Nadine Crocker invested her life savings into Continue. She’s the writer and director, star, and producer of the film, which is an unflinching and personal drama. Crocker doesn’t sand off any edges in exploring her experience with depression and surviving a suicide attempt. She wanted to tell her story truthfully, not patly, so she backed herself and stayed true to her vision.
The director behind Desperation Road and her team of collaborators create an intense point-of-view in the film, both audibly and visually. The movie doesn’t just talk about depression, but lets you hear it and feel it. Recently, Crocker spoke with Immersive Media about crafting Continue, which involved many donuts and miracles.
[Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and length]
Let’s start with sound. It’s so pivotal to the point-of-view in the film. When you were writing, were you already writing down ideas for the internal soundscape you wanted for the film?
I’m so excited that you started this with sound. One of my favorite parts about creating this movie. My sound designer, Troy, was unbelievable. We were just playing and so collaborative. I am a writer director that is very distinct, even in my scripts, of sound. But especially after this film, it exposed me to how pivotal sound is and how much it can add.
When I went in to meet with Troy for the first time, we had a real responsibility here because we are designing what mental health sounds like. And the great thing is that there’s no rules. It’s basically free reign for us to create what it means to us and what it sounds like to us. One of the things that I really wanted to play with, and we started to do, was repeating. You hear her voice kind of coming in of memories and replaying other moments from the film in a loop, in a layer, in different intense moments.
For me, it was not only describing mental health, but it’s also describing my anxiety. I have a mind that never shuts off. My mind is very active, thinking of things that happened 20 years ago, thinking about things that are maybe going to happen 20 years from now. Sometimes that sounds like my mind on loop and replay.
Another thing we loved playing with that was really fun was the shepard’s tone. It makes you feel like you’re falling without a place to land, because it’s a tone that is never ending or never stops rising, depending on which one we chose. And then that tinnitus rings, I have tinnitus, so I hear that ringing a lot. It’s kind of maddening. So many things were so explosive and volatile in her life, so I want it to feel like an explosion, what you hear after an explosion because in your body, that’s what it freaking feels like in those visceral moments.
And so, really it was looking at how we can affect the audience through sound alone. The visuals are what the visuals are, but through sound, can we amplify that or make a feeling that can beat against what they’re seeing.
Binaural beats, too. We started to play with actual sounds that the different frequencies affect our body differently. There is one that is actually for creating anxiety. I’m like, “Hey, let’s drop that one in there.” Some of that does get filtered out when you’re listening to it, stereo on a computer or things like that.
We could probably talk all day about that. The sound of intrusive thoughts, to me, sounded familiar. That sounded honest to me.
Oh, I love that you say that. I am diagnosed with PTSD and literally what it feels like in my body and what it sounds like and all of those different things. How can we translate that over? And the fact that I worked with a lot of women on this film, but getting to work with Troy on that, mental health and/or anxiety or PTSD, it sounds and feels very different from a man to a woman. So, how we can partner together and reach a wider net of human beings and make them feel something just through even the sounds? I think the same thing we took into the visuals of the film, which is in every frame, how can I help someone in every performance? How can I help someone, how can I affect them?
How can I make them understand mental health or someone they know who’s struggling with mental health in a little bit better way? Or how can I get someone to actually talk about mental health, who’s experiencing it? That looks like not pulling punches and trying to make the audience feel what Dean was feeling, because they’ll empathize with what she was feeling in a completely different way.
Maybe if it’s someone who doesn’t understand mental health, they’ve never experienced it, my hope was after watching this film, that intensity, maybe for a second, they actually did know what that felt like. No, it doesn’t always feel great. And then maybe that’s why we can show someone who’s struggling in our life a little bit more grace, what they might feel like.
How’d you want to create authenticity in the psychiatric hospital? What details were important to you and your production designer Monique Dias?
She’s so talented and we had a very limited budget. The thing about this film, I want it just to feel barren, but you don’t want it to look like you had zero budget and just nothing in a room. It’s a fine line you have to dance. Monique was a brilliant dancer in that arena of how do we make it feel barren but also feel lived in? How do we make it feel cold but also not boring or you don’t want to be in there? It was a fine balance, but also I will say, it was also the location we really lucked out. For instance, the mental institution was an active mental institution.
I’m so blessed that we were even able to film there, at a real facility. I really wanted it to feel real. I felt the only way to really feel that was to find a partner that would let us come in and film there. We could not afford the space. The day rate was just so far beyond something we could ever do.
