From Thesis to Feature Film: David Raboy on The Giant (2019)

Listen on Spotify here or watch on YouTube here.

The Giant (2019) began with a deep-seated feeling that director, writer, and editor, David Raboy had known all his life but had never found a means to express. Raboy shares how his film evolved from the New York University thesis film to taking shape as a feature that resonates with those who experience similar complex emotions. By blending personal experiences with innovative storytelling techniques, David Raboy has crafted a movie that speaks to the complexities of human emotion.

Starring Odessa Young as Charlotte, the film follows her Summer after graduating high school. Her small-town life is changed forever when a series of murders begin on the same night that her missing boyfriend suddenly reappears.

Check out The Giant (2019) trailer here. See more from David here.

Please Enjoy:

Liv: I want to talk all about The Giant because it's one of my favorite movies of all time.

David Raboy: That is so sweet of you to say. Please, let's get into it. But I just want to say that's a beautiful thing to hear. And it just means the world to me, so thank you for saying that.

Liv: Yeah! I first found out about the film right when Outer Banks (2020) came out. Madelyn Cline was doing press, and the film hadn't come out yet, but I had seen her, and I wanted to see more of her. So she was promoting this film, and I was like, I need to see this. She did an interview that was posted on YouTube, and then they had shown a clip of the trailer, and I was so drawn to the visuals. The shot of Odessa looking at her house and then, the house, those 2 shots, for some reason, I was like, I need to see this now. I was just so drawn to this trailer, and I was looking everywhere for when it came out. Then I bought it on demand the day after it came out, and I watched it immediately because I just felt so drawn to it. I don't even know how to explain it. It just felt like I had to see it.

Your directorial debut

but this was your directorial debut. You wrote, edited, and directed it.

David Raboy: I did too many things on it.

Liv: What kind of headspace were you in when you were writing the script, and how did the concept evolve, if at all, towards filming?

David Raboy: I didn't know what the movie was. think it was a feeling I had known my entire life, and I didn't have a means to express it. In the attempt to express it this movie is what sort of came out of it. Once it came out, I realized what the movie was about. I realized that it was about, a sort of fear that can't be expressed for fear that it might break the world. I was struggling so much with depression, and that the safest way for me to express this terror that I felt in my soul was to put it in this movie. When I was writing it, it was just like a compulsion. I didn't know where it would lead. It was just sort of like a free association project over the course of several years. It sort of took the shape of this story. I think if you watch the movie, you know, I'm not trying to make a serial killer thriller. I think I tried to fool myself into thinking that was the case. But ultimately, I was trying to find a conduit to express these things that I didn't understand. I think I believe in movies as a medium that can express things that can't be expressed in other media, in any other format.

The process of making it was, the most difficult, but the most incredible time of my life. It's interesting because when you asked to do this, I obviously, had seen the edit that you had done of the movie. It's such a beautiful thing because that format, that's how the movie felt to me for so long until I actually made it. It would be like bursts of images when listening to music. So I was actually very moved to see your edit because that's very much how it came to me. Just, feeling a type of way and for some reason, connecting those feelings to images, then trying to write them down in a way that was cohesive, that was in many ways, sort of how the movie came about, if that makes sense.

Liv: Yeah, definitely. And thank you for that, because I love when people see my edits, especially when you made it.

David Raboy: I mean, it's a wild thing. It’s sort of like the most pure expression of a movie. So, yeah, I was stoked to see it. Yeah, it was awesome.

The producer's wife had a dream about it

Liv: That's so cool. I watched your interview with Collider at the Toronto Film Festival.

David Raboy: Yeah. A long time ago.

Liv: When you were pitching the movie, you said the producer's wife had a dream about it. Can you share what that dream was?

David Raboy: It was hard for her to explain. She was aware in this dream of a massive shadow that was just sort of at the edge of her vision. Just like feeling this massive absence that felt like it was haunting, whatever space she was in. And she woke up sort of in a cold sweat, as I understand it. But I don't know that it was so much the actual details of the dream so much as the feeling of it, which is, the movie in a nutshell as well. But she, yeah, she had this wild dream. And then we talked about, the notion of silhouettes and art and film for a long time at a dinner the next night. And thank God for that dream. Otherwise, obviously, there would be no movie.

Liv: I think that just shows how good the story is. The fact that it was able to go into her subconscious and affect her that much is so crazy.

David Raboy: Yeah, I think I knew when I was making it that it would. It wasn't going to be, like, a sort of thing that everyone would be able to latch on to. But I knew that it would certainly harmonize with a certain kind of person. And I think, luckily, Jeannie was such a person.

Cinematic Inspirations

Liv: Yeah, definitely. The movie reminds me of Donnie Darko (2001). Sharp Objects (2018) that sort of, surreal, you don't know what's real or not. You don't know what's in your head or not. But what inspirations were you pulling from?

