David LaRosa is an actor, director, producer and writer as well as the president of Feenix Films, an independent film production company. He was born and raised in Lincoln Park, New Jersey. David received a Gold Remi Award from the 2016 Worldfest Houston International Film Festival in the Crime/Drama category for his latest release, “Clandestine.” He also received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Special Agent Thomas Mackenrowe.
In this episode of the Imperfect Podcast we discuss the business of indie film making. Unfortunately man filmmakers don’t understand the business and one of two things happen. They don’t have a plan for making money with their film or they get taken advantage of by a distribution company that doesn’t have the filmmakers best interests in mind.
Local Police and Federal Officials join together to unravel a sinister meth crisis in a small suburban town. Faced with the prospects of life changing events, the team struggles to balance their personal fears with their professional duties. Starring: Nick DeMatteo, David LaRosa, Janine Laino.
David LaRosa Interview Highlights
How did you catch the film bug?
It’s hard to say exactly, but many years ago I found out that my cousin, who I never met, starred in a 70’s sitcom. He was actually my favorite character on the show. I think the fact that I could watch someone related to me perform on TV sparked my interest in the field. Also growing up in the 70’s and watching a movie like Star Wars, made my head explode with possibilities.
I eventually got involved with my High School plays, but when I went to college, I didn’t want anything to do with acting, so I majored in Political Science until I realized that field was actually acting as well. I eventually dropped out and took acting classes, where I met my wife and business partner. We started a theater company in 2006 and then decided to do our own thing, so we created a web-series. A couple years later in 2008, we formed Feenix Films.
It’s an LLC. I am the president, Janine Laino is the treasurer, Nick DeMatteo is the Vice President, and Kate McGrath is the Business director.
Making movies is a business. You do all this creative stuff, but you need to have this super structure underneath that allows you to do the creative fun stuff. We developed a strategic plan, which consisted of two phases. Phase 1 was to create and learn from our mistakes. This meant to evaluate what skills we had and what skills we didn’t have in house. The skills we didn’t possess, we went outside and hired professionals, which were our DP and a sound person. “Clandestine” is the culmination of Phase 1. Phase 2 is: we use what we learned from the film and build up. Now we have several scripts, which we will use to attract investors.
Where did the idea for Clandestine come from?
Kate McGrath, the screenwriter, was influenced by her father’s stories of life as a Long Island police officer. She never forgot this disturbing incident that scared her as a child. This film brought that image to life. There is a form of meth in Long Island that is coming up from Mexico. Also no one has explored the use of meth in this particular area yet. It makes the war on drugs a little fresher. The film is an analogy of the entire war on drugs and what people and towns go through.
How important is the relationship between the DP and the Director?
That’s the most important relationship there is. We interviewed many DP’s. We received over 300-400 resumes and reels. I went through all of them before deciding on Brad Rego. He quickly understood the feel and type of images I wanted and why.
Where does your business acumen come from?
I went back to school and changed my major to psychology and minored in political science, then got my masters in social work. I completed my studies with a dual concentration in administrative and therapy. I used this to develop the business aspect.
Also, my partners and I work together using our composite knowledge and a bit of common sense.
We realized that Feenix Films’s focus is the story and our ability to relate to our audience.
When you made this film did you have a distribution plan or did that come after the fact?
Right from the start, we placed a lot of the money toward PR. Chris Ryan, who played Billman in Clandestine, said, “Twitter is a huge room where everyone is yelling at the exact same volume level.” So how do you get above the volume level? You need to pay for a spotlight or a megaphone, which translates into, “pay for PR.”
The Indie film market has changed. In the 90’s the question was, “how many theaters are showing your film or what city is your premier? Now the question is, “how many platforms and which ones is your film showing on?” With the help of our sales agent, Circus Road Films, and our distributors, Candy Factory Distribution, our film Clandestine, is on multiple platforms with more on the way.
Do you find directing yourself as an actor in the film difficult?
I keep waiting for the big problem, but it didn’t come. I love it. Maybe taking some of those psych classes helped me to compartmentalize. My whole acting approach is to think like the character, step into those thoughts and you’re there, you’re done.
It’s like when you’re a kid, you’re not thinking, you’re playing.
What gear did you use to shoot this film?
We shot the entire film on the Cannon 5D, DSLR. It came in handy because some larger cameras would be unable to capture some of the shots due to space restrictions. We edited the film using Final Cut 7, because I can’t stand Final Cut X. I guess it is what you get used to working with.
Have you done any crowd funding?
We have but it didn’t go so well until we learned several strategies that helped. You have to work at it. There are pros and cons to it.
What did you learn from making Clandestine that you can apply to your next feature film?
The most important thing for me is to make sure you spend the time necessary to put together a team of people you can rely on.
Tony Germinario is a writer and indie film director behind the award winning feature film Bad Frank. Born and raised in NJ. Tony went to school at Fairfield University where he initially began his screenwriting career. Since then, he has always been involved in creative outlets. At first, he focused on music and became one of the lead songwriters for a touring band called Jel, but then turned his writing skills from songs back to scripts roughly eight years ago.
Since focusing on film, Tony has written 9 feature scripts, several shorts, and has experienced increasing levels of success with his film-making. His first feature film “Wingman, Inc.”, starring Kristopher Turner, Erin Cahill, and Reid Ewing was picked up by Lion’s Gate/Grindstone and was released in April 2015.
Tony’s latest feature film Bad Frank, featuring Kevin Interdonato and Tom Sizemore has people talking. It’s won 11 awards on the film festival circuit and recently picked up a distribution deal with Gravitas Ventures. We learned a lot from Tony this week about transitioning from short films to creating feature films. The devil’s in the details and preparation can be the difference between success and failure. Surrounding yourself with a team you can trust is also the key to making big things happen on small budgets in the indie film world.
Born and raised in Bergen County New Jersey. We actually have a big New Jersey contingency on this film. Kevin Interdonato, Russ Russo, Lynn Mancinelli and about ¾ of the cast and crew were from New Jersey. Keeps down travel expenses.
How long have you been making independent films?
For about 6 years now. In my younger days I was a touring musician for a number of years in NYC and the northeast. You reach a certain age and have kids where you can’t drive to Maryland at 11pm on Wednesday anymore. I wound up transitioning out of that into film.
Probably about 8 or 9 years ago I wrote my first script and it was awful. Then I wrote my second script and it wasn’t as awful and it progressively got better each time I wrote one. I was hired by a gentleman, Choice Skinner to write a script for him. He had written an advertisement looking for a writer so I sent in a few samples and was hired. I was paid all of $100 and I was a professional screenwriter so I was thrilled. We hit it off. Choice is New York guy himself even though he lives in Los Angeles. The script is still sitting in development limbo on some executives desk.
We hit it off after that and I went to one of Choice’s acting classes. If you’ve never been to an acting class, go! It’s insane. I met a couple of people there and I wrote a couple of short scripts that they could use for class and he said why don’t we just make them ourselves. I had no idea what he was talking about, I had never produced anything. I just wanted to write.
We ended up raising a little bit of money and shot two short films over the course of a weekend. That was really the start of it. I made another short film after that. Then I wrote a feature film that we produced called Wingman Inc. A professional wingman falls in love with a professional cockblocker. That was more of a comedic film than Bad Frank.
I wrote Bad Frank and wanted to see if I could do it all myself with the feedback I had been getting from people like Choice Skinner. I had worked with Brandon and Kevin before so we decided to do something really low budget. We were very fortunate to get great performances from great people involved. I feel very lucky to work with all these people and am beholden to them. Whatever I do next, any success I have is due to the people I worked with. I’ll do anything I can to help them out as well.
What is your philosophy on working with the same team for your films?
It helps you get a cohesive set. Especially for Bad Frank, we shot the whole thing in 12 days. If we didn’t have a good working knowledge of how we all fit together, there is no way we could have pulled it off. As you work on projects you determine this is someone you can work with again so you keep them in the fold and there are other people that may not fit. You know pretty quickly who fits your model. I like to think I don’t have much of an ego. I don’t really care as long as it comes out good. As long as everyone is working hard and doing what they are supposed to they’re good with me. That’s why I like keeping these people close.
Look at Judd Apatow who uses the same guys or Kevin Smith who uses Ben Affleck even though he’s one of the biggest actors in the world now. That’s who I aspire to be. I bring Kevin Smith up because we were lucky enough to work with Brian O’Halloran. That was surreal. Clerks was one of those movies growing up I was like how did he do this. Brian walked on set the first day and I probably came across as a little jerky but I was really just intimidated. Probably more intimidated by Brian than Tom Sizemore.
I said it recently to a friend of mine. My next project I do, I want to have him back to give him more time to do what he does. He had two great scenes in the film but it wasn’t very much screen time.
Why did you start with short films?
I’m a kid out of Jersey. I just had to figure out a way to make a calling card. There are a lot of festivals out there and if you start winning some awards you start to get your name out there. Maybe now it’s a little easier if you get on a Vimeo channel or something like that and you might find a way to monetize it but you’re never going to make your money back. I didn’t go to film school. If I was going to learn, that’s how I was going to learn. Still money well spent.
How did your process change from making short films to a feature film?
For the first feature, Wingman Inc. I was just a writer and showed up on set to watch and learn. Choice was the director and I kinda sat on his shoulder and watched how he did things. What I learned is, if you hire the right people, the director doesn’t have to do much. It’s all in the preparation beforehand. You’re going to setup your shot lists and work with your director of photography to do that. That was a learning process too but fortunately my DP was great, Mike Heachanova.
