Re-Wire - Interview with Director David-James Fernandes

Shawn Lawrence and Brandon McGibbon in David-James Fernandes' Re-Wire.

Re-Wire is a 14-minute exercise in uncertainty. In this eerie film, every word and sound seems designed to trigger suspicion and alarm. The film opens with an anxious Harley (Brandon McGibbon) walking through a bleak hallway. This is a man so riddled with insecurities that he shrinks away when a passing stranger spares him a momentary glance. This is a man who hesitates fretfully before daring to knock on a door.

But knock he does, and Harley finds himself ushered into a ramshackle lab lined with electronic and medical equipment. Faced with a disgruntled doctor (Shawn Lawrence,) Harley explains his visit: he wants his brain rewired.

Director/producer/writer David-James Fernandes explains that Re-Wire is about fear, with Harley's anxiety as a starting point. "He's desperate to change; he's been through the medical system, trainers, coaches -- nothing works." It's at this point that Harley volunteers himself for a radical procedure that will be performed in a makeshift lab in someone's apartment.

"I like films that do a lot without saying a lot," says Fernandes. For this reason, the film avoids providing too much detail about Harley's life and begins with him seeking what might be brain surgery. Fernandes preferred trying get the audience interested in Harley through his reactions to a strange environment.

This was part of Fernandes's wish to create a mysterious tone. "It's not a film that gives you a lot of exposition. There's no real backstory." Instead, the focus is on a desperate man throwing himself into a risky and threatening situation.

Harley's anxiety and need to be cured of it originates from Fernandes's own personal struggles. Now 36-years-old, Fernandes looks back at his youth and remembers his fears. "I had a lot of trouble in groups of people," he says. "I couldn't function. I was good one-on-one, but around a lot of people, I always had anxiety.

Fernandes is currently a partner, director and producer with Leslieville Productions & Post, a video and film production company. His present career reflects his success in conquering his fears. "I don't think, when I was younger, I could have put myself out there and made films," he admits. "It's unnerving to put something out there, opening yourself up to criticism."

With his own life in mind, Fernandes scripted Harley's story while thinking about where confidence and assurance originate. A key idea came from Sarah Kapoor, a producer and partner who shared with Fernandes a story of the placebo effect. She'd read about a man who believed he'd been cursed by a witch doctor. A medical doctor, using sleight of hand, pretended to yank a lizard out of the patient's back. The doctor claimed the lizard was the demon, now extracted, and this relieved the patient's fears.

"Re-Wire asks," says Fernandes, "where does peace of mind come from? Is it something that originates inside us? Is this something we get from doctors and pharmaceuticals?"

In Re-Wire, Harley seeks his own peace of mind in a messy lab that looks like it's been cobbled together from junked computers and spare parts. "There's nothing reassuring about it," says Fernandes of this place where Harley wants treatment. Fernandes very much wanted the lab to avoid looking high-tech or pristine. However, he couldn't have made it look cutting edge and modern even if he'd wanted. "We didn't have the money," he admits.

Yet, the look of the film is slick and sharp, with a careful, deliberate style to create an unsettling sense of space. "We wanted the camerawork to be invisible; not a lot of handheld, not calling attention to itself." Once the film begins to delve into Harley's fear, however, Fernandes called for a different approach as the story now needed a significantly different style. In February, Re-Wire's director of photography, Greg Bennett, was nominated for his work on the film by the Canadian Society of Cinematographers.

It's well-deserved. Re-Wire shows uncanny skill from its creators in producing striking, gripping environments in which the only constant is fear. "We're ultimately the creators of our own universe," says Fernandes about his life and his film. "We made a film for $20,000 that looks like it cost a hell of a lot more."