I recently watched a very interesting trilogy of short films that collectively are known as the SWINE Trilogy (also reviewed in this month's issue of Rogue Cinema). I had the chance to discuss this series of shorts with Executive Producer Koren Young, who is leading the push for financing in order to expand this series into a full-length feature.

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Cary Conley: Introduce yourself to Rogue readers. How did you get interested in filmmaking? What is your background in filmmaking?

Koren Young: I started telling stories using an old Super 8 film camera my parents gave me in grade school. My friends and I used to get together and make our own 3-minute films. Because we only used one film cartridge per movie, each story had to be carefully planned out and shot sequentially. All of the editing was done in the camera. I took every film and video class available from elementary through high school and later graduated from the Cinema & Television Arts program at CSUN.

My venture into the film industry began as an intern for Dreamworks Animation and First Look Studios at the Cannes Film Festival. I’ve been working as a post production professional for the last ten years and specialize in editing and DVD/Blu-ray authoring. I’ve had the pleasure of working on hundreds of titles for studios like Fox, Disney, Universal, Weinstein and Warner Bros.

CC: What filmmakers and films influenced your decision to become a filmmaker?

KY: I’ve always been a fan of movies that could possibly take place in today’s real world, but with a twist. The Ghostbusters movies, Back to the Future trilogy and Terminators 1 and 2 really inspired me. I love watching a movie and thinking, “What if that did happen?”

CC: You recently co-founded your own production company, Arcay Studios. Tell us a little about this undertaking.

KY: While my day job allows me to work on exciting titles for many different studios, nothing comes close to the satisfaction of working on my own projects. My brother Ryan has worked as an ADR Mixer on hundreds of major motion pictures, but also enjoys creating the sound design on our independent productions. Arcay Studios allows us to create our own films, including documentaries, shorts and features.

CC: Swine is a Well-Oiled Machine production. This isn't your first collaboration with these folks. How did you initially meet the people at Well-Oiled Machine?

KY: I made a bunch of friends while taking film classes at College of the Canyons over ten years ago. We worked on many shorts in school and have remained friends throughout the years. Unfortunately, we all got “real jobs” after graduation and allowed years to pass without working on anything creative. At some point, we realized that we needed to reunite the team to produce another short film. That’s when we decided to make Swine.

As an independent filmmaker, you always use a company name to help brand your films. Each member of our team uses their own banner and we felt it would be best not to crowd our credits with five production company names. “Well-Oiled Machine” symbolizes our unity and was a term used in the first scene of the original Swine film.

CC: How did the concept of Swine develop? At what point in the project did you come in as executive producer?

KY: Brad Hoffarth, our cinematographer and editor, returned to Los Angeles after studying at the San Francisco Art Institute. He suggested bringing the team back together to create another short and asked Daniel Levitch, a comic book writer, if he had any short scripts ready for production. Daniel had a World War II story called “Swine” about a captain who betrays his men, but changed the setting to a post-apocalyptic world after realizing that it would be impossible to shoot a World War II film with our limited budget.

As one of the members of the old team, I was invited to become a part of the this new project. Other members of our original team include our producer, Matthew Bowers, our sound supervisor, Ryan Young, and our assistant director, Kyle J. Maki.

CC: I was particularly impressed with the costume design in the film as well as the production design. The costumes seemed quirky and interesting while the locations were dead-on representations of a post-apocalyptic landscape. What can you tell us about these two components of the film?

KY: Daniel, Brad and Matthew participated in an activity known as Urban Exploring. Rather than aimlessly hiking through the woods to catch a glimpse of natural beauty, they found trails that lead to abandoned castles and factories. They explored dozens of really neat locations and brought back pictures to share with the rest of the team. We chose what we felt best fit the locations in the script. We didn’t have to alter the locations at all, so when you see graffiti on the buildings or weeds growing out of the road, that’s how we found it.

The costumes were a different story. We purchased a handful of olive-green colonial outfits on eBay for $10 each and reused them for many characters. For the bounty hunters and members of the Vox Populi, we let the actors read the scripts and then took them on a shopping spree through several thrift stores. Each actor was given $25 to build their character’s wardrobe. The unique costumes for the four colonial concubines were designed and crafted by Kellsy MacKilligan who plays Mercedes in the series.

CC: I was equally impressed with the cinematography which gave the film a muted, washed out look with muted colors. Can you talk a little about the how the look of the film was planned?

KY: We knew early on that we wanted to give the film a grittier look by decreasing the saturation and increasing the contrast, a process known in the film world as “skip bleach.” We tested several cameras and ultimately decided to shoot on a Panasonic HVX200. Daniel wanted a more intimate feel, so there were no tripod-mounted shots used in our series. Brad was completely responsible for creating the look of the film, from shooting the footage to editing and from visual effects to color-correction.

CC: Each of the three segments of the film was made for about $5,000, although I must say, they look much more expensive than that. As executive producer, what are the biggest challenges in managing a micro-budgeted film?

KY: I think that no matter what kind of budget you’re given, a film is always going to use every last penny of it. The budget of our films went mostly to feeding our cast and crew, but we did have to spend some money creating the props. Ari Levitch, one of our screenwriters, has such an imagination and was able to create some really incredible props and weapons for us. A big steampunk fan, Ari made a smoke stack that can be seen in Vox Populi camp sites and on the back of two vehicles. He created unique weapons by wrapping wires around sprinkler pipes or fitting laser printer toner cartridges with squirt gun handles. He completed every prop with a custom paint job that made new plastic look like worn metal.

CC: The initial idea for Swine was as a single short feature that has now developed into three roughly 15-minute shorts, each focusing on a different character. How was the decision made to expand the initial concept into a series?

KY: A lot of people don’t know this, but the third chapter of Swine was originally our entire project. When we screened it for the first time, audience members were asking us for more details about the various characters. The cast and crew had such a great time working on it that we agreed to expand on the story. Because of how chapter 3 ends, it was clear that the additional stories would have to lead up to it.

CC: While Swine is now a three-part, 5-minute film, there are plans to produce at least two more 15-minute shorts and expand the film into a full-length feature. At this point, the estimated cost for finishing the project is more than the first three segments combined. How do you plan on raising the funds to complete the project? How can fans of the series help?

KY: Since we shot our first Swine film, at least five of our actors have gone on to star in national commercials and network television shows. Now that we’re working with SAG actors, there are a few additional hoops that we need to jump through that increase our budget slightly.

We’re currently raising funds by offering exclusive Swine-related items on our website. Fans who visit swinemovie.com can purchase autographed DVDs, photos, posters and hand-crafted props used in the film. We’re also offering unique opportunities like cameos in the film and credit as an associate or executive producer.

CC: How can people who are interested in seeing Swine find a copy of the film?

KY: We have DVD's available that contain all of the films with 5.1 surround sound. Each DVD also comes with a high definition digital copy that can be played in iTunes or any portable media player. The trilogy is also viewable on our YouTube channel. You can find our YouTube link and DVD copies for sale on our website, swinemovie.com.

CC: Are you at a point where scripts have been developed for the remaining segments? What about preproduction?

KY: The Brothers Levitch are currently hard at work writing additional segments for our series. We’ll start scouting for new locations and casting in March with the intent to begin production this summer.

CC: Finally, other than the completion of this project, do you have any other projects in the works that you can talk about?

KY: We do have other projects in the works, including another sci-fi adventure and a controversial documentary. Pre-production is expected to begin at the end of 2012 when the feature-length version of Swine is completed.

A few months ago, I had the pleasure of checking out a short film called 'Freak', a story about a person who's mocked because of who he is and how he ultimately succeeds by just being himself. It's such a powerful message that I really thought it would be great to sit down with the writer/director, Eric Casaccio, to see how he came up with this great short, how he got started making movies in the first place and what's next for this up and coming filmmaker.

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BM - Eric thanks for taking the time.

EC - Thank you.


BM - Tell me how you got your start making movies.

EC - Well, I actually started out in the business as an actor and here and there I had some great moments of success, but on that journey I never felt totally plugged in to my overall artistic purpose in life. Back in early 2010, I discovered a class at UCLA Extension called “Making Your Own Mini-Movies.” In that setting, I got to shoot and develop a bunch of short films in a quick period of time which taught me a very important lesson, always trust your own instincts, because they are the keys to the right kinds of achievement. I left the class with a well-received 5 minute and 35 second film entitled “The Test”. It was shot in three hours, and I was the cinematographer, editor, writer and director of that project. After “The Test” was accepted into The Marblehead Film Festival in Massachusetts, I felt like I finally found the artistic path that I have been searching for my whole life. I had “Freak” already written and was more than ready to jump into a more complex longer short as an independent filmmaker. Needless to say, I am so glad I went for it!


BM - What gave you the idea for Freak?

EC - This is always a tough question for me to answer because I’m always asked this question and if I were in your shoes, I’d be asking the same question too. So this time, I am going to answer it with a different angle. When I am out hanging out on the town, I often just sit back and listen to conversations and come across people making fun of others in a certain way, criticizing how they dress, how they look, who they are, what kind of car they drive, where they live, etc. If it’s out of what they consider “the norm”, these “different” individuals are judged and verbally ripped apart from a distance, but noticeable enough to make that person left feeling worthless, alienated and unloved. I feel for that person and ALWAYS stick up for them whenever appropriate and necessary. I know that person because like many others, I was that person as a kid. So think about it. In that kind of scenario, who is really the Freak? The daring person not afraid to express themselves a certain way, or the ones making fun of him or her? I think the ending of “Freak” (that I won’t give away) pretty much says it all. :)


BM - Freak has received a ton of critical acclaim, did that surprise you?

EC - I am completely blown away by all the acclaim and feel nothing but blessed by the universe in every way imaginable. Every festival attended, every award, every satisfied audience, every review, every interview, every email, okay, I’ll just shut up and say…EVERYTHING! It has been by far the most amazing experience of my life. “Freak” has done wonders for me and lead actor Aaron Merken, both in our artistic and personal lives. We make an excellent team and are beyond proud of its message and continued success. That goes for the entire cast and crew as well.


BM - You've been involved 'anti-bullying' since 2008, with Psychic Glitter, how do you feel about it becoming such a 'mainstream' topic?

EC - In my opinion, it’s about time bullying finally reached the mainstream level because it has been going on a lot longer than the unfortunate 2010 teenage suicides receiving notoriety all over the media. I’d like to see a law of some sort in the educational system with mandatory teachings about bullying and serious repercussions to those that take part in that behavior. I know there is a lot more awareness now, but there is still tons of work to be done. During my journey with “Psychic Glitter,” a teenager named Lawrence King was murdered for simply not being afraid to express himself and love for another by giving him a Valentine. Imagine being shot and killed for just doing that, for just being who you are. Lawrence had guts, guts I wish I had when I was a kid. Guts to not live in fear. Back in 2008, I attended the West Hollywood candlelight vigil and it left me in massive amounts of tears. However, it made me realize that I was in a position to do something, so I turned “Psychic Glitter” into a three evening charity event production raising just under $2,000 for The Trevor Project honoring the memory of Lawrence King. I also dedicated “Freak” to Lawrence’s memory as well, because any way to send out awareness is a positive step for change. For more information, please visit: http://www.rememberinglawrence.org and http://www.thetrevorproject.org


BM - What advice would you give up and coming filmmakers?