*Jake Gyllenhaal as Donnie Darko, Donnie Darko 2001*

David Raboy: I mean, Donnie Darko was a major movie for me growing up. I watched that in 8th grade. When we saw the movie, all my friends made fun of me because I was channeling Donnie so much at that time of my life. I had the hoodie up all the time. I had dyed black hair. And so Donnie Darko is actually, a really beautiful thing. that actually means the world to me that you saw that. If I'm being honest, I don't think there were a whole lot of movie references for me when I was making it. I think this belief that I have about film being a language that can express things that can't be expressed otherwise, I think it really was important to me to try to find novel ways of expressing these feelings without relying upon what movies had done that for me in the past. Because, to be honest, there are not so many that have really scratched the itch, in terms of these feelings. I think a lot of my guides were music and memories. Sort of the major intention that I had was to try and make a movie that felt like an album because I feel like I have favorite movies, but I have the albums that mean what they mean to me. Those are in my blood. I feel like there is this nexus of cinema and music that is really powerful. So I wanted to make someone's favorite album, basically. There were a lot of musical references, and there's nothing like being in your car in the summer, late at night, listening to a particular song, and just feeling one type of way. That's just such a more powerful reference than other movies. Although obviously there were a lot of filmmakers that inspired us in the making of it. I would say Apichatpong Weerasethakul, the Thai filmmaker, was a major reference for us. Texas Chain Saw (1974) is always in my mind. Donnie Darko always in my mind, and then there are some others. I could go deep on the other references, but I think for the most part, it's about trying to find a way to bring memory and music together and try and make something that feels like an album or like a memory, in that holistic sense. As we got more specific in making the movie, there were other things that came up. But music was huge, for sure.

Liv: Yeah, Texas Chain Saw is actually really interesting, now that you mention it. I totally see that because there's not much dialogue in that film, but it's very immersive with sound and the feeling like you want to scratch your skin. You just don't want to be there. That's so interesting.

David Raboy: Texas Chain Saw is like ah, I know what it feels like on my body. There's something very powerful about a very tactile kind of cinema. We put a lot of attention into the sweat budget. We made sure that you can feel the humidity. If you can do that in a movie, if you can feel immersed in a place, it just opens up so much in terms of people's immersion within the characters and their journey. Texas Chain Saw is a movie that I have always thought about in terms of putting me there. I feel like I can smell that movie for better and for worse, definitely.

Liv: I feel like I can smell this movie. I feel like I can feel it on my skin.

David Raboy: I was having this conversation the other day with another filmmaker, the people joking about smell-o-vision for so long. But if I could have made this movie in smell-o-vision, I think it would have been so incredible. Like it's one thing to see these images, but if you're smelling a magnolia flower in bloom, it takes it to another level because scent is so tied to memory, and I think film is the closest thing we get to, this, communal dreaming, but also to a communal memory. It was so important to capture this period of the final summer in the movie, which feels like its own doom but is also so beautiful. And I think a lot of people have that experience, and so much of that is tied in scent. It's sort of like a lifelong mission of mine, to try and find a way to articulate memory within film. Not just my memories, but in such a way that it feels like it belongs to the viewer as well.

Liv: Yeah. That universal feeling can be channeled through so much more than dialogue, it has to be a feeling. I think you captured that perfectly.

David Raboy: Thank you.

Shooting on film

Liv: You shot this film on 35 millimeter. What was that like? Did it come with challenges?

David Raboy: Yes, challenges, mainly being the producers being mad at me all the time because we were shooting more than we were supposed to. As a director, I have never worked in any other medium. The two shorts that I did before it were on film, and this one is. I did music video recently that was also on film. So It's the workflow that I've always known. It is definitely more expensive than your average digital thing. But at the same time, every time the camera starts turning, everyone is aware of the fact that money is rolling through the camera. So it very much invites a different discipline. You can hold the images, and I think there's no replacement for that. that's an extraordinary thing. It's an alchemical process. There's light and chemicals that come together to make an image that harnesses a feeling, it's crazy. I'm a zealot about film, but it definitely is expensive. And the camera, we were getting whatever discounts we could get. So a lot of the time we were using larger cameras that are more difficult. A lot of digital cameras that are out there now, you could just kind of throw it from one person to another, but at the same time, this is how they made everything. It’s the same film format that they used to make [John] Cassavetes’ Faces (1968) and Lawrence of Arabia (1962). So to me, I wasn't thinking so much about the challenges. When we actually got into it, I was just thinking about how much I love it.

Liv: Yeah, I always have a deep appreciation for shows and movies that are shot on film, like the second season of Euphoria was on film.

David Raboy: And it looks incredible.

Liv: It just brings a whole different feeling to it. It is way worth the payoff and the challenges every time.

