EXCLUSIVE DEAD HARVEY INTERVIEW with JACOB COONEY, director of "The Frolic"

"The Frolic" is based on the Tom Ligotti short story of the same name. It's a supernatural thriller about a prison psychologist who uncovers a deadly supernatural force in one of his inmate patients, the child loving murderer, John Doe.

Dead Harvey had the pleasure of downing some beers with Jacob Cooney, the director of "The Frolic" as he filled us in on how he got his first directing gig roughly three months after receiving his B.A. As the ale flowed, he talked about the process of adapting the short story from the great Tom Ligotti and how he secured the actors and other necessary elements to make such a well executed flick. Cooney is down to earth, well spoken, intelligent and down-right inspiring. The performance he gets out of the villain, (Maury Sterling) will send a brutal chill down your spine. And with the reverence he gives to the author's material, I hope Hollywood gives this guy a shot at a big budget adaptation. Dead Harvey hopes you enjoy the interview as much as we did.

Clip 1 - Adapting A Short Story
Clip 2 - A Supernatural Vibe
Clip 3 - Adapting On A Budget
Clip 4 - Adapting On A Budget II
Clip 5 - Ligotti's Opinion Of Frolic
Clip 6 - How The Frolic Got Financed
Clip 7 - The Road To Directing
Clip 8 - Film School: Yes or No
Clip 9 - Making It
Clip 10 - Film School: Yes or No II
Clip 11 - Shawshank Was The Clincher
Clip 12 - 1st Big Break
Clip 13 - The Casting Process
Clip 14 - A SAG Agreement
Clip 15 - What Was It Shot On?
Clip 16 - The Look
Clip 17 - The Locations
Clip 18 - Directing Style
Clip 19 - Approaching The Actors

For more information on Jacob Cooney and "The Frolic", you go to Myspace page here. To buy a copy of The Frolic, you can get it off the Wonder Entertainment site here.

EXCLUSIVE DEAD HARVEY INTERVIEW with PAUL CAMPION, writer/director of "Night of the Hell Hamsters" and "Eel Girl"

Another Dead Harvey Exclusive... this time, Brad speaks with up and coming writer/director Paul Campion about his two award winning short films, "Night of the Hell Hamsters" and "Eel Girl".

Brad Paulson - I received two awesome movies from New Zealand director, Paul Campion: "Night of the Hell Hamsters" and "Eel Girl". Since I've received these films I've shown them to numerous friends over beers. I don't want to give any spoilers away, I'll just say that when I see a movie where a hamster gets possessed, talks like a psychotic member of Alvin and the chipmunks and attacks crotches with bloody veracity, I just get all warm and fuzzy and want to share it with the world. And then there's, "Eel Girl". Now that's a movie that stays in your mind after you watch. So, do yourselves a favor and check out Campion's films. Dead Harvey guarantees you will not be disappointed. Enjoy the interview.

DH: "Night of the Hell Hampsters" was awesome. gory and funny. It had the feel of Peter Jackson's older, more ballsy work: aka "Bad Taste" and "Meet The Feebles". What was the inspiration for this film as well as, "Eel Girl"?

PC: Hell Hamsters started out as an idea for the 48hour Film festival in New Zealand. We were brainstorming ideas for different genres, and I came up with the idea of the babysitter and her boyfriend fooling around with the occult and summoning up a demon which possesses the family hamsters, which we were going to do with just socks and red beads for eyes. We didn't get to make the film in the festival so I just developed the idea afterwards. The rest of the story really revolved around that scene where the boyfriend is being viciously attacked by the hamster in his pants. I thought it would be hilarious if the only way to save him was to kick him in the nuts. Those two ideas were the basis of the whole plot, and myself and Mike Roseingrave and Hadyn Green, the other two writers just built the story around that, with the intention of making it as entertaining, gory and fun as possible.

The inspiration for Eel Girl came entirely from the music. Friends of mine own a small record label called Superglider and that was one of the songs on an album of theirs. I was listening to it one day and thought it was quite an interesting track, and just started getting ideas for the eel girl in that weird room from the music. The entire film was always meant to be about those visuals combined with the music.

DH: Who are the filmmakers that have inspired you the most and why?