EC - To always trust your instincts, be responsible, and remember to have fun. One of our makeup artists named Laurie Hallak has a great philosophy…”At the end of the day, it is just a movie.” She’s more than right. Right because yes, it is a piece of art. Yes, for a portion of your life, it is your heart and soul, and yes, it is important, but it’s not life or death. It’s just something you are born to do. So just do it with integrity, wisdom, strength, knowledge, passion, organization with the ones that support and believe in you as much as you believe in them and be thankful that you have the opportunity to do it. That’s what we did with “Freak” and that is how it got to where it is now.


BM - What projects are you working on now?

EC - My long-term goals are to find representation as writer with an original television pilot I wrote prevalent to the teenagers of today and to do an independent feature. My next project will be another short film. All I am willing to share right now is that it’s all about bullying. Indeed, it is a topic close to my heart that I feel the need to cover in a non-preachy way. My approach to storytelling lies within the subtext of the story, not just the dialogue itself. The dialogue propels the characters, but it’s what’s underneath the lines that I find fascinating. Stay tuned!


BM - I know that I'm looking forward to seeing it, all of us here at Rogue Cinema are behind you 100%!

EC - Thanks.

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First of all, if you haven't seen 'Freak', then head over to http://www.freakthefilm.com and find out what festivals it's at and get to them! Second, if you're still not sold head over to http://vimeo.com/15145728 and check out the trailer for 'Freak', that should get you hooked. Again, we here at Rogue Cinema are totally behind Eric and his anti-bullying message...as "movie-geeks" most of us have been bullied too...so we understand what it feels like to be that 'Freak'. We wish Eric a TON of good luck and can't wait to see what cool projects he works on next!

The crowd at Dark Delicacies Collectables in Burbank California was thick. Seated at a long table between the rows of horror and gothic collectables, books and movies were the stars and creators of the new zombie horror/comedy GEORGE: A ZOMBIE INTERVENTION. Among those seated - Victoria De Mare. The actress, vocalist, model and dancer had a supporting role in the film, yet she seemed to draw as much attention as the stars. Not surprising to B Movie Man Nic Brown. I had the chance to interview Victoria not long after the release of one of my favorite B movies: WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN’S PRISON and Victoria proved to be as charming with the fans as she was during our first interview.

When the crowd thinned out briefly, I had the opportunity to steal a bit of Victoria’s attention and was immediately impressed with all the projects she eagerly told me about. With several movies set for release, numerous film projects in production and a new album, I was amazed she even had time to breathe, let alone sign autographs for fans. But Victoria is not your typical Hollywood beauty; she’s a dedicated artist who loves her work and she talked with me about some of her new movies, her music and her somewhat surprising fame in India!

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Nic - You’ve been a busy lady since we last talked. You have a number of projects that have recently been released and even more coming out in the next year. What are some of the films we can look forward to seeing you in?

Victoria -  Yes, I try to stay as busy as possible.  My current releases  include the internet thriller 'Strangers Online', which  played theatrically in June in L.A. and Pasadena, and is now available on DVD; sci fi/action/adventure 'Aliens Vs. Avatars', which played  theatrically  throughout the summer in multiplexes across India, and is  now available on DVD; and horror/comedy GEORGE: A ZOMBIE INTERVENTION (aka GEORGE’S INTERVENTION) now available on DVD.  Upcoming releases include the sci fi/thriller 'Bio Slime' and musical comedy  EMMANUELLE IN WONDERLAND. And, next year, the highly anticipated KILLJOY 4 will be released as well.

Nic - ALIENS VS AVATARS was released theatrically across India in multiplexes. That’s fantastic! How does it feel to be famous in India?

Victoria -  I couldn't believe it when the filmmaker sent me the links to the theaters’ screening schedules. It feels amazing!  India is a major foreign market.  I am so glad they love sci fi/action films there  as much as I do! :)

Nic - Some of your roles, like the one in BIO SLIME required a lot of special effects make-up; do you find that aspect of acting difficult?

Victoria -  I love to get all "painted up"! It adds a whole other dimension to your character physically that you become super aware of and actually thank your lucky stars that you've had the opportunity because, for me, it made me more of a physical actor without the makeup, as well.  The hours of transformation can be intense, but I am always so happy to be there, that I embrace the time and use it as part of my preparation.  As long as I can play the NATURAL BORN KILLERS soundtrack over and over again in my dressing room as the makeup department paints me down, I'm cool with it. :)

Nic - Which of the characters you’ve played do you think was the most challenging for you?

Victoria -  My most challenging character to  date was "Batty Boop" in KILLJOY 3 (aka KILLJOY’S REVENGE).  Everything  including her sound and her  every move were important  in defining "Batty".  It was the only character I've played  so far  that I was so  nervous to perform that I puked my guts out the morning of my first day on set! :)

Nic - Batty was your most challenging character, but who has been your favorite one to play?

Victoria -  Ahhh...my favorite one to play has not yet been released, and unfortunately, I am not able to disclose any information about the project at this time, but what I can say about the character is that I play a teenager (yessss!) who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. :)  And "Batty" was also most definitely my second favorite role to play to date.  I also truly loved playing "Mary" in John Lechago's BIO SLIME and "Sarah Ragdale" in WEREWOLF IN A WOMEN'S PRISON. :)

Nic - In addition to your talents as an actress, you are an accomplished vocalist and musician. Tell us a little about this aspect of your career?

Victoria -  Yes, I am also a professional vocalist, composer, lyricist, music producer & publisher.  Singing has always had an extremely special place in my heart.  My dad was a  "doo-wop" singer in the  late 50s~early 60s.  My earliest memory of  music was watching him and my uncle get out their acoustic guitars and sing while playing.  That blew my mind.  My career in music was always  on the bottom  of the list  of my skills, due to the fact that I would, unfortunately, only perform on a part time  basis  a couple of times a year in live shows as a  featured singer and/or back-up singer/dancer, etc.  It wasn't until about  two  and a half  going on three years ago  that I started getting consistent  opportunities to record as a lead vocalist/harmony session singer for many  different indie labels.  And, it wasn't until last year that my first solo album was recorded and released.  Now, I am thrilled about the new material on my new album in production as we speak.  I have poured my heart and soul into this one, and I am extremely proud of it.  Everyone can look forward to checking it out early next year 2012.
 

Nic - It's obvious that music is an important part of your life. Who are some of your favorite artists and who would you like most to work with?

Victoria -  Music will always have a very special place in my heart because I can truly feel my heart "singing" when I sing, and to be doing that to my own songs is better than a dream come true.  Some of my favorite artists musically include Karen Carpenter, Janis Joplin, Patsy Cline, Led Zepplin, Chris Cornell, Chris Isaak, Disturbed, Juliette Lewis, and Joaquin Phoenix.  Unfortunately, some of those artists I can never meet or work with, but I'd love to  tour and open for  Chris Isaak and  Juliette Lewis some day soon. :)

Nic - The movie and the music industry are both undergoing a lot of changes with the rise of the internet and other technologies for content delivery. What are your thoughts on where both of these industries are going and is it an opportunity or a threat for talents such as yourself?

Victoria -  Yes, the entire entertainment industry is changing.  But, I think it is a good thing.  Change is inevitable and it is nothing to fear.  We have to embrace what technology brings us and utilize the benefits of what it has to offer in every way.  I think it is a great thing for artists.  You don't have to wait any longer for distribution of your film or series or to be signed  to a record label.  You can put yourself out there on your own now for the world to see and/or hear you without waiting for anyone else to put you out there.

Nic - As an actress you’ve been involved in quite a few horror films, but are you a fan of the genre? Also, why do you think horror is such a popular theme?

Victoria -  I am most certainly  a fan of  the horror genre.  It has always been my favorite genre of film since I was a kid.  The horror/sci fi/fantasy/adventure category of film  is the most popular genre of film worldwide next to comedy.  I think that remains so because people love to be  scared and exhilarated  the most next to laughing, when they are being entertained watching a movie.  I know I do! :)
 

Nic - The horror genre is popular and I think you've hit the nail on the head for some of the reasons why. However, horror is sometimes criticized for its violence and its portrayal of women. Do you have any thoughts on that aspect?

Victoria -  I think some of the reasons why it is the most popular genre are the violence and women! :)  People watch  these films  for the scare and outlandish, psychotic moments of violence, as well as the typically very attractive, scantily-clad women.  It is a basic formula that has stuck because it sells.  And, I have personally found more and more roles for women over the years  in this predictable genre to be  evolving into the killer and the one to fear in the story, and not the victim at all.  "Batty" will carry a 'Tommy Gun' machine gun in KILLJOY 4, and I can't frickin' wait for that!!! :)
 

Nic - Now for the lightning round, and remember your answers count for double points:

-Zombies, fast or slow?
-Jason, Freddy, and Michael Myers- Marry, Date, dump?
-Vampires or Werewolves?
-Favorite movie monster?
-Best horror film of 2011?
   
Victoria -  Oooo...Awesome!

-Fast Zombies! :)
-Oh, I'd much rather kill Jason, Freddy, & Michael Myers than marry, date, or dump any of them! :)
-Werewolves, darling, Werewolves. :)
-Me, as the 'monster/creature' in BIO SLIME. :)
-KILLJOY 3 because it  has just the right amount of scary, funny, & sexy! :)

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Related Links:

www.screamqueendemare.com
www.imdb.com/name/nm1389064
www.youtube.com/deathbykisses
www.twitter.com/VictoriaDeMare
www.victoriademare.blogspot.com
itunes.apple.com/us/artist/victoria-de-mare/id356093111
www.facebook.com/people/Victoria-De-Mare/100001764847515

If you were to try to pick one word to describe Suzi Lorraine, you’d be up for a challenge. You might focus on her work as an actress; after all, she’s a talented actress who’s appeared in more than 60 films. On the other hand, you might look at her modelling career since she’s been featured in magazines around the world including GQ, FHM and Esquire. But then you’d be missing out on her work as a writer for numerous horror magazines including Gorezone and Shock Horror in the UK, Bio Gamer Girl in the US and Virus Magazine in Germany, not to mention her work as a screenwriter. That makes trying to capture the essence of this multi-talented beauty in one word like a blind man describing an elephant by feeling its tail: you can capture one aspect, but you’d miss the bigger picture.

So instead of wasting his time trying to pigeonhole Suzi, B Movie Man Nic Brown jumped at the chance to talk with her again. Catching her just after she returned to the US from stint filming in Europe, we get to find out about her new films, her thoughts on the changes in the publishing world and why you might catch her wearing a tuxedo and riding a tricycle!

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Nic – Suzi, it's good to talk with you again. You've been busy with a couple of new projects. In fact, I hear you've recently returned from working on SOLID STATE in Italy. Could you tell us about the film, your role?

Suzi - It's great to talk to you again Nic. I love your site and the fact that you're such a big supporter of independent films.

