Xander Robin & Nick León Talk Magical, Weird South Florida Wonders in “The Python Hunt”
Florida is an enigma. Unlike most other places in the United States, it has a mysticism that isn’t easy to pin down. Something otherworldly combines with the strange, natural beauty to create the wonder that is Florida. In The Python Hunt, the world of South Florida is captured and scored by two men who grew up in that ethereal, peculiar place. Directed by Xander Robin and scored by Nick León, The Python Hunt is a documentary that embeds the viewer in the vehicles of the amateur and professional hunters who participate in the ten-night event that’s held annually to attempt to keep the invasive Burmese python population in check.
Xander Robin by Reto Sterchi
Xander, I want to start with you because I was shocked to learn that this isn’t your first time making a movie about Floridian reptiles. I watched Lance Lizardi and it was so different from The Python Hunt. How do you see the two of them interacting with each other in terms of your career?
Xander Robin: I don’t overthink the career aspects. Each project has its own world and its own rules. Lance Lizardi was almost like a left-handed movie I did for fun. I was trying to channel my high school self. I used to play this character named Lance who was a sincere person who really loved reptiles and wanted to get on the Conan O’Brien show.
That was my first time making a film in South Florida after growing up there. It kind of reinvigorated my love for the area and started this journey of trying to make South Florida films. Films involving the natural world and reptiles.
The style of it was this camcorder style. Max Allman, The Python Hunt editor, made the music for Lance Lizardi. The short had this jagged, 2015 Vine era rhythm to it.
I wrote a film called Lance Lizardi that was a very cinematic foray into the exotic pet trade. Mostly about people smuggling reptiles. I was trying to get that movie off the ground and into the development phase, but I found that no one really wants to help you make a movie in South Florida. They want you to shoot in Atlanta or New Orleans, all these other places.
The easiest way to get a movie off the ground is to do a documentary. My friend Lance Oppenheim, who makes great documentaries, suggested doing a python challenge thing. I was definitely curious, so I joined the competition and learned it was way more interesting than I thought it would be. As I spent more time out there, the romantic quality came out and it became more of a sort of cosmic foray into the Everglades. Nick’s music totally helped make it feel grounded. It almost became spiritual. I really wanted someone who understood South Florida.
Nick León by Kolja Tinkova
The regions of Florida are all so different, but people try to homogenize it into one odd place. Because you both have such deep roots in South Florida, do you feel like there’s more of an ease of conversation and of ideas flowing between the two of you, in who you are and in the art you’re interested in making?
Nick León: We understood each other from the first couple of conversations we had. Not many words needed to be spoken. It was just more off of the vibes.
I invited Xander over to the studio where we were recording, which is basically in this small, swampy house in the backyard of somebody else’s complex. We spent late nights making ideas, throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks. What works and what doesn’t. It’s almost like method music making even though we were in the sticks, just messing with sounds.
XR: I think people want film to be a super-brainy, intellectual medium. I want it to be really experiential, like something you feel in your body. That’s unusual for documentaries.
With Nick’s music and our appreciation for Florida, it’s very sincere. I think it’s hard to articulate that. It’s hard to have really talented people emerge from South Florida because it’s not an environment that facilitates success sometimes.
There were a lot of composers who aren’t from Florida and maybe could have done an interesting job, but I leapt at the chance to work with Nick to try to transcend all of that.
NL: I do feel like you have to be from here, because whatever that special thing about South Florida is, it’s hard to describe, you know what I mean? It’s hard to put into words, but it’s the cosmic quirkiness of just being from here. There are so many flavors, styles, and sounds that can work together that it would be harder for somebody who’s not from this environment to really hone in on.
A lot of your viewers aren’t going to be from South Florida and have maybe never set foot in the Everglades or seen a South Florida that’s not the party streets of Miami. In crafting the story and then crafting the score, how do you ease people into taking Florida seriously?
XR: It’s tough. The goal for me is always to make a movie that people in South Florida will be like, wow, I recognize everything. You also want it to travel. You don’t want to just make a local film that only people in Florida will like, but no one else will.
You find that line where it’s entertaining enough for the rest of the world and they’re able to understand everything, but it doesn’t alienate the community you’re from.