David Raboy: Yeah, absolutely. That's how all movies used to look. I feel like there's something important about being a part of that tradition. The thing that I love about it the most is, I didn't choose to make it look this way. You know what I mean? Like, it has its own process and whatever comes out of that, it feels like you're in collaboration with something above yourself, and I think that's what I appreciate the most.

Liv: Yeah, I doubt that this film would have as much feeling if it was digital or something.

David Raboy: No, I definitely agree. Yeah.

Liv: I went to SCAD, and that is mentioned in the film.

David Raboy: Oh, amazing.

Liv: I felt even more connected to this movie when that was mentioned. But did anyone, you know, go to SCAD?

David Raboy: Oh, yeah. Well, okay, so you asked about sort of inspirations for it. I mean, a lot of it was a personal thing. But in my town, the basis for the story of the murders were there were 2 murders that actually happened a couple years apart. 2 girls that went to my high school on separate and unrelated occasions, were murdered. It was horrible, paradigm-shifting, just horrifically tragic. They were both mysteries, for a long time, unsolved. This was a huge foundational part of that. At that time of my life, growing up in what I thought to be a very idyllic place. Then all of a sudden, you're confronted with something that is unspeakably tragic and heavy, that rearranges the way the world looks to you. In one scenario this girl, she was a friend of mine in French class, she was my buddy in that class. She went to college the next year and disappeared one weekend. They found her a couple weeks later in the woods. Then another girl a couple years later was killed, actually in our town, in broad daylight in her car. It was a mystery for a decade. A lot of the original writing of this movie was trying to reckon with what that means. What does that say about the world or our notions of it, that something like that could happen out of nowhere with no explanation. It makes it impossible to imagine going about the next day as normal. I think that the world has only seen more of that. I think that's much more common for kids nowadays. But at the time, it was pretty massive deal. The notion of SCAD is probably tied to the girl who was killed in my town, she was going to be a freshman at SCAD. God, I think a lot of the movie I wrote from the idea of a future that's taken for granted, it's not guaranteed. And I think that is so much the crux of Charlotte's struggle in the movie, is knowing that the future is not guaranteed and trying to get the people around you to reckon with that in a way that they maybe never will. So all that to say, I think that is where the SCAD came from. I have since met many people that went to SCAD. It sounds like a great program and I love Savannah.

Liv: Yeah, I loved when that was mentioned because I feel like not a lot of people don’t know about it.

David Raboy: It's a great school.

Liv: Yeah. I remember the first time I ever saw heat lightning. I was really young, and it was such a surreal thing to see. I was so taken by that in the film. What made you want to use that as a motif?

David Raboy: Just the phenomenology of Summer. On one level, I don't see it enough in movies. Obviously, there's a lot of omens in this movie, and there is a lot of dread, but also anytime you see thunder and lightning in a movie like something's about to happen now. And I think that so much of the movie is about a fear of something that could happen anytime. You just never know when it will arrive. So the idea of something that's always in the distance is something that was very powerful to me. There was a huge part of all my Summers growing up, you go for a drive on a country road, and then you see a light show in the distance, and it's spectacular. The entire movie, to me, is the collision of things that are beautiful and also terrifying. I don't know that there is a more succinct image of that for me than distant lightning.

Liv: Yeah, definitely. It's so crazy, I feel like this movie is pulled out of my brain. This movie is something that my whole life I’ve wanted to see captured. I'm so grateful for this film. I just love this movie so much.

David Raboy: I can't tell you how much that means to me because it has been such a weird process since it came out because it came out during the pandemic and didn't seem like anybody seen it. I've seen a lot of people that did not like the movie quite so much. And I just, put everything into it, all my heart because I think it is the movie that I always wanted to see. And so if that's the case for you, I can't tell you how satisfying and meaningful that is to me, truly, it was for a reason then definitely.

Liv: I think the people that get it, get it, and I think that's all you should really ever care about because you made the movie for people that will understand it and resonate with it, and I think you did that for sure.

David Raboy: Thank you. Thank you very much. I hope that's true.

Liv: It is for me.

The casting process

But I want to know, what was the casting process like? Because this cast is so phenomenal.

David Raboy: Pretty wild, man.

Liv: This was a lot of their first roles, or first being on a set.

David Raboy: About a year ago, Maddie sent me a message, and she sent me a picture of her and Danny at the People's Choice Awards. And I just thought that is so wild, in the most beautiful way. So the process is basically this, the first person we attached was Odessa [Young]. She was the first person that our casting director, Jessica Kelly, presented. I had been meeting a lot of actors at that time, and, a lot of really lovely actors who have gone on to do amazing things. But she just came in with a completely different energy, and I think she is one of a kind. The funny story is, we had this meeting. She was like, I have a lot of questions about the script. There's a lot of things that don't make sense to me. And then she was asking me these questions. I was like, you know, I think that's in the script. And wouldn't find out until, like, a month later, after she had passed on the movie. And I was at a meeting with another actor who was telling me about these problems she had with script. I was like, how long is your draft? And she said it's 108 pages. Whereas the draft that everyone was supposed to be reading was 98. So everyone had been reading the wrong draft. Anyway, we eventually sent the correct draft to Odessa. She read it. She loved it. And so that was that. As far as, Maddie [Cline] and Danny [Ramirez], they both sent tapes. We were trying to find these roles, and for both of them, it was immediate. Maddie's tape was perfect. I was like, who is this?

