Interview With Filmmaker Ariel Vida For ‘Trim Season’

A horror movie about weed and its trimmers working on a marijuana farm and a witch? Count me in! Thus is the premise of the new film by filmmaker Ariel Vida, Trim Season. I didn’t even know this occupation was a thing, but I guess it’s a real job. Who knew? The trailer hooked me in immediately and the resulting movie is bloody, trippy, funny, a bit campy, and just so much fun all around.

A group of young people go to a remote marijuana farm where they hope to make quick cash. But they discover the location’s dark secrets and now must try to escape the mountain on which they are trapped.

To celebrate the release of the film, I chatted with director Ariel Vida via Zoom about how the project came about, working in the woods, the amazing cast, and more!

 

PopHorror: Trim Season was a lot of fun, so I’m super excited to talk to you about it today.

Ariel Vida: Thank you. I’m so glad you like it. Thank you. I guess when people are thanking me for it, I’m like, no, thank you for watching it and wanting to talk about it. That’s just a huge honor.

PopHorror: So, what inspired the film, and how did the project come about?

Ariel Vida: So, the long story long, when the team came to me, they’d already had this amazing, fully fleshed out idea and we were peak COVID doing all of this over Zoom. But Sean E. the producer had actually, so Cullen (Poythress) and Megan (Sutherland), who are amazing and have story by credits, were throwing out the idea with their experience in the industry. It was almost one of those like, “Wait, has this really not been done in all of these true-crime shows? A supernatural take on this area?” And Sean E. (cowriter) DeMott had also worked with Jane recently, Jane Badler, whose again, just like how lucky… If you read the script and didn’t know who Mona was, you would just be like, “Okay, this is all going to hinge…” By the time they came to me, she’s a producer. We knew that she was Mona, so that is also obviously an instant sign on.

But they were developing this idea then together and David Blair wrote the original script, and it was just, they came to me having seen – it wasn’t out yet with all the COVID madness – my first film Vide Noir, which is also weird, hallucinogenic trippy things. So, when we started having Zooms about it, we didn’t even know where we would film, but I was all in on this idea of it.

It’s just like there’s so much fun to be had in anything. But I just loved as soon as I was looking through all of the references and the true experiences of the trimmers, they’re just obviously working in these 16-hour days, smoking, and at night, trimmers I was talking to were saying, “Well, I wouldn’t even leave my tent. I’d have to go to the bathroom, and I’d be afraid it was bad for me, but I would hold it all night long because what I’m hearing in the woods is out of this world. You’re hearing animals, you’re hearing gunshots, all these things.”

Stone cold sober would be like your imagination running wild. But after a day of trimming, it’s like you’re high, you’re hearing this. And I just loved the specificity of what being high would make you feel. That elevated paranoia, time dilation of things are a little slow and then you’re skipping time and a little fast. There were such witchy elements that just felt like, this can be the A to B of what’s happening. Just makes so much sense. So as soon as we were going in the script, I started being able to workshop different little elements as we were attaching actors and was so grateful obviously to have a writing credit for tweaking things to the location and the people that we were bringing on board. That I just loved. It was like a different version of what I had just done with Vide Noir, which was there’s a line where they say like, “Oh, this drug, comparing this to LSD is like comparing a Greyhound bus to a rocket ship.” It was like cosmic, huge, kind of unbridled. And with independent budgets you’re like, “Okay, how are we showing unbridled trippiness?” And I was like, I love that the specificity of this cannabis farm can be like things are just a little fast or a little skippy and a little paranoid. And the sounds, Spencer Hall is our amazing sound designer. Joe Bishara, our own score. I was just like, this makes sense to be a witchy world. And I love shooting outdoors and being just dirty in the mountains. Whenever I production design things like in West Hollywood and I’m like, “I’m going to break something. I don’t belong here. I’m going to get something dirty.” So, when they’re just like, “Oh, it’s in the woods, and there’s like a moose,” I was like, “That’s where I’m supposed to be.”

PopHorror: You mentioned paranoia and losing time. That’s why I can’t smoke because I’ll lose the entire afternoon.

Ariel Vida: It’s crazy!

PopHorror: I can’t imagine being in the middle of the woods. No, I’m good. Thank you.

Ariel Vida: Yeah. And that’s why, again, I could see versions of Mona in a different place or a different drug or a different power on a cannabis farm. But yeah, it was just so exciting. We had this amazing choreographer, Alden, an amazing stunt person, Corbett (McAllister), for how she moved and how she controlled people. And yeah, it was just to have… I don’t know. I feel like there’s too many cooks in the kitchen, where you just have a lot of things that don’t click and the idea that this witchcraft and being high could click so well. Again, no one has really quite done this before. It was like this ticking clock of like, “Someone else is going to quickly do this before we do.” Because it just made so much sense. And so I was just so… Like you said, to have like, “Oh, I’ve lost time.” It’s like, “Was I high or was it something else?”

PopHorror: You’ve mentioned the character of Mona played by Jane Badler, which her performance was noteworthy. She was an amazing casting choice, but also Marc Senter really stood out to me. I love seeing Marc in things. He is great. What was your casting process like?

