Last year, I had the chance to see a small indie film from Quebec called Coming Home that really blew me away. The story of a snuff film maker whose past catches up with him, while short is incredibly powerful. Now, last month, I caught the trailer for Thanatomorphose, a test trailer for a bigger movie that should be equally amazing! Both of these (and there are other) cool movies come from the incredible mind of filmmaker Eric Falardeau, so I just had to sit down and find out what makes him tick!

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BM – Thanks for taking the time.

EF – Thank you.

BM - How did you get started?

EF - I was born in Val D’Or, a small town in Northern Quebec. I spent my childhood in a nearby town, Senneterre. There wasn’t a lot to do there, but we had a great public TV channel and my father used to make me watch a lot of films. I discovered a lot of the American and European classics by watching TV. I remember clearly the first time I saw Parker’s Angel’s Heart, De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise and Herzog’s Nosferatu. Of course, the video store provided all the b-stuff a young boy wanted to see: mostly horror and action movies. This is probably why I have a great art-house sensibility combined with a strong love of genre cinema. I was also reading a lot of books and magazines (French magazines and English ones like Fangoria). I started writing little comic books and stuff. Then, one day, a bunch of friends and I decided to shoot a film with my dad’s VHS camcorder. The result was awful but I fell in love with cinema. After some studies in psychology, I took courses in cinema at the Univesité de Montréal and I directed, with my long-time partner Benoît Lemire, several short films – almost only comedies - as a member of the world-renowned Kino movement. I also did my Master’s degree. My thesis was on porn and horror film and that lead me to my first solo directing effort: La petite mort (mini-DV, 2005, 3 min.).

BM – What is La petite mort about?

EF - La petit mort is closely link to my master’s thesis on porn and gore. It was made as a traditional ‘’slasher’’ scene and therefore as a direct homage and comment on the way those scenes are shot. Everybody who has watched such horror films knows that those scenes are in many ways the raison d’être of the genre. I mean, why bother watching a horror film if there’s no horrors depicted? The same thing happens in porn films but on a different level. Again, those films are built around sex scenes just like horror films are built around murder scenes. In simple terms, the viewer’s pleasure comes from those particular moments and the whole narrative – the story and the ways to tell it - must lead to them. In both horror and porn films, the set-pieces are shot the same way. In both cases, the editing switches from a close-up of the action that causes pleasure (a meat-shot in porn) or pain (like a knife cutting the flesh in horror) to a close-up of the character’s reaction (pain or pleasure). Those shots are traditionally intercut with a medium or long shot so that the viewer is enable to see and appreciate what’s going on. Moreover, the whole set-piece closes with blood spurting on the walls – to illustrate death - or the famous cum shot in porn (or money shot) – to illustrate orgasm. La petite mort is exactly made as a traditional set-piece: a woman, a man, a knife, an action. The shots alternate between action and reaction. It also ends with a character dying and some blood spurting. The only difference between my film and a regular horror/slasher/gore or porn one is that it addresses directly to the viewer moral judgement and his viewer’s position. To further enhance my point, I decided to mix sex and horror together explicitly. A lot of renowned directors have made the visual parallel before me (David Cronenberg, Jörg Büttgereit, Dario Argento to name a few) except that I’ve pushed it to its logical extremes (like a wound which could be seen as resembling a vagina). In La petite mort, death is literally orgasm and orgasm is literally death. A lot of horror films suggest that link between sex and death but few really question it directly.

BM - What filmmakers are your inspirations?

EF - Inspiration is everywhere! First thing of all, apart from films, I think that one must read a lot to find inspiration. Books are a good guideline for plots’ structure and storytelling’s devices when one writes his script. As a DOP I tried to look closely at how light is worked in paintings and photos. Of course, as a director I want to see as much films as possible! A writer reads books to write better and a filmmaker watches films to make better ones. The bad ones are sometime the best to learn from to see what not to do or just find good, badly or unused ideas. This said, I must admit I worship the work of Dario Argento. He works like a painter. He uses lighting and blood spurts like a painter uses colors and movements. For the opposite reasons I have a profound fondness for the films of Japanese master Ozu Yasujiro. In his films everything is so precise, calculated, but so true. I’m sad each time I watch Tokyo Story. It is by far one of my favorite films. Another one is Joseph Losey’s The Servant. I love Jörg Buttgereït, David Cronenberg, Derek Jarman, Kim Ki-Duk…

BM – Can you give us an example of a bad movie that gave you a great idea?