*Madelyn Cline as Olivia, The Giant 2019*

She was bringing a southern girl energy that you couldn't fake. Like, oh, that's a South Carolina girl, for sure. And she just nailed it. I didn't have to explain the world to her. She knew it. And I just also had the feeling immediately, like, Maddie is the real deal. She's luminous. She's incredible. It came down to the wire whether or not she's gonna be able to do it because she was doing another movie. But she was supposed to rap the day before we needed her to fly down, and they didn't know if they were gonna have to push. And she sent me a message the day before saying, I'm on the way. So she came to set and was the best, continues to be the best, and she's incredible. It's so wild to me to see how stratospheric her career has been because I felt very lucky to have her at that time in her life because it just felt like summer camp. Life was very simple, and it was really, really fun. And Danny was a similar thing where Danny only worked a few days on the movie, but he sent a tape that was perfect. Des [Odessa Young] had worked with him on Assassination Nation, and she said he was great. And so he came, and immediately, again, he only was there probably for a week in total, but just immediately sailed right into the vibe. There was a deep vibe on set. Every actor that would come, we would do this sort of tradition where Des [Odessa Young] had found this abandoned house out in the middle of the sticks on a street called Sorrow's Lane, and we would take everyone in a pickup truck, and listen to the soundtrack, which we had already, which had been composed prior to shooting the movie so that we could listen to it on set. We would take every actor on this long drive with the soundtrack all the way cranked up to 10 in the middle of the night, smoking cigs. It was like our little, giant actor boot camp. Maddie and Danny both just dove right in. Just to see Danny doing his thing is also so sick. Obviously, back then, I knew they had it, so it's been beautiful to see them rise.

Liv: Yeah, I loved Assassination Nation (2018) when it came out. That's how I first found out about Odessa [Young]. And I was like, who is this girl? She's insane. Like, so talented.

*Odessa Young, Assassination Nation 2018*

David Raboy: Yeah.

Liv: That was also why I watched this movie because I wanted to see everything she was in.

David Raboy: Oh, amazing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Liv: And Madelyn [Cline], obviously, but it's just so interesting. And then you also had Nicholas [Cirillo], who was also in Outer Banks.

David Raboy: Yeah, and Nick was amazing. I think we ended up casting him a few weeks before shooting. But Nick is amazing. He's a movie star. A crazy energy on set. Like, super, method. He wants to go there, and I just think he's great. Then when they end up in the show [Outer Banks] together, I had seen, Drew Starkey's name. I was very close to casting Drew in Nick's role. It's amazing to see those kids come up on OBX. Yeah, it's so sick.

*Drew Starkey and Nicholas Cirillo, Outer Banks 2020*

Liv: That is so crazy, and then Jack Kilmer, who I loved in Palo Alto (2013), which is awesome.

David Raboy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Liv: It's all very similar vibes.

David Raboy: Absolutely. Wonderful movie.

Liv: So I just feel like this cast was, just perfectly cast because all these people were already in films that were, this vibe, and they understood it. And I think that's what makes this movie so good too, is that they all understood it.

David Raboy: Yeah. I feel so, so, so lucky. Even though the movie is so sad for me, we had so much fun making it. We had a great time. They're all, they're beautiful people. It was a very lucky time.

Liv: Did you do anything to get them to bond, or did they just click right?

David Raboy: I mean, a lot of it was these drives that we would take because we'd all just pile under the truck and drive for a while and just listen to country music. Des [Odessa Young] had a playlist that very much led the charge. The entire cast and crew was staying in the same motel, this Red Roof Inn.

Liv: Oh, cool.

David Raboy: They just let us take it over. I don't know why they let us do what we do, but every night, we would have a parking lot party in the front of the hotel and just completely shut it down, lighting off fireworks and acting like absolute jackals. So it was very easy to bond because we were all stuck together. It's truly also in the middle of nowhere.

We were in Madison, Georgia. There's not a whole lot to do there. I feel very lucky because there wasn't anybody with a stick in the mud. Everyone was down to clown. We had a good time. We'd all drive and go swimming in the lake. They say a movie's a story of its own making, and that was very much the case here as well.

Liv: Yeah, that reminds me of Dazed & Confused (1993). They all stayed in the same hotel.

David Raboy: Yeah, I think it's a great way to make movies.

Liv: Not people, in their own area, that you're just always around each other.

David Raboy: It was like summer camp. It was. That was the vibe. And it was really, really special.