Courtesy of The Python Hunt / Oscilloscope Laboratories
NL: It feels sincere also. That’s an important part of the project. It’s kind of like you’re living with these people in the documentary. There’s a softness to it as well, which is important, so it’s not just a spectacle or anything like that.
The sequence with the man who’s writing a newspaper article about the hunt, Toby, when he’s reading his work with Nick’s music in the background…that’s just goosebumps-inducing. It’s so beautiful.
XR: Nick freaked it. That was one of the last things we made. We had a piece of music in there from another movie we really liked. It was becoming clear that we weren’t going to get that piece of music, so I was like, Nick, what do you think? Do you think he could make a score for it? He knew it was a challenge, but he rose up to that challenge.
NL: We spent one day just doing that one selection.
XR: Being in the studio with Nick, even if he’s trying something for the first time, I’ve never seen someone so able to master a new idea for the first try. He has a wide range of things he could do.
Nick has his own solo work that’s perhaps more specific to him, but the music that plays at night for the first night, that’s like this Tom Waits, kind of nasty rock song…just to see him dive into that headfirst, and achieve what he achieves…it’s incredible.
NL: We need to give a shout-out to Pablo, who worked on a lot of the music with me. He did a lot of the percussion, a lot of the instrumentation. We recorded it in his studio, his factory. He’s also kind of a crazy character and his energy is very much felt in the music as well.
Courtesy of The Python Hunt / Oscilloscope Laboratories
Can you each talk a little bit about nature’s way of making its presence known in your role in the film.
NL: I remember Xander sending me a folder of nature stuff that was really high quality. Honestly, the highest quality of chirping, birds, and other stuff recorded out there. It was amazing, but I don’t know if anything ended up making it in because when you mix it with the actual soundscapes of the film, sometimes it doesn’t land the way you want it to. I didn’t freak it enough, I guess.
XR: I worked on this show called Chillin Island, which was kind of an outdoor show. It taught me a little bit about the patience needed to do these crazy nature shots. Our cinematographers, David Bolen and Matt Clegg, had a set of rules that unified all the cinematographers.
While we were shooting, there was a lot of downtime. Hunters not being able to catch anything. There would be little tasks the camera operators could do that involved getting out and getting different nature shots. If someone caught a snake, we were able to get up close and personal with it.
That’s the beauty of documentaries. The crew is so small that you could kill some time that way. It was just two people with a camera sometimes, and you could get next to a snake and watch it act in a way. One of my favorite shots is of just a snake with cars passing behind it. It’s almost like we were personifying it in a way.
Courtesy of The Python Hunt / Oscilloscope Laboratories
It’s fascinating that the film is about failure before it even begins. As successful as these hunters can be, the python problem is immeasurable. No matter what you were going to shoot, it inevitably feels like there’s not going to be the tidy bow at the end of the documentary that people look for. Is it freeing for you to get to tell this story about failure and not be worried about how it ends?
XR: Going into it, I saw it as almost like a comedy of errors. Then it became more of the spiritual romantic angle as I spent more time out there. I remember at first, some of the music Nick was making was almost too optimistic. It was beautiful music that you could listen to on its own and it would never feel too saccharine or sweet or anything, but you pair it with the images and that changes.
We’re going to spend the whole movie saying everything is fucked up, everything is fucked up. Then, at the end, we’re going to have a sort of sweet moment and we’re going to really earn it. That was an exciting challenge.
Failures…that’s a great thing to make a film about. Success? We could save that for another filmmaker.
NL: Some of the music was out of my comfort zone. It was nice to play with this thing and not always land it necessarily, but then kind of falling somewhere else that could work. There were a lot of happy accidents, I would say, in the process of making stuff. I was really happy Xander was in the studio with us.
Would either of you actively participate in the Python Hunt?
NL: Low key…I don’t know, I think I would give it a shot. I don’t know how well I do, but I feel like I’d do it.
XR: I did it the year before we shot. I just remember getting in the back of people’s cars and feeling really dehydrated, like I was going to lose my mind. Also, not really seeing any pythons. I would do it again. The thing is, I still feel like if I just spend enough time out there, I’ll see something crazy.
NL: That’s how they hook you and get you back.
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