PC: Well, there are so many, but Ridley Scott first and foremost. His visual style for me is second to none; Sam Raimi and Guillermo Del Toro - I love their comic book style - Hell Hamsters was very much meant to be similar in style to Evil Dead 2 and Blade 2 and I'm particularly a fan of Guillermo Del Toro's use of makeup effects; Peter Jackson of course, particularly for Brain Dead and obviously Lord of the Rings, which I worked on; Steven Spielberg and Martin Scorsese- possibly the two greatest filmakers of all time - the way they tell the story with the camera is incredible, and Stanley Kubrick, everything about his films is so incredibly meticulous.

DH: How would you describe your individual style?

PC: I've only made two short films so I'm not sure I've found it yet, but for now I'd like to think of it as good visuals, use of practical effects and makeup combined with a bit of CGI here and there, and overall just entertaining storytelling.

DH: What is your particular method of directing? Any tips?

PC: Yes, lots of preparation, and surround yourself with the most experienced cast and crew you can find and just give them the freedom to do what they do best - it makes the directors job so much easier!

DH: When you wrote, "Eel Girl" and "Hell Hampsters" were you always intending to direct them?

PC: Yes, absolutely, they were always ideas that I wanted to put on film, there was never any intention for someone else to direct them.

DH: How different were the two shorts you made from their scripts? Did everything that you intended to get on the screen end up on the screen? If there's anything different, why?

PC: I think they're pretty much exactly what was written and planned. The difference is that before you start making the film you have a perfect vision of what you want the film to be, but because of the limits of budget and time you never really get exactly what you've got in your head, you have a limited budget and you can only make what you can afford. But the thing I find really interesting is through the collaborative process of making a film you end up with something different and better at the end. It's still the directors vision, but it's the directors vision made with the input of a lot of other very talented people

DH: What was the budget for both movies and how did you secure financing?

PC: (I'd prefer not to talk about exact figures if that's ok?) A friendly bank manager and an even friendlier visa card! The only way both films were made was with a lot of support from the cast and crew who all gave up their time for free. Eel Girl probably wouldn't have happened without the incredible support from Richard Taylor and Weta Workshop.

DH: What did you shoot on and how long of a shoot was it for each movie?

PC: Hell Hamsters was shot on Digibeta and the shoot took 3 days, which I now know is a ridiculously short time to shoot a 15 minute film. Ideally you want to be shooting 2-3 pages of script per day, and we were shooting 5 pages plus makeup effects, puppets and visual effects, but in the end I think the energy that went into that insane shooting schedule ended up with what you see in the finished film.

Eel Girl was a slightly easier affair in that we were only shooting 5 pages of script in 3 days and there was only a tiny bit of dialogue. We were also shooting on a set, so we had much more space and control of the whole environment, plus a larger crew. However Eel Girl was shot on 35mm so that generally takes more time than shooting on tape. A huge amount of time was spent prepping the Eel Girl shoot, so on the day although it was still hard work and stressful, but generally the whole thing went very smoothly, and we even finished a few hours early on the last day.

DH: After it's all said and done, what would you have done differently on one or both movies?

PC: On Hell Hamsters perhaps a longer shoot time might have been less exhausting, but I'm not sure it would have made the film any better, as all the energy of the crazy shoot ended up in the film. On Eel Girl, I'd have liked to have added a bit more detail into the sets, and shot more coverage so we had more to play with in the edit, but that was just a time and money issue like any film.

DH: How's the distribution going? Any lessons learned there? Anything you can pass on to other indie filmmakers who've just finished a film?

PC: Hell Hamsters has just been picked up for distribution by Canadian company Ouat! Media, and Eel Girl is just starting to hit the festival circuit and has already picked up one award. As far as advice goes, if you want people to see your film, you have promote it and get it into film festivals. It's a huge amount of work but it's just all part of the job of filmmaking. We have websites and myspace pages for both films and we keep them regularly updated.

DH: What's next? Do you have any more projects in the works?

PC: Yes, definitely! Myself and Producer Elisabeth Pinto are currently developing two feature films. The first is called Lore of the Jungle written by UK script writer Paul Finch. I can't reveal much about the story yet but it's set in London and involves black magic and re-animated corpses and it's designed to be a very fun entertaining Evil Dead 2/Dusk Till Dawn style film.

The other project is Terminal, which is a supernatural bank heist thriller, based on the novel by US horror author Brian Keene. We've been writing the script for that ourselves.

We took both projects to the Cannes film festival this year and got a lot of interest so we're currently trying to trying to raise financing for both.

For more information on Night of the Hell Hamsters, you can go to the site here or its Myspace page here. For more information on Eel Girl, you can go to the site here or its Myspace page here.

