Miles S. Crossman

Director of

The Princess & The Dragon

A complete interview with Miles

We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the director Miles for taking the time to answer our questions.

Whole team of Liverpool Indie Awards is wishing you the very best in all your future projects. We hope to see more of your exceptional work in the years to come. Thank you once again!

The Princess & The Dragon is the culmination of years of indie filmmaking in the small community of Brandon, Manitoba, Canada. This project exemplifies what can be accomplished if you refuse to take no for an answer and just make something. The whole project is backwards engineered from what locations we have available to us, who is on board to help make it, and who is able (read: willing ;)) to be on screen. 

This film twists classic fairytale archetypes into a claustrophobic nightmare that explores the cyclical nature of bipolar disorder. The film examines how we construct narratives to survive our darkest moments, and what happens when those stories trap us instead of setting us free. Blending escape room tension with psychological horror, the story follows Jenna through a reality where mood cycles manifest as an endless maze. Driven by a recurring soundtrack that augments subtly as the maze deepens. Every puzzle she solves pulls her further into a world where the line between patient and prisoner blurs beyond recognition. At its core, this is a film about agency within mental illness. About whether we can truly save ourselves, or if some cycles are designed never to end. The Princess must face the Dragon. But what if they’re both trapped in the same repeating pattern?

I’ve lived with mental illness as a part of my life for over 17 years, seeing first hand how the onslaught of dysregulation disrupts our lives. The more we sought help, the further we felt from it. Everything about this film goes back to that: The way the Dr. and Nurse speak are the ways sufferers hear those working in the healthcare system. Not as those offering a helping hand, but as judges mitting out condescension. Every page of the story book is more and more cryptic and seemingly takes one no closer to health. And the Dragon always appears just as success is at hand. The ending of this film is rife with controversy. Many on our team did not agree with some of the choices we made. But these choices were made because they’re real… real moments where those afflicted must make a choice to stay the course even though that might mean more pain.

Going into the shoot, I really wanted to make something I would watch… I wanted it to be fast paced, to have high contrast lighting, be colourful, and a shock ending!  I imagined the story to be like a train that left the station two days ago and the audience is jumping on board, hanging on until we run out of track. I am not the hugest fan of slow cinema, I get it, I just want stuff happening! I wanted the journey to be more about the plot, the idea of this ridiculous place where a twisted doctor makes someone live their inner turmoil externally… that’s what I like, I like worlds, worlds where the characters are just in them, trying to survive, I find it allows me to imagine myself in that world, and imagine what I would do in that circumstance. This is why our location was so important. I’ve been scouting the Ninette Sanatorium for years, and every time I entered it my imagination would go wild speculating what horror was wrought (To be clear, it’s an old Tuberculosis Sanatorium, so it wasn’t like that – though many say it’s haunted…)! Because I knew the space so well, it became a character in itself, as though this facility was like a pop-up location for the Storybook Program. I really believe in using everything in a location, found locations are the lifeblood of indie film, and this one delivers! As a unifying vision, I feel like the soundtrack needed to drive the action forward constantly, to make us feel like we had to hold on, even when we slow things down, the music pushes us forward.    
 

The name of the game is Collaboration. It was Oct. 29th, 2023 that I got the call – the location I had dreamed of shooting in for years was going to be renovated in the spring… If I wanted to film there, I had better do it quickly.  Faced with an impossible deadline for the location, a chance encounter with concept creators GMB Chomichuk and Jonathan Ball led to our first meeting on site a week later to discuss how their short story of the same title could be reworked into a screenplay for the Ninette Sanatorium. With a shared love for institutional horror, they joined Executive Producer/Writer Erik Fjeldsted, No Budget Horror Provocateur Mark Kiazyk, and myself in structuring the story throughout our walkabout. After 2 clenched jawed weeks, Chomichuk and Ball delivered a treatment to Fjeldsted and myself. Erik and I soon realized that the core of this story was a treatise on Bi-polar disorder, and that every sufferer is both the Princess and the Dragon at the same time. With this breakthrough in mind, we wrote the script to reflect this reality, the interactions with hospital staff changed, the way we thought about the structure also adjusted. Throughout pre-production we continued our back and forth discussions on this new direction and how we could best drive the action right up until the shoot in Mid-January.

