An Interview with Paul Busetti - By Josh Samford

Interviews: An Interview with Paul Busetti - By Josh Samford
Posted on Wednesday, April 01, 2009 @ 21:43:13 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

Last month I had the joy of reviewing Paul Busetti's latest short film, Cannibal Cheerleader Camp. An intelligent redeclaration of the modern slasher, especially within the indie film community. After sitting through the film, for which you can read my review here, I knew this Busetti gentleman was an interesting character and he was kind enough to answer a few questions I had to throw at him. He's a great guy with an excellent film that everyone needs to check out ASAP!

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Rogue Cinema: For those who aren't familiar with your work or Ten Sundays Productions, how did you get involved in the world of filmmaking?

Paul Busetti: If you want to be a doctor, you go to med school. If you want to make movies, you go to work in a video store. They give you as much of your favorite drug as you can take for free, there's no responsibility, and they pay you to talk about movies all day long. In 2004, I had been working there for 4 years. I was doing some writing but basically just waiting for something to come along. I got sick of waiting and realized that if you want to be a director, you have to exercise that muscle. You can't just sit around and whine about what you deserve. You have to show people you mean business. We made a short in the spring of '04 called The Clockmaker which was a horror film of sorts about a family man who gets away with murder. We shot it, cut it, a friend recorded the score, and we held a theatrical premiere when it was all done. Myself and (Ten Sundays Productions co-founder) Ian Albetski fell in love with the amount of control you have in low budget film making at that level (often referred to as microcinema). It's a totally different animal because you're not dealing with insurance, permits, or unions. You don't have an art department. You are the art department. The film is never for a second out of your hands. On that first shoot 5 years ago, we developed the style and that has been consistent on all the projects since.

Rogue Cinema: At any point in your life was there a film that made you stop and just say "wow, that's what I want to do! I want to tell stories"?

Paul Busetti: Back to the Future and Raiders of the Lost Ark both gave me an incredible feeling when I was younger and they still do. They made me want to be Marty McFly and Indiana Jones more than tell a story. I was just a kid and didn't have a story to tell yet. When you get a little older, you think more about film and become a fan of different directors. I was really attracted to the French New Wave directors that came from Cahiers du cinema and also the Hollywood Movie Brats of the late 60's early 70's. In 1999 I saw American Beauty and Fight Club within days of each other and they were very effective because they both dealt with the frustration and inadequacy of the modern American man. When you grow up and you do have a story to tell, then you start thinking about film as a way to get it out of your system.

Rogue Cinema: Cannibal Cheerleader Camp just rings of being made by a fellow horror-geek, have you always been a big fan of the horror genre?

Paul Busetti: I was hooked the day I saw David Cronenberg's The Fly. I used to walk down to the video store near my house and walk back with as many horror tapes as I could carry. Argento, Lucio Fulci, Mario Bava, Takashi Miike, Romero, Polanski, Raimi, John Carpenter, William Lustig. Troma movies always had the best titles and the best covers. There were so much to consume. Horror was like this pornography that you were forbidden to see but every once in a while at a sleepover a friend would whip out a VHS copy of It's Alive.

Rogue Cinema: With a film titled "Cannibal Cheerleader Camp", were you worried about any kind of backlash from any horror geeks that might not get the joke?

Paul Busetti: A little bit. Obviously it's modeled after the common hyperbole in titles like Slumber Party Massacre and Sorority House Massacre. I was more worried that people who only heard the title would assume it was a parody. I think it's pretty clear from the opening titles that it's a tribute and not a send up.

Rogue Cinema: When starting the project, what were your overall intentions for Cannibal Cheerleader Camp? Were there any overall goals you set for yourself?

Paul Busetti: Some of the films I had made before Cannibal had aspects horror in them, but I hadn't made a straight horror film yet. I've got some serious films I'd like to do, but before that, I want to have fun and get nice and bloody. I just wanted to put it out there and see what the diehard fans had to say. It's certainly not something I made or anyone worked on to make money, get into festivals, or raise money for a bigger project. Anything good that comes from this is just icing. This is something that the 14 year old me would get a kick out of.

Rogue Cinema: I spoke about it in my review, but the film feels like it is pulling from the slasher films of the eighties - but re-imagining them through a more stylized lens with a little more focus on cinema aesthetic than just cheap blood and boobs (which are great in their own right, of course). Was this intentional?

Paul Busetti: Definitely. I don't think you can try to recreate that formula without tampering with it. If you're intentionally suppressing your own style and just adhere to what's worked before, then you're trying too hard. I love what guys like Chris Seaver, DSK, and Troma do, but if I tried to copy what they were doing, It would be phony. There's a cinematic style I like and if that doesn't gel with the way slasher films of that era look, then so be it. I was more interested in mimicking the general themes and pace of those movies than the overall aesthetic.

Rogue Cinema: The film was made on a $700.00 budget?... Seriously!?