Liv: Yeah. Odessa’s [Young], ability to wear emotions on her face, without saying a single word. It's like a masterclass in acting. What references did you give her to get into character, if any?

*David Raboy and Odessa Young Photographed by Monica Lek*

David Raboy: I mean, we just talked about a lot of things. It was from the first time meeting, Again, it's like, if you get it, you get it. I don't think I ever sent her any film references. I think it was really just like, this is the music, she's a wonderful musician. And it was really weird, just, very much guided by the music of the film, but also sharing music. Does it feel like this? I think you could always do a scene and turn to one another and just be like, did that feel it? You know? It's completely nontechnical. Music is something that, for the most part, can't be described. That was so much of what we were trying to do in the movie, is to do these things that are indescribable. Or it just has to feel right. You know? If you could explain why it feels wrong or why it feels right, even that would not be right. It just has to sink into you. It was just a very intense process. And I think it was just trusting, that we knew what the feeling was. It took a toll on everybody in that regard, because she was very much living in that headspace for the entire time. I mean, there's almost a meditative quality to the process, which is like, go in a dark room. When you're ready, we'll shoot. And, Yeah, that was kind of how we did things.

Liv: That's amazing. She is an insanely talented actress. I'm just thinking of that scene towards the end when she's sitting in her childhood room, at the party, and she's listening to what's his name? Boyfriend.

David Raboy: Yeah, Joe.

Liv: Yeah, Joe. It cuts back to her face as he's talking to her. And she has this look on her face that's, I don't even know how to describe it. It's just such, she's petrified. But it's also like she wants to understand? It’s just so good.

David Raboy: She's amazing. I know exactly the sequence you're talking about. It's. She's amazing.

Liv: Like, I can't even put it into words.

David Raboy: It's tough, man. This is the thing that I talk about a lot,

Not everyone understands the movie

I mean, in the sense that, not everyone understands the movie. Sometimes when people do understand the movie, I kind of want to say, I'm sorry. And especially that scene that you're talking about. That's a very uncommon mixture of emotions, I think. And I wish you didn't recognize it or whatever. You know what I mean?

Liv: Yeah, but I also think it's healing in a way, watching this movie, because it's not just in my head anymore. I can see it and feel it and know that this feeling is more than just me.

David Raboy: Yeah, for sure.

Liv: People can understand it and convey it in a way that's outside of them. And I think that is healing, honestly.

David Raboy: I think that's the entire reason why we do these things, why we make these. Why we make movies or why we make anything we do. Just to put it outside. So you can look at it. The ending in the movie with the cloud and the lightning and all that. It wasn't written. It was on the day when we were shooting the final shot, there just was this cloud there. And it just was a kind of a major moment for me, which is that I could look at something and say that resembles this thing, but it's there. If I see this in everything I look at, that's fine. But it is outside. And there's something about that. I think it's crazy. Like I said, I didn't know what this movie meant to me when I was making it. And then I watched it as somebody who was no longer working on it. And it was a surreal experience. Really, really wild.

The editing process

Liv: Selfishly, as an editor, I want to know about the editing process because you edited it, so obviously you had all the creative control. But the editing was phenomenal, and I just want to hear about it.

David Raboy: It was a long process. I mean, I don't know if it was crazy long. We edited from August to April. So what is that, 8 months as an editor? Historically, it's always been a massive, massively important way that I find the final tone of a thing because you can write it and whatever. I had honed in the short films, a process that meant a lot to me, which was editing and sound designing very much at the same time. It wasn't a story-based format of editing, which I think is how most movies are edited. It's like, is there a clarity of this story point versus this yada yada. My favorite part of the entire filmmaking process is just experimenting with montage. And, what happens if you put this image before another? And what happens if you use this sound when you see this thing? Because that's where I get the goosebumps from. And that's what the movies are about to me is, if I do this little thing and it makes my blood run cool, then I'm like, oh, we're doing it. So that was always the most important thing to me. But it is the hardest thing to explain to other people who are witnessing the process from afar. Like my producers, who are all wonderful. It took a long time, and each cut is not necessarily getting me closer to the story. It was a really frustrating process. I had never had this experience before in a short. They want to see how it's progressing and luckily, the financier of the film was also an absolute angel and gave me the space that I needed. But, there was a big breakthrough moment was maybe March of that year. So, 7 months into editing, I rearranged some stuff in this one sequence, which is now my favorite sequence of the movie, which is when, Charlotte, Odessa [Young], she's just had this conversation with Maddie [Cline]. Maddie’s like, “I don't want you to have to go through this alone.” And then Charlotte's like, “But I am alone, whether you're here or not.” And she goes back to her childhood home and has this scene where she sort of basically convenes with her mother in ghost or in memory, it's unclear. That wasn't written that way. It was very much stitched together and there was some trickery, but it unlocked the entire movie to me. I think it is sometimes the case that you realize that 1 scene is the movie, and then it ripples out into the rest of the film. I think it took me a long time to find that scene. And once I did, it was like all of the world came off of my shoulders, because prior to that point in the process, it was a daily question of, did we get the movie? There were a lot of sequences that I loved, and it wasn't until I put that sequence together that I felt like, okay, no, we did. We did get the movie. And that was an extraordinary relief. It was a long process, but it was also a very fun process. I got to experiment with a lot of things, and I think it's important to experiment, like the superimpositions and stuff like that. A lot of the montages, to me, that's the heart of movies. So I feel very lucky that I got to experiment with them, for sure.

