Skyler Gisondo PRIMETIME research
by Anjali Filmi: Skyler Gisondo
For PRIMETIME, Skyler Gisondo and director Lance Oppenheim deliberately sidestepped traditional biopic conventions. The character became an amalgamation of various decoys rather than a single individual, so the team never contacted real-life participant Dan Plum about his To Catch a Predator experiences. Instead, Gisondo reviewed footage from To Catch a Predator to study physical actions instead of specific mannerisms. He focused on setup nuances like blocking, camera awareness, and interaction duration while observing how decoys engaged with subjects who knew they were being filmed.
Transcript (en)
The real Dan Plum has been involved in talking about his experiences on To Catch a Predator, contacting him, something that you and Lance ever talked about? No, we didn't really talk about it. My understanding was kind of more of an amalgamation of all of the decoys and to not be doing any kind of biopic performance. So I really just was studying, like, going back and watching all of the show, not for, like, any of the specific mannerisms of the decoys, but more so, like, the physicality of what they were doing. You know, it's a very specific job. There's the performance and like how far they're taking that, but then there's the blocking, trying to get this person into, you know, they're aware of the cameras and like how long are they gonna keep it going? And like, it's this very nuanced, sort of strange thing that they were doing. And so just watching the show and getting more inspiration from the kind of whole setup
