The Mortician Director Talks About The Ending To His HBO True-Crime Doc [Exclusive Interview]

So how did such a project come to you? You are now a character in this world, in such a storytelling if you want. Do people have ideas for you? Do you still do the same research that you did years ago and just stumble upon these things yourself? Does your producer bring ideas to you? How does it work?

It’s a kind of all of the above. It has definitely reached a point where people rise to me with stuff. I’m not … it’s not really true. There are two great ones we are now producing, but before this – I had said that I hadn’t done it – but according to the instructions I have not done anything that was just offered directly to me. And it contains a green luminaire document in streamer for a moment about the encryption factor. It’s like coming. I won’t give so *** about it. These things are so difficult to do. I just have to be madly in love with them. So we are looking for, Steven and I, and one of our really reliable colleagues is the head of the study. His name is Lukas Cox. We show and look and watch.

I happen to find this rabbit hole that I went down in December 2020. At that time, I shaped “Sasquatch” and “Bob Ross” and I knew they would be completed the following year. I really love La noir stories – “long goodbye”, “Sunset Boulevard”, “Chinatown”, “Mulholland Drive” – ​​I love these things and I’ve always wanted to do one. And so I just went to “La Noir movie” Hunt “, if you want, and ended up with these old La Times articles from this story. And he hit it right away, Oh my creator, if I could do this, I feel like this could really be, really special. But I knew everything depended on the interview with David Scony because I feel like you are going to tell this kind of story and whether it really feels like you’ve gone deep and it is worthy of any time, you must have a guy.

So we wrote him in prison and he got on the phone with my producer and he agreed to do an interview if and when we came to prison to shoot with him or if he got out because the conditioner was on the table at the time. He didn’t know when, but it was on the table. And because it was a truly top destination, no one was able to shoot in prisons. And California does not particularly allow you to make specific requests for prisoners.

So I knew we were not going to get in, and I needed him if this interview happened to get out. And he couldn’t get out for another two and a half years. We started doing this in practice by the end of 2021, and we were notified that he had a conditional consultation at the end of 2022 and it was the election year. Each governor cancel the conditions that lead to elections because they have to show that they are hard for crimes. That’s what they all run in some capacity.

So sure he got crumpled and I really felt like I was, Wow, I may have something that just won’t be going to bet and I’m going to be hooked with HBO and these people just hate me and never want to work with me anymore. Then about six months later I drove, I had just dropped a friend. We had lunch and Steven invites me, my production partner, and he said, “He’s going to the next 48 hours. He has been awarded conditional.” So we have to mobilize the crew right away. I mean dp lives in New York. [David] was locked outside the sacramento. The next morning, Steven and I drove to Sacramento. People are on airplanes, people drive up, equipment is out of rental houses, and the next night we sat at a newly made hotel.

That morning, I don’t remember at what time that we took the prison to the parking area. I don’t think it was 4:30, but it was soon after. It was probably around 5am and we sat and sat and the sun rises and other people pull in the parking area waiting to pick the person they are waiting for. And we see the repair officers retreat to go to work for a day and some who check the people in the administration building. And then finally around 7.45am, people come, and we were looking for him and we thought Oh the creator, there he is. And he sees us and he has a big smile on his face and he shows us, and we roll all the time. And he got in the car, and I didn’t even know that we were on the road outside the prison parking area when he only, herself, lifted the cemetery, destroying, I don’t want to say everything, but since I didn’t ask the question, he raised a lot. And I just thought about Holy f ***, this becomes crazy for a couple of days.

Man, it’s an incredible story.