I love how he sees space on a spectrum of human thought, from robotic missions to the actual science that we do, telescopes, observations, and leaping into the imagination. He can discuss all this and reveal his passion for it. He sees our fascination with space and what it means to us on a larger scale, and I thought I could make a movie about this guy.
The two-day shoot was probably the biggest challenge. Usually, the music conforms to the content; with a music video, it’s the other way around. I listened to the song several times, and it put me in a fugue state. I got to some deep places, and that’s where a lot of the story came from—from some personal feelings.
There are so many levels of existential crisis. The choice that they made was to be proactive, to resist, and also to continue their art, to hold onto their humanity. It’s a juxtaposition that exists within their lives. It held up the most precise mirror possible to the reality of peaceful people who fight and then go home at night and make something beautiful.
I did think about live-action. From a practical point of view, the number of setups required would’ve been impossible for our budget. I studied animation, and one of the things they tell you in animation school is when you come up with an idea to justify its existence. Why is this animated? Animation can do a lot more than science fiction. It doesn’t have to be fantastical.
From the beginning of the film, it’s all handheld. My idea was to jump right into it, feel uneasy, and tease that something was going to happen. Despite being handheld, it’s pretty static. We don’t really track anyone at first, but as the story picks up with Oscar being followed and his wife Sophia, trying to find her husband and daughter, we follow more intently.
It’s an indie film at its core. A film that no studio exec at any major studio would greenlight. Baker spent his career in the trenches of low-budget films with an unwavering vision to present films that spotlight marginalized people while never pandering or preaching. At once, it is a modern film with adult themes and subject matter juxtaposed with Lubitschian comedy that hearkens back to the early days of Hollywood.
I know that Bill Murray has better things to do. He definitely doesn’t need me or this movie. If he wants to be here, I wonder what he’s gonna do with that role. You know? It’d probably be exciting. I’ve been lucky with this. I was lucky that my first film had Robert Downey Jr attached – who doesn’t wanna work with an actor like that?
Conclave has been nominated for 8 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Production Design, Best Film Editing, and Best Costume Design. One of the most celebrated films of 2024, it grossed over 100 million at the worldwide box office, rare for a drama to perform so well in current years. Directed by Academy Award Winner Edward Berger (All Quiet On The Western Front) and based on the 2016 book by Robert Harris.
As an artist, I want to tell different stories. The cool thing that we get to do is dive into different people’s stories. I’m not interested in doing the same thing with the same types of people over and over again. My biggest fear is probably not failure, it’s getting pigeonholed into one type of project.
I think the difference in this one is a lot of the fight stuff is hand-to-hand combat. The idea of Wolverine, the claws have that classic “snikt” sound. That’s something that has been around since the beginning. I augmented it a little bit, but I wasn’t about to reinvent iconic sound. That’s the thing with the Marvel Universe is you don’t need to reinvent the shield but what you can do add to the universe for the movie that you’re in. Our film is a much more realistic take on a Marvel film.
