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In most thrillers where an everyday civilian is thrust into a heroic situation to save a blonde beauty and his own head from a gunman, he is running as quick as he can. In Grand Piano, Elijah Wood must pull off the usual heroic feats all while sitting still.

Wood stars in the mystery thriller as a prodigious concert pianist making his buzzed-about return to the stage after a five-year hiatus due to flubbing a piece of music. However, as his comeback begins, playing a perfect concert is not only going to save his career, but his own life as a mystery man on the opposite end of an earpiece targets him and his wife with a sniper.

Elijah Wood and Grand Piano director Eugenio Mira, who directed the shots just as majestically swooping as the music, sat down with me during a roundtable interview to discuss their new film, the horror genre, and directing aesthetics.

Let’s talk about the visual design you had for the movie, because it is a really stunning film where the camera is almost another character.

Eugenio Mira: I like directors who perform, like Roman Polanski and Hitchcock, and that was the core of this project – to do something more than an homage to directors like them and [Brian] De Palma. I didn’t want to do this just for the sake of being able to say, “Oh, this looks cool.” I had this incredible breakdown of when I’m going to use what angle, when I’m going to pan to the right, when I’m going to show the audience, and that’s why I decided to make this movie. When you see the movie, it is basically a guy sitting down at a piano, making facial expressions, and talking frantically into an ear piece, “What do you want me to do?” If you relied on doing this movie solely in editing from the coverage you shot [it wouldn’t work].

You mentioned Hitchcock, Polanski, and De Palma, so I wanted to know if you plan on putting that aesthetic in your future work?

EM: This movie is musical, not because it takes place in a theater, but because the way that it’s told is completely based on dynamics. You could turn the volume down and still make sense of what’s going on, but it will look way more aggressive without the music. That’s how I learned to direct as a kid. I turned the volume down to pay attention to the pace of when the cuts came. I counted the number of shots in scenes.

Elijah Wood: A lot of movies now shoot as much as you can from as many angles as possible and let the editor sort it out, which is insane; a lack of focus and direction.

EM: And what I can’t stand is seeing actor’s performances being built in the editing room. Most actors will spit on my face, because they’ve been rescued and saved by that (laughs), but it takes me completely out of the film. I respect it. I’m not crazy to think that you shouldn’t go that way, but it shouldn’t be the official way to do it. Just one more way to do it.

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