Against the clock, Erik and I began reaching out to other collaborators to ensure we could deliver on our ambitions as soon as we had returned from our location scout. We knew we were making… something… we just had to commit to a date and the rest will fall in place. WE decided on two four day weekends to shoot… 8 days total – just 2 months later, to hell with the consequences. Our team was split between our film collective in Brandon, MB. and the filmmakers we had met in our travels throughout the province. Hydraulic Content, specializing in SFX and making amazing things, came on board to help realize the many props and atmospheric elements that appear in the film. Working GMB Chomichuk (who had now morphed into production designer extraordinaire), and special effects make-up artist Caitlynn Windsor-Brown, and myself, the Hydraulic team put their skills and resources to work to ensure that we had everything we needed to be successful. Living on one of the most talented blocks in my city, my long time collaborator Marilyn Hardy came on to do costume design, and most importantly Dragon Design! inspired by Franzetta’s Death Dealer, I wanted the helmet to be reminiscent of this iconic image. The masks were an important element that needed to be durable and reproducible – Hydraulic delivered once more with a box of tricks that included 5 masks that we could both distress and rework for the shoot. 
 
Having known Cinematographer Andrew Forbes for several years, Erik asked him to be a part of the shoot. Well known as the ‘nicest guy in film’ in the Winnipeg film community, I was excited to have the chance to work with such an experienced and efficient professional. Our initial chats were about tone, feel, and lighting – but we soon shifted to the reality of the project… TIME! With only 8 days, we simply would not have time to be setting up and lighting every shot, so we decided that we would light spaces, instead of faces. Whole rooms in the location would be pre lit after some basic blocking, with only a bounce or a touch of fill brought in on the shot. Secondly, the decided to shoot the entire film on Gimbels. 2 roving cameras that pick up the action and follow our leads through the space… each take we shifted slightly, giving us the appearance of having done more sets than we actually did. On average, we would do 3 takes, giving us 6 angels per shot to work with in the edit. Using Sony FX-30’s, allowed for a stripped down and efficient workflow. Our Lighting and grip crew is the best of the non-union talent around… coming from the docuseries world, they knew how to shoot in this rapid style and set up accordingly to ensure we could make our days.    
 
Working with my art department was great! Led by Poul Jensen, who has been on our team since the beginning, is always an experience. His talent is off the charts, and he always shows up with three options/drawings for everything! Our team of Alex and Chris worked diligently leading up to the shoot, in an unheated building, to help prepare the location. I would show up, we’d discuss the scenes and what would need to happen, they would execute! 
 
Our production style lent itself to working with Theatre Actors. I wanted to do long takes (that I would cut up in post), and so we would run every scene from start to finish, just like it was a play. With so little time to get ready, our cast was only set 7 days from when we were going to shoot. I am a firm believer that the dialog is a suggestion, and that the performers need the gravity to say what feels right to the character choices they’ve made, rather than to be too strict with what’s on the page. So long as we can get the meaning and intention out of the scene… I’m cool with it. In fact, much of Nadine McLachlan’s (who plays the lead Jenna) solo lines as she explores the space were off the cuff and completely unscripted. This was her first time on film, and she brought the curiosity and talent to shine. Her willingness to just say yes when we asked her to come on board was a relief, we’d seen her carry multiple stage plays like The Sound Of Music,  Frozen, and Something Rottin’ that we knew she could deliver… and she’s one of the most pleasant people you’ll ever meet.    
 
Post… OMG POST! After about 2/3’s of the film was assembled, I had to take over the editing of the project. I was not prepared for the learning curve. But all of the footage was organized, so that was one huge stress off of my plate. It was here that I realized how much I didn’t know about filmmaking. Doing the animation effects was a lot of back and forth with GMB Chomichuk who was hand drawing all of the effects and animation assets before importing them digitally. Working with Winson Ta was a blessing as he was able to take a lot of the motion effects off my plate. 
 