It’s about figuring out how do you get the right people in the right spots and letting them do what they do. My process is typically I’ll do a couple of takes and not say anything. On the 3rd take I might say here’s a little note to guide them. If you’re working with talented people which every single person on our set was, you don’t have to do that much. Make it an easy place to work and the rest takes care of itself.
What is Bad Frank about?
It’s a love story…just kidding. It’s about Frank who has impulse control disorder. In his younger days he ruined all of his relationships with his family and friends. Years later he has himself straightened out and he’s medicated and trying to repair his old relationships. Just as he’s going to do that he meets up with someone from his past who sucks him in to his old ways. That’s when “Bad Frank” is reborn.
This film is all about performances. There are no special effects, no crazy car chases, we’ve got a couple of fights we shot but it’s about performances.
If you notice, one of the cool things throughout the film is that there isn’t much music but there’s a lot of sound design. We mixed these eery creepy sounds as things start effecting Frank and it gets stronger and harder as things progress. That’s something a lot of people don’t think about as well in the post production world. If our sound guy didn’t do a good job on that part it wouldn’t have been as intense. As good as Kevin is, you have to have the audio with the video. If it’s not there it would have been more challenging to keep people interested in it. It keeps the intensity going and its such an integral part of the film.
What are the details of the Bad Frank shoot?
We shot on a RED EPIC. It was a two camera shoot. We didn’t really have that many takes. If we got 3 or 4 takes that’s it. If got a good performance we don’t have time to mess around. We probably had 20 to 30 minutes of film we cut. We had very fortunate circumstances. It was a 12 day shoot, 6 days on 1 off then 6 more days of shooting. I still have a regular job. I took 4 days off to shoot and while everyone else had a day off I was still working at my regular job. It was a total of 8 work days for me but it was well worth.
When you can pull something like this together and see it on screen I was stoked.
What was the budget for Bad Frank and how did you get funding?
The budget for Bad Frank was $80,000. Myself and one of my other producers put up the money. Fortunately, I have a very understanding wife. We filmed at our house. Every single room in our houes the furniture was moved around. The final scene in the dining room where the big fight breaks out, we smashed everything in our dining room. If you want to do it cheap you gotta use what you have.
What was it like being the writer and director on Bad Frank?
I had the original idea for the script and then Brandon and Russ added their input. It was a collaboration in the way we did. From a director’s standpoint it really helped. I knew the script inside and out. I knew the motivations of the characters in every scene. That’s one of the reasons Kevin and Russ were able to give such great performances. It’s all about the preparation.
I think I’d find it more challenging directing something I didn’t write. You then have to intrepret what the writers motivation was and you could be off the mark if you don’t have enough time or money. I’m planning to direct the next two or three projects of my own unless someone wants to give me $1 Million to pay for it. These are my babies at this point.
How did Tom Sizemore get involved with Bad Frank?
Tom Sizemore was great. We knew someone who knew him and him the script. He loved it and wanted to be a part of it. The great thing about Tom is, he’s just a regular guy when he’s on set. In one of the scenes where we’re throwing him around in the mud, asking if needs a mat or anything. He just said fuck it, lets just do it it’s gotta be real. You don’t expect it from guys like that.
When we originally started the schedule, Tom Sizemore was going to show up for filming on the 3rd day. I was going to have 2 days to get my legs because I never directed anything before. I wanted a couple days before we bring in Academy Award Nominee Tom Sizemore directed by Steven Spielberg and Oliver Stone and then this schmuck Tony Germinario. Schedules changed and there we are day 1 of shooting with Tom Sizemore.
After some travel complications, Tom actually admitted he was nervous about showing up on set. He said he didn’t know any of us. Tom just wanted it to work out good and put on a good performance for us. He did everything we asked of him, rolling around in the dirt and mud. When we were done he actually could have taken off but he stuck around for another day just to hang out and have dinner with us. You can’t say no to having dinner with Tom Sizemore. He’s a legend.
With Tom we could give him the framework and he just says whatever he wants. I don’t know if you caught it but he talks about something that happened in real life based on some research he did for a film. He actually brings it up saying someone else did it but he tied it to a true person.
What is the distribution strategy for Bad Frank?
After winning 11 film festival awards we just signed our distribution deal. We are getting the dates set but in early July it looks like we are going to have full domestic distribution through Gravitas Ventures. Bad Frank will be available on Amazon, iTunes, DVD and probably Netflix 6 months later. We also work with Lotus Entertainment who’s our sales agent and international distributor. We have already sold to the Middle East, Turkey and Japan.
Kevin knew them and they had liked the script from the onset. They were pretty much onboard before we made the film as long as we didn’t fuck it up. We’ve been very fortunate at festivals and with the backing of Lotus Entertainment and now Gravitas Ventures I think it’s really going to help launch this film. Even though it’s a small it doesn’t look like a small film in my opinion. The proudest thing for me is to get the performers recognition. They all did it for peanuts and I know the reason they do it, just to work but I want to see them succeed and not have to worry about taking the $100 job.
What did you learn from the making of Bad Frank?
Number 1 is preparation. The preparation is going to guide the end result. I spent months working on locations and shot lists. You can’t just show up and hope the magic is going to happen. You gotta be prepared for any contingency, sun to rain, lighting goes out. What do you do when things go wrong? As a director you can never show fear. You always have to be calm and be able to pivot.
Next I’d say, think smart. Know what your capabilities are and how you can handle them. Work with your team. Find people you can trust that you work well with. I’m extremely loyal to the people I work with and if I didn’t treat them well they wouldn’t by loyal to me as well.
An accomplished actress and stunt woman, Melanie Wise has been acting professionally for over a decade. As lead actress of the award-winning horror-action film, Hanah’s Gift, Melanie won best actress at the IndieFest Film Festival. She is also an accomplished producer, video and sound editor with skills in sound effects, graphic design, 2D motion graphics, and specializes in polishing troubled projects.
Melanie is the founder of the Artemis Film Festival. Now in its 3rd, it’s more than your typical indie film festival. It not only celebrates women, but women who kick ass. From female action heroes and stunt women to female activists and business women, the Artemis Film Festival features 3 days of action packed content in Santa Monica, CA.
Talking with Melanie we learn what it takes to run a film festival, what being a female stunt woman is like in Hollywood and why women kick so much ass!
Team Members:
Sean Newcombe, Co-Founder: @therealnewk
Megan Hubbell, Social Media Goddess: @MeganHubbell
Indus Alelia, PR & Outreach Mgr: @IndusAlelia
Watch The Entire Melanie Wise Interview
Read The Melanie Wise Interview Highlights
How did you get involved in the film industry?
I started out modeling and that was a non-starter which doesn’t make sense at my height. They say models have to be tall but in Los Angeles it was the bathing suit industry and all the models are 5ft tall. I eventually ventured into acting and I’ve always been physically inclined so stunts were a no-brainer. One of the first jobs I worked was a Sunkist commercial. They only hired me because I was big enough to tackle a guy.
It was a non-union with just a day rate, no residuals and no bumps for stunt hits and I was dumb enough to not know to ask for it. There were a pile of people jumping into this one thing and I would end up at the bottom every time we did a take. I was covered in bruises from one end to the other but it was fun. At the end of the day, I got paid for a day on the beach to tackle a guy.
Was that your first professional job?
It wasn’t the most professional, but yeah. Some people consider low budget film making, not very professional and I’m not sure I align well with that sentiment. Anytime you have less resources, the thing that you need to excel at is creative problem solving. I think that’s where the professionalism does show up.
How did you make the jump to film and stunt work?
I’ve done all of my own fight scenes and I love fight stunts. I don’t get into things like fire burns and high falls. I consider the stunts that I do to be the simplest version. When people call me a stunt woman it’s kind of a lie because there isn’t much an “oops” factor to it. If I screw up I might break a bone but in some stunts if you screw up you might be dead. I have a long athletic history so doing a fight scene is a long athletic dance.
Have you had any formal martial arts or fight training?
I do have some martial arts training, some boxing training and some stunt training. I want to start training on wire work.
What’s the craziest stunt you’ve ever done?
It wasn’t crazy, just difficult. The film Hanah’s Gift was shot from the point of view from one of the characters and in real time. The whole movie looks like a 90 minute cut. There is a fight scene in it that’s kind of short but the actual take was 9 minutes long. In most fight scenes you setup angles and takes and directions. For what we shot there were not cut-to’s. You had to nail it. We wound up taking that 9 times and when it was all said and done I had broken two bones.
I don’t know if I could live with myself if I was careless and actually hurt somebody. There was a fight scene I did with a guy and we choreographed and rehearsed. We know it was going to be dark on set going in. I’m supposed to swing a flashlight at him and for whatever reason he stepped into it and I rotated my hand and I actually clocked him in the head. It was just an extraordinary error. Looking back I’m just glad nothing serious happened. Simple simple things can cause big big problems.
What goes into choreographing and prepping a fight scene?
It depends on the difficulty level of it. Punches and kicks and basic throws aren’t bad to do. When we shot our crowdfunding video we shot 4 short action sequences. I think our entire shooting time for choreography and shooting was probably 12 hours. We choreographed and rehearsed on one day and shot on another.
When you choreograph you’re not necessarily doing it on location so you have to make some adjustments on the day of. It depends on the skill level and strengths of the people you have. You wouldn’t ask someone who’s not good at kicks to do a head kick. Part of doing stunts is getting bumps and bruises.