Brad's Drunken Ramblings: Keep The Faith, Indie Filmmakers!

I'm not drunk yet but I'm working on it. I've got some ale in me and I'm about to crack open this over sized flavored malt beverage that's 9.0. Wired and drunk: two great things that go great together.

Today, I had a great interview where I heard yet more tales of trials and tribulations from an indie filmmaker. The process is certainly a pain in the ass from start to finish. You hit your head against the wall while writing the script, you somehow find some way to get everyone together at the same time, then it's all out f'ing war as the shooting begins. Sometime, the casualties are enormous, sometimes manageable. But, after hearing horror story after horror story: aka, the shit they don't tell you in film school: aka, the truth, I can't help but wonder why anyone makes movies (myself included). Why does the indie filmmaker keep getting their asses beat down and getting back up for more?

I believe the answer is because, like my interview confirmed today: it's in the blood. If, after finishing a movie you tell yourself, "Fuck making movies! It's not worth all the bullshit1" Then, when the morning rolls around, you tell yourself, "I can't wait to get started on the next movie." If this is you, you should stop at nothing to make your movie. If not, you should save yourself a lot of misery and disappointment and do one of those jobs people go to school to get paid for.

In short, keep the faith, indie filmmakers! Life is painful, but short. Movies will be around a lot longer than we will, and we'll always regret not making more of them. Bring on the obstacles: divas, a-holes, acts of nature, drug addicts, those shitty jobs we have to put up with while we spend all our free time on the movies, the list goes on forever. We will overcome!

Linkapalooza - June 24, 2008 - Disney's giving its movies away, Clive Barker can't get his movie out there... and other news.

There continues to be some newsworthy things going on out there in the world of entertainment. So much so, that I'm saving a few articles for next week...

Watch Disney Movies Free Online Series Of Ad Supported Films on the Web - from WebTVWire: Remember how I mentioned a little while ago that I always keep a bit of an eye on what Sony's up to because they're a 'game changer'? Well, Disney is another company that I watch closely and would also consider to be a 'game changer'. Way back in the day, when studios were worried about this new invention called 'television', Disney embraced it and created it's TV program, which made it the first studio to show its recent films on television. The studios later fought VHS and Disney, once again, embraced it... finding new audiences for its older films. When studios were thinking box office, Disney was thinking branding and licensing. Long and short, they've always been ahead of the game. So, when everyone's bitching about online distribution, guess who the first studio to releases its movies for free online is? That's right, Disney...

Dark Knight Director Shuns Digital Effects for the Real Thing - from Wired.com: Big long article/interview with Chris Nolan, director of the upcoming "The Dark Knight", and how he opted for real stunts as opposed to CGI effects. If you're as stoked about "The Dark Knight" as I am, it's a good read. Also, I gotta say, ever since I saw those shitty CGI vampires in "I Am Legend", I've adopted a very anti-computer generated effects stance... so, you go Chris. Dead Harvey's got your back, buddy.

Horror Fans Angered After Learning Lionsgate's 'Midnight Meat Train' Is Now A DVD-Express - from Defamer: This whole story just won't go away... So, a quick recap on what's going on with "Midnight Meat Train": A major theatrical release turns into DVD release. Title is changed to "Midnight Train" from "Midnight Meat Train", is going to be given its theatrical release again. "Meat" returns to title, theatrical release becomes limited theatrical run... 'Barkerites' angered, demand wide release. So, what's next? Personally, I don't care. Here's what f'ing pisses me off - the film is done and I want to see it, period. So, if you're an indie horror filmmaker and you think the whole distribution side of the business sucks ass, what do you think Clive Barker and Ryuhei Kitamura think? Unbelievable...

Netflix boxes sell out - from Mercury News: I talk a lot about bridging the gap between the internet and your TV and how no one seems to be able to put a decent product forward... well, maybe Netflix has done it. First off, the price is right - $100 is cheap enough to where people will give it a go and it's simple and marketable. They're tapping an existing market, their own customers, and it, technically, is a win/win situation. Netflix doesn't have to pay for postage, packaging and things like that and the movies are available instantaneously for consumers. Now, here's the test... how many NEW subscribers will they get AND will they be able to tap into other content. That's what you need to watch for... if either of those things start to happen, we may have a winner on our hands here... and if we have a winner, we have a new way to distribute indie films.