How’d you get that location in the end?
Well, you will be shocked what Dunkin’ Donuts coffee and donuts will do. Me and my producer went down there with donuts and coffee, huge giant things of coffee. We’ll wait until we can talk to the manager that runs this facility. OK, now I send in the closer, which is me, and I’m just like, “This is what I’m doing. This is my story. This is my purpose, and I’m here actually trying to do what you are doing too. We should work together.”
He gave us a rate that we actually could afford. It’s bonkers that even happened and worked out that way. So I’ll say it was Monique, but it was also the universe giving us little gifts along the way. Really amazing locations, too, that worked really well with Monique and gave her a lot of freedom as well.
I was a waitress here [in LA] forever, and so was my husband, so was my producing partner, Jay Seals. We all were bartenders, waitresses, all of that as we pursue our dreams. So, we had amazing relationships when it comes to restaurants. Good deals. One of the locations that we used is my work is one of the most incredibly beautiful bars, and we basically came in and it was ready. Those giant lights are all there.
I also would write people these love letters of like, “Please let us use your location.” It was Monique creating and giving her freedom to create, but also doing my job to find her the best canvas possible. We lucked out in both arenas. I mean, Monique could have made a paper bag look cinematic. I’m really, really blessed, especially with the limited resources we had. But again, it is coupled with incredible locations that just believed in the cause.
The end scene in San Francisco couldn’t get the permit in time. All of these things were happening, and I couldn’t afford 90% of it. So we went down there and went to this hotel, a gorgeous hotel. I just told them my story and what we were doing, and they had this beautiful view of the Golden Gate Bridge. They were like, “Just rent a room for the price of the room. You can go film up there.”
That view of the Golden Gate Bridge costs so much money and so much resources, and because it was private property, we also could operate on the private property without needing to be on the bridge and all of the things for the permits and blah, blah, blah. So, basically Miracles. Miracles along the way led us to the film.
Good lessons there. Bring donuts and just ask.
People are afraid to ask. I’m not afraid to ask for anything at this point. All they can do is say no. I think a lot of people get embarrassed to ask, and I’m like, “Oh, I’ll admit that I don’t have enough money and that I need help.”
I do want to ask about the ending, without spoiling it. You got notes about not going with that more honest, deeply complicated ending. Was that a part of the story you would never compromise on?
Everyone was like, “You can’t do that.” The ending was the first thing I had before I even wrote the movie. I knew my message, and the only way this message could really be told is by showing how one choice changes everything. Without giving too much away about the ending is that… I was always very gung-ho and offered bigger opportunities to make the film in a bigger way, if I would make it a happy Hollywood ending. Pretty girl gets everything she wants, and I said it then, and I’ll say it now, “No one who’s suffering is going to see themselves in the pretty girl who has everything she ever wanted, rings on her finger, all of the things, because that doesn’t feel possible for you.” My whole message is the ending, the whole message. Again, I wish I could spoil…
Another day. One day.
I know we need to do this again and then I can say it, but yeah, my message is the ending is, you have to be here tomorrow. You have to continue on because our paths change the paths of so many other humans. It’s not just the people that you love and that love you, it’s the people you haven’t even met yet. It’s the people that you’re going to love.
We don’t understand how much our one life affects so many lives, and that’s what I wanted to do was get people to live another day and to put one foot in front of the other. Because again, I’m a mother now, a wife, and I’m a director, which if you had told me that in my twenties when I came out here to act and that was my life, and then all of a sudden my life is actually completely revolved around directing, well… That’s the only thing. It’s my purpose.
Where do you want to go next with that purpose?
I think one of the reasons I was put on this planet is to tell stories, especially to stories with impact. You know, I didn’t have the same power that I do as a director, so the points that I had from creating this film, I gave to charity. It was very clear from the get-go that this was not just an impact film because of its message, but I wanted part of the proceeds to actually change people’s lives.
I want to save lives and bring donations to nonprofit organizations that are actually trying to create change in this world today. I don’t think I could have done that if, again, I didn’t wear every single hat. And that’s why I think going into all of my next films and the several films that I have casting now, I’m like, no, I produce my films.
All of my films, every single film I have, even the ones that don’t feel like they’re a message film, they always are. I hide it in cool, intricate ways, but all of them have an aspect of charity. Almost all of my films will have an aspect of charity, so I wouldn’t change anything about the process.
Continue is now playing in select theaters and available on VOD.
