EXCLUSIVE: Writer K.D. Davila & Director Carey Williams Open Up About Their Film, Emergency

Amazon Prime Video is about to release their upcoming comedy thriller, Emergency, at the end of this month. We had the lovely opportunity to sit down with writer, K.D. Davila, and director Carey Williams to discuss their creation ahead of its release.

On how the two met:

K.D. Davila: “Carey and I met in Project Involve, which is film independence fellowship for diverse writers from underrepresented communities and artists. Carey was on the directing track, and I was on the writing track. The program started right after the 2016 election, and so, I think a lot of artists at the time were very much like, ‘Oh man, we got to tell stories that really say something.’

On where the idea for the short film came from:

K.D. Davila: “The idea came out of a lot of different places, and one of them was a sense of needing catharsis. The short film is that scene at the end of Act One of the feature film where they find her. They find an unconscious, white girl in their apartment. These three men of color find an unconscious white girl in their apartment, and they are debating whether or not to call 911. The entire short film is kind of like a comedy, a dark comedy about just these guys thinking about how they’re being perceived and just every tiny little detail of, ‘If we do this, how will it look? What is it going to look like from the perspective of a police officer if we call 911?’ We want to do something about that absurdity of what is it. What society are we in where we created this intense culture of fear, a justified culture of fear. I’m Mexican-American. My family’s from Los Angeles, and what society do we live in where people are more afraid of calling 911 and the help that is going to come than they are of the emergency itself? In many ways, that was the genesis of the idea. It’s kind of funny just because I feel like the idea came, in many ways, fully formed, but that’s what it was about.”

On what inspired them to create a feature film based on the short film:

Carey Williams: “I believe we’d just won an award at South by Southwest and there was this interview after, and I was on cloud-freaking-nine naturally. I was so happy, and they just asked, ‘What’s next? Are you going to do anything more with it?’ And I just blurted it out. I didn’t think. I was just like, ‘Yeah.’ It was like everything Emergency right now is everything. Let’s keep it going. Let’s keep this energy going. So, I just said it, and after I said it, I was like, ‘Yeah, we should.'”

K.D. Davila: “Then we actually started talking about it. I distinctly remember the first conversation we had after he promised everyone I was already writing it. We talked about it, and because the short film was very much like you’re watching these guys basically speaking in real time. It’s almost like a play. I was like, ‘Well, I think that it would make sense for it to be…’ We want to keep that energy. It would be one of those one crazy night stories. But with a tonal twist.

On what they were excited to explore in the feature film:

Carey Williams: “I was excited about really exploring their relationship more, and we could touch more on the culture of fear. We could explore some themes of masculinity, differences of worldview within our community. All those things could be touched on that we wouldn’t really have the time in 11 minutes. Now, we’ve got a bigger canvas to really talk about some more stuff. And then also bringing in the antagonists to play off of and also to see how their sort of perception is not so they don’t have that same worry that our guys do.”

On the difficulties of expanding a short film into a feature film:

Carey Williams: “I remember I wanted to see Kunle go to Sean’s neighborhood, because I wanted to see how Kunle would react around that environment. Because I didn’t think it would be comfortable for him. So, I was happy that K.D. was into that idea.

K.D. Davila: “We had a lot of preliminary discussions of this. We knew that we were kind of making the world’s shortest road trip movie. It’s like it was supposed to be a very short journey that turned into a whole thing. There was a lot of discussion we had about what are the stops along the way? What are the decisions, and what is the escalation, and what’s kind of the comedy of errors that’s driving, that’s escalating the tension of the story? It was a lot. It was a lot of us having all those initial discussions, and I think we were very aware that walking that tight rope in a short film is way easier. The tonal tight rope in the short film is way easier than it is in a feature film. Balancing those tones and trying… It goes between being like these guys feel at the beginning of the film. They are very much like, ‘We’re going to be in a teen party comedy.’ Or a college party comedy rather, because they’re 21. Yeah, there’s like, ‘We’re going to be in a college party comedy,’ and the film is like, ‘No, you’re not.’ Even from the beginning, in the classroom scene at the beginning, there’s that sort of the start of the hints of like, ‘Oh, this isn’t going to be your typical college party comedy.’ That’s the movie that the characters want to be in.

On creating a realistic college environment for the film:

Carey Williams: “I have to give a huge shout out to our production designer, Jeremy Woodward. We worked really closely together on that, but he really ran with that. The boys’ house, those locations… That house particular, three or four guys lived there. So, it was kind of like, ‘Yeah, well this is what we’re doing.’ And so, we already had that geography is set up, and I liked it just from the way I intended to shoot the entry to the house. It was perfect. And then, Jeremy just does his thing where it’s like he does such great detail. It feels real, but also has that extra something where it’s like little jokes here and there, little touches that gives it that extra thing. So, he’s a freaking genius.”

On working with the cast:

Carey Williams: “It was a dream. As soon as we got them cast and we met in Atlanta. It was kind of trippy, because we’d already cast them, and I hadn’t met them in person. So, I walk in the room, and my first thought was like, ‘Oh my God, you guys are all so much taller than I thought you’d be.’ It’s so just like, ‘What?’ But it was just so comfortable. We sat down, and we started talking about the characters. I very quickly was like, ‘Yeah, these guys know who these people are, and they’re bringing all these ideas.’ We just talked about their history. So, it was a dream. Once we got everybody together, we did our table read together. That was when we, Katie and I, both had that experience of like, “Oh man, this is pretty cool.” I don’t know if you want to speak to that.”

On watching the actors bring the script to life:

K.D. Davila: “I think that when you’re writing a script, there’s nothing like that feeling of hearing the words come out of an actor’s mouth for the first time and feeling them bring the character to life. It’s interesting to see how things are different from what you imagined. It’s surprising in a good way. You see an interpretation of a line that you didn’t expect, and you’re like, ‘Oh, wow.’ From a writer’s perspective, I think actors delve into the script, and they study it. It’s so cool to see them pick up on the details and really find their character, and they did such a great job. I think, obviously, Donald and RJ are amazing. I think Sebastian was the one where we saw him, and his audition was, in a lovely way, so weird. I think he’s the one who is the most completely opposite of his character in real life. So, it’s just so funny meeting him in real life. He’s so cool.

Emergency hits theaters on May 20 and will drop on Prime Video on May 27.

*This interview has been edited for length and clarity