I'm David F. Sandberg. My short film, Lights Out, went viral with the help of Reddit and now it's a feature film opening today. AMA!

Be honest, which is more fun - directing a Hollywood feature film or creating shorts in your apartment with IKEA lights?

Also, what horror films inspired you to work in this genre?

I hope you realize how many people you've inspired with ALL your shorts. We created a "fan film" remake of your original Lights Out short as a learning exercise in shooting/timing for horror. It was a lot of fun to make and we learned a lot, you can see it here...

https://vimeo.com/171835582

Thanks for everything. Please don't stop making shorts.

They're both fun in different ways which is why Lotta and I don't plan on stopping making shorts. When we make them it's more personal and in some ways pretty liberating. But of course on a Hollywood film you get to play with some really fun toys and can do things you wouldn't be able to do alone (or with a crew of two).

I'll check out your short when I'm not under time pressure.

Is it a difficult thing to hand off your own property to someone else and hope that it stays true to the roots of the original? How much of your personal story wound up in the writing, or how much collaboration went on in the early parts of the creative process?

Also, what do you find most difficult about the horror genre in general?

When Lotta and I made the short we had no intention of ever doing anything else with it so it wasn't like this was our precious baby that we wanted to do in a very specific way. I think it would have been a lot harder if this was a movie we had wanted to make for years.

The most difficult thing? Maybe to try and stay original. There's been a lot of stuff made. As evidenced by people comparing this to Darkness Falls (and to a lesser extent The Babadook).

Hey David, I truly can't wait to see the film, it looks great! If you had the chance to remake a classic horror film, would you do it, and if so, which film would you want to remake?

I've always had a soft spot for day of the triffids. There's the old movie and two british tv-series already though. I absolutely love Village of the Damned too but it's perfect and doesn't need any remaking.

You've mentioned before that while Annabelle had a few good moments, there were was a lot of room for improvement. Since you're working with the same writer for Annabelle 2 who wrote the first, what kind of conversations did you have about why the first one didn't work and how to make the sequel truly exceptional?

We didn't really. I mean we talk all the time but I haven't really talked with him about the first. I really liked the script to this one and since it's more of a stand alone story there the first one hasn't really come up.

Hi, David! I want to make a horror short film for my college final project. Do you have any important advise to give me about making horror?

Well my most important advice is don't give up halfway through because that's what I always want to do. Always. I have Lotta to force me to finish things though. Every short we've ever made I've wanted to give up halfway through because o think it's shit. But you never know until you've actually finished it how you will feel. You'll think you'll know but you don't.

For horror in particular I'm not really sure. I try to think a lot of what ifs. Walking around at home thinking "what if this picture was haunted", "what if my phone could see the future", etc. And a lot of "what's the worst that could happen" and then do that.

What is the hardest challenge you have faced while making a movie?

Everything! I'd never been on a film set before and now, the first time I was on a film set I was the director. It's like one of those nightmares where you're naked in front of class. I learned pretty quickly to collaborate and communicate my vision but there was some struggling with that in the beginning. A feeling of "just give me the camera, I know what I want". I was just very unused to working with other people (besides from my wife Lotta).

What is your favorite thing James Wan has taught you while working with him on set?

To not take no for an answer. In one scene I wanted Martin to only be lit by candle light. The crew was like "No, you can't do that. You have to light it". Then on the day we shot the scene James came by the set and was like "you know, you should light that with just candle light" and everyone was like "Yes! Great idea James".

As a director you can actually ask for things from the crew and you probably won't achieve great things if you don't push a little bit.

Hi David,

I thought Annabelle was entertaining, and can't wait to see Lights Out. There are some good questions on your process and filmmaking in general elsewhere so I'd like to ask a more general question:

Are you more a mimosa or bloody mary at brunch kinda guy?

I don't drink alcohol. I only drink Coke Zero. And lots of them. Here's a photo of empty cans in my office: http://imgur.com/a/z4KgY

Have you ever thought about making a no budget feature?

Yes. Before we knew if Lights Out was actually happening Lotta and I started thinking about shooting a feature just her and I. It would have been about an abused woman who hides from her husband in the only place he thinks she wouldn't dare to go. The haunted house where the woman's parents mysteriously died.

