Family dynamics are explored as a trio of siblings attempt to find their way back to each other in Director Azazel Jacobs’s drama, His Three Daughters.
Jacobs’s film follows three estranged sisters as they converge in a New York apartment to care for their ailing father and try to mend their own broken relationship with one another.
On September 8, after the DGA membership screening in New York, Jacobs discussed the making of His Three Daughters during a Q&A moderated by Director Darius Marder (Sound of Metal). He also shared his insights about the film in a conversation with Director David Zellner (Sasquatch Sunset) following the Los Angeles screening on September 15.
During the Los Angeles conversation, Jacobs spoke about what made the cast want to be a part of the film.
“I knew that [the actresses] loved film. And so just the idea of shooting on film and shooting in this way — shooting in order, taking advantage of the limitations that we had — would be truly appealing to them. It was a selling point that we were gonna be shooting in 17 days, so we’d be moving very, very quickly — no moving equipment, not losing an hour and a half every day to move something. It was really just like ‘we’re gonna shoot scenes and shoot them through each day and to shoot in order’ was really this magnificent gift that you can only do if the film is small enough.”
He also revealed how he used the process of shooting on location in a large apartment complex to the film’s advantage.
“We weren’t gonna be shooting throughout the night, so we were shooting in a real apartment, one unit. The production office was the basement of the building, so just to figure out how to use elevators... But it really meant that everyone was staying in this apartment all day long. There was no reason to really send actors away for some long period of time. It created a rhythm very, very quickly.”
Jacobs’s other directorial credits include feature films French Exit, The Lovers and Terri; and episodes of Sorry for Your Loss, Mozart in the Jungle and Doll & Em. He has been a DGA member since 2012.