'Wednesday' Director Paco Cabezas on Shooting: 'Painting a Picture During a Fire'

Paco Cabezas, director of Netflix's "Wednesday," told a Cádiz festival audience on Nov. 2: "I've always compared shooting to painting a picture during a fire or writing a poem on a roller coaster."

Cabezas spoke alongside Spanish director Javier Ruiz Caldera at the South International Series Festival, whose fourth edition ran Oct. 30–Nov. 4. Their conversation, titled "No Holds Barred," formed part of the festival's Creative Talks program, moderated by South Boost coordinator Alejandro Ávila.

Cabezas's credits range from "Wednesday" to AMC's "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon." Before each shoot, he assembles a thick book of drawings, photographs and shot breakdowns. By the time he reaches set, he knows it so well he barely opens it.

"To create under pressure, you have to be very relaxed," Cabezas said.

What separates the two directors' methods?

Ruiz Caldera favors chance. "Leave the window open so the air can come in and things can happen," he said.

He has built a career moving comedy into unfamiliar territory, from the spy caper "Anacleto: Agente Secreto" to the superhero romp "Superlópez." Horror, he confessed, is his favorite genre. "As soon as I run out of adjectives to put before comedy, I'll make a big drama," he joked.

After last year's family drama "Wolfgang," Ruiz Caldera changed direction again. "5 More Minutes" ("5 Minutos Más"), written by Berto Romero and starring Romero, Belén Cuesta and Javier Cámara, is a time-loop thriller shot in continuous takes of exactly five minutes.

A take running six seconds over meant starting again. Finishing early required finding a pause to fill the remaining time.

"I think it's been the wildest technical challenge of my life," said Ruiz Caldera, who came to filmmaking through editing. "Editing is possibly my favorite filmmaking tool," he added. For this film, "I took that tool away from myself."

Produced by El Terrat and Ikiru Films as a Movistar Plus original, "5 More Minutes" premiered in competition at San Sebastián, where Cámara won the Silver Shell for best supporting performance. The film also took the Audience Award and a Special Jury Mention at Austin's Fantastic Fest. Filmax handles international sales and will release the film in Spain on Jan. 22.

Why cast a comedian in a thriller?

Ruiz Caldera wanted Romero in the lead, though the comedian worried viewers would expect jokes from a screenplay containing almost none. The director argued Romero's presence would carry humor without conventional comic dialogue.

"I think humor is an essential ingredient if you want to move people more, or scare them more," he said.

Cabezas put it another way. "If you laugh with someone, you love them more," he said. "So when you put them in danger, you suffer more."

Ruiz Caldera sees the same link between comedy and horror, provided the frightening moments are played straight. "The key is to take horror seriously," he said. He also warned against excess: "A bad joke can ruin a film."

When Ávila raised action choreography, Cabezas grinned. "I've killed a lot of people in fiction," he said.

His example came from "The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon," where a catapult hurls a giant flaming ball of zombies at the heroes. Reading the script, Cabezas asked himself: "How do I make a giant meatball of burning zombies explode against the heroes?"

The solution used a van rigged to jolt on cue, a drone carrying a light to trace the incoming fireball, and stunt performers attached to a constructed ball who broke away on impact.

"If I've already done a giant flaming meatball made of zombies, what else can I do?" he asked, laughing.

Cabezas said he had shot equally "crazy" material for the upcoming third season of "Wednesday," though spoilers were off-limits. His Spanish television work includes Atresplayer's admired "La Novia Gitana" crime saga, most recently "La Nena," a co-production between Banijay Iberia's Diagonal and Buendía Estudios Canarias for Atresmedia. He described the "total freedom" he enjoyed there, compared with the fixed visual parameters of a show like "Wednesday."

Asked about working in Spain and the U.S., he acknowledged the resource gap without drawing a cultural divide. "There are differences in budgets, but in the end the heart is the same," he said.

How far back does the risk go?

The two directors first worked together on the 2009 spoof "Spanish Movie," written by Cabezas and directed by Ruiz Caldera in his feature debut for Telecinco Cinema and Think Studio.

"Possibly the best day I've ever had on a shoot was on 'Spanish Movie,'" Ruiz Caldera recalled. He brought Leslie Nielsen and Spanish comedy star Chiquito de la Calzada together before two hidden cameras, asked Nielsen to imitate Chiquito, then let both improvise. Watching them was "like a National Geographic of comedy," he said.

Cabezas's Hollywood career began after his thriller "Neon Flesh" ("Carne de Neón") reached Tribeca. Los Angeles meetings led to the Nicolas Cage film "Rage" and U.S. television assignments.

Yet asked about the biggest challenge of his career, Cabezas reached further back, to the short film that preceded "Neon Flesh." At a private screening, a producer declared it unfunny and refused to pay for a celluloid transfer for festival screenings. Cabezas raised €10,000 ($11,200) from relatives, became a co-producer and financed the transfer himself. At its first festival screening, the audience laughed. The short went on to win 60 awards.

The hardest part, Cabezas said, had been "believing in yourself and taking that risk" — a lesson that now stretches from a €10,000 short to the third season of one of Netflix's biggest shows.