The rumours are true! I returned last week from northern Italy, where we were filming Stefano Milla's latest sci-fi/horror film SOLID STATE. This marked my third feature film with Stefano. SOLID STATE was written by Gero Giglio and is a cautionary tale about an American rock band on their big comeback tour in Italy. Years back, this band was huge, but now they're kinda relegated to VH1's "Where Are They Now?" Their sleazy but loveable manager convinces them to re-unite for a new tour, and en route to the show, they are thwarted by a huge, deadly meteorite from outer space. Even bigger than the meteorite are the fights and power struggles that develop between the band mates, who each have polar opposite personalities.

The lead singer, Emily, and leader of the pack, is played by horror icon Debbie Rochon. This was something like my seventh film with Debbie, and each time I work with her I am in awe of her work. She really sets the bar in terms of an incredibly powerful performance. Plus she's great fun to hang out with and joke around with.

The guitar player, Cynthia, is a new age-y peace, love granola chick, and is expertly played by LA-based actress Ava Brunini. Ava is such a great actress, and I had a ball working with her. And you should see her with a machine gun!

I play Sharon, an enthusiastic but somewhat dense chicky, who's claim to fame after "Three of Sin" was winning the reality TV show, "Tits Up". Oh and she patented a wildly successful edible line of bras, named "Bracologic". Now, we know I'm in the band, but we're not quite sure what I actually play. This remains a mystery throughout the film. Much like what keeps happening to our drummers, given we've gone thru between four and six drummers (depending who you ask) over the past 15 years or so. As in, dead. Our latest drummer (# 4 or 6, depending on your perspective) is played by Italian comedian Diego Casale. Diego has brilliant comedic timing, and he was a great fit for our hapless drummer.
 

Nic - You've also been working on a sequel to your 2009 film BIKINI GIRLS ON ICE called PIN-UP DOLLS ON ICE. So what's new with the "girls on ice"?

Suzi - The girls are back on ice! Well, at least the ones that weren’t killed by Moe the first time around. Ok, well, maybe one that got killed by Moe the first time around will be back…I mean, did that axe to the head really kill her? She was wearing lots of hairspray, after all.
In the sequel, Moe focuses his attention on a touring pin up/burlesque troupe, slicing and dicing his way through their once idyllic retro world.

And yes, Moe still really loves ice. And chicks. His disturbing back-story is revealed in this film, giving viewers some insight into Moe - the man, the myth, the maniac.

This film has all the elements of the original - times 10. Expect more chills, thrills, scares, fight sequences, chases, gore, sexy chicks, "No, he didn't!" moments, and oh yes, gratuitous nudity. The characters this time around are more fully developed as well (no pun intended). Ok, pun intended. Seriously, directors Geoff Klein and Melissa Mira allowed the actors to flex their own creative muscles and have significant input in terms of the character's personality and development. I think this allowed us to flesh out the characters, and really bring them to life. I think the viewer will care what happens to these girls - it's not just a matter of Girl A being lined up for the slaughter, followed by Girl B, repeat, ad infinitum. I've always believed that if you're half way through a movie, and you don't care whether the characters live or die, it's a bad movie. Geoff and Melissa worked hard to fine tune the killer script (written by Michael Penning), and bringing the individual personalities out of each character.

We shot on location in Canada, about an hour outside of Montreal in a campground. The setting was great, as it was right on the edge of the St Lawrence River, providing spectacular views. And lots of water for killing peeps in. The campground was at the end of the season, but actually still open to campers. So we would have these surreal moments where an actor would be half decapitated and covered in blood, and one of the local campers would walk into the mess hall and order a cup of coffee. The campers were really nice and seemed to be really excited about the film, staying up late to catch a glimpse into the world of movie making madness.

I play Joy, who is the manager of the campground, and the one in charge of organizing the big bash/pin up show. I was pleased that Geoff offered me this role, rather than killing me off in the first ten minutes as he had in the last film. ;-)


Nic - In addition to your work on the silver screen, you’re also a journalist and writer. We've talked about this aspect of your career before, but it’s clear that technology is changing the industry. Many magazines are struggling now due to falling subscriptions and the closure of some major outlets such as Borders Books. What are your thoughts on the challenges and opportunities this presents to writers?

Suzi - This is a great question! And a very timely topic. You hit the nail on the head - many print publications are struggling due to the growing power and dominance of the internet. It's not just limited to magazines. Newspapers and even books are suffering as well, due to the immediacy and instant gratification of online news, and books that can be read online, Kindle, etc. I imagine that the newspaper may well become a dinosaur in the next ten years or so. Speaking of dinosaurs, I personally love to hold a magazine or book in my hands, rather than strain my eyes to read words on the internet. There's just something so tactile and satisfying about it. At least for this little Dinosaur.

Over the past 7 years, I've written for two major magazines that have either gone defunct or gone to an online medium only (Horror Mania and Gorezone). I'm currently writing for 3 hard copy magazines (Virus Magazine in Germany, Shock Horror Magazine in the UK, and Bio Gamer Girl Magazine in the US), but I'm sure that they have to hustle to maintain and grow their fan base and to constantly change to meet the needs of the "I want it now" era. To the magazine's credit however, there still is something exciting about receiving an actual glossy magazine in the mail each month. Sometimes the internet can be overwhelming, and you end up feeling like you have "ADD", clicking all over the place, whereas with a magazine, you're able to focus on one thing at a time, and revel in the experience.
 

Nic - Between your work as an actress, model and writer, you can’t have a lot of free time, but when you do have some time to yourself, what do you like to do for fun?

Suzi - I put on my Jigsaw/"Saw" mask and tuxedo and ride my miniature tricycle around the neighbourhood, entertaining the local children. When I'm in the mood for a less solitary endeavour, I grab a few friends and we form a Human Centipede, and give the children pony rides.

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Related links:

http://www.modelsuzi.com
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1217063

Jakob Bilinski is no stranger to the pages of Rogue Cinema. Having had his films, "Shade of Grey," "Foxxy Madonna vs. The Black Death," "Mime" and "Obsolescence" reviewed in past issues, it was only a matter of time before we tracked the man down to answer some questions about his work and in particular, his latest feature which is currently in production, the neo-Giallo, "Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh."

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MS: For those of us who don't know, tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into filmmaking.

JB: Well, I’m a native of Southern Indiana and like a lot of indie filmmakers, I caught the moviemaking bug early on in high school, making shorts with friends. I grew up on movies, they’ve sort of always been my addiction. I went to college as a Fine Arts major, but turned away from it early on for my love affair with cinema. Never really looked back. I started tackling things professionally several years later, and since have written/directed/edited/produced over 20 music videos and shorts, including my latest, OBSOLESCENCE. My first feature, SHADE OF GREY, was released everywhere DVDs are sold online in 2010. THREE TEARS ON BLOODSTAINED FLESH is my second feature.

MS: "Three Tears on Bloodstained Flesh" is a wonderful title! I take it you're a big fan of Gialli then?

JB: Thank you! Oh yes. Kind of obsessed with the Giallo. It’s very much one of my go-to, guilty pleasure subgenres. Actually I’m not even sure if I should lump it as a “guilty” pleasure… I happen to hold the artistry on display in those films in a very high regard. I had a feeling TTOBF would be a title that people would either think is ridiculously stupid, or insanely awesome. I personally fall into the latter category. I always loved how those titles were elaborately descriptive phrases or questions. My goal was to make a modern, Midwesternized take on the Giallo and so I wanted a title that fit into that niche. When I came up with it, I sort of just thought, “Yup… That’s what it’s called.” It was a pretty easy decision.

MS: What is it about Italian genre films that seems to attract young indie filmmakers into either paying direct homage to them or appropriating elements from these films into their own work?

JB: I’m not sure exactly. For me, I just think they’re a ton of fun and from a visual standpoint, quite beautiful. There’s something intriguing about the over-the-top, twisty narrative structure, and the excessively trashy elements that were crammed into their running time. If you love exploitation cinema, you get it. If you’re easily offended, you just think it’s trash. Which is a shame, because there was a lot of fantastically inventive and artistic creativity on display in those films. Admittedly, the focus was often on style over substance, which might be a reason as to why indie filmmakers latch onto them so much. As filmmakers, we’re visually driven. And Italian films back in/around the 70s were more-or-less consistently trippy, visually lush, sensory overloads. There are a lot of opportunities for “director-driven” sequences, and that’s definitely appealing. My goal was to work in a story and characters into TTOBF that were dynamic and engaging to match the stylistic elements of the film. Honestly the film to me is equal parts Giallo and Revenge-Thriller. There’s a lot of key dramatic moments that are simply about character, and I was blessed to have a stellar cast that shines through in some of the film’s more dramatic moments.


MS: Tell us about some of your past work and how it led up to where you are today as a filmmaker.

JB: I set out to make my first feature, SHADE OF GREY back in 2006. It was this ambitious little art-house film about several characters connected through their repeated presence in a hotel room. We shot the entire thing in a single location in one weekend. I learned a LOT on that set, both in terms of what I wanted to try next, and what I never wanted to do again. It had a decent festival run before being released in 2010 (long post production issues). In between there I made a 70s grindhouse action short called FOXXY MADONNA VS THE BLACK DEATH which still seems to somehow be the most recognized thing I’ve done. I took a bit of a hiatus and directed a slew of music videos for local artists here in Indiana, several of which were horror themed. All of this was sort of designed to give me room to experiment and hone my skills. In 2009 I shot my latest short, OBSOLESCENCE, which is still currently on its festival run. I somehow garnered this reputation as a horror filmmaker even though I’d never MADE a horror film. THREE TEARS is me tossing my hat into that ring officially. And it’s a bit overdue I think, since it’s easily my favorite genre.


MS: How did "Three Tears..." come about?

JB: I was talking with my lead actor and friend, Bill Gobin, two years ago about what I wanted my next film to be and he asked if the one I was considering had a role for him in it. It didn’t. So he asked if I had an idea for a script that perhaps I could see him in. So I threw out the idea that I’d love to do a modern Giallo. I sat down and wrote out the script for the film (between late 2009-early 2010), and we started trying to put the film together. We didn’t have a lot of luck getting it off the ground last year, so I shelved it for a bit. Then earlier this year we re-started the discussion and ended up getting sudden access to some interesting locations and resources, which fit well with the film. We gave ourselves a window of opportunity to try and assemble the film for Fall 2011, and after just a couple weeks, things started coming together insanely quickly… in an almost weird way. Before I knew it we were on set and shooting. It was a very surreal feeling. Of course there were lots of stumbling blocks along the way, but you have that with any shoot. All of the cast and crew I showed the script to while we were in early talks got really excited about it. I’ve never had a project that people were so enthusiastic to be a part of (not to this degree, anyway). That’s pretty gratifying for a filmmaker.

MS: How does "Three Tears..." differ from classic gialli like THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE and so on?

JB: Gotta say, I love that you mentioned WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO SOLANGE? – that’s one of my favorites. It definitely differs from the storylines in those films, but retains a lot of the key Giallo elements. That genre was always about a character (usually American) going to a foreign land (usually Europe) and getting caught up in a web of murder and intrigue. And there was always a black-clad or masked killer slashing people up with a knife. THREE TEARS has all of that and more, with the black-clad killer being just one element of the danger in the story. And here we have a man returning to the small Midwestern town he’s abandoned instead of another country. But it’s still got the whole stranger-in-a-strange-land thing going on. I sort of wanted to equate small town Middle-America with the European setting… in a completely ass-backwards way. There’s a very melodramatic, twisty narrative running through this thing too, which I always found endearing (and a little humorous) about Gialli. It’s like hyperviolent, overtly sexualized soap opera. I aimed to trim down the cheese factor while retaining the flavor of what those films capitalized on. I have a handful of films that were inspirational to me when writing THREE TEARS, most of which were Gialli (THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE was actually one of them). THE WICKER MAN was a huge influence as well (the original… not the shitty Nic Cage “BEEEES!!!” remake).

