We linked up with director Winford Collings and editor Hofmeyr Smit to chat about their collaboration on Adam, a feature film shot in South Africa.

Congratulations on the release of Adam, I watched it over the weekend, it’s really cool. Is this the first feature that you've made?

Winford Collings: Yeah, this is my first feature. Actually my first day on set on Adam was my first day ever on a film set, which was quite something.

I wrote the script about 10 years ago. I went to boarding school in Pretoria and I wrote the script at the end of school, as I was going into first year of university. I actually studied accounting, became a CA, and then worked in consulting. But I still had the script, and then Showmax sent out an open call for scripts from first time directors. So I brought along one of my good friends, Liyema Speelman, who had been working in the film industry, and he was my co-director on the project. I only got three weeks off to do the movie. When we were doing post, I was already back at work. So Liyema was a big help in in getting a lot of Adam done. 

Winford & Liyema on set.

In what ways was being on set different to what you expected?

Winford:  I think I was expecting a little bit more chaos, but we had a really great team. The crew that we put together, the cast, every person just brought 125%.

I was working closer with the actors and Liyema was working closer with Gray Kotze, our cinematographer. Having written the script, it's easier to speak to the actors because you're speaking to the story and intention. So when we call cut, I go straight to the actors, give them notes or talk them through the scene, which felt a bit safer than getting caught up in the film crew. And then by day three or four, I started to come out of my shell, started to interact a little bit more with the rest of the crew.

Dirk Stoltz as Derek Prinsloo, owner of the militaristic farm school.

Can you tell me about the origins of the story? You mentioned that you went to boarding school and a lot of that claustrophobic feeling comes from your own experience.

Winford: Boarding school was quite a tough experience. I think physically and emotionally, it's very harsh. I was at a boarding school which was big on tradition, initiation and all that. And that carries through, you know, there's certain things that you can't get out of your mind. And that's what informed the start of the story. 

And I'd gone to a Bush School, where you go away for two months and you camp, you don't have your phone and you cook for yourself. I enjoyed that experience and the guy that ran it was a really lovely man. But I was thinking, what if he was pretty evil? You know, we’re out in the wilderness, you don't have your phone, anything could happen here. And so taking those two experiences was the starting point. I didn't want it to be set in a boarding school, but rather on a farm, with someone that has been part of a system like this and isn't able to let go of it. All this fear that they drive into you is actually just their own PTSD that they’ve been carrying for a long time.

Hofmeyr, what did you think of the script when you first came on board?

Hofmeyr Smit: You know, reading through it, I could relate to it a little bit. I was in a hostel as well where bullying and that stuff did happen. So I was immediately in love with the script, if you want to call it that. Seeing the actors that were playing the roles, I knew from the get go - this is going to be something special.

Students on the Prinsloo Farm.

You were you were able to create this sense of dread, like something bad was going to happen, but you weren't relying on music to do it. In this film it was just beautiful natural sounds and birdsong, and really lovely classical piano pieces.

Winford: We spent a lot of time just listening to different scores and watching the film, seeing where certain cues could play. We only added music when we were outside on the farm because we wanted it to punctuate how beautiful this place is and how kind of dreamlike this open space is. We wanted it to feel like the music was in Adam's world and it's speaking to his state of mind.

The end shot, when Adam's doing that final walk out, we needed to add something: you were hearing his feet scraping and it felt too empty. But orchestral wasn’t working; violin felt too weepy; piano felt too somber. And then my friend, who's an opera singer, just recorded some humming. And it was beautiful and it worked perfectly to sort of take you into that hug. At the same time, you hear those birds and it speaks to the freedom that he's feeling. That was just live sound on the farm, it wasn't something we had to add afterwards. There was a bird singing in the background as he finally escapes. It's amazing, yeah.

The were two longer takes that stood out for me - the one was the intimacy scene, and the other was that end shot of Adam leaving the farm. Had you shot coverage or were you always going to get those in one take, and how difficult was it to achieve that?

Winford: No, it was always going to be one take. The intimacy scene was important for us because we wanted the focus to only be on Susanna for that. It's only on her and we're going to do it all in one take, not moving camera because we wanted to stay focused on her and that this is her scene. 

And also Adam walking out was the same thing. But, you know, the light was going. We needed to shoot at golden hour and you get that beautiful light when he turns, coming in from the side.  Getting golden-hour shots you have like five minutes of light at most. And the walking scene clocks in about two and a half minutes. I think that shot, we got it on the second take. 

Antoinette Louw as Susanna Prinsloo.

Hofmeyr: Every time I see Winford and we talk about the film, the ending comes up because on the very last cut we did, I sent him the film at like three o'clock in the morning and he was up. I could see him adding notes… and that ending section, I started crying when I watched it at 3 in the morning and I think he had a similar experience. 