Madelyn’s monologue

Liv: Can you tell me about Madelyn’s [Cline] monologue in the middle about high school?

David Raboy: Yeah.

Liv: The curfew and the little montage you did, that’s one of my favorite parts of the film.

David Raboy: Mine, too. That was something that also, for the most part, sort of wasn't really written into the script. It was always sort of the intention. But once I had done that sequence that I was just talking about, it fed into this next sequence.

I wanted to have a moment where Charlotte could see beyond her pain

And I think I wanted to have a moment where somebody articulates how life could be if Charlotte had basically been born different. If she was able to see beyond her pain. Someone who says, yeah, these things are going on, but this is basically, arguing for someone to be present. And Madelyn is, the absolute embodiment, of sweetness to me. She conveys such sweetness and such optimism, I think, just by her very presence. She's so effervescent and not in a way that's, simple or, bubbly. When Madelyn smiles. It's a tremendous gift that she has. So I wanted to write this thing for her. Basically, the best friend that you could have, telling you it's gonna be okay. But we know that Charlotte can't believe it. She just doesn't know what that would feel like. She couldn't imagine it.

I think that in my mind, I am so often torn between the Olivia's and the Charlottes, or Maddie's character and Odessa's, as I know you can say, look at all the splendor and look at what's around you. You can enjoy it. There is beauty to be found. Then there is the other part of you. That’s like, but don't. It will end. It's already over. I felt like that montage ended up being, the purest distillation of those two forces. This is maybe a little syncretic, but there's a specific kind of sunset that's my favorite, which is there is a storm cloud, but the sunset comes underneath it. Maybe you've seen this where either the storm is coming or it's just passed and the sunset comes underneath. And it does feel like the sky is asking you to make a choice about which you recognize the beauty or the other thing that tells you you need to get inside. Find a way to shelter yourself. And that sequence became that, and it took a long time to find it, but I think that was, again, another one of the most crucial parts of the movie is articulating that and putting the ball in Charlotte's corner. Yeah.

Liv: Yeah. It's definitely one of my favorite parts of the whole film, I have to say.

David Raboy: I feel very grateful to Maddie because I had sent her like, like 20 different versions of the voiceover and she was always down to read them and knocked it out of the park every time. But, yeah, I think that sequence of the movie, I feel the most proud of it. It's like the way that your edit feels, how the inspiration for the movie felt, I think I always dreamed of this sequence and I get to watch it now, so it's pretty wonderful.

Liv: That's so nice. When you picture something in your head and you're able to actually achieve it and make it look like how you wanted.

David Raboy: Yeah. And it's also like one of those things you have to really trick yourself to be able to appreciate that, you know? But I can say, hearing it come from you and thinking about it, I actually can say that it is true and I feel very lucky for that.

The hardest scene to film

Liv: What was the hardest scene to film?

David Raboy: Definitely, that scene that you were talking about at the very end in her bedroom with Joe and Charlotte, their final conversation. It was very intense, and we were in this house, and it was 100 degrees in the middle of the night, and everyone was sweating. There was a lot happening in my life, a lot happening in Des’ [Odessa Young] life, and a lot happening in everyone's life. And that served the scene in a beautiful way because I think we were all able to bring what we were going through at that time. It also made it really personal and therefore, really difficult. I think we did, 11 to 12, 13 takes of that. That scene was grueling. It was a really grueling day. But I love that scene and I love the work that they did in it, and I love the work that Eric [Yue], the Cinematographer, did in it. But it was definitely the hardest. It was the one that was like, we have to push through. It felt like, like a breakup, like a birth. You have to get through it. But I mean, I feel like I can remember every moment of that night very vividly. It was very intense.

Liv: Yeah, that scene's very scary. I mean, I love horror, and I feel like this is a different type of horror. This film is so scary in a way that I've never seen before. Just uncomfortable and psychological almost.

Emotional Horror

What would you say the genre of this film is?

David Raboy: One of the producers on it, Danny, who has worked on everything with me since we were in college. When I did the short, when we were much younger, he termed it emotional horror. I think that still feels the most true to me. It's like the stakes are abstract, emotional, like weather, like I experience my own mental health so often, it's easier for me to understand it as weather. Like, oh, the weather's not good today, you know what I mean? And sometimes it rains for a month. And in that same way, the way that weather is so important to this movie, what happens in the movie is hard to describe. Just the same way that sometimes moods come upon us or emotions come upon us and it's not something you can just rationalize away, it's something else.