Ariel Vida: So actually, Jane is a producer on it and she was such an advocate for… Especially again, it all being these Zoom meetings and all the COVID uncertainty and fear, and to have her in my corner being that I had one feature, but it wasn’t even out yet. We would talk to certain people who would kind of not necessarily know how to explain union rules, and I was like, “I’m a union production designer as well. I’ve done this.” And Jane, I would not have been able to have this opportunity without her. So she was on board from the beginning. And again, her as this delicious villain, she was looking for that kind of role. So that was part of the whole process of bringing it together when they started talking about this haunted farm and a perfect witch after her amazing work in V. It was like, this is what she was looking for.

And casting, I love the in-person auditions and we were pre even vaccinations before a lot of it, so it was all these Zoom interviews. But Marc Senter had worked a lot of… It’s just the butterfly effect, that everyone who had worked on different things. So Marc had been on Adam Stilwell’s The Free Fall with Jane as a supporting role, and he needed her cool, awesome bad role in this one. But they had met with the producer, Sean E. DeMott put this all together. So Marc was already on Sean E’s radar when we first started talking about this as James. So we had a call right away about James for Marc, and he had awesome Heath Ledger and Lords of Dogtown references right away via Jane and Sean E. Then I was talking to Marc. But then all these, again, weird, fortuitous circles. I had directed a music video that Alex Essoe had been in. And then obviously Alex Essoe had been in Starry Eyes with Marc.

So you’re doing the “who has what availability?” And I just feel like it was such fortunate timing and serendipity that it’s like, “Okay, wait. Alex is available and so is Marc.” And the whole process of who would be down to brave the inherent elements of independent filmmaking in the woods at night, and the cold and the weather. I had had a general with Beth, and right away I went back to the team after talking to Beth Million and I was like, “This is our Emma.” Just the whole you’re dealing with schedules and you’re waiting to hear back from agents and all that stuff. But as soon as we talked, I was like, “I know this, and I see so much of myself in Emma.” I was just kind of like ride or die on like, “This is Emma.”

Again, I’ve designed films where I knew that this was the process, but so many people where it was locking in at 72 hours out being like, “Will we be able…?” Ally Ioannides, who’s Harriet, we’d met on Synchronic. I designed a movie that she had acted in. And I knew I was like, “Okay, there’s so much brashness about Harriet. But Ally would also breathe so much life and fun into her.” And Bex Taylor-Klaus, we had the most amazing Zoom. I was running around doing second unit photography pickups for Something in the Dirt, a Moorhead and Benson film. I was in a hotel room and had a Zoom with Bex about Dusty and what we would want to do if they could actually sign on. Again, so much shifting like, “Okay, are we going to do August? Are we going to do September? We can’t do October. There will be snow in Utah.” And Bex was interested in the character of Dusty. And we just spent a couple hours. I was supposed to go from a hotel room in Utah to scout locations for Trim Season and then get back to those inserts and we were talking about Dusty. And I had a tape for Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy, who I think had just graduated. I’m trying to think of when she had just graduated with all the pandemic madness. It was a general tape, but I was like, “That’s our Lex.” And to just be able to have these long conversations where we couldn’t even meet until we were in person. We would talk about obviously all the character relationships on these Zooms. But when everyone actually got together for the first day in the van, it was like just squished in a little tiny van together. Bex has his dog, Duggie. He’s so cute. We were all just in. LuKa (Bazeli), the DP, and I were all in the van. There were also a lot of things echoed how the characters are meeting in the movie. Besides Emma and Julia already knowing each other, it’s like they are all meeting for the first time. They’re meeting the brothers for the first time, they’re meeting Mona. There’s no privilege of having gone through a pandemic, but I’ve never had that much time just because we kept having issues. We’re like, “Oh, well we have to push shooting another week. We can’t have a real rehearsal in person, but let’s just keep talking about where everyone is coming from.” And then on the day I was like, “Well, even if a moose walks to the set and there’s a thunderstorm, everybody here knows who they are. And if I get run over by the moose, just keep acting, keep rolling. They know what they’re doing.”

PopHorror: Well, I appreciate all of the effort that went into the casting because I thought it was great. It was really impeccable casting with these characters. I can’t imagine having to do everything via Zoom. I know the pandemic changed things, but all the work is really appreciated.

Ariel Vida: Thank you. Yeah, like I said, some people were coming at literally the 11th hour where we started with Beth Million and Alex Essoe. And then it was like, “Are all our trimmers going to be here Wednesday? Are both brothers going to be here by Friday?” And it was I think week two where we finally had everyone and I was just like, “I wouldn’t change anyone for the world.” Again, I worked to pay the bills, I’d production designed. I was like, I’ve seen like, “Oh, this person couldn’t do it. This person’s flight…” And I’m still so honored and talk about me being like, “Oh, I don’t belong in a Beverly Hills mansion.” I’m sure they would’ve all preferred that to the super cold overnights and the whole crew, and everyone’s wrapping cable, everyone goes home and I’m still trying to help grip an electric with… You’re literally just in the mud in the middle of nowhere and there’s the fun loitering style DIY filmmaking, but that’s really hard for everybody. Everyone’s going through these really emotional scenes and it’s 2 AM. That’s not anyone’s ideal situation. So the patience and graciousness of everybody is like I owe them every vital organ I can give if needed.

PopHorror: And I have just one last question for you today. What is your favorite scary movie?

Ariel Vida: How do I not have my default… I mean, I don’t want to cheat and say too many. One of my favorite films by far is Pan’s Labyrinth.

Thank you so much to Ariel for taking the time to speak with us. Trim Season is now in theaters and On Demand!