MS: Tell us about the cast of the film. What was it like working with them and how did they come to be a part of the production?

JB: I should start off by saying I have the best cast in the world. Everyone says that, but I really do. Bill was the only person attached from the get-go, I wrote the lead character, Dominic, for him. Next I reached out to two actors out in L.A. I’ve worked with multiple times already – Scott Ganyo (OBSOLESCENCE, “1000 WAYS TO DIE”) and Rosalind Rubin (CLEANER, 12 ROUNDS). They read the script, loved it, and I immediately cast them. I trust these two implicitly and wouldn’t hesitate to cast them in anything (and their performances here only reinforce that notion – hint, hint to any casting directors out there!). From there I started seeking actors out here in/around Indiana. I was pretty lucky to get Jim Dougherty (SCALENE), Kayla Crance (EAST OF NOWHERE), and Angela Steele (BEVERLY LANE), as well as Sidney Shripka, Jim O’ Rear (too many credits to name-drop here!), Grant Niezgodski, Kevin Roach, Alex Hahn, Sonny Burnette, Eric T. Schroeder, Mark A. Nash, Rusty James, Aric Dylan, Stacy Higdon, Chelsea Casanova, Julie Pyle… the list goes on. I could sit here and elaborate on each actor but this interview would be way longer than it already is. I have nothing but praises to sing about all of them. I feel like I’m pretty good as an editor, and have had to cut actors in the past in such a way as to make them appear better than they really are. On this film everyone gave me performances that are so rich I know I don’t have to work very hard to make them look good. It’s a huge gift that I’m insanely thankful for.

MS: Did you give your actors a primer on the Giallo before shooting? For that matter, did you also screen any of your favorites for your Director of Photography, Cameraman and so on?

JB: I didn’t show any films to any of the cast and crew, but did have discussions about the genre I was trying to pay homage to so that we were all on the same page. In early discussions a lot of the team heard the word Giallo and was like, “…Huh?” I think they caught on, but a lot of them probably had to just run with it and trust me. Those who did know what I was referring to, I dropped the name of a few key films I was citing as examples. But the actors, I didn’t really say “Go out and watch this!” since I wanted to do a different, modern take on everything. I didn’t want them to model their acting on the performances back then (which were often stilted since they were most all dubbed into different languages, including English). I wanted powerful performances, so all I cared about was that they understood the character, and could sink into their skin. They did so… in spades. I shot the film along with my partner-in-cinematic-crime David Bonnell, and we had a few talks about films to reference visually. I also referenced the unconventional use of color in Gialli to my lighting team. The colors in this film are pretty insane. I love it. A few times I’d hear comments on set about how something didn’t look real. I remember a few times jokingly saying something to the extent of, “It’s Italian, just go with it.”

MS: I understand filming is still underway on "Three Tears..." how have things been going? Any horror stories to share?

JB: Yes. At the point in time of this interview we still have several pick up days of shooting ahead, but the bulk of the film is shot. Things have been going very well. Stressful, but well. The core of the shoot was an 11 day stretch, and the days were very, very long. One day ended up being a 22 hour shoot. Some people got rest as they were only around for part of it… but some didn’t. The shoot was mostly an endurance marathon. We had several locations that fell through and we had to scramble to get new ones the day before we shot. We had some actors that ended up having to be recast on the fly due to last minute scheduling issues. We had a few key crew members that had to be replaced days before we started shooting due to personal issues/emergencies they were having. All of this left a lot of the team in overdrive as we went into, and throughout the shoot. But I was fortunate enough to have the team I did, in that no matter how insane things got there were little to no complaints. Everyone had their eye on the prize and believed in the project to the point they supported it unconditionally. It made my job a helluva lot easier. Making a film is always a challenge, and this one was considerably taxing at times. My wife Mackenzie (who deserves an award herself for putting up with me during this), and our three cats kept me sane off the set. On set I had a bevy of dedicated crew members (aside from my awesome cast) that helped keep me from going off the deep end: special props go out to Bill Gobin, David Bonnell, Sharon Caudel, Larissa Ross, Sidney Shripka, Joe Atkinson, P.J. Starks, Marx Pyle, and Jim Dougherty for going above and beyond. There are several others who did a lot to help and I’m not discounting them by any means at all, but I leaned on this core group pretty heavily. And I’m indebted to them for all they did.

MS: What was "Three Tears..." shot on?

JB: We shot on HD, utilizing a mixture of different cameras, depending on the scene. Everything from P2 format to DSLRs.

MS: What are your plans for the film? Are you going the film festival route? Heading straight to DVD?

JB: I’m going to start out with the festival route and promotional screenings in 2012. I’d like to do a roadshow tour of the film, hit up horror festivals and conventions with as much of the cast and crew in tow as possible. From there we’ll be pursuing distribution options available. I’m not opposed at all to the self/hybrid distribution/straight to DVD/Blu route, but want to see what options are available based on how the film does in its initial run out in the world. Ultimately I’m just concerned with what’s best for the film, both financially and in terms of exposure. I really want this puppy to be seen, and hopefully appreciated by audiences.

MS: If anyone's interested in learning more about the film, where can they go?

JB: You can visit www.cinephreakpictures.com and click on the THREE TEARS page, or “Like” us on Facebook for updates at www.facebook.com/threetearsfilm.

MS: Thanks so much for your time!

JB: Thanks and talk to you soon!

Last month, Jason Lockard reviewed Janusz Madej's film, Stigma. Unfortunately, he was unavailable to do the follow up interview with Janusz, so I stepped into the role of interviewer, even though I hadn't had a chance to see the film. I asked Janusz mostly about the creative and production side of things, but I also found out some things about him that fascinated me. I'm glad I got to do this interview, because Janusz is not only super talented, but he's a super nice guy as well.

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DLM: Let's start out like I always do by having you introduce yourself to everyone and tell us all a little about yourself.

JM: My name is Janusz Madej and I’m an actor/filmmaker of Polish descent, living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands for the last 12 years of my life. In 2009 I arrived in Los Angeles to study acting at The Ivana Chubbuck Studio and filmmaking at the Los Angeles Film School. I’ve lived in LA for about a year and a half and I must say it’s been a great experience. Growing up in Poland I’ve always admired movies made in Hollywood and it was my dream to one day be able to come here and study with true industry professionals.

DLM: Now you didn't start out as an actor or a filmmaker. You had a very different career that you fell into at a very young age that would probably surprise most people. Tell us about that and some of your more notable experiences with it.

JM: Indeed. Before I became an actor and filmmaker I was a professional ballet dancer. As a child I had an abnormal flexibility in my joints. After consultation from the doctor, my mother decided to utilize this talent and put me in Ballet School. It was either this or the circus, but my mother thought that I would get killed on a trapeze so the ballet would have been a much safer profession in the long run. I passed the examination with flying colours. Not having any knowledge beforehand about ballet, I was very skeptical about this new career. The only thing I knew about it was that men wear tights and women dance on their toes. Not the greatest selling point for a ten year old I might add. However because of my physical ability I was excelling at my training and slowly I started to build an admiration for this profession. I built up to be at the top of my class and started to get attention from teachers and other students due to my physical and artistic ability. Even as a young boy I already had a lot of acting talent that was often utilized in character roles. With the Warsaw School of Ballet I was fortunate to tour in many countries including France and by the end of my education to Osaka, Japan. Due to a great reception in Japan, I realized that I wanted to leave Poland and search for a better life abroad. Eventually I arrived to the United Kingdom and I auditioned for the Central School of Ballet, where I received a scholarship granted by their director Sir Christopher Gable. I didn’t speak English very well, however I was determined to succeed. Mr. Gable eventually offered me a contract for a ballet company, which he was the artistic director of, called The Northern Ballet Theatre (NBT). NBT was a touring company of about 35 dancers based in Leeds and at that time known as the fifth best company in the UK. Due to the fact that Sir Gable was a professional actor in the later stages of his life, in his company he paid a lot of attention not only to the technical aspects of the performances, but also to the acting that was adding the drama of the performances. After two years of touring all over Great Britain as well as a few international tours, I decided to move on with my career and audition for Het Nationale Ballet (HNB) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. HNB known as one of the best companies in the world with 85 dancers was a huge step up in my career. It enabled me to test my abilities on the highest levels. I stayed with this company for ten years performing classical ballets such as ‘Romeo & Juliet’, ‘Swan lake’, ‘Nutcracker’, Sleeping Beauty’, just to name a few as well as hundreds of contemporary choreographies. With HNB I toured countries like Canada, France, Germany and United Kingdom.

DLM: What was going on in your life at the time that made you decide to leave the career that had been the biggest part of your life, and to make such a drastic change in direction by going to film school?

JM: The career of a ballet dancer is relatively short. Usually you have to retire when you’re about 35 or 40 years old and most dancers go on to become ballet masters, teachers or directors of ballet companies. I was never interested in that. I always knew that when I retire I want to use the skills I learned through the grueling dancing training and use it for another profession. Even when I worked as a ballet dancer, in my free time I already studied acting at The Department of Acting Amsterdam. This allowed me to work on my technique as an actor but also gave me the confidence that I found a new calling and a natural progression from a dancer to an actor. Coming from a theatre background my goal was to eventually become a film actor. For that I needed experience in front of the camera. I started to audition at different film academies in Holland for roles in short films made by film students. I acted in over a dozen short films and commercials and this convinced me to pursue this career even further. Working with film students I was able to contribute even further to their projects. I realized that apart from acting I was also interested in filmmaking. I helped to direct, produce, costume design and edit some of the projects and I started to realize that my filmmaking knowledge would allow me to be a better actor and vice versa. I bought a MacBook Pro and the editing program Final Cut Pro and started to actively work in the filmmaking field.

In April 2007 the renowned acting coach Ivana Chubbuck came to Amsterdam on her first international tour to promote her book ‘The power of the actor’. At the time I didn’t know who Ivana Chubbuck was, but after some research I found out that she was the woman who discovered Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Charlize Theron, Jim Carrey, Elisabeth Shue, Jake Gyllenhaal and Halle Berry (Halle even thanked her in her Oscar speech when she accepted the award for ‘Monster’s Ball’). I applied for her two day intensive workshop and I was chosen as 1 of 16 actors in Europe to participate in her Masterclass. At her book signing we immediately connected and she assigned a scene for me from a play and film titled ‘Days of wine and roses’, with my scene partner Janna Fassaert (Couples retreat). After the workshop Ivana felt I needed to go to the next level and offered to train me at her studio at Melrose in Hollywood. This was a great opportunity that I needed to take advantage of and therefore I asked her to recommend some good film school for me in which I would be able to receive a full filmmaking education in a short period. I went with The Los Angeles Film School. In 2008 I retired as a professional ballet dancer and relocated to Los Angeles.

