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(Editor’s note: I’ve been following the journey of Daniel Isn’t Real ever since its director, Adam Egypt Mortimer, described the plot over breakfast while he was scouting locations for the film in my city of Philadelphia. It was ultimately filmed in New York and was released to great acclaim in 2019, during which time we covered the film in the magazine, and were privileged to both host and witness various spirited Q&As for the film. Now that the film is finally being released on Blu-ray in North America, I invited Adam to tell us about his approach to the disc – and how he seized the opportunity to curate a release that harkens back to the days of classic home video special editions. – Phil Nobile Jr.)
In our conversational commentary track together on the new Daniel Isn’t Real Blu-ray release, writer/wizard Grant Morrison frequently brings up imagination and creativity as key themes. In the climactic sequence of Daniel’s (Patrick Schwarzenegger) kingdom in the Abyss, Grant points out how that world feels hellish because it is a world without creativity. In an earlier scene where Luke (Miles Robbins) works in a photographic darkroom, Grant asks me if this symbolizes Luke’s development as a person — and an artist.
In fact, Daniel’s whole gambit in galvanizing Luke is to appeal to two things: his sexuality and his artistic spirit — before he takes control of the first for himself and banishes the second to the realm of cosmic concrete emptiness.
The pursuit of creativity as a kind of cosmic escape and as an essential human urge shows up one way or another in all the work I do. Daniel Isn’t Real expresses my feeling that creativity is a human right and — in a way deeply connected to the themes of the movie — a mental health issue. When I’m not making something, I feel bad. When ignorance or lack of resources stand in my way, it feels like a demonic entity stuffing me into a cosmic prison.
I didn’t go to film school, for better or worse. Instead, I auto-didacted my way through making-of videos, commentary tracks, books, the occasional weekend workshop, and whatever scraps from other filmmakers I could find online (blessings to all the great music video directors like Mark Romanek, Chris Milk, and Keith Schofield who, back in the day, would make their treatments available online).
So when developing the special edition Blu-ray release of Daniel Isn’t Real with Yellow Veil, I wanted to focus primarily on how the release could be helpful to younger / newer / aspiring filmmakers. How much could I demystify the process? How could I inspire, instruct, or share as much as possible? I focused these ideas into the disc. My solo commentary track breaks down my approach as a director; my track with co-screenwriter Brian DeLeeuw focuses on the challenges we took on as writers. The special features include script-to-screen videos, VFX breakdowns, aspects of the style guide. Whatever we could reasonably get in there to help someone take a look at the movie, get a grasp on how we made it, and incorporate anything into their own work. I hope that my contribution will be someone’s sharp sword when going to battle the demons standing in their own way of making that next epic horror movie.
The Daniel Isn’t Real Blu-ray is available for the first time in North America thanks to Yellow Veil and distribution partners Vinegar Syndrome and OCN, and is available for pre-order here.
