Heartland: Alrik Bursell interview

The writer/director of "The Alternate" talks to Film Yap about his horror/sci-fi/psychological thriller and tips for making a polished movie without a huge budget.

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Congratulations on "The Alternate," a twisty/scary film that boasts elements of horror, science fiction and psychological thriller. Where did the idea come from and what themes were you wanting to explore?

Thanks for the kind words on the film! I was originally adapting one of my first short films into a feature which was about a couple who discovered a doorway to another dimension and in that story there was a monster that takes over the husband character in the film. So when I started writing the feature version, I quickly realized that this was going to be a ten million dollar movie and not something I could pull off for my first feature, so I started to ask what was scarier than a monster and the answer I came up with was yourself.

When I dug deeper into the story I had always thought about the theme of 'entitlement' or in more words 'you can only keep something if you work for it' and I wanted to illustrate that through Jake and how he decides to just take this other life for himself, rather than learn a lesson from the portal and try to improve his own life. Also this idea of self loathing/inner conflict that we bring out into the real world with the way the two Jake's ultimately end up facing off against each other in the film.

I was particularly captivated by this idea of "finding your better self" in the film. This is something a lot of us are trying to do, but Jake actually does -- though not in a positive way!

Yeah, I basically think Jake goes in pretty much the exact opposite direction a rational person would go. There's so many other ways you could utilize the information he has for his own gain but he pretty much goes with the most direct and amoral route.

Tell us a little about the production, raising funds, finding your cast and other challenges of shooting?

Making “The Alternate” was a really long process. I wrote the first draft of the script in spring of 2014 and I started raising money for the film in 2016. In late 2017 I signed on my producer Jeffrey Allard onto the project and we raised a good portion of the budget in 2018 and we made the teaser trailer at the end of that year. By the summer of 2019 we had raised a good amount of the budget but we needed a bit more to get us ready for production so we ran a successful crowdfunding campaign through Seed and Spark and raised an additional $20k towards our budget. That was in November 2019 and we shot just about two weeks later in December 2019, ending the shoot right before christmas.

We had a lot of obstacles during production, including shooting inside a tiny makeshift set with a crew of thirty people, having the cops called on us by an angry neighbor during production and trying to navigate creating two different versions of all of our major sets in the same location. We also had to figure out how to shoot a number of scenes with our two Jake's interacting, which we originally tried to do using deepfaking techniques, but after some failed tests we ended up using the traditional body double and screen replacement techniques. We are really proud of the film we made with our little budget and while I can't say the budget publicly yet, I can say it was under one million.

For a not-high budget film, "The Alternate" has a very polished look and feel from a technical standpoint -- photography, music, production design, etc. What advice can you give to aspiring filmmakers about making a professional-looking feature?

Thanks for the kind words on the production value! Well I think it all starts with building a team of artists who are interested and willing to collaborate with you on your film. I was lucky to have a lot of preparation time with my cinematographer Jason Joseffer so we really got to craft the look and feel of the film together over a long period of time. We were also lucky to have a lot of very talented and experienced department heads, from our Production Designer Rob Riutta, to our Makeup Artists and our Assistant Director Hilton Day who brought a lot of their regular team members to the film. I think working with such experienced professionals with a high set of standards is what allowed us to reach the production value we achieved on the film. I'll also say a good amount of the crew have been with me on all my short films as well, so we've spent a lot of years building up to this point as a team, so I think having that level of collaboration over multiple projects helped as well.

Tell us a little about your training and background as a filmmaker, what got you into the craft, and what/who your inspirations are.

I first started making films in high school, which is where I caught the bug and then I went to SF State and studied Radio and Television with a focus on video production and creative writing. I took about four internships during college and then after graduation in 2008, I worked on my first couple of feature films, one as an AD and then a bigger budget film as a Key PA. After that I ended up being a freelance PA, which led to being a production coordinator and then after that I got into camera, lighting and sound and bounced around to whatever role I could get hired for on a set. From there I just kept working in production, meeting all my collaborators through the process which led to me directing my first short film “Strange Thing” that I toured the festival circuit with in 2013/2014. From there I decided that I was going to make my first feature film and started writing, what would become “The Alternate.”

As for my inspirations I am heavily inspired by Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter, James Cameron, Brian De Palma and David Cronenberg. I grew up watching the star wars films, all of Spielberg's work, Star Trek (before bed) and pretty much any sci-fi film I could get my hands on. Movies were always my favorite thing as a child but I never thought I could make a movie until I got my hands on a camera, but once I did, there was no looking back.

What's next for you?

Well I've got a feature length sci-fi horror script ready to shoot based on my short film Brother that is ready to shoot. I am also working on another sci-fi horror comedy, kind of like “Slither” meets “Reanimator” with a little bit of “Critters” thrown in the mix. I am also writing a feature that is kind of like “Total Recall” meets “Star Trek,” but I am probably a few films away from making that one. Also if you want to follow along with my career you can listen to my podcast “Making Movies is HARD” on itunes, spotify, stitcher or anywhere podcasts are found to follow along with the release of The Alternate!