One of the main reasons why I chose The LA Film School was that they had wonderful facilities. I shot films in High Definition in the past, but what attracted me to the LA Film School was the fact that they had 35mm Panavision and Super 16mm Arriflex cameras. I wanted to shoot my thesis project ‘Stigma’ on film.

DLM: You made Stigma while you were at the Los Angeles Film School, but you had a tragedy in your life right before you were to begin shooting it. Tell us about that, and what impact it had on you personally and how it affected the film.

JM: Indeed, about a month before the shoot of my thesis project ‘Stigma’, my mother’s illness took a turn for the worse. I knew that she was sick before I left to Hollywood, however I was always hoping that she will be able to conquer the illness and will be able to see her son graduating from film school. I took a sabbatical from my study and went back to Warsaw, Poland, where I spent the last month of her life with her. My mother was always my biggest supporter, she had me when she was 44 years old, which back then was not a very typical age to have a child. I have three older brothers, 13, 15 and 17 years older than I am, who experienced her sickness and death in a much more accepting way. She was 75 when she passed away, which is a quite reasonable age, however for a young man as myself this experience became a huge emotional stigma that I’m dealing with until now. Her passing was a traumatic experience, however she had her whole family with her and me holding her hand during this most scary moment in every man’s life. I was completely emotionally destroyed. The most important person in my life was gone and the whole motivation behind the acting and filmmaking career did not matter anymore. Thanks to the emotional support of my girlfriend Jennifer I slowly started to realize that it would have been such a waste if I would give up on my and my mother’s dream. I took three months off to recuperate emotionally and came back to Hollywood to shoot ‘Stigma’.

As I mentioned the preproduction of ‘Stigma’ was already done before this tragedy, however due to my mother’s passing the whole production took on another dimension. Feeling her presence around, the whole film became a shrine to my mother. The experiences I went through in Poland allowed me to tap into the emotional luggage that was released through my acting in the film and to some extent it became an emotional therapy. Who knows, my acting might have been less emotional if not for this tragedy. I’ve dedicated the film to her in the final credits and I certainly think ‘Stigma’ would have been a different film if my mother wouldn’t have passed away.

DLM: How much of your acting and film work was your mother able to see before she passed away? What did she think of your work?

JM: On a weekly basis I always updated her through the phone how things were going with me and my career. Every year I came to visit her in Poland and I always brought with me the films I acted in and together we looked through them with me translating my dialogues from English to Polish so she would have a better understanding of what’s going on. She was always very proud of my abilities as a dancer, actor and a filmmaker. Even though she missed me and always asked me when I would move back to Poland, she knew perfectly well that my place was abroad where I had better opportunities to make something of myself. My biggest regret is that she wasn’t able to see the film that she inspired me to make, ‘Stigma’, and in some way I feel by showcasing this film I am celebrating her life.

DLM: You've worked literally all over the world. What are some of your favorite places, and have any of them had a particular influence on you and the way you see your art, be it dance, acting or film making, and if so, what new insights did you gain in these places?

JM: Coming from Poland, known for a great filmmaking industry I’ve always been inspired by filmmakers like Roman Polanski, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Andrzej Wajda, Krzysztof Zanussi and Steven Spielberg’s favorite Director of Photography, Janusz Kaminski. During the communism censorship was imposed on films and other media. The filmmakers had to find ways of surpassing the censors to get their ideas across to the public anyway. This is where those Polish filmmakers developed a visual language that indirectly would influence man’s subconscious mind. They would use the subconscious meaning of colours, esoteric symbols, music and speech patterns of the actors to show the hidden messages directed to the viewers’ subconscious minds. This technique was later copied by Western filmmakers like Stanley Kubrick, who openly admired Kieslowski and if you watch Kubrick’s films you can really see how much influence he took from the Polish film style of Kieslowski.

As a young man I found Polish cinema too deep and intellectual for my liking, this is why as a child I was inspired by the movies from Steven Spielberg (‘Raiders of the lost arc’), James Cameron (‘Terminator’), George Lucas (‘Star Wars’) and Ridley Scott (‘Alien’), all with more commercial appeal. They offered me a form of escapism that I needed to survive the communistic depression. However the older and intellectually developed I became I started to appreciate the films of the Polish masters. I started to understand their symbology and depth. They inspired me to develop my own storytelling techniques through my acting and filmmaking. This is precisely what I was exercising in ‘Stigma’, ways of affecting the audience’s subconscious mind. Also having lived in the Netherlands I got inspiration from painters like Van Gogh, Rembrandt and their use of colours and composition. Coming to Hollywood I’ve gotten the understanding of how technology can help make your films look more professional with great facilities that generate amazing looking special effects. My goal as a filmmaker is to merge these two worlds of filmmaking, the European Arthouse cinema with realistic acting and stories on one hand, and the big Hollywood blockbuster scope on the other. To some extent Chris Nolan is doing that right now with films like ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Inception’, where highly intellectual stories are merged with the great scope of a blockbuster, but still maintain everything in a very realistic mode.

DLM: Ok let's get to Stigma now. What gave you the idea for the story, and how long did the whole writing process take?

JM: The idea for Stigma came when I first arrived to Hollywood. On every corner I noticed a psychic center, mainly dedicated to all the actors and filmmakers who come to Hollywood in the search of fame and fortune. Those places are filled with psychics who claim that they have a gift to tell others their future. I have an interest in astrology and occult and know perfectly well that by having a bit of information from an individual you can paint a perfect profile of each person you encounter. However for a film to work it always needs an additional dimension and therefore I thought that it would be interesting to make a film about a psychic who is a fraud, mainly focused on making money and has absolutely no affiliation with religion. But after he receives stigmata his whole life is turned upside down.

The writing of the story took about a month and I went through roughly 11 drafts before I settled on the final script. Most of the time was spent on the research, the writing part went quite smooth.

DLM: Did the finished film match up to your original story idea pretty closely, or did you make some changes and edits to the story either before shooting or during production?

JM: While making your thesis film at the LA Film School, you get four days to shoot your film. Due to that fact there were scenes in the original script that were taken out to make the whole production fit into four days. For example, there was a hospital scene that we actually took out before shooting. During the shoot, which was an exciting process in itself, I as a director had to make some crucial decisions and instead of for example having three separate shots, by utilizing the dolly, I would use one shot that would work better and give a feature film look to the production.

DLM: Tell us about the cast of the film. Was it comprised mostly of people you had known or worked with in the past, or did you put out a casting call to find the right people for the roles?

JM: Using the opportunity of being in Hollywood I’m aware of how many talented people wander around in this town. I put out open casting calls, but I already had some people for particular roles in mind that I had worked with before. Frank Mavros, who plays father Nolan was someone that I met at the LA Film School on a project shot by a friend of mine. I noticed that Frank had a very minimalistic approach to acting, perfectly suited for film medium and he had something soulful about him, which I thought would fit with the character of father Nolan. Michelle Allaire, who plays Olympia, I had met on a previous casting call for another movie that I shot but that time I chose another actress for that particular part. However I always kept her in mind and when we casted for Stigma, I thought she would be perfect for this role. The widow at the beginning of the film is played by my colleague Rebecca Brooks, from the masterclass study at the Ivana Chubbuck Studio, who I thought was a good fit for this role. Sylvia Panacione as the blind girl was the only actor that I casted from an open audition. And I took the main role of Gabriel the psychic upon me, juggling acting and directing at the same time.

DLM: How closely did the cast, in both physical appearance and the way they played their roles, match up with what you saw in your head as you were writing the story?

JM: I think the actors that we chose fit perfectly in their character roles. Before the shoot I had a lot of personal conversations with each actor, getting to know them on a personal level and being able to understand who they are as individuals and what motivates them in their lives. This helped me when it actually came to filming to bring up the best possible performances from all of them. I know it might have been a bit weird for them that I acted and directed the film at the same time, but having the possibility to act with them I was able to directly affect them during the takes.

In film school you learn that there are always three types of film that you create when you make a film production. The film that you write (script), the film that you shoot (actual filming) and the film that you edit (final product). Being a very visual person I always imagine how the film will look like as a final product and all the decisions that I make in preproduction and production are based on that principal. I have to say that Stigma indeed came very close to what I initially intended. In some way it even went beyond my expectations in terms of film production as well as the acting delivered by the actors. Making a film is not a solo sport, you need likeminded professionals to help you translate your vision onto the silver screen. This is why an essential part of filmmaking is to gather a great crew and cast.

DLM: What was a typical production day like for you?

JM: To be honest, nothing about this shoot was typical due to the fact that I had to act and direct at the same time. For example, we knew that in particular sections of the movie, especially in the end of the film and in the nightmare visions the main character needed to have a long beard. I'm a method actor and therefore I felt that a gluing on a fake beard would make it look artificial and not real enough for the sequences. In a few weeks a grew a really thick beard and therefore we had to adjust the shooting schedule in such a way that the scenes where I look like a Christ like figure had to be recorded on the first day of the shoot. Afterwards at night I shaved and when I came back to the set for the second day a lot of people from the crew didn't recognize me. In 'Stigma' I tried to keep a realistic approach to acting as much as possible, trying to cross the line between acting and being. Therefore on the second day of the shoot I had a conversation with all the crew that when they are working on setting up the lights and dolly tracks, to try to work as quiet as possible to bring a very meditative atmosphere to the set. Especially because we were working on a set that was specifically built for the indoor locations that we needed. This allowed the actors a feeling of complete intimacy and there were times that we completely forgot that for example the interior of the psychic center was actually a built room in a sound stage. I on my part knew I had to be perfectly prepared in both functions as an actor and director. Due to the fact that we shot on film, you can't really see on the monitor how the final product will look like. I had Jennifer Bhagwandin as my assistant who recorded the takes on a little camera and after each take I would review if the framing was correct as well as if I was happy with the acting performances I gave in particular takes. Once I was happy with what I saw, we were able to move on to the next set up.

Usually the production days started at around 7 AM and most of the time we worked till 10 PM. We worked on a couple of different locations, which gave us logistic challenges to move actors and crew from one location to the next in a span of four days.

DLM: What were some of the biggest difficulties you encountered in getting this film made?

JM: Due to the time restraint we had to work fast and sufficient which put a lot of strain of the crew itself. Most of ‘Stigma’ is shot on film and so we could not allow ourselves to take too many takes and make too many mistakes with the focus or other technical things, due to the fact that the Telecine process is extremely expensive. And of course like with any independent film the money was the big issue. Because we shot on film I needed a professional crew that would make sure my financial investment in this film would not be ruined. Of course you can get students to work with you for free, however from a lack of experience the production quality might be lowered because of that. Thanks to the Dutch Retraining Program for Dancers I was able to obtain necessary financial help to make Stigma happen.

DLM: Where was the film shot? Did any of the locations present any particular issues that you had to overcome?

JM: The interior of Gabriel’s psychic center and his bedroom was all build in a sound stage by our production design crew, led by Alessandro Marvelli. They did a wonderful job in designing the interior of both locations. For the outside of the psychic center we rented an actual existing psychic center just off the Sunset strip in Hollywood. The church scene was shot in an actual chapel on Wilshire Blvd. There were some outdoor scenes that took place in Beverly Hills and Downtown, which as you can imagine for a thesis film we had quite a lot of locations to cover. The main concern was to move the production from one location to another and still be able to maintain the timetable for the production.

