I had the opportunity to interview Celine Held and Logan George (writer/director duo) to talk about their upcoming MAX movie, Caddo Lake. What pulled me in from the beginning was not only the title (which is the only naturally formed lake in my home state of Texas) but the fact they filmed it on that location. I’d already been granted the opportunity to screen the film, which I did before interviewing Held and George this week.
Although it was a brief conversation, there were some incredible insights into many of the decisions in creating the film. We talked about filming in Texas, working with M. Night Shyamalan, and what inspired them to choose Caddo Lake specifically, read on to see what they had to say!
Interview with Celine Held and Logan George, writers/directors of Caddo Lake
[Editor’s note: The transcript of this interview appearing below has been lightly edited for clarity.]
Anthony Flagg: I wanted to start with my first question. You mentioned that you saw a photograph of Caddo Lake, compared to that photograph, how was it shooting in location?
Celine Held:
So well, we found this photo. We found it on the Reddit Subreddit (r/Earthporn) shout out, and we drove down to the lake and lived off the lake for a few months, and wrote the script. So the lake was a part of the script and what the lake actually is, it was a part of the script from the beginning. We didn’t write anything before we were there. And so putting the lake, like making sure that the way that the lake makes you feel, the way the lake actually feels alive when you’re on the lake, we wanted to infuse that into have it be like this silent third main character of the story.
Shooting in production, of course, is an entirely different beast, but we made sure that our cast, obviously, were out. Dylan (O’Brien), Eliza (Scanlen) learned how to drive boats, but we made sure our crew all got to take a boat tour when they arrived at Caddo because we felt like for them to really understand where we were, what we were shooting, what we were trying to accomplish, and trying to capture, then we could do it together.
AF: That’s excellent. Do you think maybe you could share that photo with me through email so I could, I want my readers to see it for themselves?
Celine Held: Whatever you want. Yeah. I mean, if you just search Caddo Lake subreddit r/earthporn, you’ll find it really easily .
Logan George: It has a text like “fall leaves in the sunset”, it’s beautiful.
AF: Okay, yeah. I’m sure you’re aware that Caddo Lake is the only naturally formed lake in Texas. I just think that, I’m so happy that you picked such an excellent place in Texas to do that. Now, my next question is, how much involvement did M. Night Shyamalan have throughout the process of Caddo Lake?
Logan George: He was really involved. I mean, he read a version of the script when we were working on his show Servant. He’s just like, you guys have a feature script, and we gave it to him. Didn’t think he would really read it. But then he read it that weekend, and was like, “we should do this.” And so we were really taken aback by how gung ho he was.
And it happened that fall, a couple of months later, we were in prep, and him and his team at Blinding Edge, they really did us a huge service. It’s his first time producing something, not writing and directing it himself. And they supported us. I can’t really imagine being better supported. They watched every daily that we did, the next day, and were able to sort of be this bird’s-eye view on the production, tracking an actor’s performance, or you might have missed this moment in the scene. So we needed to connect to this. And then he was heavily involved in the edit as well. Gave us so much of his time, he’s really beautifully articulate in how he can sort of describe what the problem is and how to solve it. So we really owe a lot to him and Blinding Edge.
AF: That’s incredible. Was he involved in suggesting the twist of the revelation of some of the events that happened? Somewhere I just, I’m trying not to spoil for those who are reading, but you know the moment when you find out what’s going on. Whose idea was that?
Celine Held: That was, that was ours. We, yeah, we came to him with the thing fully, fully ready. He was only like, draft three or four because once you change something, everything else has to respond to that. Because the script is so woven, interwoven. But no, those twists are ours.
Logan George: I think that’s why it resonated with him. The aesthetic is like something that fits like within a lot of the wonderful films he’s made.
AF: That’s great. I’m curious what aspect of Anna disappearing makes it different from other movies with similar premise of a child going missing. What do you think makes Caddo Lake stand out a little bit different from that?
Logan George:
Yeah. I mean, I think the water aspect was a challenging production element, but something that, the location of this story is what fills every single frame, like we were talking about. So we really loved this idea of the amorphousness and how vast the lake was, and that it felt like this insurmountable task of where she could have gone, but that you were grounded in one specific location.
AF: Okay, and do you think you’d ever film again in Texas based on your experiences?
Celine Held: Our short film Caroline was filmed in Houston and we had an incredible experience there making that we love Texas. So yes, we’d happily be back.
AF: That’s great. I love hearing that. And are there any parts of Caddo Lake that you may have pulled from your own lives to include into the story.
Celine Held: Yeah. In retrospect too because you never realize when you’re writing how much you’re putting of yourself in this character. You’re like, this person’s nothing like me, and oh, the whole thing is, and we do that all the time. There are bits and pieces of our family members, littered throughout every character, yeah, and ourselves. I mean, I have a younger sister that I’m incredibly close to, and that’s definitely where that kind of Ellie-Anna relationship started for us.
AF: Well, thank you all so much. Those were the only questions I had for you today. I just want to say thanks for your time, and I enjoyed Caddo Lake very much. I’m very excited for others to experience it as well.
Celine Held: Thank you so much. Thanks for watching!
When to catch this film streaming on MAX
Caddo Lake releases on October 10th on MAX. I’m grateful to the folks at MAX, and of course, both Held and George for their time and responses. It’s a different concept that, I felt, was well executed, so getting background information on the project was really special. I do hope to speak with them in the future, and I’m looking forward to sharing my review of the film when the embargo lifts.
Are you planning on watching Caddo Lake when it releases on MAX next week? Let us know on social media @mycosmiccircus or join our official Discord server.
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