EF - Ha! That’s a tricky one! No, frankly, it is always small thing like a shot, a plot device, lighting or an editing trick. For example, let’s take La morte vivante by Jean Rollin. I love is films. For me, they aren’t bad movies. Unfortunately, for most people, they are. His films are visual. That makes them pretty boring and confused sometime because the story comes after the surreal imagery. That said, the last scene of La morte vivante was a direct influence for both the ending of Purgatory and Coming Home. In both cases, I asked actors to watch what I think is one of the best ending in horror films’ history. It is a hard scene, full of gore and tragedy! That is great cinema! Same thing for La femme vampire by Jess Franco. It is boring, but my god the idea is excellent! And Lina Romay is fantastic! Or the music in Vampyros Lesbos… We’ll you get the point!

BM - You seem to shoot exclusively on film, is that for effect?  Would you ever switch to any digital format?

EF - I almost exclusively shoot my projects on Super 8 mm film for two reasons. First, it gives a ‘’professional’’ look to the film simply because the viewer’s eyes are used to watching real film in theatre and they associate video with TV and documentary. When a film is shot on video, people tend to associate it with low production values. Depth of field, latitude and sharpness are other aspects that are better in film than video. Video is too clean and cold. I like to compare the looks of film and video to the sounds of vinyl and CD. Film and vinyl is warmer, more profound, there is more texture. You feel the materiality of the image or the music. All these factors make a difference when the film is viewed in a theatre. It is almost archaic but cinema is – at least for me - a material affair. The other reason why I choose Super 8 mm is because it is cheaper than 16 mm and 35 mm and it still gives you the same picture quality. It is so easy now to find a good Super 8 mm camera at a low cost. There is one in each family’s attic. You’re saving on equipment rental, transfer, and prints. With the technology it is now easy to transfer your negative or reversal prints on mini-DV and go all the way through a digital workflow. At the end, if you need a film print you just print it back on Super 8 or 16 mm film. The biggest and better change regarding Super 8 mm film is that once the transfer is done on digital tape you can finish the film without going back to the film negative. It saves a lot of time and cost. It is now possible to do film on Super 8 mm and I don’t think that would have been easier just 10 years ago when you would have needed old school editing materials! But, recently, I shot the trailer of Thanatomorphose with the Red One camera. It was a pleasing experience. The results are great. But the Red One is a special case. The only problem is that people tend to rely too much on the monitor and the fact that they can watch the footage just after a take. It slows the shooting and, weirdly, gives less confidence to the actors because they know they can watch themselves. Digital filmmaking has an impact on every aspect of filmmaking. We have to rethink the entire workflow each time we start a new project. Digital advancements also allow us to improve the production value of our projects for a fraction of the price. They enable us to do special effects, color timing, multiple versions when editing, etc. But one must understand something: these are only tools and it doesn’t give talent or a good story if someone as neither of them. Each time new technology hits the market – colors film for example – there are still good and bad films. And this is especially true in the all too easy to access and overcrowded short films market. It all depends on the director, the DOP, and the film’s team.

BM - You're latest, Thanatomorphose, is an amazing trailer.  When will you make it into an entire movie?

EF - We shot the trailer to help raising funds. People are visuals. You must show them how it will look like. Then they are confident and want to read the script. There are so many people who have an idea or a script looking for money… you must do something to stand apart. Producers and private investors don’t have time to listen to every idea or to read all the script. I don’t have time myself and I’m not even solicited! This said, we wanted to shoot the trailer to introduce people to the project and what we’re able to do with a shoestring budget. We’re currently searching for a producer or private investors. It is a small budget, ensemble cast film. If we can find enough money we could shoot the film next summer or fall. It will take time to do the special effects right. I plan a release at the end of 2010 or the start of 2011. This winter we’ll shoot my first stop motion animated short films Crépuscule. That is where website like Rogue Cinema and the viewer can make a difference. It enough people want to see the film, then someone somewhere will find money to do it! So please help us! Go to our Facebook group and our website www.thanatofilms.com Talk about the films to everyone you know, blog about it, anything. That is the only way independent filmmakers can compete the overcrowded Hollywood craps that take all the space on the shelves, on the web and in magazines.

BM – I couldn’t agree more, indie stuff is much better and so often overlooked. Can you tell us about Crepuscule?

EF – Crépuscule is a stop-motion animated short about a group of angel-like creatures living in perfect symbiosis with their environment. When a man and a woman break into their boring and regulated world, the creatures slowly start to live again and discover the differences between their bodies and these of the Humans; differences they desperately want to possess. It is a mix between Robert Morgan, Jan Svankmajer and Patrick Bouchard (go see his film Les ramoneurs cérébraux on the www.nfb.ca - National Film Board of Canada now). There is a lot of gore. We’ll animate blood, rain and a lot of unconventional materials like meat. I’m really excited about this project. I’ve been working on it for so long! We did animation’s tests last week with main animator Simon Beaupré and they were great, Expect them to show up, with making of, on my website soon (www.thanatofilms.com).
,br> BM – Have you ever worked with stop motion before or is this your first time?

