Hey Steven, let's start with a visual.
Can you describe for everyone at www.racksandrazors.com the room where you're
answering these questions?
I
am in my office, surrounded by walls
covered from floor to ceiling with autographed
genre memorabilia. I am sitting at a long
"L" shaped desk with 2 computers, piles
of paperwork, my snake's cage, and my Tarantula.
Lighting equipment litters the floor from a shoot
we had the night before.
So let's start off talking about
Abyssmal Entertainment that you incorporated
in 2002. What was your plan for the film
company and how in the past three years have you
moved towards completing that initial objective?
Our
main goal is to be producing between 1-3 feature
films a year. We began making a plethora of short
films, then decided to make one long short, and
move up to features. We made our first feature
project, "The Night Owl", had it
distributed with Brain Damage Films &
Brentwood DVD, learned how the system works, and
plan on continuing, building the budget and
production value with each picture.
So what do you find are the
greatest challenges/obstacles to making
movies in central Florida?
There
is a very large independent market in Central
Florida, but a small professional market. Many
people are pushing for it to be the Hollywood of
the East, but with the humidity and hurricanes,
it will be very difficult. My biggest challenge
is the heat.
Let's
talk about your latest effort 'Hoodoo For
Voodoo'. Can you give me a plot
teaser that will make seeing it irresistible for
horror fans?
Hoodoo
is about a group of college kids that win a radio
station trip to Mardi Gras. While visiting
Louisiana, they are taken to a Voodoo ritual,
which in actuality is more of a tourist trap.
Good family entertainment. During the course of
their stay, employees of the ritual begin getting
killed off in clever fashions, and the local
authorities blame these visiting contest winners.
So they have to bind together to figure out who
is really doing it, all while being distracted by
the biggest party of the year. Lots of creative
deaths, gore, lesbians, punk music, goats, weed
whackers, partying, sex... I think there are
around 23 death scenes in the flick.
The cast includes Linnea Quigley,
Debbie Rochon, and Tiffany Shepis among
others. How did you manage to get all these
great folks on board for your film?
I
actually wrote a character in the movie for
Linnea. The voodoo Queen Marie. We approached her
at a convention, and she enjoyed the script.
Debbie was shooting a film for my co-producer
Jason Liquori titled "Death Plots", and
while she was in town we had her shoot a really
funny cameo. Tiffany was brought in at the tail
end, because we had another actress drop off of
the project at the last minute. She has a pretty
fantastic death sequence, which I am sure will be
one of the highlights of the movie.
Gotta love a great death sequence.
And when will the film be available? Any
idea?
We
are looking to have it premiere sometime this
summer. After that we will get distribution
organized, and I'm guessing, sometime in 2007. We
look to tour some conventions and show it around
at some festivals as well.
I also want to hear about 'Andre
the Butcher' with Ron Jeremy which you
produced. Any most memorable filming tales
there?
This
was a really fun project that I co-produced with
James Hyde and Phil Cruz. It has Ron as a
supernatural Chili Chef, who stalks some
cheerleaders in the back swamps of the Florida
Orange Groves. We got a blow up a car in that one
that was a good time. It will be released through
Think Film on video on April 25th.
The
first film you wrote/produced/and directed as 'The
Night Owl, which you managed to
complete for $2,500. Can you give a couple
examples of the insane things you did to cut
costs and make that film so inexpensively?
We
shot "The Night Owl" with a Canon XL1s,
at a house that my now In-laws had just
purchased. We shot with a minimal crew (3-5
people at a time), minimal cast (4-5) over the
course of a year. We wrote the story with the
idea in mind to make a feature, and make it as
cheaply and easily as possible. No one got paid;
very little budget was allotted to things like
production art, wardrobe, and props. We had a
very strict 12-day schedule set up, and then had
an actress bail on the 3rd day of shooting, and
had to recast. This cost us much time, but in the
long run, made out for a much better movie. Brain
Damage Films bundled it with 3 others, and
released it in a set titled, "Wicked
Intentions". You can pick it up at Best Buy,
or Suncoast, or Netflicks. It's all over the
place.
'The Night Owl' is
also labeled as a "Biblical thriller" -
that merits a bit of explanation.
The story is
based on "Lilith" the proposed first
wife of Adam, and the symbol for female
empowerment. The movie is about four girls who go
to a lake house for spring break, only to have
one of them possessed by this spirit of Lilith,
and begin the Revelations. We follow quite a bit
of scripture, only interpreting it our own way.
We thought it would be more interesting if the
Revelations took place on a much smaller scale,
than everyone expects. And there are thrills
included.
I've
also read somewhere that you are making a
horror/musical - true or false.
We
have an idea for a Horror/Musical that we want to
script at some point, titled "The Sound Of
Screaming". Basically a slasher film, but
with lots of clichéd moments summed up in song.
So what's next for you Steven - any
projects you would like to plug, brag about, or
inform our readers about?
I
am supposed to help produce a couple of projects
in the upcoming year. The next feature we are
going to undertake, at the moment is a project
that I am writing called "The Bends"
it's an intense mind bender about 4 people who
wake up on a deserted island with amnesia, and
everything starts going crazy. I think of it as a
mixture of "Lost" and "Fear and
Loathing In Las Vegas" We hope to shoot a
teaser for it soon, and begin the road to decent
financing. Check out http://www.hoodooforvoodoo.com and http://www.abyssmal.com for more about us.
As a filmmaker I wanted your
opinion of on-set vs. computer-generated
effects? Where do you stand on the debate?
I like computer generated
effects (we have some for our Manta Demons in
"The Night Owl") but I do believe that
some effects (especially gore effects) look best
done by hand, but then you look at something like
"Lord Of The Rings", and can't imagine
how they could have pulled that off without
computers. Digital blood though is hard to chew
on.
We're
pulling the car into the Steven Shea Drive
In. What three horror movies are going to
be showing on the triple bill and what goodies
are they going to be serving up at the concession
stand?
1)
Psycho (1960), probably my favorite film of all
time. It would be here for the quality.
2)
Evil Dead II, for the child of the 80s in all of
us. I love comedy in horror films; through I do
agree there is a time for it.
3)
Scream, for the 90s, a great spoof and shoutout
to the Horror genre. I feel it has a bad wrap
just because it became so popular with the
younger crowd, that the older hardcore fans
dismissed it as a youth fad, and turned a cold
shoulder
As
far as the snack bar, they would be serving Corn
Dogs, Churros, and Hawaiian Punch.
Wow, having those three things in
the same sentence gives me indigestion. Do you
remember the first horror movie you saw that made
you a fan of the genre forever?
When
I was a kid, we used to watch all the late night
horror films, and Tales From The Crypt. I don't
really remember the first, but I know the first
film that scared me was "Critters".
What makes you go psycho in real
life?
People
with no respect for time. Being tardy really gets
my goat.
What frightens you in real life?
Aliens.
Big headed, football eyed Aliens. The movie
"Communion" scared the crap out of me
as a kid. Definitely did some permanent damage. |