Where did you get the idea for the Artemis Film Festival?
There’s a team of us. I’m called the founder but I prefer my title “Fucking Professional Picky Bitch.” I want to put Melanie Wise, FPPB but you know. All of us have known each other for a lot of years and love content that was action oriented with female leads. We struggled with putting that type of content into the world so we started our own festival. It’s a great thing and I’m honored we can do it every year but it’s a lot to do.
Our first year I thought we were going to get laughed out of the park but we actually got over 200 submissions from 25 different countries in 2 months. You get content that doesn’t fit but the majority was content with badass women in it including narratives, documentaries. Things about history that aren’t known from shorts to feature length films. We block together shorts that are similarly themed.
The regulation for the festival is that the film needs to feature a female in a leading or co-leading role in a physical action role or some type of activism. We don’t have distinctions that women need to produce or direct. On screen we just need to see empowered images of women.
What is your selection process like?
What’s interesting is, if you look at most film festivals, unless it’s a genre festival like horror or action, there’s not a huge number of festivals these films can play at. Most film festivals program documentaries, dramas and comedies. A lot of these films don’t have a good home and they should.
How many years have you been running the Artemis Film Festival?
We are in our 3rd year. We are still very young and have been fan backed every year. I think it’s fair to say our fans like us. It’s been an amazing ride. I’ve had the belief for years that women in action is something that popular audiences are into. That’s true the world over because we are getting films from all over. Our first year we got a film from Iran about female empowerment.
What films standout as a favorite of yours?
I’m not a festival goer, I think it’s a yawn to me. We program exciting stuff. It’s not like you’re going to walk in and fall asleep. This year amongst our submissions we have a film that won Student Academy Award. It’s a period piece that features a female racecar driver. We’ve got a documentary from Tazmania of all places. The lady that actually brought the piece together and actually told her story through the events that happened. They took down a billion dollar logging company. Those kinds of stories are ones we really need to see.
When are submissions open for the Artemis Film Festival?
Submissions closed on December 15, 2016. For our 2018 festival we are getting ready to announce the submission schedule which we probably open in August. The festival takes place Thursday April 20 – Sunday April 23. Our red carpet will be in Beverly Hills and the last 3 days of the festival will be in Santa Monica.
What film makers inspire you?
One of my favorites is Joss Whedon. He does amazing action. From what I’ve read for Avengers is that he wrote so many female roles and fought tooth and nail and ended up with one female character. He tells amazing and brilliant stories and casts equal distribution of men and women roles.
Are women in film making headway in Hollywood?
I definitely think things are changing. I can’t look at it and say wow we’ve accomplished so much. The cool thing is TV is way ahead of film. We have a snobbery between the small screen and the big screen. The bottom line of it is cable is turning out some badass female characters. We still have a lot of room to make up in film and we aren’t anywhere we need to be.
I just participated in article discussing sexism in Hollywood. They included some quotes of mine and I read the stories from the others that were included. One lady talked about she was physically intimidated for saying something she didn’t say and tracked down to her by 4 men.
What’s in store for you in the future?
I’m trying to get a better sense of balance and either get my energy back to content making or something else. I really would like to see our whole team focus on making content. We’ve been working really hard behind the scenes. We have more honoree announcements to make for this year but I have so much on my plate I’m trying not to plan too much. Honorees this year include Tom Cruise and Nichelle Nichols, the original Lieutenant Uhura. The stunt people we have every year are legendary.
Herding film makers is like herding cats. The amount of people that make a film and don’t make cover art. When I start asking for deliverables like high res files and I don’t get what I need. We need Blu-Ray to be able to showcase their films or they come in with region 0 and don’t play in a region 1 DVD player. It’s a lot of work but it’s worth it but film makers need to start mastering the business side of things.
Gene Blalock is the founder of Seraph Films and an award-winning Los Angeles-based Director. Gene is known for his touching, heart-warming films as much as his eccentric short horror vignettes. Bringing a decidedly human perspective to each of his projects, Gene’s works reflect our common humanity—as if from a mirror of compassion for us to examine and consider. Regardless of genre, Gene’s work rings true in a thought-provoking way.
We had a great conversation with Gene about his production company Seraph Films. They have a number of projects on the horizon including The Art of Murder featuring actress and most dangerous woman in Hollywood, Tonya Kay. Seven Days In Mexico is a documentary about finding something that’s impossible to lose. It tells the story about musician, singer songwriter Johnny Indovina of the band Human Drama.
Watch Seraph Films Short Horror Film Among The Shadows
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Watch The Complete Gene Blalok Interview
How long have you been making films in Los Angeles?
It’s been about 5 years now. I came out to LA as a musician. I’m originally a musician from Chicago. My band got picked up by a label out here. The first few years I was doing music and now film.
How did you make the transition from music to film?
I went to film school in Chicago. My initial goal was doing film but sidetracked having a band and doing music and then jumped back into film about 5 years ago. It’s fulltime film making these days.
What was the first film you worked on professionally?
It was a film called Unlucky Girl, a zombie film that my friend James and I tried to make a few years ago. I was taking a break from music and decided to try and make some films. My friend James had this cool idea for a zombie film that he wanted to do. It’s almost like a music video for one of his songs. We do a lot of horror films but it’s not exclusive to what we do.
Watch Unlucky Girl – A Short Zombie Film
What was your motivation to go to film school and make movies?
I’ve always been the emotional drama kid I guess. My desire to be in front of the camera these is not something I have. I’ve always been interested in how you make films. How they come to life.
What’s the film making process like at Seraph Films?
It started out with me writing and doing everything on my own. Now I have various partners I team up with that do scripts. These days I lean towards directing more than anything else. Coming up through the indie film community you have do a little bit of everything. I’ve certainly done everything from writing to directing to cinematography.
How has the indie film industry changed over the last 5 years?
It’s never been a better time to be an independent film maker. We’ve done it all from having to funding, to crowdfunding. You get to write, create and fund it from top to bottom.
How are you distributing your indie films?
YouTube has been our single biggest outlet so far. The Nightmare Gallery is a feature we are working on that we are going to shoot in May or June. We are not sure how distribution is going to go yet. Distribber is definitely one that we are thinking about. https://www.distribber.com/
How did you connect with Tonya Kay on the Art of Murder?
When we started Horror Haiku there was this one character, The Artist that’s continued through multiple series of Horror Haiku. There was another vegan film maker that said you need to meet this person and she became The Artist through 4 seasons of Horror Haiku. Art of Murder is an idea we have for a feature length film based off Tonya Kay’s character in Horror Haiku. It hasn’t come to fruition yet but hopefully one day we’ll get to make it.
What exactly is Horror Haiku?
We had just finished a web series for a production company that hired us to do a weekly anthology series. When we wrapped production I remember thinking we should do something for YouTube and that we can make this happen for our own channel. James Boring came up with this idea to do a horror anthology and people will submit different haikus and will turn them into separate episodes. It went on hiatus for a little while because of other work but we are going to bring it back for 10 more episodes this year.
How important is social media marketing for finding your audiences?
We try to use all of the social media platforms but YouTube has been the main platform for growing audiences.
What are your top 3 horror films?
I have to go back to when I was very young. The original Nightmare on Elm Street scared the crap out of me because I wasn’t even supposed to watch it. I don’t I slept for 3 days straight because I was so young. If you go back and watch it now, it’s very dated and it doesn’t work very well. The Exorcist is another one that to do this day still bothers me for some reason.
What was the inspiration for the documentary Seven Days In Mexico?
I met Johnny Indovina while I was still living in Chicago. He’s a musician that I had a lot of respect for and was a fan of his music before I even knew who he was. When I moved to LA, he was always there just to go grab coffee or discuss relationships. He and I obviously developed a friendship. One day he said he wasn’t sure if he was going to ever write another song. Johnny thought if he’s done writing music why should he be on this planet anymore? That really struck me and two weeks Johnny said he had the money and was going to Mexico try and write new songs and find his love of music again.
How do you plan to release Seven Days In Mexico?
In Mexico distribution is all set but here in the US I’m not sure yet. We’ll probably do some film festivals and screenings here in the US.
What other work should we look out for?
We are about to begin our first narrative feature here in LA called Nightmare Gallery. Shooting will start sometime in April.
Download How to Make a Living As An Indie Horror Film Maker with Harrison Smith
This week we interview indie horror film maker Harrison Smith. He’s the writer, director, producer of Death House featuring 28 horror icons including Dee Wallace. Death House is being called The Expendables of horror movies.
Where did you get the movie bug?
I started making movies when I was 10 years old. My uncle got me an old silent Super 8 Kodak camera and I started making movies. I did a lot of lawn work when I was a kid, so I saved up my money to get my film cartridges. I edited with scissors and spliced with Scotch tape and drew my lasers in by hand with needles the old fashioned way.
Jaws is the movie that made me want to make movies. Saw that when I was 8 years old in 1975. So I saw it in theaters with my Mom and I fell in love with it. I think Jaws was X-rated for anyone over 30. I’m naturally afraid of the water, it’s kind of a Chief Brody thing. I’ve always been terrified of water. In fact, I have the distinction of being kicked out of Red Cross swimming lessons when I was 10 for choking the instructor for trying to drag me into the water. It has nothing to do with sharks. I know there are no sharks in swimming pools. I think Brody summed it up best in Jaws, “Drowning!”
Have you had any formal training as a film maker?