DLM: Looking back on it now, if you could go back and change anything about the film, what would it be and how would you do it differently?

JM: Having a bit of higher knowledge of Hollywood right now I might have thought twice to choose a story that has a spiritual if not religious subject behind it. I felt this film was important to me and had a personal emotional impact on me. However I learned that sometimes it’s better to not go with a controversial subject like religion, spirituality or politics.

DLM: Do you have distribution for Stigma, or is there some way our readers can see the film?

JM: I don’t have distribution as of yet, and it’s very difficult to find distribution deals for short films (Stigma is 29 minutes long). At the moment Stigma was shown at different festivals around the world, including Temecula Valley Film and Music Festival and the Polish Film Festival. I am finalizing the final DVD as we speak that readers can purchase from the Stigma website and I’m also working on making a digital file that you will be able to upload onto your computer or Ipod.

DLM: You've worked both in front of and behind the camera. Which do you prefer and why?

JM: I love them both! I was an actor before I became a filmmaker, however I am still growing in both professions and at this moment in my career it is very difficult to choose. I do think though that I would like to establish myself first as an actor, because later in my career I might be able to establish myself as a director as well. The other way around is extremely difficult to do.

DLM: Tell us what you're working on currently.

JM: Currently I’m working on the post production of my feature film ‘11’ (www.11-film.com) that I wrote, acted in and shot back in Amsterdam. ‘11’ is a story of a US military, who after being discharged from the army finds himself in an Amsterdam five star hotel. He wakes up at 11 AM on the day of his birthday and realizes that his girlfriend is missing. Slowly he realizes that she might have been kidnapped and takes the matter in his own hands to solve the mystery of ‘11’.

DLM: What kind of a film would you ultimately like to make either as an actor or a filmmaker? What would be your dream project?

JM: My goal is to make films in which I would be able to act in and direct in a la Clint Eastwood and George Clooney. I’m currently writing the script of a science fiction thriller with a supernatural twist to it. I cannot reveal too many details about it, but the film is of epic proportions with a strong character driven storyline. It will be a trilogy. My ultimate dream is to make this script into a multi million dollar blockbuster in the likes of ‘The Matrix’.
As an actor I would love to work with some of the great directors like Roman Polanski, Steven Spielberg, Christopher Nolan, Darren Aronofsky and many more. And I would love to act with some of my acting heroes like Robert de Niro, Al Pacino, Jack Nicholson, Mel Gibson, Halle Berry, Meryl Streep, Kate Winslet and many more.

DLM: Do you have any advice for the other aspiring film makers out there who are either working on or about to work on their first film?

JM: The main advice I would give to future filmmakers is that everything starts with a story. If you don’t have a good story, no matter how beautiful your film looks or what a great performances the actors deliver, if the story doesn’t hold people’s attention, the movie will fail. Film is a form of escapism. For two hours people want to get emerged into some other reality and they want to forget about their problems or sorrows. No special effects will save your movie when dialogue and story line make no sense. When you develop a script and you write dialogue understand what are the underlined meanings of your dialogue. In real life we don’t always say what we mean. There is always a message that is delivered between the lines. If you choose the path of a filmmaker as your career you must realize that it is a very difficult road and you might be rejected many times before someone will open their door and give you the opportunity to create the movie of your dreams. Also remember, when you’re making a film you’re also looking for the audience that would want to see the film, so choose a subject for it that will appeal to most. That’s extremely important. And last but not least, filmmaking is also all about networking. You can be the most talented filmmaker on the planet but if nobody knows about you, you don’t exist.

DLM: Where can people find out more about you and Stigma

JM: I have a website that promotes Stigma, www.stigma-film.com, where you can find information about the film and how things are going on the festival circuit. You can also check out the IMDB page for Stigma, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1948624. If someone wants to find out more about me as an actor / filmmaker they can check out my website, www.januszmadej.com and my IMDB profile http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3323737 for more info. I also have a YouTube channel, www.youtube.com/januszmadej, where you can find close to 100 different videos of me performing as a dancer, actor and a filmmaker.

DLM: Is there anything else you'd like to mention before we wrap this up?

JM: I want to thank a few key people in my crew without whom this project would not have been made, like co-producer and Unit Production Manager, Ilya Farfell who made the whole production run nice and smooth. Jennifer Bhagwandin, co-producer and costume designer, whose costume design created an additional story telling tool. Director of Photography Benji Bakshi and his camera and lighting crew, who with a great eye and professionalism made the technical aspect of Stigma work flawlessly. Of course our great production designer Alessandro Marvelli and his team who brought a sense of reality to all the locations. The first Assistant Director, Cedric Chabloz who was my eyes and ears during the times when I had to act and direct at the same time. The Los Angeles Film School for enabling me to use their facilities and gear to create ‘Stigma’ into the film that it is today.

And of course it’s been a pleasure talking to you, Duane, and I’m grateful to have this interview at your website that promotes independent filmmakers like myself. Keep up the great work and we indie filmmakers of the world salute you.

I recently had the chance to interview filmmaker Pulkit Datta. We discussed Pulkit's fondness for social commentary in his short films, and also the new documentary The Forgetting Game, about an incredible Cold War event that has managed to stay secret for nearly half a century.

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Cary Conley: Tell us how you became interested in making films.

Pulkit Datta: I've grown up watching both American and Indian films, and have appreciated both cinemas in their own right. Films have been a normal part of my life. But beyond just watching films, I also went through a very short-lived desire to become an actor when I was very young. That ended quickly, mostly when my curiosity for the behind-the-scenes took over. The moment -- or rather several consecutive moments -- hit me when I would be watching films and started wondering how certain scenes were shot, how they were edited, and I basically started taking apart films in my head, element by element. Then I started imagining how I would have told those same stories my way. There was really no turning back after that. There's a madness to the world of filmmaking, and I guess I'm blissfully afflicted.

CC: Who are some of your major influences, both in front of and behind the camera?

PD: My influences are a completely random club of filmmakers, from the various cinemas I've grown up watching. To name just a few, there's the incredible narrative range and scale of Steven Spielberg's films, the wild imagination of Michel Gondry, the grippingly edgy melodrama of Mani Ratnam, the stark political consciousness of Jafar Panahi, the wicked pleasures of Quentin Tarantino, the tense lyricism of Vishal Bhardwaj, and the thrilling social commentary of Alejandro González Iñárritu. I could go on and on.

CC: You've produced, directed, written and scored various projects. Is there one job you like better than the other?

PD: It feels odd to hear all those titles listed out. I think all filmmakers in their early stages do everything on their films. It's out of need as well as the thirst for experience. For me, producing happened first, when my college professor asked me to produce our senior capstone short film, Written Off. I went into it scared of completely ruining it for my classmates, but came out of it with a high.

I've always wanted to write and direct. I used to write short stories, some of which I am now revisiting to see if they can be translated into films. For me, directing goes hand-in-hand with writing, because when I write, I inevitably think of how I would direct it. I have so many stories I want to tell, so many ideas, that I think I'll be writing many of the films I will direct.

As for scoring, I really wouldn't say I've composed. That would be an insult to the world of music. I've only arranged loops on Garageband to create pieces for my 16mm short films. I actually don't have much knowledge of the intricacies of music, beyond being able to recognize a good tune.

So, to answer your question, writing and directing would be top of my list here.

CC: How did you discover the story of Beate Kernke? How did you develop the story into a film project?

PD: I was at graduate school - NYU - with the director of The Forgetting Game, Russell Sheaffer. He told me about a story he had been hearing from his family growing up. It was the story of a little girl who was the first person to be peacefully and legally transferred across the Berlin Wall, from East to West Germany, in 1963. I've grown up in a diplomatic family and have always been surrounded by politics and world affairs. So stories with political angles get me excited.

Russell wanted to make a documentary on Beate's transfer, and I came onboard as producer, along with another NYU classmate, Jim Bittl. At first we set out to make a short documentary, chronicling just the transfer. But then I was itching to actually find Beate, so we made that our mission. A lot of searching later, we finally found Beate and once we interviewed her and got her life story, the film really came into being and took its own shape.

CC: On the surface, the documentary explores the lives of Beate Kernke and the Clark children as they eventually reconnect with each other, but there is also a subtext being explored. Talk a little about that subtext and how you initially discovered and developed it as a part of the film?

PD: I think what intrigued Russell, Jim and I the most was the fact that Beate's transfer was treated as if it never happened. What could have been a great example of conflicting sides reaching a small compromise, a little girl becoming a symbol of hope and understanding, was simply brushed under the carpet. So, we wanted to look at how easily such positive instances can be forgotten. There are so many such instances in human history that are intentionally forgotten. For one reason or another, we pretend they never happened.

With Beate's story, while we were really interested in tracing her life since her transfer, and getting the perspective of the Clark children, we also kept coming across evidence of how the political context at the time informed the "forgetting" of this event. We had official documents from the time as proof of Beate's transfer, but when we contacted the organizations and offices involved, they all claimed they had no record of it or that it never happened.

So 'The Forgetting Game' became a way to shed light on a personal story within a political context.

CC: There was quite a bit of research and travel involved in making The Forgetting Game. Can you explain the process you went through to raise funds to produce this film?

PD: The finances were perhaps the most difficult part of making this film, and I'm sure most independent filmmakers would empathize with that. We raised part of the budget through a Kickstarter campaign, and we're eternally grateful to everyone who contributed. The rest of it ended up being self-financed.

We had to be creative in making this film happen logistically. We used airline miles to fund air travel for the shoots. We stayed with friends and family during our research and shoots, sometimes borrowed gear that we needed, and recruited friends for the price of a nice dinner to help us with post-production.

One of the beautiful things about independent filmmaking is that you tend to get creative with how you most efficiently make use of a limited budget. You might not appreciate it when you're struggling to finish a film, but when it's done it feels like a huge accomplishment.

CC: What has the process been like for you as you explore a distribution deal?

PD: Documentaries are very hard to sell, but we're hopeful. We've submitted to a few distributors and are looking at various options to get our film out there. If anyone has tips or suggestions, please contact us: theforgettinggame@gmail.com.

CC: Along with the documentary film The Forgetting Game, you've also created several black-and-white film shorts, each of them addressing a different social topic. It seems clear to me that you are using film not so much as entertainment (although each film is entertaining) but as a venue to explore social change. Would that be an accurate statement?

PD: That's exactly right. Film is such a powerful medium and can reach out to so many people at once. I think films should be entertaining for sure, but they also need to do something more than that. All of the films I've made have social or political commentary, and that I think stems from my upbringing. Having lived in several different countries and experienced such diverse cultures and issues, I inevitably work a social or political subtext into every story or idea I come up with. And I find that very important in my work, because if I can get people to at least think about the issue or topic I've raised in my films, then that is an achievement for me.

CC: One of your shorts is entitled "Jason" and addresses transgendered roles in society, particularly the familial relationship between a transgendered young adult and his parents. Why did you choose this particular topic?

PD: Of the films I've made so far, I think 'Jason' was the farthest from my personal frame of reference. It was loosely inspired by the personal story of a friend as well as my growing awareness of the LGBT rights movement. To make it a personal, relatable story, I used the perspective of the protagonist trying to explain to his parents something integral about his life. That, I felt, was something anyone could connect with.

