Shannon Triplett cut her teeth as part of the visual effects and producing teams for blockbusters like Fast Five, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 and Part 2, and Godzilla (2014). And though she is now making her directorial debut with Desert Road, which premiered at this year’s SXSW Festival, she didn’t necessarily intend to sit in the director’s chair. An accomplished writer and a storyteller at heart, Triplett said in our interview, “[Directing] really came out of an extension of a desire to tell stories.” In her writing, she gravitated towards “bigger sci-fi things,” which she lamented could often get stuck in development hell. This is why Desert Road was the perfect fit as a sci-fi indie production.

In Desert Road, Kristine Froseth stars as an unnamed woman who is driving along a highway in the desert, heading for her mom’s place in Iowa. Shortly after refueling at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, her car’s front tire bursts, leaving her stranded on the side of the road. She walks down the road for help, first at the gas station and then at the factory further along the highway, but, to her horror, she discovers that whichever direction she walks in, she somehow always ends up back at where her car crashed.

“This was an idea that I had that felt a bit more manageable as a first-time project. There are so few locations. There are so few characters,” Triplett said. “[When] you write a script, you have to hand it over to a director for their vision — I really believe in that [process] — but this one, I just couldn’t let it go.”

On Crafting a Smart Sci-Fi Thriller
Desert Road (2024) Release Date March 10, 2024 Director Shannon Triplett

Though Triplett describes Desert Road as a “manageable” film, it took meticulous planning and care to establish the rules of the sci-fi elements, particularly the time loops and the time jumps. In fact, the director described her office as being littered with script pages, note cards, and Post-It notes: “I had to print [the script] out, and I would batch it by scenes to lay out different sequences to figure out the order that we trip and fall into this chaos.” She also said that there were times when she wanted to give up, adding, “It’s a much smarter story than I am as a writer.”

Triplett, of course, is selling herself short here: her pre-production efforts on Desert Road are evident in the final product, which is a tightly-woven thriller that legitimately keeps you guessing until the end. Even still, she boils the film’s overall impact down to Froseth and her lead performance. “This movie is the Woman,” she said, recalling how the two would have frequent check-ins in the actor’s trailer, discussing scenes beforehand and taking stock of important character and narrative beats.

“We couldn’t have made this film without her,” Triplett said of Froseth. “She really brought this character to life in a way that was incredible. I was so lucky to be able to hand over this character to somebody as incredible as Kristine.”

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The Key Role Cinematography Plays
SXSW

While Desert Road hinges on the performance of its lead actor, the film’s cinematography plays an equally important role. Set in the desert, the barren landscape stretches for miles, which might normally feel like a flat surface, but DP Nico Navia’s dynamic camera work adds dimension and effectively fuels the horror that Froseth’s Woman is going through. In her search for the right cinematographer, Triplett said she wanted someone “who’s up for working a little left of center,” and when she first met Navia, they had a three-hour conversation about the visual language of the film.

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The result was a sort of documentary-like approach: “When we’re on [the Woman], we’re closer to her, and when we’re showing the other characters, the camera’s further away, as if we’re with her perspective,” Triplett said. In this way, there’s a pervading sense of paranoia throughout Desert Road, as it wears the Woman’s fear, confusion, and desperation on its sleeve.

“It was such a pleasure watching the dance that Nico and Kristine would do with one another. [It’s] super important to do the groundwork, but I really wanted to create this playground where Nico could respond to what she was doing, and they really had a wonderful, creative sense of space,” Triplett added. “I think between Nico, Kristine, and I, this little trio of us — you just can’t fake that kind of chemistry, and you also can’t predict it.”

Desert Road was screened in the Narrative Spotlight at SXSW 2024. Watch this space for information about its wider release.