A Young Director With Tom Hanks's Seal of Approval

By Karla Adam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 5, 2008

BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- Five years ago, Gil Kenan was an unknown university student with a video camera; today he is an Oscar-nominated director strolling around one of the largest indoor film sets ever made. And it's his.

"It's amazing. See the height of this thing? The size and height of this thing actually allowed us to build sets that are practical," says Kenan, 31, as he walks underneath a canopy of lights inside a massive shipping hangar.

"City of Ember," Kenan's first live-action film, which opens Friday, tells the story of an underground city lit entirely by a power generator that's starting to fail. As the street lamps flicker and pop, the city begins a descent into darkness.

How to build a city that hails from another world? One of the biggest problems for Kenan and his crew was finding a space big enough.

The crew darted around Europe for months before discovering Belfast's Titanic Quarter, so called because the RMS Titanic was built there along with other ships, conveniently leaving behind hangars that soar 90 feet in the air.

It probably helped that Northern Ireland Screen, the local film commission, offered more than $1 million in funding and waived the rent on the otherwise abandoned hangar in hopes of launching a film industry.

It took five months to build the set in the Paint Hall, a building that spans 64,000 square feet -- there are indoor roads -- and the result is an English village with winding alleys and concrete, 1970s-inspired buildings that tower three stories.

While trailing Kenan on location in Belfast during the filming, it quickly becomes apparent that not only is he one of the youngest people around, he's also the most animated.

At one point, he suddenly falls to the ground.

"I'm really into these," he says on his hands and knees, pointing at the copper manhole covers. He explains that the engravings on the manholes are essentially maps of the city.

"Like, there's the laundromat over there," he says, finding it on the manhole first before dashing over to a gray building stuffed with rusting washing machines. He then shoves an oar into a machine and starts cleaning an imaginary load of laundry while explaining how resourceful the citizens of Ember are, even though supplies are dwindling.

The film is co-produced by Tom Hanks's Playtone Productions and Fox Walden, and was adapted for the screen by Caroline Thompson, who also penned "Edward Scissorhands" and "Corpse Bride." The story follows two teenagers, played by Saoirse Ronan ("Atonement") and Harry Treadaway, as they hunt for clues to unlock the city's mysterious origins and help its citizens escape before it's too late. Along the way, they are thwarted by Bill Murray. The actor plays the mayor of Ember, who hoards food, among other things. The family adventure also stars Tim Robbins, Martin Landau, Toby Jones and Marianne Jean-Baptiste.

Kenan's big break on "City of Ember" is the stuff of film student dreams: His UCLA senior film project, "The Lark," a 10-minute black-and-white film made in his kitchen, won a class award and caught the eye of an agent. It wasn't long before he was sitting across the table from industry titans at Playtone.

"It was wild. Not to overstate it, but these were film gods of mine," Kenan says of his first meetings, where "basically you go in and talk about how great you are and what you want to do when you grow up."

With Playtone, Kenan says he began pitching a kind of "non-intergalactic science-fiction film" when Hanks's executives "started looking at each other." A like-minded novel, "The City of Ember," by Jeanne DuPrau, had just landed on their desk. Would Kenan like to take a look?

Would he ever. Kenan rang the next day and pleaded for the chance to give his interpretation of the manuscript, complete with sketches. His presentation lasted three hours.

"We loved his energy, and Tom [Hanks] was delighted with Gil," says Steven Shareshian, a Playtone producer who was at that initial meeting. He says they could tell that "Gil was a true visualist" and that he could bring "an overall look and feel that was incredibly unique."

And if some might think it risky to gamble so much on a young director, the "Ember" producers had all the validation they could possibly want in Kenan's first film. Produced by Steven Spielberg and Robert Zemeckis, 2006's "Monster House" is an animated adventure story that has a big toe in the horror genre, and received strong reviews and an Oscar nomination.

Kenan has a deceptively folksy style and says "amazing" and "pretty cool" so often it's easy to forget that he's responsible for the most expensive film ever made in Northern Ireland. He hasn't forgotten: He moved to Belfast with his wife for the eight-month shoot, works six days a week and cut all television, film and literature out of his life. He also finds it helpful to ignore the fact that many in his cast and crew started their careers before he was born.

"I learned to kind of suppress that notion on the first day. I just thought, I get to do this, and shame on me if I stop to worry if I'm not [experienced enough]. I have this opportunity. It would be a disservice to everyone who's trying to get the break that I got to allow myself to get overwhelmed," he says. "At the end of the day, I am telling the story, and I know how it ends, and as long as I kind of follow that really simple formula, there's only so much I can screw up."

Indeed, Tim Robbins says Kenan's sure-footed direction was one of his most distinctive traits. "He is super-confident," says Robbins. "And you wonder about that with someone you haven't worked with before. I mean: Do they have talent, or are they just stubborn? I was happy to learn it was talent."

Born in London, Kenan moved to Tel Aviv when he was 4 and Los Angeles when he was 7. As he was growing up, his father, a commodities trader, used to take him to "inappropriate" -- his word -- films, he says, such as "The Tin Drum" and "Time Bandits," leaving him "really confused and really fascinated." But he says the films that influenced him most were Spielberg's "E.T." and Zemeckis's "Back to the Future," setting the stage for surreal moments on his first film.

"I'd show my work to them in Spielberg's theater, and the lights would come up and we'd discuss. That's not something that's supposed to happen. That was a fantasy," says Kenan, who has thick eyebrows and an intense gaze. But those butterflies appear to have long since fluttered away as he now grins and says, "I can't wait to show them my new film."

In a recent phone interview, Kenan, who has since become a father, says that looking back, "I felt like I learned how [to direct] on this film. Making a live-action film is like someone turning the world's biggest fan on in your face."

Despite the success of Kenan's first feature, there are still many who can't help but question just how long ago it was he removed his training wheels.

"Some people say: 'Who do you think you are? I have been doing this my whole life, and you fly in from L.A. and tell me how to do my job?' " he says. "But others, as long as you don't let them down too much, like the idea of giving you the benefit of the doubt."

Some of the biggest names in Hollywood have done just that.