I had a semester and a half at Penn State but I flunked out because I was too busy partying and messing around with the cheerleader down the hall. After blowing that tuition I came home and said to my mom that I’m going to move to Los Angeles. I bullshitted the secretary for Anthony Perkins at Universal Studios and said I was the editor for the Penn State Collegian doing a spot on Psycho 3 that was coming out.
She started talking to me saying that she also went to Penn State. It’s funny I was thinking about moving out there and she goes, “I’ll tell you what, you get me a Penn State hoodie and I’ll get you in to see Tony Perkins.” DONE!
I flew out at the age of 18 to Los Angeles, by myself. It was the first time I was ever on a cross continental trip and knew nobody. I had no home. My mom had said, “When are you leaving?” and I said Friday and she was asking me on Monday. So I flew out there, got off the plane and put all my stuff in a bus locker. I went over to the black tower and met with Jackie, that was his secretary and then I met with Anthony Perkins.
I showed him my VHS reel and he said, “You’re making movies, but are you looking for a job?” He ended up getting me a job as a paid production assistant on Murder She Wrote. By the way I had a job before I had a home. So I slept in a hotel room that night and got an apartment the next day. I lived out there for almost 2 years and I dated a girl from a soap opera.
Finally it was Howard Kazanjian, from Return of the Jedi and Raiders of the Lost Ark. I used to eat lunch in this once place where he used to come and he asked me who are you? What are you doing?
So I told him my story and he said, “You’re living out here, but all those movies you made back home. How much did you pay to film that scene in the mall?” I said nothing. I remember him telling me, “You aren’t going to find that here.” He said, “Kid, go home. You can shoot all you want there and no one is going to charge you. Everyone out here has a script. Everyone’s a film maker. Nobody’s gonna do you any favors.”
I ended up going home and now here I am. As a filmmaker you don’t really need to be in Los Angeles. As an actor, maybe it’s a different story. But as a film maker you really don’t. With the internet and the digital age you don’t need to be there physically.
What did you do from there? Did you put together a team?
I really wish I could sound smart and say I did but I really screwed around. I ended up running a movie theater in the local mall, an 8-plex. It was a Loews Theater that become a Sony Theater. One day my old creative writing teacher came to the movies and was like, “What are you doing here?” I said, “I’m the assistant manager here but I got things going.” He wasn’t a jerk about it but you could tell by his attitude that he always hoped I’d be doing more.
Then I started working my ass off to get scripts out and taking advantage of the connections when Loews got bought by Sony Pictures. Making friends with the chairman of Loews Theaters Alan Friedberg and getting my name out there. I realized I didn’t want to run a movie theater.
After I decided I was going to go to college I got married and I got my degree in education and I taught high school for almost 15 years. I got scripts going and out to people and then one day this investor came to me and said, “I wanna make a movie, I have the money. I hear you’re the guy.” Howard Kazanjian was right, the local word spread.
The script called The Fields which was originally titled The Man which was based on a true story of what happened to me as a boy on my grandparents farm. Our house came under attack by these people that came out of the corn field after us. They cut the powerlines, they killed the dog, they smashed the windows in our house.
If you haven’t seen The Fields it’s on Hulu right now. It’s a true story. Cloris Leachman plays my grandmother. Tara Reid plays my mom and it takes place in 1973. This guy put money into it. After we made the film, I said to my wife, I think I really need to try this because if I don’t I’m going to be that guy when I’m 70 going, “I shoulda.”
We shot The Fields in 32 days and in 32 days I only missed 4 days of school. Tara Reid didn’t believe I was a teacher. One night we were out and I said I have to stop by my classroom and get tests run off for tomorrow. She said, “Get the fuck out. You’re not a teacher.” We pulled up to the high school at 2am and I get out and she says, “What are we doing at a school? You’re a producer.” I was like “I’m a teacher.”
She follows me in, goes to the copy room and back to my classroom and she turns to me and she goes, “You’re Batman!” She signed every one of my student’s tests. When I came back the day after one of my students said, “Hey Smith, did Tara Reid really sign our tests? I don’t care if I flunk or not, I’m keeping that test.”
How did the process work in getting The Fields produced?
Everything you want to know about film making you can learn from the movie Jaws. Every screw up, every mess, every catastrophe, every mistake was made on that film. You don’t need to go to film school. Just devour every book and every documentary on the making of that movie and you will learn how to make movies. You need to learn to fly by the seat of your pants and think.
The other thing is, I always modeled myself after John Carpenter and I don’t mean his films. His four best films are Halloween, The Fog, Escape from New York and The Thing. Starman yes, but that’s at a different level. His original four indie films, he used the same crew over and over again. If you notice watching my films, the cast stays the same. I bring them back. The same with my crew. I’ve been with the same crew now for almost seven years. That’s a big deal.
When this guy came to me and said I want to put some money into things, I contacted a few film making friends and they said to me we know these two guys. I didn’t feel like I was up for directing. I wrote the script and I was just learning producing. It’s kind of like what Captain Kirk said in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan, “This is why you need to know how a starship works. You need to know everything that goes on.”
From taking out the trash to dealing with SAG (Screen Actors Guild) I needed to learn all of that. So I was not up for directing at that point but I had two guys that were recommended to me. I watched their first film and I felt it was very atmospheric and I thought they’d get it and wouldn’t turn The Fields into a slasher horror film.
I made contacts in Philadelphia. Composer John Avarese has scored all six of my films. John is scoring Garlic and Gunpowder as well. You find out who’s a fit and who isn’t and you go from there. The goal is you always treat people right. You stay up front and transparent and you work your ass off. That’s really the secret sauce.
Relationships, work your ass off, get it done and don’t talk about it. We live in a generation where everyone needs to talk about everything. Stop talking and go do it. That’s why when you see these people online saying, “We’re going to review the latest trailer today.” What the hell is that? Reviewing trailers? Let’s judge the whole movie on 30 seconds.
How did you decide to make the jump from teacher to film maker?
When you realize your biological clock is ticking. I was just about 40. After The Fields had wrapped, I had a student who said to me, “So what are you going to do? You said to us this is what you always wanted to do since you were a kid.” I said but life got in the way and I don’t know. Let’s see how The Fields does and he goes, “Yeah, just like my old man says, those who can’t do teach.” I said what do you mean? He said, “Well you stand up here and tell us to follow our dreams and so you had this dream and you’re just going to put it on a shelf?”
Then I really thought about it and I went home to my wife I think I really need to do this. We were in a financial position where we could. When we first got married basically I worked the first two years and she discovered herself. It was kinda like the Mark Twain thing. Give me two years. If I can’t make money at what I love then I’ll go chop wood. So then I’ll go back to education. She allowed it and said go for it and then I landed 6 degrees of hell in six months.
Camp Dread was finally when I decided I’m going to direct this thing and the investor said the same thing. I don’t want anybody else directing it but you. Everyone says it’s a tribute to Friday the 13th. It really isn’t. It’s a tip of the hat to Psycho 2.
How has casting worked for all of your films?
I did the casting for all of them. That’s what I mean, you learn. You can’t text a casting request to an agency. You gotta know how to talk to people. This isn’t Facebook and Snapchat and Instagram. You have to know how to talk to people. To get through a door in an agency, especially to a gatekeeper where they decided if you’re going to talk to an agent or not or if your project is good or not. But you need to learn how to talk to people.
Do you consider yourself an entrepreneurial lone wolf or a team player?
I’m a team player, I’m not an entrepreneur. If I were, I’d probably be like Ed Sanchez or somebody like that. I’m not a business man. One thing I was always good at since a child was getting people together and doing things. In 7th grade I got all the kids in my neighborhood to put together a haunted forest so we could raise money for the ASPCA. I was the class president in high school and that’s a story in itself of what we did to raise money for our prom. If you saw Risky Business and merge that with Wolf of Wall Street you get a good idea.
Forming a team it’s about finding people that saying they’ll do this for you and most of all treating them right. You really need some talented crew along the way. Man, you hate coming to them with low budgets. All this talent and all I can pay you is this and that sucks. No one is holding a gun to their head either. They can say no and some have. Some have a bigger gig and I understand that. No hard feelings, maybe we’ll catch you on the next one.
Any time I can get the budgets up high, I mean Death House was a $1.1 million dollar budget. Camp Dread was $350,000. When you start working with people and they see that you’re working your ass off to stay loyal to them, then they’ll do some things too. My gaffer, Wes Carrier of Carrier Lighting and Sound, I’ve used him since 6 Degrees of Hell. I’m not saying they do it all the time but every once in a while when you get close to that over time a lot of times they say don’t worry about it. How about a couple cases of beer for the boys? You can’t take advantage of that though. They got bills to pay too. It’s that give and take relationship.
What do you do for distribution?
The first couple of films I worked out the distribution deals. Again, I’m not an entrepreneur so that’s really not my thing. With the change of the digital revolution it’s all up for grabs.
Have you had any theatrical releases?
Yes, The Fields had a theatrical release and 6 Degrees of Hell had a limited theatrical release. Camp Dread did not. It was straight home video DVD, streaming, Netflix. The same with Zombie Killers and we’ll see what happens with Death House. Right now the feedback from buyers on Death House is extremely positive. The majority have entertained some type of theatrical release which is what we want. What you have to be careful of in distribution is, a lot of people say they want their movie out on 5,000 screens. Sure, if you have a $50 million dollar marketing campaign.
What caused a lot of damage was Paranormal Activity. Paranormal Activity caused damage because it created this urban legend that you can go out with your Prosumer camera and make a $7k to $15k film and make $450 million on it. You’re not going to. That’s not going to happen and I don’t care anybody that’s listening right now or watching says “Oh yes it will” I’m gonna tell you “Oh no it won’t.”