I would say emotional horror has always felt sort of like a guiding concept because anytime you get into genre, obviously, you get into sort of like tropes that people are expecting and whatever. So anytime I'm talking to somebody about the movie now, we had just done a screening a few months ago in New York for a lot of people who hadn't seen it before, the one thing I would say is just expect nothing. You have to just let it happen to you. I do think about it ultimately just sort of as an album, as something more, experiential. But if I had to give an answer, emotional horror, probably. But that will never, probably feel that satisfying to me.

Liv: Yeah, I feel like it can be a bunch of different things depending on what angle you look at it. I've seen this film probably 5, or 6 times.

David Raboy: Oh, really?

Liv: Every time I pick up on something new, do you feel that way?

David Raboy: I'm actually shocked. Yeah, well, I was thinking about that the first time I watched it after it was done when it came out and I watched it, I was like, oh, this is what you made? And then I watched it again maybe a year later. I was just at home alone. I was like, let me just see what it feels like. And then like that, that thing, that thing that I still sort of find inexpressible. But I could see it in every scene, and I could see that it was guiding everything. Charlotte is haunted by it from the beginning and to the end, and it just grows and grows and grows. And I think intuitively, these things make sense to me. But now I watch it, and I see that it's just in everything, it's like once you notice this thing, you can't unsee it. So that's been a huge thing to me. When I was writing it, I was trying to plan a lot of different little things in there. But just in terms of the feeling of it all, the weird thing is I feel closer to Charlotte now than I ever did writing it. And every time I watch it, I feel closer to her as a character.

Liv: Yeah, I feel like that, too. I felt very connected. And now every time I watch it, it's so healing. I literally watch it whenever I'm in a darker place. And it just makes me feel so comforted.

David Raboy: I can't tell you how much that means to me. And I feel grateful if that is the case now that I was, That we were able to do that.

Liv: Yeah, for sure. The opening line, “Why can't I wake up” from the mom. What do you have to say about that line? What does that line mean to you?

David Raboy: I think it's someone expressing a sentiment from the bottom of an experience. When will this feel normal? When will I feel normal? Basically, will this be forever? It can't. It doesn't seem possible that this will be forever. It doesn't make sense to me. And I think that is, a huge part of the movie. This is what it is. There's no way. You know, I think the dreams that always shake me the most are the ones where it's like, it was you, but it wasn't you. I was in this house, but it wasn’t in this house. And the feeling of an unshakable strangeness or wrongness is just something that I just know all too well. I think a lot of the movie is, Charlotte being in places where there should be abundant joy, like college graduation or a house party.

It's that feeling of, you were there and you were there, it was this house, but it wasn't this house. And I think I wanted to position it in that line, the mother and Charlotte as a baby, just because I have always had this horrible feeling, it's like this was always around me. And, just like the line that I wrote in the script is trying to understand emotions that she won't understand for many years. Charlotte as a baby, trying to look up at her mom and, she won't know, but she will eventually. Yeah, I think that line is just trying to express that terrible feeling.

Liv: Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. Like the whole film, there are so many lines about dreaming and if this feels like a dream if this is real. And I think, “Why can't I wake up?” is such a beautiful way to open the film because it really does set the stage for the overall feeling.

David Raboy: Thank you. Thank you. I remember I had an English teacher in high school, she really made me believe that the opening line was the most important line of a movie. That was like her whole thing. And I will never be able to shake this Miss. Olivario. Every time we read something she was like, what's the opening line? And so, that actually is very sweet of you to say and very meaningful.

Liv: Yeah. And then her as a baby, she's holding a card, what was the significance of that for you?

David Raboy: I remember having a long conversation with a producer about it. The reality is we just needed to distract her because she was throwing tantrums for most of the day. Beyond that, I think it's an unusual deck of cards. Eric [Yue], the Cinematographer, my best friend, does magic every now and again. And for some reason, he had this deck of cards, which is a weird Renaissance-era deck or something like that. And there was just something, for lack of a better word, cursed feeling about it that I always loved. There were takes of it that didn't have the card deck. And it just felt right to me because I think we talk about, the cards you've been dealt, fate, all these things within the metaphor of a deck of cards. So there’s just something that felt really haunted and true about the idea of a baby unable to understand her mother's depression, but holding this deck of cards that she's been dealt. So it's just one of those things where sometimes you get handed an accident like that.

