This interview is intended specifically for beginning filmmakers who want to make their first movie shot on Super 8mm film. This discussion focuses on the technical aspects of Super 8mm film production. It is hoped that this article will assist new directors in creating well-made movies on very low budgets.
Eric Stanze directed Ice From the Sun, shooting it entirely on Super 8mm film. Ice From the Sun was one of the most logistically complicated movies ever made at its budget level. It was released to worldwide home video and was met with very enthusiastic critical acclaim. The movie won Best Cinematography, Best Editing, and Best Villain at the Syracuse B-Movie Fest 2000 and was listed by Film Threat Magazine within their top independent films of the year 2000.
Captain Chambers: On Ice From the Sun, how did you get such a pristine image from the Super8 film? Did you use more expensive, better quality cameras… or is this just the result of proper lighting, etc.?
Eric Stanze: Go for pro quality EVERYTHING. You may not always be able to afford the high-end equipment and state-of-the-art technology, but the more pro you go, and the more consumer equipment you avoid, the better. Do what you can afford, obviously.
There are pro-level Super8 cameras out there. Find them and shoot with them… instead of the crappy consumer-level cameras (that are usually found in a dusty shoe box stashed in an uncle’s or grandparent’s closet). You may end up spending a couple thousand bucks or more on a good, pro-level Super8 camera, but it will be WORTH IT! The pro-level cams have MUCH better lenses. Also, pro-level cams will have better registration, better fps reliability, less chance of light-leaks, and they will have manual f-stop control, which you gotta have. All that auto-exposure crap on consumer cams is no good for you if you are shooting a movie.
Lighting is important too. Good lighting will improve any format, whether you are shooting with Super 8, 16mm, or video. We invested in a couple of cheap Smith Victor light kits for Ice From the Sun. This gave us four lights, 650W each. Plus we had a 2000W soft light. And on some nights we borrowed another light kit for another four lights (I think 650W each on the secondary kit too.) Also, both my DP and I had been lighting video professionally for several years, so not only did we get our hands on decent lighting for Ice, we had a good idea of how to put the gear to use. There are a lot of shots in Ice that we would light differently now. So there is always going to be a learning situation.
By the way, we made a decision to shoot Ice at 18 fps instead of 24 because it would save us money (Ice is a REALLY low budget flick, even compared to other Super 8 features) and because the weird subject matter would actually benefit from the smeary look 18 fps would give the motion. I think it looks fine in Ice. And I’ve shot other Super8 projects at 18 fps. But now that I’m a little more experienced with Super 8, I would prefer to always shoot Super 8 at 24 fps from now on. Unless you have reason to utilize the look of 18 fps, I would recommend spending a few more bucks on the film stock so you can shoot your movie at 24 fps.
What is the best Super 8 film to use?
The best Super 8 film to use is good ol’ reliable Kodachrome 40. Almost all of Ice was shot on it.
I have heard of some guys buying Super 8 negative stocks from Super 8 Sound and having Super 8 Sound do the transfer. I have heard nightmare stories about this company. A lot of people are angry with them. Apparently, they are quite the scam artists. I have seen this S8 negative stock transferred and I wasn’t very impressed. It looked good, but it did not look better than the Kodachrome reversal stock. It is certainly not worth the extra expense, and definitely not worth the hassle if the Super 8 Sound guys decide to dick with you.
Talk about your methods for metering light and exposing the film. How can beginning filmmakers who want to shoot Super 8 best expose the film? And what about the cameras with no aperture control?
Don’t use a Super 8 camera without aperture control! Use a camera that gives you control over the f-stop. Invest in an old analog light meter and trust that. And remember that when you shoot outdoors, you drop the color correction filter (an 85 filter) down in the camera and that LOWERS your ASA. Exposure compensation for an 85 is 2/3 of a stop. If you are shooting 40 ASA, the outdoor filter drops the ASA to 25. So adjust your light meter accordingly.