What people don’t realize is when I was selling The Fields, I went to LA and met with one of the distributors interested in the film and they also had Paranormal Activity first. I asked him how it feels to be the company that last Paranormal Activity now that it made all this money. He goes, “I stand by it. The movie is a piece of shit.
Let me tell you the real story. The media likes to print the movie was made for $15k and now it’s worth $450 million because of the sequels and spin offs. It’s a Hollywood success story. So everyone with their Prosumer camera and Final Cut Pro is out to make the next Paranormal Activity.
What really happened was the movie sat around, Speildberg was going to do something with it then he got side tracked. Paramount had the rights to this movie and figured what the hell, let’s Blair Witch it. So they setup a viral campaign. Remember the demand it thing? They didn’t really say it was true but they didn’t say it wasn’t. That’s just what Blair Witch did. Then they brought all these people into the studio lot at Paramount with night vision. Out of 88 minutes of people sitting with their hands on their face, there were 4 minutes of jump scares. They edit all that into the trailers and the previews and now you have the must see movie of the year. And they sunk $45 to $50 million dollars in marketing into it.
I’m not saying what they did is bad. What I’m saying is the fallout from that is people don’t know that reality story think they are just gonna go shoot some movie and then I’m going to make $450 million dollars. No you’re not.
When can we expect to see Death House?
Pretty soon. It will definitely be 2017. I can’t give you an exact date. Could be March or April.
Is Death House your biggest budget to date?
To date yes.
What was the inspiration behind Death House?
The story came to me through Rick Finklestein and Steven Chase of Entertainment Factory. They came to the screening of Zombie Killers in Los Angeles. They said they had a script by Gunnar Hansen and he wants a rewrite. Long story short, I read Gunnar’s script, I called Gunnar, we ended up talking and met with Gunnar face to face. He was very unhappy. Another writer came in and did a second draft of the script that was basically torture porn.
Gunnar had this story of a bunch of documentary film makers go into the bowels of an abandoned asylum and hilarity ensues. It wasn’t really lighting any fires. Gunnar knew this and he felt that it needed a fresh take but there were several elements of the script he wanted to see remain. I took a stab at it.
While writing the treatment I was in a bar one night where I like to go to write. The preview for Jurassic World came on. It was around the time of the Super Bowl. Suddenly it hit me. Why does it have to be an asylum? Why can’t it be like this prison where the worlds worst criminals are put in. I came up with this idea that two up and coming federal agents are taking a tour of the prison. It breaks down and monsters get out.
If you watch the trailer for Death House it’s very much like Jurassic Park without the dinosaurs. The big thing I want to convey about Death House through this podcast is, it’s less a horror film than it is a science fiction action vibe like Escape From New York. That’s what we were going for. That’s why the effects were very 80’s. All the blood, gore and violence are practical. The visuals we wanted to have an 80s feel to it.
That’s dangerous to do because you have a whole audience out there that don’t even know who these people are. They don’t even know that Friday the 13th, there even was an original 1980s film. They think it was the remake in 2008. The same with Nightmare on Elm Street.
It’s funny we have all this information at our fingertips on the internet yet nobody knows anything.
In a recent Cynema blog I put up an article by Martin Scorcese where I agree with him that there is too much content out there. Movies have lost a little bit of their muster. I think part of the problem is showing too much behind the scenes. We’ve made mini-experts out of people who have no business being mini-experts. The magicians have shown too much behind the stage.
You got guys sitting back saying, “I know how they did that.” My response is always, where’s your movie? Oh that’s right you just sit on your YouTube channel and just talk about them.
Crowdfunding a western. Not words you’ll hear often these days but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some film makers up to the task. Gunhand the movie Screenwriter / Director Rey Agaoglu and Producer David van der Meijde from the Netherlands have teamed up with Executive Producers Brandon Waites & Erman Baradi from the United States to tackle Rey’s vision for a gritty western called Gunhand!
This week on the Imperfect Podcast we got to sit down with Rey and Erman to discuss the inspiration and the hurdles of making a modern day western. Gunhand the movie has caught the attention of the indie film community, including us for two reasons. Westerns are a unique film niche that requires a gripping story coupled with beautiful locations to deliver its message and submerge the audience into the story.
About Gunhand The Movie
Inspired traditional Westerns, Gunhand is an independent feature film with a modern twist. They’ve been fine tuning the script for the past three years and over time we have built up enough footage for the teasers that have been winning audiences on IndieGoGo. Indie films are no stranger to crowdfunding. You can show your support for Gunhand by visiting www.gunhandthemovie.com. With some amazing perks like having your name and picture on a “WANTED” poster in the movie you’ll want to be part of the action. Gunhand the movie is slated 2017.
Preview: Gunhand The Movie Interview
https://youtu.be/3D9scwbRoqo
Interview with Gunhand Film Makers Rey Agaoglu & Erman Baradi
Did you make a donation? Have a question for Erman or Rey? Leave us a note in the comments and let us know what you think of Gunhand and if you’d like to see more interviews like this. Don’t forget to join the conversation with us on Twitter and use the hashtag #SupportIndieFilm.
On this week’s Imperfect Podcast we interview actor and Eyes of the Roshi producer Ethan Marten. Ethan is joined by cast mates, actress Stacy Whittle and Grand Master Adam Nguyen who was the inspiration for the film. Eyes of the Roshi has been making a buzz on the indie film circuit with its intelligent story line and cast that also features actor Eric Roberts.
The inspiration and origination of the movie comes from Grandmaster Nguyen’s own royal family lineage – a form of yoga and karate do they have been teaching for 1,000 years in Vietnam…and now, America.
Ethan Marten: How did Light Age Films get started?
It actually started when I was a little kid. My dad was an innovator in film. He produced 150 motion pictures and Broadway plays. His clients ranged from from Desi Arnaz to Errol Flynn and it meant anything to me and my three brothers. It was one day when Moe Howard of the Three Stooges called the house looking for our old man. You never four kids running around the house as excited as we did. Light Age Films was my getting into the production side.
Ethan Marten: Have you had formal training as an actor?
I had a little formal training buy my first training was on set. Buzz Kulick had me on Too Young The Hero in the mid 80’s. Craig … who runs his casting agency out of Screengems down in Wilmington mentored me for quite a few years. I was on motion picture sets early on.
Stacy Whittle: How has your career led to your role in Eyes of The Roshi?
I flip between two worlds. I”m an economist by training and have lived all over the world and as such have acted all over the world. I’ve spent the majority of my life in the Middle East, Ireland, South America and Europe. I’m mainly a stage actor.
Ethan Marten: How did Grandmaster Adam get involved with Eyes of the Roshi?
Eyes of the Roshi is 30 years in the making. My parents built the first movie studio in Virginia. At one time it was the largest on the east coast. We shot Navy Seals here with Charlie Sheen. Grandmaster Adam was teaching yoga to my father. Adam would say you gotta do a movie about me some day and I would always say sure.
Stacy Whittle: How did you connect with Ethan for the film?
I had met Ethan and hew knew about my two worlds. Coming from the environmental background I was excited to join forces with him for White Buffalo. Then he told me about Eyes of the Roshi and suggested I audition. A friend of mine who’s an Emmy Award winning film maker said he’d shoot my audition for me. After staying up all night we got it done and I submitted the audition tape and got the part.
Acting with Eric Roberts was like getting a master class in acting. It was one week of very intense acting.
How did you get Eric Roberts involved with Eyes of the Roshi?
We had a character named Booker who was a hood that required a sense of humor kind of like the Gang Who Couldn’t Shoot Straight. He had to be a strong actor and comically funny without trying to be. Eric Roberts was on the short list of people who I thought would be good and that I wanted to work with.
What was the inspiration for your character, The Hitman?
I had several. I’ll start with the quirk. I knew that my character needed something quirky. Stacy happens to be a floss addict. She is constantly flossing and campaigning for it. She says if you floss really well its better for your teeth than brushing. One day she said why isn’t your character a floss addict and I loved the idea.
What is it like working with family on a project like this?
My brothers are all actors. I believe in nepotism and they all taught me to act.
What are the challenges of having a production company in Virginia?
Ethan: I grew up in New York. Anything I wanted theatrically was minutes. What I’ve found is that it doesn’t matter where you are as long as you have dedicated people, knoweledable people and people that are willing to roll up their sleeves. We have had Stephen Spielberg and Tom Hanks in town. The mecca is where you make it. That’s part of the indie spirit.
Stacy: I think it’s happening more and more anyway as metropolitan areas become so prohibitively expensive. Artists are naturally migrating to where they can work and live and not starve. Ethan is forward thinking by establishing the studio. It’s only a matter of time before people start looking outside of New York and Hollywood for real talent. I’ve worked with some of the most talented people I’ve ever met on Eyes of the Roshi.
Ethan: Star Circle pictures, which is the first movie company I started with my older brother Richard who is an Executive Producer on Eyes of the Roshi. We were the first in the world to complete a movie with the Panasonic AG-HVX200. We shot our film in 2 days, 40 setups per day. Back then we talked about how the technology would democratize movie making and that’s pretty much what’s happened. Anyone with the burning desire to tell a story has that ability now.
What were the details behind the making of Eyes of the Roshi?