Paul Busetti: Seriously. Everyone on that set worked for free. We've compiled a decent amount of equipment over the years so we own the gear. The money spent went to essentials like food, props, wardrobe, FX material (Karo syrup, liquid latex), and tape stock. When you finish a script, make a list of every prop, location, and piece of wardrobe you need and circulate it to everyone you know to see what people have available. Not only will you have less to buy, but everyone who helped out will now have a personal stake in the movie. Ian owns the cabin we shot in, otherwise we never could have brought it in for under a grand. Because I only use a 2 man crew, there are no hired hands on set. Everyone there really wants to be there. There's no fat. If I want to spend an hour getting an insert shot of a doorknob, I can do it and nobody is telling me we don't have time. You're going to be poring over this footage for months and living with the material forever, take the time on set to get it right. To this day, Ten Sundays Productions has never spent more than $2000 on a movie, and that includes the feature film Boxing Day.

Rogue Cinema: If you don't mind my asking, what kind of equipment did you use for the film? Camera/Editing Software/Whatever?

Paul Busetti: Cannibal was shot on the Panasonic DVX100b miniDV camera. It's getting cliched because almost every single low budget film is shot on either the DVX or the HD version the HVX200, but it's still a very solid camera even after being on the market for years. I cut the film on my PC and used the Adobe suite of post production software. Premiere Pro 1.5 for picture editing, After Effects for color correction, Audition for sound editing, and I authored the DVD with Encore 1.5. We had about a 40:1 shooting ratio and the first rough cut took about 2 1/2 months to compile. We used only practical lights on set and swapped out bulbs for higher wattage. Buy some cheap hardware lights that you can clip anywhere and build your own dimmer switches. Much more efficient than lugging around Kino Flos.

Rogue Cinema: How on earth did you persuade these gorgeous women to help you make this movie? And how do I get my game up to that level?

Paul Busetti: They got all the free cigarettes and knee socks they could handle. I had worked with Bridget & Tara before. I met Kerry & Becca on a horror set I was working on the previous month. I'm very fortunate that these tremendously talented, gorgeous women also happen to be incredibly down to earth and fun. We all lived together and it was very much a camp atmosphere. There wasn't much persuasion but it was an unwritten law that if you kept your clothes on, you were instead going to be covered in blood for hours. So it's a compromise. Your game will be fine as long as you're straight with anyone you want to work with. Just don't try and snow people and they'll trust you. If that doesn't work you can always go through their purses. I've found that girls love that.

Rogue Cinema: Ahh, free cigarettes, knee socks and rummaging through their purses! That's the key! Now I just need a camera and a script that revolves around one massive love scene featuring a dozen beautiful women and myself. Were there any regrets with Cannibal? Anything you wish you could have done better? Maybe that shotgun blast scene you guys talked about over the commentary track?

Paul Busetti: There are small regrets, no gigantic ones. The shotgun scene is a great example. In the scene, Darcy (Jenna St. John) takes aim and fires a shotgun into the leg of the killer. At first she's relieved and begins to reload. When she hears no scream and watches as the blood pools around the boot of the killer, she realizes that she is dealing with something that is not human. To achieve the effect of a chunk of flesh being blown of the leg, we constructed a fake leg, filling it with raw meat, bone, and blood bags. Then Ian prepared to fire a live round of birdshot into the leg from about 2 feet away. Everyone was curious about what was going to happen, so foolishly we all gathered around to watch. We succeeded in making a mess of the kitchen, but the shot turned out to be unusable. Luckily nobody was hurt. Often times on low budget shoots when you're doing a special effect that involves blood and gore, you only get one chance to get it right. That time we miscalculated.

Rogue Cinema: Any words of advice for other independent filmmakers who want to make their own horror films?

Paul Busetti: Don't force anything. If people aren't excited about the script, they won't be excited on set. Find people who love horror. Work on larger sets and see how time is wasted and watch directors get railroaded into decisions by their crew. You'll get fed and you can learn from other people's mistakes for free. Become an expert in as many things as possible so you can become self reliant. Have fun. If it's not fun, you might as well do any other job.

Rogue Cinema: What's next for you as a director and Ten Sundays in general?

Paul Busetti: I'm working on a feature length horror script titled Dysphonia. It's about a pregnant mute girl who plans her revenge against the evil twins who had her committed to a sadistic mental hospital. It's basically Ms. 45 meets Dead Ringers. It's going to be a real bloodbath. The company is still shilling for all the past films. We've got a new one coming out on DVD April 1. It's a propaganda kung fu exploitation horror comedy called Abraham Lincoln. Anyone interested in anything past, present or future should check out the website www.tensundays.com.

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Thanks go to Paul for being so generous with his words for the interview and thanks to the great people at Ten Sundays. Cannibal Cheerleader Camp was an awesome short and I hope nothing but the best for Ten Sundays. Head on over to their website and get your Read on!