If you have any doubt about the exposure, always OVERexpose. Don’t guess on the dark end. It is safer to lower your f-stop. And - this one is big - if you are shooting outside on a sunny day, always use a white bounce board to fill the dark side of faces. We used a bounce board on SOME exterior scenes in Ice and I now wish we had used the bounce board on ALL outdoor shots! To ensure safe overexposure, we usually read the light meter as if we were shooting 24 fps, even though we were shooting 18 fps. And then we often tweaked the f-stop a bit lower from there, just to be safe. There are still shots in Ice that were underexposed. When we got all the film back, there was not a single shot that was blown out. So you can give that film quite a bit of light before it gets ugly.
A big part of good picture quality is the film to tape transfer. I got to transfer Ice on a “medium level” 5 blade projector system… I also was allowed to rip it apart and rebuild it to my standards for the transfer of Ice‘s footage. But still, the transfer on Ice could have been better. We just couldn’t afford better at the time.
If you can get a Rank digital telecine transfer, do it! This kind of transfer is the BEST! You won’t believe how good Super8 will look! As far as I know, nobody can do Rank telecine for Super8 except this one place that I know of called Cine Post. You can check them out at http://www.posthouse.com.
If you go with a cheaper transfer, the image will suffer, of course. DO NOT go with any of those crappy “We put your home movies on video!” services. They suck. For proper Super 8 to video transfer without a Rank telecine, you need to use a 5-blade projector or you will see lots of flicker. Those “home movies” places do not use 5 blade projectors. If you transfer through them, you will be sorry!!! If you find a cheap place to transfer MAKE SURE they are using a 5-blade projector! But your best bet is the above Cine Post transfer.
You used a Nizo camera with a Schnieder lens on Ice From The Sun?
Yes. Our “A” camera on Ice From The Sun? was a Nizo 6080. If you can find that model and it hasn’t been beat up over time, you’ll have a really great camera there!
What other models of Super 8 cameras did you use?
We had “B” and “C” cameras when we needed multiple angles shot at the same time. Our “B” cam was a Sankyo XL40S. Our “C” cam was a very old, very beat up Gaf ST602. When we got this old camera, the battery contacts had corroded almost entirely away, so the thing wouldn’t even power up. My DP, Dave Berliner, dug into the camera, ripped out the old contacts, and replaced them with paperclip wire formed into coils! He really wanted this camera because the lens, a Chinon 8 to 48mm, was really great.
Did you use high-end cameras in ALL shots? Even the “stunt camera” shots?
The rest of our cameras, the “stunt cameras”, were all consumer cams. I don’t think they had manual adjust apertures.
We only used consumer cameras for the stunt shots. All stunt camera use was exterior, daytime, so, it was a little easier to deal with an auto aperture. If we were indoors and working under our own lights, auto aperture would have been a nightmare for us.
I recently acquired two lights that are 1000 watts each. Can I shoot Super 8 with these?
You have a great start there. Supplement that with a nice stack of 150-watt clamp lamps so that you can pop the dead spots in your frame, and have a little more artistic control over the lighting. On Ice, in addition to our SV 650W lights, we often added light from 150W clamp lamps, and we even lit with those 500W quartz lights that you can get in most hardware stores. They even come on adjustable stands! They do have a slight yellowish tint to their light, so only use them in instances where that wouldn’t be a problem. Have you seen Fight Club? Believe it or not, a lot of that movie was shot under the very same clamp lamps and quartz work lights that we’ve used.
What lab do you use for Kodachrome?
I went through a Kodak dealer in St. Louis to buy film and have it processed. This dealer, in exchange for me buying all my film from them and having all my film processed through them, negotiated a special rate through Kodak for Ice From The Sun. This dealer got all my business and I got all the services at a discount! I think they were shipping my film to Switzerland for processing, but I’m not sure.
When shooting Super 8, how do you work with the change in color temperature from sunlight to artificial light?