If you ask Adam that question, his answer would be too long. We developed a first script and from start to finish it would have cost $30 million dollars to complete. Joe and John Mark took the lead on a totally different script. The new script had more testosterone in it while being able to hold onto a lot of Adam’s philosophical musts. That took us another year from the beginning of that process. Meanwhile we had been scouting locations and putting together a crew. During that time we won IndieWire’s Project of the Week and we were getting really good press.
We had done an experimental trailer just so we could talk to people and show people why they should be involved. It also helped with locations so people didn’t think we were just casing the joint to rob them at night. In the summer of 2015 we shot for 3 weeks. Post production was a solid year and we just had our first screening on August 20th 2016.
What festivals are you submitting to?
I submitted to about 20 and we just won an award from the North Hollywood Film Festival. What I’ve been most focused on is distribution. I’ve spoken with 4 people one of which I can probably tell you. Sam Sherman of Independent International Pictures who lives up in New Jersey. Sam Sherman was one of the horror movie kings of the 50’s and 60’s. My dad was partner with Sam on many projects and they were dear friends. He think we have a wonderfully salable project and wants to take us on. Stacy has opened us up to Africa. We are talking to people about distributing in 22 countries in Africa. My brother who does international travel in Asia and recently done work in Russia has a deal on the table for Russian speaking services.
How do you feel about streaming distribution such as Netflix?
Ethan Marten: I won’t disparage anybody’s ability to get their work seen and heard. That’s an accomplishment in itself. For us we are going to exploit the film in the best sense of the word. If there’s limited theatrical to be had, if there’s cable, if there’s pay per view we are going to exploit every avenue by the numbers.
Stacy Whittle: We are thinking about distribution in a more global way because of my experiences overseas. We approached a company in Kenya and they were excited about because nobody has approached them about this sort of thing. It’s exciting to feel their excitement about working with us. Eric Roberts and Steven Seagal are two of the most famous actors in eastern and southern Africa. They heard Eric Roberts and were like where do we sign?
We had the good fortune to interview David Bousquet (pronounced “Boo-Skay”), Director and Director of Photography and Editor of the short film, LOOKOUTS. David Bousquet is a uniquely skilled director, editor, and photographer who uses that range of experience to communicate and translate his ideas into visuals. He’s worked in advertising as director and director of photography for broadcast, web, and retail campaigns both nationally and internationally. With a BFA in Motion Picture, David has led and directed teams of talent in all areas of film making.
On their final trial as village LOOKOUTS, a troop of young scouts are ambushed by the very creature they were hunting. After a violent battle the lone survivor, Pehn, escapes into the shadows of the Eyrewood, a mysterious and deadly forest that is home to all manner of wild creatures. The most horrifying of all is the Basilisk, a winged titan with the power to turn its prey into stone. This is the beast the troop of LOOKOUTS were seeking, and now it hunts for Pehn.
“This short film is our first exploration into classic narrative filmmaking and it was an absolute joy to create. LOOKOUTS gave us an opportunity to explore new storytelling techniques as well as play with gear and tools in a format outside of advertising. The majority of the film is shot practically with live visual effects. We built sets, costumes, and monsters inspired by Jim Henson’s creations from our childhood, then brought all of those resources together with a wonderful cast and crew into the misty overgrowth of Mendocino’s redwood forests for a production experience we’ll forever cherish.”
Insights & Highlights from the Kyle Hester Interview
First of all, Kyle is one of the nicest guys you are going to meet in the indie film world. He’s got a wealth of knowledge from the extensive resume he’s built up over the years with 20 acting credits to his name including films like The Book of Daniel. His popularity on Twitter is what made us take notice due to his involvement with the crowd funded independent horror film Zombie With A Shotgun. We even had a laugh discussing his first gig where he played Phipps in Rock and Roll Fantasy during the panty raid. Yup we said panty raid.
All kidding aside, he knows what it takes to get a film crowd funded and why independent films are so important to keeping creative control. We learned a lot and know you will too. Check it out and let us know if you have any additional questions for Kyle in the comments below. I’m sure he’d be more than happy to answer them. Be sure to follow him on Twitter @kyledhester.
You can help #SupportIndieFilm by donating to Kyle’s projects below:
We interview actor Kyle Hester, who was born in New Orleans to a professional football player. His father is Ray Hester of the New Orleans Saints which is pretty cool. Kyle is an actor and producer and has been in some notable independent films like Zombie With a Shotgun that’s coming out soon, as well as Preacher Six which is in production right now.
Well thank you very much and I’m glad that we can all be imperfect together, I’m very comfortable now.
HKC: Yeah, we are as imperfect as it gets and we love it that way. It takes the pressure off.
Absolutely. It’s like apologizing at the beginning of a party so then whatever happens you know you’re covered already. I love it. That’s fantastic. It’s like all bets are off after that point. Absolutely.
What happens on the podcast stays on the podcast (until we distribute it.)
So let’s get to know you a little bit.
Q1: Where did you grow up? Reading your bio on IMDB we know you were born in New Orleans. Did you spend your youth there? Where did you land for most of your childhood?
Kyle Hester: Why yes, I was born in New Orleans. That’s where most of my family is and then I grew up in Houston. So pretty much from the fourth grade all the way through High School I was in Houston, so I definitely have the southern experience. Yeah, it was cool.
Q2: How long did it take before you got out to LA?
Kyle Hester: Basically I got in my Mustang when I graduated High School and I drove to California.
HKC: What year was the Mustang?
Kyle Hester: It was a 69 Fastback. It was so nice. It’s one of those things, like if I knew now I would have kept it and lived in that.
Q3: What was the first project that you got involved with? Was it before you you got to LA or was it after you got to LA?
Kyle Hester: Okay, since you don’t know how my life weaved through the country, it wasn’t as linear as that. So I came out to LA and then I ended up going to school at USIU in San Diego for a semester doing musical theater. Then I was like, you know I think I probably don’t want to make a career out of musical theater so then I ended up going to Cal Arts, which is up here and now I’m in Valencia. And then after that, I moved to New York, then Atlanta and then ended up back here in the early nineties. It was a trip around the country
Q4: Are you a musician also? Growing up in New Orleans you got good music, good food and I saw on your reel, in a film you were playing guitar and singing. Do you do that in real life as well?
Kyle Hester: Well I do sing but I’m not a musician. Basically, the guy who wrote that song that’s in the clip on my acting reel, it was his guitar. He’s like, here are these three chords, get to know those and that’s what you’ll be doing. I said alright, I can do that.
HKC: We know a lot of musicians that can only play three chords so it’s not a big deal. A lot of bands made it famous just playing three chords a matter of fact. I can’t play anything more than three chords! It’s like Ralph Macchio in Crossroads. He didn’t play guitar either.
Kyle Hester: You know what, between all of us, we could have like a really bitchin kind of guitar situation. I’ll just jam out. You take the A and the C, and I’ll get the G.
HKC: Kyle when you actually see this podcast if you look behind us and those who follow the podcast regularly we have a a wall of guitars hanging behind us. That’s kind of our thing. It’s not just for show either. We do play actually.
Kyle Hester: That is awesome and I’m glad that I got you to psychically talk about guitars.
Q5: musical theater that wasn’t your thing huh?
Kyle Hester: Well, no I love doing it but it was one of those things where the choice was what do I want to do in life. That was the thing and I always wanted to do film so it was a matter of what’s going to get me to doing film as opposed to touring the country and doing Broadway and all that kind of stuff. I know some friends of mine who are in New York and have been doing Broadway forever. They went to the same high school that I did. It’s just the choices we make.
HKC: And sometimes you get locked into doing something, it’s hard to break out once you do that, so you’re right, you have to choose wisely.
Q6: You obviously have the performance bug but what actually drew you to film and acting and drew you away from the musical theater? What appealed to you about acting?
Kyle Hester: Okay let’s cut to the seventh grade and I’m watching Fame, the TV show. Remember that show fame? So I’m watching this guy Leroy and he’s on stage and he’s dancing and singing and jumping over mannequins and stuff like that. Everybody was having a great time and I’m like holy shit, I gotta do this! That looks awesome. I didn’t know what I was getting into, but that was it. I saw fame and Leroy dancing and I was like that looks like a blast let’s do that.
HKC: That’s great and I love Leroy’s line, “I”ll speaks how I likes.” That always stuck in my mind for some reason. That was Leroy. But you’re right, it looked so fun. You say, hey man if I could do that for a living, man look at these guys, they’re having a ball. I felt the same way. That’s awesome.
Kyle Hester: That’s fantastic, it’s like once it gets in there something resonates. Whatever it is, you get that one thing and you say alright let’s do that and hopefully you know we can do something with it or it becomes an awesome hobby, but you always gotta do what you love doing.
Q7: I’m looking at your IMDb and it shows here your first credited roll was “Rock and Roll Fantasy” and you played Phipps during the panty raid. I want to hear more about that.
Kyle Hester: That’s funny. That was the very first film that the guys from the “Asylum” did. That was the guys who did Sharknado and all those kind of films throughout the years. I think I didn’t get paid anything, you know it’s like my manager was like hey here’s an opportunity to be in a movie. I’m like alright, let’s do this! I don’t need to eat. I don’t need money. This is cool.
HKC: I’m all about the art man.
Kyle Hester: So I was a frat guy doing the panty raid and you know it was pretty simple but it was fun as the first thing to do when I was out here.
HKC: Well it’s always fun doing a panty raid regardless of whether you are acting or in real life.
Kyle Hester: Oh yeah right, that’s like a bucket list thing. Okay, panty raid, okay done.
