Joseph Cross explains why Summer Night is his breakout film

Summer Night is Joseph Cross’s breakout project, and he spoke to Hidden Remote about what makes the new film so personal for him.

Summer Night is a turning point for Joseph Cross. You know him as an actor, from roles like Tom in the first season of HBO‘s Big Little Lies, but this new movie is his passion project as a director and producer.

The coming of age film tracks a whole group of friends as they make several life decisions on just one action-packed night, but it’s not like other movies in the genre you’ve seen before. That’s in part because of the man who held the whole project together, and will hopefully now get noticed for everything he brings to the table.

Joseph connected with Hidden Remote to discuss how he developed as a director, if his acting was an influence behind the camera, and everything he went through to make this movie possible.

Learn more about Joseph Cross in our interview below, then stream Summer Night starting today on your favorite VOD platform or see it in select theaters near you.

Hidden Remote: Fans know you as an actor, but where did directing come into your career?

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Joseph Cross: When I was much younger, like eight years old, I was making movies in my backyard with my best friend Nick—who ended up being a investor on this film nearly 25 years later. I was always interested in making movies from a young age, but then I started acting and that filled my cup up for long enough.

I got to be 30 and there was a part of me that wanted to do a little bit more, kind of like itching to be more involved in the filmmaking process, and then it was really Jordan Jolliff’s script that did it for me.

When I read it, I could see it very clearly. I had lived a life similar to the characters—grew up in a small town, had aspirations of being a musician that were never going to pan out for me—and emotionally I took to it as well. When I first read the script, my wife and I were considering kids. By the time we were putting the film together, we were pregnant and when we went to shoot the movie, we had our first child.

HR: The coming of age genre is not small, though. What made Summer Night stand out from other movies with similar themes?

JC: There was nothing corny or cheesy about it; it was very honest. It was subtle and nuanced in its emotional discoveries, and the characters’ emotional discoveries, they were small and personal. It was very intimate.

It rang true to me, and I don’t think anyone’s done sort of a one-night-only ensemble coming of age film in quite some time, probably since the 90s. That was something too, that [it] was just kind of a lost genre we might be able to dust off.

HR: The film has 13 key characters. As the director, how do you keep anybody from being lost in the shuffle?

JC: We were always trimming the fat. Anything that isn’t moving those storylines forward, you’re losing. A big part of it is the opening of the film too; what we did was use the geography of the small town as well as the interconnectedness of the characters to weave all the major storylines into the first five minutes of the movie. So as an audience, you get little teasers of what’s to come and get an understanding that this is going to be an ensemble movie with joined storylines.

HR: Did your experience as an actor help you in working with the actors on Summer Night?

JC: For sure. You speak the language and all that sort of stuff comes second nature when you’re on set. Casting was a very natural, intuitive process for me. I know what is and isn’t good acting obviously, so when we were putting the cast together, I knew I was getting people that were good at what they do as well as who fit into the tapestry of the film.

I just had fun working with [the] actors. I know how I like to work as an actor. I know what it feels like and sounds like when a line isn’t working. And I think we, as a team, were good at finding new opportunities as we were going along. All my acting past was super helpful.

HR: What do you love most about the movie? What would you call the highlights?

JC: Our cinematographer, Michael FitzMaurice, came in a week before we started shooting. It just wasn’t working out before he arrived and so I reached out. I said to him I want to introduce the Alamo—the club [in the film]—by having the marquee lights come on, and then we’re going to go down and follow a couple background players and follow motorcycles and find our lead guys. The cop cars going to come up behind them, we’re going to go out, go through the curtain, do a 360 around the club, around town and then land on the shot of the stage.

And Michael said cool, why don’t you put a time-lapse on the top of that? When he said that I was like this is my guy. That’s certainly one shot we’re proud of, took us a lot of time, everyone worked really hard on it. The opening credits shot, where we go down over the river and over the waterfall, that was one that took a lot of planning and a lot of teamwork. Very proud of that.

Then the shot in the second bar, you probably wouldn’t notice it if you weren’t looking for it, but from when Taylor [Callan McAuliffe] and Dana [Ella Hunt] get into the shot, the camera follows them and finds Eller [Coltrane, who plays Jameson] again to go to Justin Chatwin, then it comes back and then our bouncer comes into it.

It’s about a 2:20 shot that took a lot of work to get right. What I love about doing something like that is, whether it’s conscious or not, the audience gets to spend time with the characters in real-time and feel like they’re in a fly on the wall at the moment.

HR: What do you take away from the Summer Night experience? How much does it mean to you to see the film finally released?

JC: I can make the argument that I’m the most fortunate first-time filmmaker ever. I had the most extraordinary cast; they worked so hard. They learned to play music. Everybody just put 120 percent into these characters and I’m so grateful to all of them for their exceptional work.

The team I had around me—my wife Audrey Tommassini is my producer, along with Tara Ansley as well. Michael FitzMaurice, our cinematographer. Raymond Wood, our editor. Mark Tanner, our production designer, and Erinn Knight who’s an incredible costume designer.

So much of this is about the team we put together and everybody being able to communicate and work well. Fortunately, I had a really good group of people around me.

Summer Night is in select theaters and available on VOD platforms today. For more movie coverage, follow the Movies category at Hidden Remote.