Most S8 cameras are set up to use indoor film – the Kodachrome 40 is an indoor (artificial light) film. So no correction is needed when shooting under lights. However, if you take this same film stock and shoot it in sunlight, you WILL have to correct for color temperature. And most S8 cameras have a built-in sunlight correction filter (the 85) that swings down into place within the camera. It should be a simple flip of one switch or turn of one knob. Remember that shooting outside with this filter in place lowers your film’s ASA, so be sure to adjust your light meter.
I checked into a local film lab that does film-to-video transfer, and I talked with the owner who showed me his set-up. He stated, in his opinion, that the 5-blade projector is NOT necessarily the key, but a variable speed projector IS! This allows you alter the speed, slower or faster, to adjust out the flicker. He has a simple Elmo unit, projecting onto a smooth surface (5” X 6″) on the wall, with a Hi-8 camcorder recording the action. He says he has excellent results, yet I am skeptical. What’s your take on this?
Personal opinion: He’s giving you salesman bullshit. 5 blades let you transfer the footage WITHOUT altering your frame rate. And it still looks a thousand times better.
He is right that altering the frame rate can minimize flicker. But it cannot eliminate it entirely. Plus, altering the frame rate further complicates the already tricky issue of sync sound.
Also, I would not recommend Hi-8 tapes for ANYTHING. Hi-8 has good picture quality but it is the format to most likely jam up and get eaten in a deck or camera. Also, Hi-8 develops dropout a lot faster than most consumer formats. If you can afford it, transfer to DigiBeta. If you cannot afford that, transfer to BetacamSP. If you cannot afford that, transfer to DVC-Pro. Then SVHS or MiniDV. Also, make sure that they are not transferring your film to a consumer camcorder! Yikes! The auto-iris on those things will make your footage look terrible.
When you said that it would be preferable to have the film transferred to DigiBeta, are you talking about using that format for transfer and as a master tape?
The recommended and most common procedure (for movies shot on film but released only on video) is to transfer all of your film footage to video (DigiBeta or the best you can afford). Transfer everything you shot - all raw footage. Then, the raw footage will all be on videotapes. These tapes are now to be used as your source footage in your edit. In a linear edit suite, you will edit from these raw footage tapes to a single master tape (again, DigiBeta or the best you can afford). In a non-linear edit suite, these raw footage tapes will be digitized into the system… then the finished program will be out-put to your master tape (DigiBeta or the best you can afford). I’m skipping a lot of the details here. But this is the basic course of events.
Is there any situation where you should be physically splicing Super 8 film instead of editing on video?
No. For the best, most professional image quality, just get a good transfer of the film to video. Then, do all editing on video. Use as high-end of an editing system as you can get. Use the highest formats of video you can afford. This is speaking in terms of releasing your movie to video only. If you think you will ever try to generate 16mm or 35mm film prints of your shot-on-Super 8mm movie, there are a whole slew of additional steps you need to take. It becomes much more expensive. I have never taken these steps myself. All of my work has been designed for home video release.
When I was a little kid making Super 8 film shorts in the back yard, I would physically splice the film to edit each “movie.” I didn’t know any better… and I had never even seen a video editing system at the time. When you are just a kid goofing around, it really isn’t going to matter how good the finished product looks. But if you are striving to make an artistic and marketable motion picture, splicing Super 8 film to edit your movie is an amateurish technique to be avoided.
I have seen those random, intermittent “spots” that appear in Super8 movies. Advice?
The spots are probably dirt on the film. The dirt spots will increase if the film gets handled a lot. If it is some other problem, it could be your camera. I’d have to see the “spots” to be able to tell.
Can you describe in more detail the video formats you’ve mentioned, as well as the pros and cons of each type?
DIGIBETACAM:
Pros: Excellent digital quality with no compression artifacts. Durable. Good to use as a master and for dub masters.
Cons: Expensive, but not too bad.
BETACAM SP:
Pros: Good quality, especially when input to deck is component. It is cheaper than DigiBeta. There are more BetacamSP decks around than DigiBeta decks right now, but I think that is changing rapidly. I think in another year, there will be as many or more DigiBeta decks available in edit suites, dub houses, transfer houses, etc.
Cons: Not nearly as durable as DigiBeta or DVC-Pro. Also, maximum length is only 90 minutes.