HKC: I did that, we’re finished, moving on. Now I think I’m gonna visit Andersonville instead. What the hell, what’s gonna happen in Andersonville after a panty raid. I started with the panty raid I don’t know where to go from there. You can’t get any better than that.
Kyle Hester: There was a segue into Andersonville. I don’t know how you go from panty raid to Andersonville, but we can get do it, we have the technology.
Q8: How long was it until you got your first paying gig in LA? What was your private life like? Were you waiting tables? Were you that guy? Were you the typical stereotypical starving artist?
Kyle Hester: I managed a coffee shop here. I was slinging cappuccinos. So it is kind of the same thing but not really. You know, food and beverage. You do what you got to do. I had a blast and that’s actually where I met my wife. It was at that coffee shop.
Q9: Your wife is a writer. Is that correct?
Kyle Hester: Yeah, She is. She’s writing Preacher Six. Very awesome, I’m totally excited about it.
Q10: Is that the first project you guys are going to work on together or have you done other stuff together?
Kyle Hester: No, this will be the first project that we’ve done together. We’ve done ton of stuffs not together and basically the way that it happened, there was this other project that I was working on which shall not be named. I was working on it for five years and then the writer kind of lost his mind. As soon as you start talking about money with people now you’re like if things become real or has potential like, “Hey You Could Be a Millionaire”, which of course hardly ever happens.
Once people start thinking like that they lose their freakin mind and it’s like all of a sudden it’s about them. They say, it’s my project and I’m going to control this and all that kind of stuff and it’s like you see ego completely destroy the whole situation which is what happened. And after five years of nurturing a project this guy loses his mind and we don’t do the project so I’m talking to my wife and we said alright let’s do something that we control so that this never happens again.
HKC: Sometimes that’s what it really comes down to especially with independent film. You start to think, hey to get this thing going we have to do it ourselves. When you put it in the hands of studios sometimes you’re waiting on a lot of different things but the one way to do it is to make it yourself then you can be as artistic as you want and the more control the better. Of course then there is more responsibility, which makes it tough but you have to make it happen.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, you said it all. I think, without repeating what you said, I mean there is two ways to go. You are either in the system and have been working at the studios, working your way up and you all of that happens the way that happens. Or the nepotism of Hollywood and you’re the son of somebody famous and here’s your shot with a five-million-dollar project, good luck. Or you’re like us, you just kick and scratch and figure out how we are going to do this. What are we going to do? Let’s go kick some ass and see what happens.
HKC: It’s funny these days the technology is there for regular people to do these type of things not in a studio. I remember when I was younger watching the movie magic and they said one day there will be a Spielberg just sitting in his bedroom or his basement and look what he could put together. So technology is there which is nice. When I was younger, I wish I had this technology. I had one of those old camcorders and you know it didn’t have the same editing power it does today so we gotta keep moving forward.
Kyle Hester: Yeah well I think you know with a ten-thousand-dollar camera you can shoot the same kind of quality that you could for the hundred-thousand-dollar cameras. It’s definitely a lot more accessible to people that are just trying to do something.
HKC: Right and then it becomes up to you what you do with that technology.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, the big thing there is once you have the technology is don’t suck! You bought all this stuff, you got the surround sound and the 3d modeling with the goggles and stuff and you suck. You got to be good at it.
HKC: Sucking is all subjective. Right, it’s subjective. I don’t know sometimes it just sucks.
Q11: What exactly is your approach to acting? Method acting? How do you tackle a certain role that you are taking on?
Kyle Hester: To me it’s pretty simple. Whatever the character is, you basically get out of his way for whatever is going to happen. It’s like in the chair, which is the horror film that’s about to come out. It was Roddy Piper’s last film. We, as the prison guards were all unique horrible people. So am I going to walk around being this like maniacal horrible person at home to my wife because I’m a method actor and I gotta get into the character. It’s like no, go fuck yourself.
So I I’m not about that and basically you just get out of the characters way. We all know how to feel and laugh and cry and get pissed off and get angry and run and jump over things. Whatever is called for. You do that and so it’s really just getting out of characters way. Don’t let me over simplify, because this is after going to the Performing Arts High school and I went to Cal Art. I’ve taken all the different kinds of methods and all that stuff. I can say this because I know what works for me. That doesn’t mean it won’t work for somebody else.
HKC: I think you’re being a little humble too. I’ll be frank about it. You have a great career in terms of your acting roles and what you’ve done. I mean you have the resume. You’ve built up chops so you’re able to do that. I think you’ve become more comfortable with your acting abilities so I think that probably speaks volumes. If we were having this same conversation back in 1992 before your panty raid, I’m sure you had a very different mindset going into that for your first role. And all of you who just turned in, yes he said panty raid. And method acting for something like that might not be the best idea either. You could end up in jail.
Q12: What else influenced you growing up? Actors or movies? Did you have a favorite childhood movie growing up? I know you mentioned “Fame” earlier, but what about movies?
Kyle Hester: I think the thing that influenced me the most as an actor was “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson and I think with his captivating presence throughout the whole film, you just wanna watch to see what he’s doing. That right there is something special, you know. And I think what is that? What is it that makes that magic to make people talk about this guy? And you can repeat the lines and you can hear him in your head the way that he says them. What is it that does that?
HKC: “Wendy, I’m home,” sorry I couldn’t resist.
Kyle Hester: Exactly, yes its in there. It’s definitely in there.
HKC: We keep Wayne at the end of the table for that reason alone.
Absolutely, in my career I hope to have some moments like that where that ear warmers are in there from something that I get to say. These are the goals.
HKC: You’re involved in some really high profile independent films right now, The Chair, which a lot of people are aware of, Zombie With a Shotgun, which is currently in post and Preacher Six that you’re working on with your wife. With all those films you’re obviously gonna get the opportunity to shine. Let’s talk a little bit about that.
Q13: How did that process go in terms of funding for Zombie With a Shotgun? Was it a good time being part of that project? Were you just acting or are you also a producer on that?
Okay, Zombie With a Shotgun, here’s how that happened. Hilton Ruiz, the creator ad director had basically contacted me on Twitter because of “The Chair” He knew I did “The Chair” and we’re Tweeting back and forth. I said call me. So we get on the phone and basically one thing led to another. So I asked what are you doing with this with this project, you have like a bazillion followers and you’ve done the web series and stuff and now you’re trying to do a film but where is it going? What’s happening?
So out of that kind of short conversation we’re like let’s do it. So we so we put the crowdfunding thing together which of course without crowdfunding these films would not be made. Like The Chair, was done through kickstarter and Zombie With a Shotgun through IndieGoGo. Will these things ever see a nickel, you don’t know. They’re really fan-driven entities.
HKC: That’s the beauty of it, you already have a built-in fan base for the release right? I mean that’s kind of the beauty of doing something like that and knowing that there’s some justification in making the movie now because you did get a fan base to back it and I think they all exceeded their goals too. It wasn’t like you guys couldn’t meet your budgets. You guys met and exceeded them I believe.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, one of the things that gave Hilton the confidence is that we do have a big following like each of us individually. And you know crowd funding is not easy. I see so many people, they say, “I have four thousand followers,” and then you watch kickstarter and then you just see it sit there because it takes a lot more prep work and getting people interested way before you your launch a project like that. You just don’t know. I wouldn’t know unless I had the experience of watching Peter Simetti with The Chair.
Q14: Can you give some examples of some of the steps that you have to actually go through besides just launching the the Kickstarter.
Kyle Hester: Yeah I would say get a following however you can do that. Whether you spend like 90 hours a day on Twitter getting people to know who the hell you are, that’s part of it. If no one knows who you are no one’s going to care so that becomes a big part of it, is just putting what you have done out in front of people and the people that are gonna like it will follow you and the others that don’t you know who cares about them anyway.
I kid, I kid. You get the audience, you get the people who you know are going to be interested before the project launches so that you have your people that are fans. They are like “Alright let’s do this and we can all make an impact in the beginning.” Because in the beginning, that’s when a lot of judgments are going to be made about the project. You know if you’re sitting there a week in and you have two hundred dollars you know that doesn’t give the rest of the whole project or Kickstarter the strength it doesn’t give confidence. People are going to say they only have two hundred bucks.
Even if it’s like, “Hey mom can you just throw in a grand just to make it look like there’s something going on.” It’s all an illusion. You have to build that illusion that makes people confident in what you’re doing.
HKC: It’s like putting money into the tip jar yourself and hoping everyone else puts in as well. Sometimes you have to build that confidence.
I saw one of the perks that was pretty cool. I think it was for $1000 or $5000 that you get to die a zombie death and be one of the zombies that actually get killed in a cool way. Did you have anyone for that?
Kyle Hester: Not the $5,000 but there was a $1500 I think where you can be a zombie, come in and do that. Yeah we did have somebody do that. A guy named Sam. He was a super cool. He came in and kicked ass. It was great, so it’s like everybody wins in a situation like that.
HKC: Obviously this story was launched from the original book and then was made into a web series and now there’s an innate following with that immediately because you’ve already, there’s already footwork that’s there. You weren’t part of that original series but the original actors that were in that series are also in this correct?
Kyle Hester: One of them, the lead, Brady. He is in the film, but I believe that’s only cast member that transferred because some people are doing other things and some were unavailable and so that’s how that happened.
Q15: What about the cinematographer or the composer? Are they the same people who were doing the web series? Is the music the same?