EF - I’m a stop motion animation virgin! But I have a great team and I’m learning a lot. I think that one of the most important things in filmmaking is telling the story the way it needs to be. Each story has a life. A feel, and that command the technical choice and format. Digital? Film? Live action? Animation? Widescreen of full screen? Long story short, Crépuscule needs to be a stop motion animated film. If we do it any other way the film will suffer.

BM - So far, you seem to work in the short film style.  Any thoughts on doing a full length feature?

EF - That’s what Thanatomorphose is all about! But in order to do it right, planning is the key!

BM – How far along are you in the planning of Thanatomorphose?

EF - Right now, I’m doing the final corrections on the script and we’re starting both the budget and shooting plan. That said, my first draft of the script enable me to estimate the budget and the shooting. We’ll be fully ready in a month and a half or so. Then, it’s finding the money! But we already started that.

BM - And how far in advance do you prepare a film before starting production?

EF - It all depends on the production. Is there a lot of special effects? Technical stuff? Actors to find? Logistic problems? Usually, for a short film, it is between 2 months and 5 months on and off. As I said, we all work to make a living so we do this in our spare time. For example, when we did Coming Home we had to find a desolate road in the middle of nowhere. We also had to find somewhere that could look like a front jail. Just these do things (and asking for city’s authorizations) took us time. For Crépuscule it is different. We have to test stuff, create the puppets, plan each shot carefully… It is longer.

BM - Most of your shorts are in the horror genre, except for Le Cycle.  Why the shift?

EF - For two reasons. The first one has to do with Le Cycle’s long post production history. First, it was shot during the summer of 2006. I had previously shot Purgatory (summer 2005 – release date: April 2006) and was getting ready to shot Coming Home (winter 2007 – release date: February 2008). I wanted to take a break from my regular style. I think my style involves long shot, film print, strong emotions and visceral impact). The idea was to do something less hard between the two films; to just have fun, experiment and, for once, don’t harm the viewer! One must not forget that a hard emotional film for the viewer is as hard on the writer/director. So, it was supposed to be a quickie: a two days shoot, a few weeks of post production and then the release. Fortunately, it didn’t end up this way. I got caught in the pre production and production processes of Coming Home. Then, I felt the urge to finish Coming Home; which took a full year working part time on it (we all have regular jobs). At the same time, Benoît Lemire, Le Cycle’s editor and digital effects artist, was struggling hard to make the film look as I wanted. We shot during the day and I wanted a day for night bluish effect. We didn’t have special effects software like After Effects. Long story short, we worked on and off the project for two years before finding the look we wanted and then it took us a few months. We finally released it last June. Also, I always wanted to do a film belonging to the fantastique tradition. This I did with Le cycle. This film is intended to be very unheimlich, strange, almost animistic. Antonioni’s L’Eclisse was a major reference in creating the atmosphere and particularly the sense of constant danger emanating from the forest. Like the city in Antonioni’s film, the forest needed to be an important character. To do so, we focused on the sounds. The soundtrack was very carefully created. The sounds were carefully chosen and used. I also wanted the overall strangeness of the CGE by doing a monochromatic computer generated day for night. It adds to the overall creepiness and weirdness of the film and the environment. A similar thing might be say about the repetition - with slight differences or no one at all - of shots. It enhances the ideas of repetition, circularity, and claustrophobia.

BM - What are you working on right now?

EF - I’ve just finished my new short, Le Cycle. It will have its premiere in Spain in November. I’m also raising funds for my next short film, a stop motion animated film entitled Crépuscule (Dawn). It will be shot this winter in HD for a subsequent 35 mm blow-up. I’m looking for ways to fund my first feature length film, Thanatomorphose, which I want to shoot in 16 mm or Super 16 mm. Both are art-house horror films. The first one is more fantastic and mythological while the second has a realistic plot and setting. When will they be done? It all depends on funding!!!! But one thing is sure, I’ll make them whenever happen. If there’s anyone out there interested…

BM – I’m sure that there are a ton of people interesting, and if they’re not, then after seeing the trailer, they will be! Thanks, Eric.

EF – Thank you.

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Eric’s Thanatomorphose has the potential to be one of the coolest indie movies ever made, between Eric’s film style and the believable storyline, I, for one, can’t wait to see this movie! We here at Rogue Cinema will keep our eye on Eric and keep all of you informed about what this talented up and coming filmmakers has in store for us all. You can keep track of Eric for yourself by marking his website, ThanatoFilms.com.