Exclusive Interview With Dave Green And Henry Gayden On Earth To Echo

Regarding the child actors, what was it like writing for them? Did you get to the point where you wanted them to fill in the blanks?

Henry Gayden: We sort of wrote for them. Once we cast them, I adjusted the dialogue for Astro, [who plays Tuck] for instance, who speaks clearly in a certain way. So I adjusted to each of the actors’ rhythms and the way they spoke. Reese Hartwig embodied Munch, so he was already there, and that was amazing and a gift. And then when I wrote the scenes and then Dave went to set, I think he kept asking them if this was authentic to what you feel you would do in a character and he gave them freedom to adjust dialogue, and they did sometimes to great effect. So it was just a trustful relationship from beginning to end and it kind of paid off.

What were the biggest challenges in making Earth to Echo?

Dave Green: Oh my God, I could talk to you forever about that. It was hard. There were challenges that were awesome which felt hard but allowed us to create. For example, we had a 28 day principal photography schedule and with kids at night during summer. The sun goes down at 9, you’re shooting until 12:30 AM and you’re basically not going to cut at all. It was a small box that let us put a lot of energy into those scenes, and so what came out of it was positive. It’s got the feelings that we had when we were on set.

Henry Gayden: The schedule was nuts for writing the script. We sold the pitch and within 15 minutes they said that they were going to be shooting this in 2 ½ months, which we thought was a joke. Then I started writing and then we got to this thing and eventually we had a script that we went to production with, but I was writing things all the way through. There were days where I was in an office for 40 hours. It was nuts, but it was thrilling. Similarly, that didn’t let me sit in my head and it didn’t let me overanalyze. I just had to write scenes and make them work, and I think a lot of natural, fun energy came out of that.

Dave Green: Everything was hard.

Henry Gayden: It was tough. It was a tough, fun shoot.

That concludes our interview, but we’d like to thank Dave and Henry very much for their time. Be sure to check out Earth To Echo as it’s now playing in theatres.