CC: A second short is entitled "Free to be Free". It essentially depicts various signs telling people what to do and what not to do ("Talk to Chuck"; "No Parking"; "Enter Here"; etc.). It seems this short may have been an expression of your own personal frustration with society. Was there any underlying impetus for this film?

PD: I originally had this idea for a photography project. Living in New York City, I started noticing how we are bombarded with messages every single day, hundreds or thousands of times a day. If you take just a morning commute from home to work, we consciously or subconsciously absorb so many messages that are fed to us, whether it's signs, billboards, ads, flyers, pieces of mail, in the morning newspaper, on our phones, on the bus, the subway and so on.

When the opportunity to make a 16mm short came along, I decided to try out that project idea on film instead. The title comes from a quote by Nelson Mandela, where he says "We are free to be free." I took that and turned it upside down using the images I found around New York. The idea is to complicate the notion of freedom, to make us think of what freedom really means, and people will react differently to it. I've already heard a few different interpretations of the film, which is great because it means it's making them think about the topic.

CC: Two shots in "Free to be Free" really struck a chord in me. First, there are several shots of endless traffic going by. These shots were repeated enough that I felt like there was some underlying symbolism to them. I also liked the last shot as the camera traces several stories of fire escapes, moving diagonally up the ladder, then horizontally across the platform, and repeating this for several stories. The shot is then repeated, but much quicker, as the camera traces the fire escapes back down the building. The net effect is a shaky, almost cyclical motion. What were your thoughts as you created these particular scenes?

PD: The two shots you mention actually bring the film full circle since it starts and ends with shots of traffic and a fire escape. The various shots of endless traffic going by were intended to give the film some sort of narrative motion, even though it has no traditional narrative. The shots at the end were also filmed at a faster frame rate to illustrate that the pace at which our lives are moving these days.

With 'Free to be Free,' I played with structure and meaning. It's not a wildly experimental film as such, but the point is to put a series of images out there, connect them to one another, and then let the viewer take away his/her own interpretations as to why the images were there and what purpose they serve.

CC: Perhaps my favorite shot in "Free to be Free" is the sign that read "Do bad things..." That had to be a setup, right?

PD: Haha, not at all. It was from a billboard for the TV show True Blood. I think the slogan fit really well in my montage. It says quite a lot on many different levels, especially within the context of the film.

CC: Your final short is entitled "The Vigilant Citizen" and seems to not only be a commentary on society, but also your most humorous film to date. I particularly enjoyed the character that carried the blow-up doll down the street in a 69 position as well as the "rogue pack of beer" comment. Why more humor with this film than the others?

PD: I wanted to make a blunt political statement about the state of paranoia we live in, the fear of the other, which gives rise to stereotyping and a breakdown of trust. So, instead of making it preachy and serious, I wanted to try out a satirical approach, which is a fun way to ease the blow of the main message the film is trying to get across. I'm glad the humor worked for you!

CC: Finally, can you talk about any future projects you have lined up?

PD: I have a bunch of ideas for shorts, documentaries and features that I'm trying to make sense of and get under control. I feel very creatively energized right now and am trying to make at least some of these ideas happen. So, I'm tackling my first feature film script, which has been quite a rollercoaster of an experience. I'm also fleshing out a couple of other ideas, so let's see what happens first. How's that for answering without saying much? :-)

Cary Conley: Brooks, introduce yourself to Rogue readers. How did you become interested in film? What is your background in the film industry?

Brooks Hunter: I basically became interested in film at a very young age, watching a ton of movies. My grandmother gave me a VHS copy of Ghostbusters at the age of 6 and I must have watched it over 200 times, sometimes twice in a row. It was a bit of an obsession. I wanted to tape the Ghostbusters logo to my parents' car to make it look like ECTO-1 but they only let me tape it to the inside windows. NOT the same thing! As soon as I picked up a video camera at the age of seven, I constantly shot short films with my friends. Pure fun. I honed my skills and built techniques by continually advancing my craft. I transitioned from editing while shooting to using two VCRs to using some of the first computer editing programs such as very early versions of Adobe Premiere. I attended Sheridan College for Media Arts from 2002 to 2005 and then worked various jobs to learn as much as possible. I've worked on the Dr. Phil Show, at Cannes Film Festival, the L.A. and Toronto Film Festivals, and on many independent film sets. It's been crucial to learn the business aspects of the industry as much as the progression of creative technique. Throughout this time, I also built up my reel by directing more short films.

CC: What filmmakers and films have been your primary influences over the years?

BH: Spielberg has always been a major influence, specifically with Jaws and E.T. Hitchcock's mastering of the thriller genre is extremely motivating. The Birds and Psycho are my favorites. Tarantino's outside-of-the-box techniques with Pulp Fiction literally blew my mind. Ghostbusters and Back to the Future have been some of my all-time favorite films. They're both a genius mix of adventure, fantasy, and humor which create such well-balanced journeys. Two other important films to recognize are Scorsese's Raging Bull (its raw power, focus, and simplicity is explosive) and Kubrick's The Shining is so well-crafted it's as though you're watching nature evolve in front of your eyes. The list goes on and on but recently Aronofsky has made the largest impact. I've always been a fan of his, but Black Swan launched him into my "top favorite directors list". I saw the film five times in theaters. The themes and metaphors resonated deeply. Maybe I was creating my own meaning to the film which made it so jolting. But that's the point right? We have to answer the film's questions ourselves.

CC: You've directed several dozen film shorts, some of which have won some prestigious awards. Tell us about those films.

BH: The first short film to win an international award was Dirty Cops, created in 10th grade. It's a fairly "classic" tale of crooked cops rivaling against a supreme cocaine dealer but every character is around 14 to 15 years old. We all have fake facial hair and everything is simply over-the-top with exaggerated punching sounds and numerous surreal elements. The Kenneyville Clown was a type of Twilight Zone-esque episode where a young man's prank involving the ghost of a dead clown becomes real and turns on him. Kenneyville stemmed from this concept but changed immensely through numerous drafts. Happy Now is a ten-minute short which was created after film school. It's about a future society where the government experiments on prison inmates to create an "amplified" antidepressant to force upon the nation. This was the first short film to reach a caliber of professionalism that I considered at an entirely different level than the others. Prepped for Life is about a woman giving birth to a full-grown teenager who literally eats money. An obvious metaphor. It's the first film I shot on 35mm. There are many other shorts before and in-between but these are the ones that stand out the most.

CC: The story about the evolution of the Kenneyville script is intriguing. It started as another short film, I believe, and morphed into several different scripts. Tell the readers about that process. When did you get the original idea for Kenneyville?

BH: I joined forces with one of my best friends, Geoff Heintzman, to write a feature film script and we decided to use The Kenneyville Clown as a primary "base". The resulting screenplay was entitled Red Dot, about a film that essentially "becomes" haunted. We kept writing and teamed up with Vincent Galvez, a writer/producer in Toronto, which resulted in a script that was so different from Red Dot that it was literally an entirely new film: Babe with a Sword. It's a similar story to Kenneyville but involves a massive amount of special effects and science fiction elements like an ancient idol that completely possesses peoples' minds. Finally, more tweaks were made which transformed it into what is now Kenneyville. Babe with a Sword is still different enough to be made into its own film. Three scripts emerged from trying to get one film made.

CC: You're not just an independent filmmaker, but you also worked in Hollywood for several years as a camera operator, production assistant, and second assistant director. How did these years laboring in the trenches prepare you for feature filmmaking?

BH: I learned an incredible amount about patience and the value of knowing every position on-set. The crew will usually respect a director who knows their positions over one who doesn't. I learned how other directors worked and how things operated in general. Being on-set for a week was virtually like being in an in-depth university program.

CC: You also secured a major distribution deal for Kenneyville, a coup for any independent filmmaker. As of October 11th, the film is widely available in stores such as Wal-Mart as well as online at Amazon. I'm sure other indie filmmakers would be interested to know how you secured such a deal.

BH: Once the film was edited, we had NO funds for extra post production such as visual FX, sound design, mixing, and color correction. I knew the film would not sell unless it was polished and completed without any technical flaws. We ended up needing to ADR 70% of the film! Long story short; I convinced five companies to work on the film's post-production, completely on deferral. There's no way Kenneyville would have sold without these crucial steps. Once this was done, I made my way to the American Film Market in Santa Monica. I hit the market on my own with about 100 copies of the film, handing them out to sales agents and distributors. There were a number of companies interested but I chose to work with sales agent Jeffrey Cooper at CUT Entertainment out of Los Angeles, a highly specialized sales agency dealing with genre films. It's highly recommended that emerging filmmakers work with a sales agent who has established relationships in the industry versus trying to sell to each territory on his/her own. I followed this advice of course. Jeffrey then sold the film to Media Blasters out of New York City for US and Canadian distribution. Throughout this process, other distributors heard about the film such as Atlas Grove out of Montreal that is now distributing specifically to Canadian broadcast. Jeffrey also recently sold the film to Japan, and other territories will hopefully soon follow suit. The KEY I realized was knowing where to "draw the line". You don't want to rush in and just work with anyone but you also don't want to wait and miss the opportunity to work with a company that's perfect for your film. You essentially need to "emotionally separate" yourself from the film, put on your distribution hat, and be a very good judge at what "level of distribution" your film is on.

CC: Kenneyville is a deeply personal film for you. It is an attempt to deal with your history of bipolar disorder using a creative outlet. Was the film always going to have these underlying personal elements, or did that evolve as the script evolved?

BH: It started with mental health elements as a broad inspiration without molding the story specifically around them. As time went on, I noticed the script was getting increasingly closer to being metaphorical for my harder times with bipolar disorder although I didn't want to make an announcement about it. I finally was able to clearly see the many metaphors there really were once I watched the final product, thus, writing out a brief explanation of this on www.kenneyville.com. I must state that the film essentially is an abstract expression of the darker feelings I had at the time that were occurring. It's not a representation of how I see all of this now. Going through the "darker times" has ultimately been a blessing; a road to greater appreciation and understanding of myself and life. I'm also very grateful for psychiatry throughout all of this. The film seems to portray scientists/doctors as "bad" but that's really an expression of the distorted perception taking place when the feelings were at their worst.

CC: Without giving away any surprises, can you describe a scene or two in the film that were directly influenced by your history with bipolar disorder? Did you find that the filmmaking process effectively helped you deal with your past?

BH: There's a hallucination scene where Kelly walks upstairs to what pretty much turns into an alternate dimension. This scene doesn't literally showcase something I "saw" or "heard". It's about the abstract confusion and fear that was felt. It's as though something terrible was constantly coming and I was heading into eternal darkness. Not the most comfortable place to be! The scenes that deal specifically with drugs are quite representative of being placed on medication when I didn't want to be. It was a good thing in the end but at the time I definitely didn't see it that way.

CC: You were deeply involved at all levels of the filmmaking process. Is there one part--directing, writing, editing or producing--that you like better than the others?

BH: I definitely like directing the most. Being able to visualize a story in my head and then bringing that to life is crazy. I love it. So if I had to choose just one role, that would definitely be it. Writing takes second place.