Even now when we watched it with the cast and the crew, the ending brought all the emotions out. It's a big up to Marko, the actor who played Adam. He did a really good job in the lead role.

How did you cast the lead for Adam?

Winford: Marko Vorster was 19 when we shot Adam. He had never done a film before, but he was in a series called Donkerbos. He was only 15 when he shot that, but that role is also quite a heavy role. So when we were going through the casting process I saw him in Donkerbos and I was like: “this is Adam”. There wasn't really any other option.

Marko Vorster as Adam and Inge Beckmann as his mother, Carol.

Winford, how was your experience working with an editor for the first time?

Winford: You have to let go of so much control, which is difficult because up until that point I'd been writing and then directing. But editing is something you really do have to give over, and I struggled with it in the beginning.

But it was great to be collaboratively working with Hofmeyr. We'd say “stretch out the scenes as much as you can, add pauses even where it doesn't feel like there should be a natural pause”. He had a good instinct about where to cut, especially when you felt like something wasn't working, but you don't quite know how to vocalize it. It's great when an editor is able to go away and actually implement your like hazy thoughts and you're like, “yeah, that's exactly what I was looking for”.

Hofmeyr, can you talk to the experience of collaborating with the directors remotely? How did Louper support your workflow? 

Hofmeyr: After the initial assembly, it was a very collaborative experience. What I really enjoyed about Louper was how easy it was to just switch up what is being shared to the room. It was simple to just turn off the NDI and share a full screen of Final Cut. I found that Winford and Liyema both liked being able to see the bins, seeing a timeline, so they could also kind of visually cut as they're seeing the blocks piece together.

In commercials, you don't necessarily want the client to see your timeline, but when you're working with a director on a longer project, they often want to see the structure.

Hofmeyr: Yeah, it's a big thing that I've learned going back into long-form - there's an image that's being created on set and your DP also needs to have control over that for the whole process. So that's why they make LUTS, that's why they develop a look. They want to maintain that picture quality from there to the end. 

And it's the same with the directors. They got the performance that they captured. You want to make sure that that gets carried through to the end. Whereas in commercials, you don't have that direct relationship that you build in the edits.

Did you find that anything in the storytelling changed from what you'd shot to what you guys ended up editing?

Winford: We were able to play around with some of the handheld stuff with the boys playing on the farm, shots that Gray just sort of caught spontaneously in-between different setups.  The script was so tightly plotted, I wish we'd actually had a few more of those moments where we could be little bit looser with the structure. But I guess that's for the next one.

Adam and his teammates play rugby on the farm.

Winford, this was your first time joining a livestream session on Louper. Did you enjoy collaborating remotely?

Winford: It was great. I was working a full-time job at the same time, so I wasn't able to be in the room with Hofmeyr and Liyema. With Louper, we were able to just schedule an hour and I could book out my diary, or I could still be working and it's on in the background and I can hear Liyema and Hofmeyr chatting through something. 

Hofmeyr: It definitely saved us time - instead of having me sit for a day, do cuts, upload, wait for them to give feedback, download… we could just get real-time into the edits. That was the main reason we chose to use Louper. You can very easily play out the four or five ideas you have for the scene and just cut it up there and see which one works and then drop it in. When I use Louper, it's a quality experience. You sign up, you send your signal, it just works. And it's easy for the client to get on board as well. They just join the room.

Winford: We had a lot of fun. I think the Louper sessions were some of the most fun we had. You could just chat and play a little bit more, because we’re not huddled around Hofmeyr's laptop. He feels comfortable because he's editing in his own space, which is what the aim ultimately is.

Did you get a theatrical release for Adam, or is it only streaming on Showmax?

Winford: Yeah, it’s straight to Showmax. No theatrical release, but we're allowed to do festivals. We premiered at the Joburg Film Festival, so we were able to watch it in a cinema. Afterwards people were asking questions and you’re hearing all these varied opinions and perspectives on the characters, which was very cool. When you watch it with a group, it's very different. I never realized how funny the film can be. I thought I was making this straightforward drama, but there’s so many little moments that are funny. 

At the end of the day, if people are entertained, whether they're laughing or crying, you've done your job because they're actually watching, they're engaged and they're moved by what they're seeing.

Paul Strydom as Marko, Derek and Susanna's son.

Winford Collings is a writer-director based in Cape Town. He wrote the script for Adam and co-directed the film with Liyema Speelman. Hofmeyr Smit edited Adam on Final Cut Pro, using Louper to stream his live review sessions. All stills from the film by DOP Gray Kotz. Photo of Winford and Liyema on set by  Arron Moos.

Adam was produced by Blended Films for release on Showmax.

You can watch the trailer here.