Director Spela Cadez’s Steakhouse was nominated for an Annie Award last awards season. It’s now one of the 15 finalists for the 2023 Best Animated Short Film Academy Award. Cadez shares details on making the intense, surprising drama. (This Animation Scoop interview was conducted as an Email Q&A and was edited for length and clarity.)

Jackson Murphy: What intrigued you about using steak as the main food?

Spela Cadez: Only men can really cook a perfect steak. They are, in a way, the kings of the grill. The script was written by my partner Gregor Zorc. One day by chance we watched a cooking tv show and then the idea came together. The chef’s raw flipping of meat, drowning it in oil and the sound of loud sizzling meat, in this I saw much more than just a recipe.

JM: What went into the specific pacing of the story?

SC: The pace was very important to understand the fact that this event is not their first, but a series of years of abuse. This was absolutely necessary for understanding her brutal act at the end. It’s important to play with time, even more so in a short film. Sometimes you need to put extra time in so you can put it out somewhere else effectively. I think dialogues were an important part of this too. Every wrong word or a word [used] too much could soften up the whole scene. The tensions were not in the right words, but in anticipation and loud silences.

JM: How did you want to present the intensity and unhappiness of this couple’s relationship?

SC: We spent a long time trying to find the right way to tell this story. In the end, we staged a surprise party at her work for her birthday, which she couldn’t really enjoy because she knows all the time what’s waiting for her at home.

JM: Liza and Franc are so well-defined as characters, even just based on facial expressions and a few lines of dialogue. What was the process of making them so detailed?

SC: One of the project’s biggest challenges was finding the right characters that convincingly carry the plot. In a short film format there is no time for explanations and prequels. It’s not always easy to choose the right characters and believe in them.

JM: Tell me about the sounds you incorporated.

SC: Rhythm and music play an important role in the film, giving the viewer insight into the partner — his functioning and dictating his preparation for the special event. The blurred and heavy world of the burnt steak needed a very precise and concrete sound design, while in other parts the sound transforms into a surreal element carrying the tension.

JM: How did you create the smoke effect for the middle section of the film?

SC: Steakhouse was created with the use of a multiplane camera set up, achieving motion in animation with the help of oil-painted cell and paper cut-outs. For the smoke effect we used a frost cell, over simple cut outs made of black paper. The cell was raised and lowered frame by frame with a special add-on device for the multiplane. When the frost cell gets close to the cut outs, they sharpen, and when the layer moves away, the smoke thickens.

JM: Did you always know you wanted to end the short the way you do?

SC: The partner’s final action was an idea we had from the start. I was very afraid how this ending would turn out because it could have had a completely different effect. It sounded very brutal in the script, as it wasn’t quite clear why she would react that way. But due to the heavy smoke it becomes clear that everything happening that afternoon marked the edge of a relationship when it breaks. I wasn’t actually thinking about how people would interpret that final scene. My mind is always on the subject. I was challenged to talk about domestic, psychological violence, and to show it.

JM: What do you think ultimately mattered the most to Liza?

SC: I guess the answer would be to regain her voice.

JM: What would an Academy Award nomination for “Steakhouse” mean to you?

SC: For any independent film team to be supported by the Academy members is a tremendous honor. This nomination would be a first for Slovenian majority production, which would hopefully help with the visibility and support of film in general.

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Jackson Murphy

Jackson Murphy is a movie critic and entertainment columnist. He is the creator of the website Lights-Camera-Jackson.com, and has made numerous appearances on television and radio.

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