So can that be your next project pleeeeeaaaese

I have no idea yet what's next. I think I'll need a little time to process everything that's happened. And sleep.

Do you have any tips for a 17 Year old aspiring writer/director, looking to elongate the inspiration to write, or at the very least tips on how to cultivate the discipline to write without inspiration?

With writing I find that I only get writer's block if I'm not writing. If I'm just trying to think of ideas it doesn't usually get me anywhere but if I sit down and start writing it keeps coming.

It's basically forcing stuff out even if it's nonsense. I have a lot of saved screenplay pages that are just profane nonsense but it helps to get going.

EDIT: Here's an example https://www.dropbox.com/s/jzkdetno2osryw0/Blabber01.pdf?dl=1

I'm so excited to see Lights Out, everything looks incredible! Did you ever get paranoid or freaked out back home as a result of working on the film?

Only from the stress of making a Hollywood feature. I have this thing where I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm still half asleep. I hallucinate these things and my wife Lotta has to wake me up and tell me I'm only dreaming.

During Lights Out I constantly woke up and thought I was on set naked. There's only been a couple of those moments on Annabelle 2 so far.

David, I have always found your behind the scenes pieces to be very informative and love your YouTube channel. I have a few questions. :)

What knowledge did you find most valuable during your experience turning Lights Out into a feature film?

Do you feel that you have you been granted more creative freedom by the studios with your second feature, Annabelle 2?

How does it feel directing a piece you yourself haven't written?

Just a lot of stuff about how movie sets work. The storytelling aspects are the same and even things like lighting are the same principles as when you're lighting with ikea lights.

Before we started shooting I had to take the assistant director aside and ask him "so when do I say action?". I just didn't now. There's like all these things before then like "roll sound, sound speed" etc.

The answer is after the camera operator says "set".

Creative freedom feels about the same. I was surprised by how much freedom there was on Lights Out though. It's still a low budget by Hollywood measures so I guess they don't worry too much. I'm sure it's crazy doing a $200m Marvel movie or something.

Since this is a franchise there are things they don't want to change. I wanted to shoot Annabelle 2 with anamorphic lenses but was told no. None of the other ones were shot that way.

Directing scripts by others feels great. If people hate the movie I'll just blame the writer :-)

Do you ever get creeped out by the sets you film on? Even though I love horror, and would love to act in a horror movie (yes, I know there is a difference between acting and directing, I prefer acting) I am also easily scared, but love te adrenaline, so I would probably be creeped by the set!

Not really. There's so many lights and people around that you just lose the scariness. It might be creepy to have a sleepover in the Annabelle 2 set we're currently shooting on. It's an awesome set.

ADORED your film, and looking forward to the full length. You've inspired me to want to go out and actually create a few horror ideas I have. Thanks.

Very happy to hear that!

Is this a good first date movie?

I think it's a great first date movie. I mean Star Trek isn't going to make your date curl up against you in terror and squeeze your hand :-) Although to be fair I haven't seen Star Trek yet...

hey david

I just started a film studio in Australia and we are making shorts, with our first in production this week. what advice would you give us if we were trying to use reddit to make one of our shorts go viral? Is most of it down to luck or exposure?

In my case it was certainly luck because the only thing I did was upload it to YouTube and Vimeo. Other people shared it. I think the only thing you can do really is follow your passion. You never know what people will eventually respond to. I certainly didn't think Lights Out would be it. That was just supposed to be one short of many.

If Annabelle was a true story is the second movie a fictional story?

First one wasn't a true story either. The only true part is that there's a doll named Annabelle that people claim to be haunted. Personally I don't believe in the supernatural so to me it's all fiction.

Did you have an imaginary friend as a child?

No, more like imaginary worlds. I was awesome in all of them.

Hey David! Could you talk about how the project evolved and some of the different plot lines or plot elements that were thought of and scrapped before you and Eric settled on the final concept/script?

The basics of it were there already in my treatment that Eric based the script on. The biggest difference was that originally Diana's backstory was more demonic. James had the idea though to make her into more of a ghost so that she was someone Sophie knew early in her life. I think my original treatment was a bit more arthouse horror, even more of an allegory for depression which I've battled with a lot, but along the way it turned into more of a fun popcorn horror. Nothing wrong with that of course, I love how much fun it is to see it with audiences but that's the biggest change I'd say.