Liv: Wow, that's crazy. Oh, my God. Now I want to watch this movie again. Like right now. I love this movie so much. I want to share with you, my theory or interpretation because,

David Raboy: Please

Liv: It's not straightforward, I feel like it's kind of up to interpretation. But I think the Giant is a metaphor for grief or that feeling of doom or dread that comes with anxiety and depression. Specifically, what made me think that was the scene with her father when he says, another girl was murdered. And she says, “Did the Giant get her too?” And then he says, “I'm seeing something I prayed to God I'd never see again.” Is the Giant depression, that feeling of, just looming, something bad's coming?

David Raboy: I mean, more or less. I'd say that it is. Again, it was one of these things where it took me a long time to be able to admit that to myself. I would find ways to poeticize it. But I think, yeah. My friend, dear, dear friend of mine watched the movie, and someone, again, is like one of those people that unfortunately understands it probably too well. And he always referred to it as a forbidden knowledge. Yeah, precisely that. A forbidden knowledge that forsakes you is what he said, actually. The Giant being this thing that is there. You can’t see it. It's just outside the light. Not to put a final point on it, but I think you hit exactly on the head.

I think it took me a long time to be able to cope with that because what that represents. My final fear was too scary to face head-on. We could say depression, anxiety. I think for me, it's like a third thing. That is, again, for me, sort of unmentionable, but it's in that. That is the realm. I feel thankful to God to be able to make the move because I feel like it is, like you said, healing. I think this movie saved my life in a lot of ways. So, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is it never fun? I always want to talk about it and have it be fun, but it just never is. Damn it. I gotta make a comedy next.

Liv: No, I think not enough people want to make things that are this emotionally deep. Nobody wants to talk about it, nobody wants to acknowledge it. And I think that's why this movie is so important to me is because it's the one time I've seen it fully embraced and just depicted. Not even trying to make it look pretty, you know, not even trying to make it look aesthetic and edgy. It's literally just the feeling. And I just appreciate that because people don't want to talk about it, and it needs to be talked about.

David Raboy: I agree. I agree. And I'm so glad that you saw that in it.

Liv: Yes.

Navigating boredom

Oh, this is my last question. I'm so sad because I want to talk about this forever.

David Raboy: I got shit to do, so whatever. But as you like, I'm ready.

Liv: So, this podcast is called Bored.FM because I do anything creative because I'm just trying to get out of this feeling of boredom. And times where I don't really have creativity in me. So, what do you do to navigate boredom or times where you don't feel creative?

David Raboy: Oh, I struggle. I am not someone who does well with boredom. Historically, I'm just a crazy, hyperactive person. Like, profoundly ADHD. Music was always sort of a saving grace because if I'm bored, playing drums, I could do. I can do that pretty much anytime. So I definitely play a lot of music, make music when I can. I cook, but I really just try not to be bored. It's tough when I'm back home in Virginia just because, I mean, small town and, I like being here because I have a bunch of instruments, whatever, I can make music and cause a ruckus. But, I think the reason I need New York in my life, and why I've lived there for so long is just because it's a lot. There are many more coping mechanisms for the bored, and I could just go for a walk, and I will just walk forever. Like you say, so much of what we do is to cope with that boredom. I think I have been writing ferociously for the last few years to starve any possibility of boredom. And it's been wonderful because if it wasn't for that feeling or the fear of that feeling, I probably wouldn't have gotten anything done. I know a lot of people are content to just hang out and relax. I’m just not one of them. So, writing, cooking, seeing movies. I have a movie pass, which I'm just gonna go ahead and plug. I love movie pass. It works. I see like, 10 movies in theaters a month, and that's huge for me. If I'm really bored, I'm like, oh, what's playing? And I'll see anything. So that's what I'd say. Oh, God, it really depends on if I'm taking my medicine that day or not.

Liv: Yeah, everybody I ask has such a different response, so I love asking it, but, yeah, a lot of people say, I don't even know if it's boredom if it is just depression. And, those are times where you just kind of have to ride the wave until you're out of it.

David Raboy: I never know. I'm not bored now. I know that, but for the most part, it's hard to tell, like, am I bored? I don't know when I'm entertained, you know what I mean? Until it's over, basically. But I know I'm not bored now, so that's good.

Liv: I guess that was all my questions.

David Raboy: All right, thank you so much. My great pleasure. It truly such a pleasure. And I'm so touched. It really meant a lot to me. Thanks very much. I can't wait to see what else you do. This was so lovely, and I'm so grateful that you responded to the film. And not only that, that you just weren't shy about it, because I think probably a lot of people have had some relationships to this film, but it's not a thing that you kind of want to shout out to the world. The edit really moved me so much, and I just really appreciate this, so thank you.

Liv: Yeah, of course.

David Raboy: And, best of luck with everything.

Liv: You too.

Our conversation with director David Raboy of The Giant (2019) offers a profound look into the making of a film that defies easy categorization. By blending personal experiences with innovative storytelling techniques, Raboy has crafted a movie that speaks to the complexities of human emotion.

See more from David Raboy here. Check out The Giant (2019) trailer here.