Linkapalooza - May 28, 2008

I was hoping to have another case study done for today and I was working away on it, but I just couldn't get it finished... so, instead, you should get it tomorrow. In lieu of that, let's have a Linkapalooza, since we missed out on that this week. Now, I know that I tend to talk about stuff that pisses me off in the industry, but I want to pass on some links to some books and articles that may better you as a filmmaker... that's right, things you should read.

Every filmmaker should be reading scripts all the time and not just new ones, but old ones, classic ones, ones they like and even ones they don't like. I recently came across HorrorLair.com and it looks like they just link to horror scripts, which should trim a lot of the fat that we don't need. Long and short, I've never talked to a filmmaker that didn't think that story is the most important aspect of a film and the best way to learn how to structure a story is to read as many scripts as you can.

A while ago, I was talking with writer/director Mark Poole, the guy behind "Dead Moon Rising", which was one of the most ambitious no-budget horrors I've ever seen. Anyhow, when I was asking him what advice he would pass on to other filmmakers, he told me about a couple books that I had never heard of before. First one is "The DV Rebel's Guide: An All-Digital Approach to Making Killer Action Movies on the Cheap" and "It's Your Ship: Management Techniques from the Best Damn Ship in the Navy". He told me that "the first tells you how to get the best effects possible, the second, how to be the best team leader/director possible. No kidding."

Since we're talking about books, let me tell you about the book I'm reading right now, called: The Big Picture: The New Logic of Money and Power in Hollywood. I'm barely half way through it, but I can say that it's great insight into how Hollywood actually works. It's basically about how the studios work and if you're into the business behind Hollywood, it's a great read.

Lastly, how about a magazine? Well, just an article from Empire Magazine, which is the biggest selling film magazine in Britain. They did an article a while ago called "50 Greatest Independent Films" and you'd never believe it, but horror's fairly well represented. There won't be any shockers in there, as it covers off "Bad Taste", "Evil Dead", "Night of the Living Dead", etc... but what's really cool are the stories behind why they consider them 'great independent films'. Click on the film and you'll get the story behind it.

Linkapalooza - Apr 28, 2008

I think I'm going to start posting about all the new horror DVD's of the week on Mondays now, as I usually get to posting stuff later in the day and knowing what's coming out on Tuesday would be more useful to you the day before. I'll start doing that next week... which makes this the last Monday of links.

Is it just me or do others always think of Corbin Bernsen as Roger Dorn from Major League? When "The Dentist" came out, that sort of rattled the stereotype for me, but... I never really watched L.A. Law. That's my point. Granted, I do like "The Dentist" series, thus "The Dentist 2" pic, but whatever. Anyhow, he's been involved with a bunch of low-budget horror lately and now he's directing a zombie film called "Dead Air". Here's a link to a video on DEAD AIR: BEHIND-THE-SCENES. It's interesting to note that he's made "Dead Air", but has yet to secure distribution. I guess you can expect to see it on the festival circuit soon. Until then, "come on Dorn, get in front of the damn ball! Don't give me this "ole" bullshit!"

So, Fangoria's Weekend of Horrors just took place over last weekend and, that's right, I didn't say shit about it... It's really more of a fan-fest deal, where you can meet celebrities and they charge you for autographs, etc. Well, after looking at the site and the pics, I guess they did do various panels and they did do screening of "Night of the Living Dead", but... okay, I admit it. I dropped the ball. Here's a heads up, it'll be in New Jersey June 20 - 22 and I'll make sure to mention it again, as we get closer. If you want to see what it was all about, here's some pictures that were posted on ShockTillYouDrop.com.

Well, it's about time this book came out. Enough of this crap about Chuck Norris. You want to study kicking ass? Well, go get Seagalogy: A Study of the Ass-Kicking Films of Steven Seagal.

There's a new show called "Very Independent Producers" with Ted Hope and Christine Vachon who are, and I quote, "two of the most celebrated and prolific producers of independent film." It's available on Plum TV, which you can find on cable in vacations destinations, such as Vail, Aspen and The Hampton's, on Cable VOD, as well as online. Now, I wouldn't consider most of their stuff to be indie, as it's really just indie in the sense that it's 'independent of the studios' - they've done stuff like "American Splendor", "Boys Don't Cry" and "Happiness". However, the episodes do offer some insight into how the whole system works.

I mentioned "Machine Girl" a while ago and I still haven't seen it, but I came across a new clip.