What was it like working with Teresa Palmer?

Awesome! I had seen Warm Bodies but otherwise wasn't really familiar with her work. I think it was James that suggested her and I'm so glad he did because she knocked it out of the park.

Hi, David. What is your favorite modern horror movie?

Most recent ones I've loved have been Green Room and The Invitation. The Witch was good too.

Hi David, I'm looking forward to seeing Light's Out and one of the main reasons is that in the trailer for the film I caught a decent amount of practical effects (a person actually running in the dark rather than a cgi creature). I find that practical effects in horror helps bring a sense of reality and upgrade the fear factor. I was wondering what your thoughts are on using practical effects and how they are used in the movie?

thanks!

I think that with CGI creatures, no matter how well done, there's still a part of your brain that tells you that thing isn't real. In horror movies in particular I think it's important to have a real presence there.

How did you post it to reddit? I have graphic novels and short films I have been dying to share freely on here, but there's no subreddits that allow self-promotion is there?

I didn't. I was browsing reddit and saw that someone had linked to our short. Awesome, I thought and went to check the stats. 8000 views! Cool! Then all of a sudden it was 70000 views! And a million!

And it just kept going.

Hey David , congrats first of all. How do you remember the day you got to know that your movie has been picked up by a studio for worldwide release?

Well it was a gradual process. I started getting emails from all these people in Hollywood after the short went viral. One of them was producer Lawrence Grey who wanted to develop it into a feature.

He was the one who got James Wan on as a producer and Eric Heisserer as a writer. Once they were on board Lawrence flew me and Lotta out to LA to meet everyone but we still didn't know if the movie was happening or not.

It was last march that we finally got the call. "The movie is happening, can you be here next week?".

So we just had to lock our front door, Lotta quit her job (I was pretty much unemployed anyway) and we flew over. We've only been home for christmas since. It's all happened crazy fast. We've been in this country for a year and a half and I'm directing my second movie. We still have no idea what our future will be. We're renting out our apartment back home to a friend and are staying in an apartment in Hollywood for now.

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It's an O1 work visa that the studio paid for and set up. We're currently renting an apartment here and have rented out our apartment in Sweden to a friend. We'll just have to see what happens next. Our visas expire next year.

Hey David, super stoked to see the movie! What was it like working with James Wan?

First time I met him was kind of a strange experience. He was coming up with like a million ideas for lights out. Some that were way out there. I walked out of there thinking "does he want me to incorporate all of this? Because that's impossible and wouldn't make sense". But he just has all of these ideas constantly and throws them out there in case there's something that works or could lead to something that works.

The main advice he had for me was to just have fun with it because making Hollywood movies is a crazy process. It was hard to have fun with it though since it felt like this was my one shot at Hollywood and I better not fuck it up. I feel a lot more relaxed on Annabelle 2.

Saw it earlier today, loved it. Some teenagers were playing music off their phones early into the film but not very loudly. It was very crowded, great audience reaction. Anyway my question is: What is the scare in the film that you are most proud of/loved to film?

Of the scary stuff, probably the neon scene. My very favorite stuff is some of the more action-y fun stuff later on like the gun fire or the car headlights. That stuff was so fun to do.

I'd want to make something with lots of action in it at some point. One of my absolute favorite movies is Aliens. It has horror, sci-fi, action, all the things I love.

Does it bother you at all that they plaster James Wan's name all over the trailers and marketing material?

Only when people think he's the director. That sucks. But I'm very grateful to have had him as a producer and to be able to have his name on it since it's synonymous with quality horror.

Just saw the film today, loved it despite sitting near noisy people. What was your inspiration for the original short?

Lotta and I tried to come up with the scariest thing we could shoot in an apartment with just one actress. The idea came from something I'm sure many have experienced. You turn the lights off at night and you think one of the shadows looks like a person standing there. Well what if there actually was something there in the dark every time you turned the lights off?

I saw the movie today and loved it! Would you be interested in making a sequel to the film, and if so, what direction would the story go?

Maybe. It would have to deal with the aftermath I think. I would assume Sophie would be blamed for everything that went on in that house. But we'll see what happens. There's certainly more fun that could be had with different light sources and gags.