CC: Can you tell us about any future projects your production company has planned?

BH: The most developed original ideas are a feature version of Happy Now and a currently untitled story where a complex disease transforms human beings into animals which ignites cataclysmic levels of discrimination. I'm also attached to direct two scripts currently being written by very talented writers; a dramedy, Doctor Sweetleaf, by Si Si Penaloza and a thriller, Me and a Gun, by Martin Jagodzinski. These projects are still in development so the next film has not been confirmed just yet. We'll see how things progress. I know something will soon come to fruition to move into production in the near future.

British actress Kacey Barnfield knew what she wanted to do from an early age: act. Her mother supported her and got her into acting classes. Her talents showed through and Kacey was cast in BBC’s long running school drama “Grange Hill”. She and her character, Maddie Gilkes, grew up in front of the camera and on television screens across Britain. When her run on the show ended after six years, she graduated to roles on other hit shows like “The Bill” and “Casualty”. That wasn’t enough for Kacey, so she jumped across the pond and exploded on the screen in Paul Anderson’s RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE(2010). Now living in L.A. Kacey has faced giant alligators in LAKE PLACID 3 and gypsy curses in ROADKILL. Her latest role in the SyFy original movie JABBERWOCK has her opposite Michael Worth (GOD’S EARS and DUAL). The film, directed by Steven R. Monroe (I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE and DUAL), has the young actress once again facing peril, but also kicking some butt as well. Now Kacey has taken a break from fighting zombies, gators and other diabolic beasts to talk with B Movie Man Nic Brown about working with CGI, her career, and how living in Hollywood is inspiring her writing talents!

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Nic - Kacey, your new film JABBERWOCK is getting ready to premiere on the SyFy channel. Can you tell us a little about it?

Kacey - JABBERWOCK is medieval creature feature about a small village attacked by a dragon-like monster, right out of the work of Lewis Carroll. I play Anabel. She’s the love interest of Francis (Tahmoh Penikett) who, along with his brother Alec (Michael Worth), have to save the village from the monster. I start out as kind of a reserved character, but towards the end, I get to kick some butt, so that was really fun.


Nic - JABBERWOCK, like a lot of sci-fi and horror films today, features computer-generated images and special effects, especially for the monsters. Do you find it difficult to work with something that isn’t there?

Kacey - Well I’ve worked on quite a few films that used CGI, like RESIDENT EVIL: AFTERLIFE and LAKE PLACID 3 as well as JABBERWOCK and it isn’t that hard. I mean it’s a little strange sometimes, but you just have to use your imagination for it. So when you’re running for your life from the monster, you just have to see it in your head and know that it’s there chasing you.
It is interesting though because the image you get in your head when you’re making the film is very different from the one that the tech guys put together in the finished film. A lot of times, unless we have an advanced showing or get to see a rough cut, we don’t get to see the monster any sooner than the audience when the film premieres.


Nic - Where did you shoot JABBERWOCK?

Kacey - We filmed for three weeks in Bulgaria. It was very different. I love to travel and that’s one of the nice things about being an actor, sometimes you do get to go to new places… places you might not normally think of going to, like Bulgaria.
Bulgaria was beautiful and we had such diverse weather while we were shooting. One week it was sunny, and then it was snowing. That was particularly nice because you’ll see the scenes in the forests where they are covered with snow. Finally, during the third week, we had gale force winds and it just about blew us and the sets away!
It’s also different when you go as part of a film project because you’re there with the rest of the cast and crew and it’s almost like a little bubble. You get to bond with everyone on the set and everyone working on JABBERWOCK was great so we became close working together.


Nic - You’ve been doing quite a few features this year. You did another SyFy original film earlier this year called ROADKILL didn’t you?

Kacey - Yes I did. It aired last April and I believe it was just released on DVD. It’s kind of a JEEPERS CREEPERS type movie. We filmed it in Ireland. It’s about a group of friends driving through the countryside and they accidentally run over a gypsy woman who curses them, and they are chased by a flying creature.


Nic - Despite the fact that you have been in so many horror and sci-fi films, that’s not where you got your start is it?

Kacey - No, I actually started on television back in London. I played Maddie Gilkes in the show “Grange Hill” and that was really where I learned a lot about acting. It was almost like going to school, which was funny because the show was a drama set in a school, and I started on it when I was 11 and finished at 17. It gave me so much experience.


Nic - Was it tough for you to make the change from playing the same character over and over for so long, to working in films where you don’t stick with one character for more than the film?

Kacey - Well it’s different, but it’s all part of being an actor, learning to become the characters. On “Grange Hill”, I literally grew up in front of the camera, so in some ways that character became a part of me. But then you do films and you have to find those characters too, and you don’t have years to do it either. It was great experience though, and it allowed me to graduate to doing film, and then I had the opportunity to come to America and start working in film here. I’ve been out here in L.A. for six months and I’m loving it.


Nic - Do you have any other projects in the works now that you might want to talk about?

Kacey - Actually, I’m talking with Michael Worth about doing an independent project with him that he’d like to start shooting in San Francisco in a few months, but I can’t say much more about it.


Nic - We’ve been talking movies and acting, but what do you like to do when you’re not in front of the camera?

Kacey - I love to travel. But you know I’m also a bit of a home body. I especially enjoy getting back to England to see my family, having the nice roast dinner on a Sunday with them, kind of ‘homey’. It’s nice and I do it as often as I can. I also I enjoy reading… and writing.


Nic - Oh, what do you like to write?

Kacey - I’ve done some poetry, and I’m also about half way finished with a novel I’ve been working on for about three years. Recently I’ve started working on film scripts too. I mean I’m here in L.A. and I have all these great contacts, so why not? I love having the chance to be creative.
 

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Links:

http://kacey-barnfield.com

http://twitter.com/#!/kaceylbarnfield

Actresses are a dime a dozen with very few of them having the chops and Old Hollywood flavor to truly catapult them into the mainstream or at least into our mind's eye, long after we've seen them perform. Thankfully, that is not the case with Theresa Meeker. The gorgeous starlet of "Look," the award-winning avant-garde short film by Ryan Pickett (reviewed last month) was very generous to take some time out of her busy schedule to sit down and answer a few questions about her role in the film as well as her outlook on acting in general.

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MS: Let's start out by having you tell us a bit about yourself and how you came to be an actress.

TM: While I was growing up I loved reading and writing. Some of my favorite books, such as "Harriet the Spy" and "Matilda," which I read dozens of times, were turned into movies. I thought that I could have played the protagonist better because I knew the character so well. I’ve been acting my whole life. My family, including my aunt who was a make-up artist for movies and network television, really encouraged me to pursue acting. I started out modeling. Immediately I wanted to move to New York and get some acting training as well as meet some filmmaking professionals. I traveled to Los Angeles to audition and there I realized that my closest network of filmmakers was actually in Nashville, TN. Even though Nashville doesn’t have a big film industry, there are plenty of aspiring filmmakers who fall back on being music video directing to make a living.

MS: Who are some of your favorite actors and how have they influenced your work?

TM: While examining Keira Knightley’s "Coco Mademoiselle" commercial was inspirational for my role in "Look," I often examine Rachel Weisz, Emma Watson, Anouk Aimée and Parker Posey to see how natural they are on camera.

MS: What does acting mean to you and what goals do you hope to achieve through your work?

TM: Acting means to me that I reveal my heart and soul in front of other people while I do the most mundane things as well as things I typically wouldn’t want them to see. I hope my acting shows people that they can pause and examine the small beautiful things in life.

MS: How did you come to be involved with "Look?"

TM: I came to be involved with "Look" shortly after Ryan was chosen as a top five finalist in the Race to Be film entrepreneurship competition hosted by media mogul Russell Simmons at Sony Pictures Studios in Los Angeles. I knew Ryan was going places with his film career, which was important to me because I had just studied at Michael Howard Studios as well as Larry Singer Studios with some pretty talented instructors. I wanted to be in a film that would take my career to the next level. I started talking about my goals with Ryan, while he was excited to develop a film that could showcase my abilities.

MS: Considering Director Ryan Pickett is your husband, you're obviously more privy to information that we, the audience are not, but if you could put yourself in our shoes for a moment, imagine you've just seen "Look," how would you describe what you've just seen?

TM: If I were describing "Look" from the point of view of the audience, I would say that it is a dream-inspired short film that examines the vivid and extravagant imagination of a barmaid while it utilizes beautiful visuals and a harmonious score. There’s really only one main bit of dialogue when Emma (Starina Johnson) says, “Beauty exists in the mind that contemplates it. It’s in the blink of an eye we find it and in the blink of an eye we lose it.” Anyone could relate to that line, including those going through a break up, insecure teens and unrequited lovers as well as new parents. I’m a new mom to a 17-month-old girl. In the blink of an eye the most beautiful thing I have in my life, my daughter is developing while if I close my eyes too long she’ll be heading off to college. I’ve really enjoyed being privy to information about "Look" while Ryan really left its meaning up to interpretation. There are so many different ways that people could think about "Look" without being wrong in their analysis of it.

MS: Who is your character and what is her relation to the story?

TM: My character is confident in her appearance, while everyone is in awe of her beauty. The objective my character has is to get everyone to admire her while she doesn’t have to work very hard for their admiration.

MS: Describe the actor/director dynamic between you and Ryan on set. 

TM: While Ryan was wonderful to work with, he communicated very clearly to all of the actors. I knew I was really comfortable with Ryan being behind the camera already, which made me really excited to be there. I enjoyed seeing Ryan so calm and collected, while sometimes other directors have seemed scattered on set.

MS: You're also credited as an "associate producer" on "Look." What responsibilities did you have on set and did they come in conflict with those you had as an actress?

TM: I was credited as an associate producer on "Look" because I secured a location when the original location that Ryan wanted was unavailable. My responsibilities as an associate producer didn’t conflict with those I had as an actress. I had previously seen this beautiful urban photo studio where I badly wanted to do a photo shoot, although I was too poor to get a professional photographer to take my pictures there. When the crew and cast began arriving we found all this plastic laying around because there had been construction going on there all week. Ryan and I loved the location because of the view overlooking Nashville, which we couldn’t see with all the construction. One of the main windows was boarded up and covered with plastic. Luckily Ryan was able to make the set work for "Look," while he actually got a discount on the location for the mess.

MS: How do you go about preparing for any given role you receive?

TM: I typically go about preparing for any given role I receive by examining the context and by analyzing my objective. I like to know how my role fits into the entire story as well as what my character is trying to achieve.

MS: Do you have any hard limits as an actress? That is to say, is there any kind of role or situation that you wouldn't feel comfortable doing?

TM: Sure, there’s plenty roles and situations that I wouldn’t be comfortable doing. I’m studying to be an elementary education teacher at Vanderbilt University Peabody College, which is the number one school for education. So I want my next project to be very family friendly. Plus, I’m a mom and wife now so I’d really want to do something that would make my family proud.

MS: Do you have any new projects in the pipeline?

TM: I recently won about $1100 worth of filmmaking software from a Student Filmmakers raffle. So who knows, maybe I’ll start writing something.

MS: If someone wanted to get in touch with you regarding a project, how would they go about doing that?

TM: The best way to get in contact me would be twitter.com/theresa_pickett or through ryanpickettproductions.com.