DVC-PRO:
Pros: Excellent quality. Less prone to dropouts compared to BetacamSP.
Cons: Slightly less durable than DigiBeta. Not as many DVC-Pro decks around compared to DigiBetacam or BetacamSP.
MINI DV:
Pros: Good quality on a low budget. Picture quality is good, but there is some digital artifacting in the image that is simply a result of the consumer level image compression.
Cons: Not many decks around. It would be difficult to find an edit suite with a MiniDV deck in it. Also, it may be difficult to find a film transfer house that can provide a transfer to MiniDV. This is a fairly durable format, but not as durable as DigiBetacam or DVC-Pro. Also, most MiniDV cameras are consumer level and kinda crappy. (Ed. Since this article was written, MiniDV decks have become more and mroe common in many post, transfer and duplication houses.)
SVHS:
Pros: Good quality on a low budget if the Y/C (S-video) lines are used when editing/digitizing. Can look almost as good as BetacamSP footage if it is lit right and shot with a high-end camera.
Cons: Prone to some dropout in image. More dropout will show up the more you run the tape in a deck while editing. Also, many edit suites that ONLY have SVHS decks will be clunky, crappy editing systems. And most SVHS cameras out there are consumer level and crappy. If you shoot SVHS, make sure you use a high-end camera.
What type of mike do you use for the boom? Unidirectional or omnidirectional?
I’ve used unidirectional cardioid microphones for all of my movies except Scrapbook, on which we used cardioid for some scenes and omnidirectional for other scenes.
Most people will recommend a narrow pattern shotgun mike for shooting film and video because you can really pick up actors lines with excellent clarity if your boom op is good. There have been many instances in my past where I would have preferred a shotgun mike. But, generally, on a low budget shoot, you have to take in a lot of location sound with a single mike. The cardioid pickup pattern is kinda the best of both worlds; you can aim it at your primary subject and it focuses there like a shotgun would, but it also lets in a little more of the ambient sounds that you would lose with a shotgun mike. And I like location ambient sound, tho ugh many will tell you to shotgun all dialog and foley in all ambient sound in post. I prefer to use as much location sound as possible and only foley when I have to. Personal preference. We used omnidirectional mikes for some scenes in Scrapbook because so much was ad-libbed. I wanted to mike a room and be able to pick up everything that went on in that room without having to make a boom op guess who was going to speak next. At first, I was worried about using an omnidirectional like this, but everything we used it for sounded great.
Can you describe how you record sync sound for Super 8 film shoots?
For Ice From the Sun we recorded all location audio onto videotape using a VHS camcorder. The camcorder just rolled tape with the lens cap on, recording the sound. This allowed us to have location sync sound, but not great sounding sound! I would only recommend recording to VHS as a last resort - and only if you can record to the HiFi tracks. If you can afford it, you should record to DAT. If you can’t afford DAT, you could record sound into a consumer MiniDV camcorder like we did with our VHS camcorder; just running tape for audio, not picture. (We shot Ice From the Sun in 1996, so MiniDV cameras were not around at the time… or they were new and none of us could afford them yet; I don’t remember.)
Whatever you use to record the sound, run a boom mic from the unit over the actors and action. Run a few tests with your setup to make sure this rig isn’t going to give you a buzz in the sound or anything else unwanted. We had our boom op carry the unit in a simple case with the cables running out of it, up to the mic on the boom. When I called “roll sound”, he would reach into the case and start the recording. If you have the warm bodies, it is easier to have two people doing this job - one to turn the unit on and off, and one to hold the boom.
On set, once sound is rolling, have the slate person read the slate. Then, roll the camera. Call “camera speed” when the film is rolling, then the slate person marks the sync with the clap sticks.
