. That also goes for working with actors on set.  I want them to bring something to the table, ask what’s missing, ask what are we doing, how can this be better?  I love spending the morning shooting a scene, and I go into the makeup trailer and they say ‘I've been thinking’. That’s great, let's try it! If it doesn't work, we'll just do the script.  I try to ask them at the end ‘Is there anything you want to try?’. Sometimes those tapes are the ones you use because you didn't really know what you needed at that time. 

You have to keep hold of relationships with the people who understand you, who understand what you're trying to do, and hopefully, they know how to give you notes sometimes. But I also learned not to be precious, to get a thick skin. It's never personal. You might have spent months on something and you love it but it might have to go in the drawer. That's just how it is. It’s not the right time  or you haven't yet got it working. Go on to the next thing. I’ve had many rejections, many horrible pitch meetings,  many horrible notes from film boards and others. But I always look for the note behind the note.  Everyone is just trying to communicate something that didn't quite gel for them, you have to be an interpreter and learn different languages.  

 Q: What tips would you give to our student filmmakers who are starting out today?  

TP: I hear people say that they believe short films are not smart to do with your money and your time. That’s completely wrong. Learn by Doing. The more you do, the more you learn. I made so many short films, not just the ones that are online. I made a silent film with my mom and my grandma. I created a scene, two characters - conflict, they both want the same thing. Who wins? I just made it black and white, no sound and I couldn't control the lighting. There were biscuits and tea, and then suddenly, there was just one biscuit left. A very dangerous situation! I say again, it's all about learning by doing, make as many short films as you can. Write as many [scripts] as you can. Keep seeking out knowledge from other mediums and people.  

I love YouTube. I'm constantly delving into YouTube for knowledge of something I didn't quite know how to do, or say or whatever it is. When I was making the bible for VALHALLA, I went online and found the STRANGER THINGS bible. It is the best bible you can ever make. I learnt  that there needs to be a statement about why you are making your film. It needs to have a visual approach, there needs to be comps/references, especially for the first episode. Then you just keep on making it better. I'm from Iceland,  my native language is Icelandic, English is my second language. So, I had to get help with my written English from collaborators but also from Grammarly. Get as much help as you can.

What is a good treatment?  I start with ‘I want to make that kind of a film’ or I’ve got an idea or story.  Then a synopsis - a two or three pager, which is a rough kind of story. That's very manageable to do. I like three pages or two pages with no third act. I like to keep readers asking ‘what else?’ And then once you've done a lot of work on your two -three pager, then go to a treatment. 

I mean, I can do eight pages. And then suddenly, it's not difficult to make it to 10. You just have to flesh out a couple of points and then you have a treatment. And then you work on that treatment. Again, and again. And again. I know I'm saying everything you've probably already learned in film school! It's such a huge mountain to conquer, to write a full 90 -120 page script. But I can do a three pager over a weekend. And then I can give myself a month to flesh out the treatment. And then you make the treatment really detailed.  

So what do we do next?  If you just write out the treatment and you have a first draft, it may not be great but it’s a draft. And now you're somewhere. I'm not Aaron Sorkin, but step by step kind of thinking like that just gets you going. Just small bites each time. This is how I look at it.  You have to make it manageable for yourself. And then you're likely to do something. Everything just takes time.