Kyle Hester: I think he’s talking to the music people right now and composers so the crew is different. Hilton being the director, he just kind of put together the crew that he wanted to use. He knows a lot of people so I think it was just like who was available and who best fits the project.
Q16: Did you guys do a lot of filming in New York?
Kyle Hester: We did all of it right in Chinatown.
HKC: Yeah bummer we didn’t get to hook up while you were here in New York. We’ll have to hit up Hilton and see if we can get a hold of him at some point. I’m sure he’d be glad to talk.
Kyle Hester: He’d definitely makes himself available.
Q17: Cool, let’s talk about your other project that just released as well, The Chair. I think that just went to festival right? I saw that just got picked up or entered into festival.
Kyle Hester: Yeah, actually it just now getting accepted into festivals as we speak and there is one that Peter announced today but I’m not in front of a computer so I don’t remember but yes so the first one has been announced. It’s a festival in Wisconsin. I do know that and I know he’s applied to several others so I think we’re going to be hearing in the next couple of weeks about that and there’s going to be a theatrical limited kind of release. If you sell enough tickets to the project per theater when the event happens and you get to see it so that’s going to be happening around the country. It’s like a slow roll out and then it’s going to end up on all the platforms that you can rent or buy the DVD.
Q18: Yeah, I saw your Twitter post or Twitter poll today about where do people watch movies. Are you doing a bit of research on your own to see where you’re going to release stuff?
I’m just curious what’s the landscape? What do people do now? You know, is it cable? Is it Amazon? I love DVD’s. The whole streaming thing, I mean I understand it, I’m not an idiot, but I don’t get it. You know it’s because I love the physical stuff you know I love having my own DVD that I can stick in a machine whenever I want. Where with the downloads if your computer crashes, now you’re out.
HKC: I think Wayne’s got a box of 8 tracks for you if you want them. You’re talking to the right guy over there with Wayne. There really is nothing like having your stuff. With iTunes and everything else. It’s different digital. When you actually hold the CD’s in your hands as well and these are mine, but the only problem is it causes clutter. I think that’s why they invented computers. One thing is it saves on clutter, especially when you move, believe me that’s a problem.
Kyle Hester: Believe me, it all works. It all facilitates watching something, so it doesn’t really matter exactly how you watch it if you are you interested in seeing something you’re going to see it. I’m just trying to get the landscape so you know what’s really happening and how to push as far as distribution goes. And the funny thing is it if you look on that list, half of the people are interested in DVD’s and Blu Rays. Like they would rather do that then stream, which was surprising. You know everybody’s talking about, yeah it’s all going streaming now. But if you ask people, 800 people have responded to that poll as it were. I think it’s about 50% or something like that, that prefer DVD’s and Blu Ray.
HKC:The group of guys you’re talking to right now would all prefer DVD’s. Yeah I got it right here actually. It was 37% percent Netflix, 30% DVD & Blu-ray, 26% in the theater and then you had a bunch of others Amazon, Hulu and iTunes lumped together and that was really low. I’d be curious to see if Amazon streaming was broken out on its own but regardless I think Netflix wins the war at nighttime viewing in TV. They have way more TV series than movies though.
Kyle Hester: Netflix is like the big kid in the room. The problem for filmmakers is, yes it does give you a lot of exposure, but when you watch it, the filmmakers are not getting money from how many times people watch it on Netflix. It’s like a buyout. You’re gonna sell your project for however much, $2000 for a two-year contract to Netflix? I’m not gonna do that.
HKC: Most of the money actually comes from DVD sales. A lot of times, especially smaller movies, the movie proceeds are one thing in the theater and usually the DVD’s when you look back and see the gross income, it’s definitely more with the DVD’s, so where kind of hoping that does remain still. Like you said you’re not getting a credit each time someone watches Netflix. So from a business standpoint, you definitely still want the DVD’s around something physical that people could buy themselves.
Kyle Hester: That’s why there wasn’t a lot of stuff on Netflx. We find a lot of obscure stuff. A lot of super low budget or whatever for the people that just want the exposure of it but it’s like if you’re looking to actually make a living so that you can go and do another project that is not the answer.
HKC: You mean like Deathgasm? I don’t know what else I’ve watched on Netflix recently but yeah Deathgasm was up there.
Kyle Hester” They probably got like $1500 or $2000 to have their film on there for two years. You put in so much time and effort and energy and stuff like that it’s like that’s why people wait on Netflix. It will come out in the DVD’s and rentals and you know try to get in theaters like that then Netflix will be like down the line, basically when nobody cares anymore and you can just throw it on Netflix to see what they give you. At that point, you’re not fighting the whole thing, but if you throw it up on Netflix first, you’re done.
HKC: I was gonna say, it’s a smart move for you guys with the movie feature coming out. You could sell the web series potentially to Netflix as like an advertising preamble to the movie coming out if you can get that type of deal done. So selling the web series before the feature comes out that way you have kind of the build-up to the feature, that’s not a bad thing. Sal is our marketing guy. He always comes up with good ideas.
Kyle Hester: I’ll run that by Hilton. He’s got people already talking about it and are interested. I’m weary of everybody as far as distribution. You know because I’ve heard so many nightmares from friends of mine that made films. Yeah the sale figures show that I have $80,000 that came in but I only got $8k of it. So, how does that work? It’s basically, they’re papering, we had to fly to this place you know for that festival. We had to rent this amazing hotel room on your dime. Oh by the way you paid for the plane ticket too for us to go. They are trying to sell your movie. It’s like you got to be smart these days because you’re swimming with sharks and everyone wants to make money off of the creator’s.
Q19: You are now moving on to a new project and we’ve already talked a little bit about it, Preacher Six, what can you tell us about it without spoiling anything?
Kyle Hester: Well I can tell you that Preacher Six is going to be a grindhouse type film with lots of action and blood and comedy and demons and all of that kind of stuff. It’s about a small town preacher that comes to the big city and ends up fighting evil in a literal sense. So that’s where you see the art work on the site, that I am holding the sword and the gun all this kind of stuff. The preacher ends up battling demons like the real ones. That’s kind of the gist and there’s some super cool characters that are with him helping him out. They become a bunch of super hero type people that are not superheroes. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.
Q20: How far in the process are you with that one?
Kyle Hester: We are in development right now. We’re actually launching the fundraiser next month, so we’ll start that up in October on IndieGoGo. That’s gonna be another 24 hours a day on the computer you know trying to beg, borrow, you know, get a bumper sticker. All that stuff man but we’re definitely excited about it.
HKC: Nice, we’ll put out some reminders at that time as well from us to remind people that’s what’s gonna happen in October. Fantastic.
Q21: When is Zombie with a Shotgun coming out? What is your estimate?
Kyle Hester: Well I can say definitely in 2017 but right now we’re not quite done filming. My character is wrapped but there’s other scenes that we have to get, so if you see the fundraiser now, I’m basically trying to raise money to finish post production. I don’t know, maybe we’ll be done in six months. Fingers crossed on it. You know I mean it’s like The Chair, we shot over a year and a half ago and there was like lots of issues in post and stuff that had delayed it coming out, which is now why it looks like there’s so much going on. There’s The Chair, Zombie With a Shotgun, Preacher Six and it’s like all this happens to be happening now in various forms. The timeline of it was, we shot The Chair a year and a half ago.
HKC: Yeah, you seem like a real busy guy.
Kyle Hester: We are the new wave, it’s kind of the Wild West out there right now as far as filmmaking, so it’s either you’re one of the big guys or wer’e just all kinda in the same creative pool together trying to make something happen.
HKC: Kyle, thanks for doing this.
Kyle Hester: Absolutely, the way I look at this is we’re all in it together as entertainment type folks so it’s all good.
It helps you get a cohesive set. Especially for Bad Frank, we shot the whole thing in 12 days. If we didn’t have a good working knowledge of how we all fit together, there is no way we could have pulled it off. As you work on projects you determine this is someone you can work with again so you keep them in the fold and there are other people that may not fit. You know pretty quickly who fits your model. I like to think I don’t have much of an ego. I don’t really care as long as it comes out good. As long as everyone is working hard and doing what they are supposed to they’re good with me. That’s why I like keeping these people close.
First of all, Kyle is one of the nicest guys you are going to meet in the indie film world. He’s got a wealth of knowledge from the extensive resume he’s built up over the years with 20 acting credits to his name including films like The Book of Daniel. His popularity on Twitter is what made us take notice due to his involvement with the crowd funded independent horror film Zombie With A Shotgun. We even had a laugh discussing his first gig where he played Phipps in Rock and Roll Fantasy during the panty raid. Yup we said panty raid.
Okay, Zombie With a Shotgun, here’s how that happened. Hilton Ruiz, the creator ad director had basically contacted me on Twitter because of “The Chair” He knew I did “The Chair” and we’re Tweeting back and forth. I said call me. So we get on the phone and basically one thing led to another. So I asked what are you doing with this with this project, you have like a bazillion followers and you’ve done the web series and stuff and now you’re trying to do a film but where is it going? What’s happening?
Kyle Hester: Yeah, actually it just now getting accepted into festivals as we speak and there is one that Peter announced today but I’m not in front of a computer so I don’t remember but yes so the first one has been announced. It’s a festival in Wisconsin. I do know that and I know he’s applied to several others so I think we’re going to be hearing in the next couple of weeks about that and there’s going to be a theatrical limited kind of release. If you sell enough tickets to the project per theater when the event happens and you get to see it so that’s going to be happening around the country. It’s like a slow roll out and then it’s going to end up on all the platforms that you can rent or buy the DVD.