Finally, my audio engineer Vincenté Villafuerté was a blessing. Coming our way via Tripwire Media, who donated paid for Vicenté and provided the studio space, Vicenté was excellent. We would work together on the deconstructed audio tracks White Bat Audio to craft the sound track, while blending in some existing Karl Casey tracks.  

When you are doing an Ultra Low Budget production you have to realize how much you will end up doing yourself. There is no money to throw at a problem, so you really have to just do it. Post production for me was a real challenge. I have never edited a feature film before, done colour at all, nor done any visual effects before. I ended up having to do these, and sometimes you just have to push on in the face of adversity. Around the time I realized that a couple of my action shots were unusable, it was too late to go back. The entire animation element was born from necessity to help make those moments feel less clunky and more dynamic, but again, I leaned on my team to help make it work. GMB Chomichuk, an accomplished comic book artist, was ready to help me actualize the new blended vision of animation and live-action. This process was all done through trial and error, leading to us to the kind of 2.5D experience where we play with the aspect ratio and output blanking to force perspective to allow viewers to feel more ‘a part’ of the film.  

I love the first interaction of the final conflict in the catacombs, I was so excited to be able to have what I imagined all layer together to show the past, present, and future of mental health culminating in one explosive clash. When I first visualized it and explained it to GMB Chomichuk I think we were both a bit skeptical that we could pull it off, that it would actually work. I’m really happy with how it turned out. 

I would schedule more days to shoot. 8 days is not enough – I ended up shooting 10 days anyways, it was just later and more difficult to get everyone back together for the reshoots. In the future, 15 days is the minimum I would plan for… It’s hard to even imagine the luxury! 

My short film The Last In Line is one that always has a soft spot for. It was the first time I had ever done an action sequence in a film, and I had no idea how I was going to do it! So we just ran it and ran it until we had something we could use. I wanted to have a blend of wide angle fight footage so you could see what was happening, while simultaneously filming ‘inside the fight’ so you could be a part of it, and I think it works well. The process of having to plan for VFX, shooting the plates in a gymnasium, working with a stunt double… the whole process made me feel like a ‘real’ filmmaker. 

Do three shorts to get some experience… then do a feature – no excuses. Use what you have, be flexible, don’t be tied to what you think you are going to make. Annnnnd… NETWORK! Go to the conferences, talk to people you don’t know, make it known what you are doing. This whole film was made possible by the people I met in the back hallways of film festivals and media conferences that wanted to ‘break in’ – so break in! The whole concept of ‘breaking in’ means that the front door was guarded, the back door was locked, so you had to come in through the window! 

The first conversation I have with every actor before we start is about this idea that there are really only 200 people in the world, living different lives and making different choices based on their circumstance – the idea of archetypes is born from this, we are living embodiments of these archetypes and as performers it’s their role to be themselves based on the given circumstances of the story. I encourage them to make choices as if they are the ones here in this reality now, that’s why I don’t care about script dialog – I have no idea what you should say, I’m not you! I know the context, circumstance, and destination, but the minutiae of the moment should be dynamic and spontaneous, I love to just play and make believe with the actors. 

I had a very specific vibe I was going for in this film. I wanted that John Carpenter nostalgia to permeate the film. I tried working with a composer and we just couldn’t align on the vision. From there I discovered the work of Karl Casey and White Bat Audio. The aesthetic was right on point, and he had completely deconstructed audio tracks that my audio engineer and I were able to mix and match to really deliver on what I imagined. 

I take feedback seriously, and try really hard to address everything I can. The original version of this movie has an extra 10 minutes – but it just wasn’t working for everyone on the team, so I cut it down to deliver on a punchier edit. In the end, we shot this in 8 days for under $100K – The reality is: Some people love it, Some people Hate it, most people think it’s Ok… sounds like a real movie to me!