In postproduction, you will have to edit all your sound onto the raw footage videotapes of your transferred film. Super 8 will NEVER run at an exact fps unless you spend a lot of money on a crystal sync generator for the camera. And most S8 cameras won’t even accept this generator. So, you can use the clap stick as a starting point to sync the sound, but it will start to drift after only a few seconds. It will take some work - several days of it - forcing the sound to sync to lip movements. I think I spent 4 or 5 full days just editing sound to raw footage and forcing it to sync up. And Ice had a LOT of sequences with no sync sound, so if your movie is dialog heavy, it will take you longer.
So, you say “camera speed” to initiate the clapping of the slate, but why “camera speed”? Excuse my ignorance…
“Speed” is a term used to announce that your gear is running. A sound recordist will call out “speed” or “sound speed” when his DAT recorder is rolling. A camera operator will call out “speed” or “camera speed” when the camera is rolling film/tape. A VTR operator will call out “speed” when a tape deck that he is running has engaged the tape on the head and is recording. Not everyone will use this term, but it is pretty common. Even crew guys who don’t use the term will know what it means. It is just to say, “My specific piece of equipment is up to speed”.
The order in which you start your gear running for each take is important for budgetary reasons. Your audio recording tape stock is much cheaper than your film, so you want to roll audio before you roll camera. If you were shooting 16mm or 35mm and your camera was feeding video assist tape recording, you would roll that first, then audio, then your camera. You start with the cheapest stock and proceed up to the most expensive stock, which is your film stock.
Is your approach to creating a story and writing a screenplay more organized or more whimsical?
It’s both. I don’t have a set formula for writing my screenplays. Each one evolves uniquely. I’ve emphasized different things in each movie I’ve written. A movie that emphasizes visuals is going to be written in a different style compared to a movie that emphasizes characters and dialog.
I did a lot of research for Savage Harvest as I was writing that. And I am doing a ton of research for the script I’m writing now, Tempest of the Dawn. I didn’t do much research at all while writing Ice From the Sun. But I let more people contribute ideas to the Ice screenplay compared to the other scripts. When I wrote my first two movies, The Scare Game and The Fine Art, I simply didn’t know what the hell I was doing. In fact, I still may not know what the hell I’m doing, but I’m more satisfied with each new script as I write them.
What is your approach to directing? How do you bring out the characters in your cast?
I like to trust the actors and give them room to explore. I’m not into directing every tiny detail of a performance. But there will be important, specific things that I’ll need to get here and there. The actor can then fill in the holes between those specifics. And when I see a detail that I don’t like, I’ll ask an actor to do something different, obviously.
I believe most of an actor’s performance is what they have in their head. How they say the words and how they move their body will be right if they have the right reasoning in their mind. If they are thinking the right thoughts, you will see it in their eyes and believe it.
Do you create an atmosphere within the scene for the benefit of the actors?
I try to do that when I can. Acting is an extremely difficult craft, I believe. I try to minimize the distractions that may yank an actor out of the moment. But it is hard to do that on a low-budget shoot. Things are often very rushed and the shoots can be under-staffed. So you tend to focus all your energy into just getting the shot.
Is there a signature “style” to your directing?
I hope not! I like making movies that are very different from each other. But, I guess there are some trends developing in my work. My movies are always done rather straight-faced. There is no silly, tongue-in-cheek material in my movies. Also, I am seeing similar concepts emerging repeatedly… things like suicide and biblical themes.
As far as on-set technique, I think that differs very much from movie to movie. On Savage Harvest, I had every shot very tightly planned out. And I shot a ton of footage on that movie. Our ratio was maybe 25 to one. For Ice, things were again very much planned out in advance… except for the montage sequences, which we mostly just shot as the opportunities came up. And my shooting ratio on Ice was very, very low. , nearly two to one. Then, for Scrapbook, I took a completely different approach. Most of that movie was ad-libbed. There was no screenplay. Just a list of scenes with very general descriptions. I actually only wrote dialog for two scenes, I think. All other dialog was ad-libbed. High shooting ratio. Very loose.
Do you have a particular camera technique?
As far as how I frame my shots, I think it depends on the subject matter. I like to do very unusual camera angles and moves if the subject matter calls for it. I enjoy that energetic Evil Dead style camera technique. But I also think that, under many circumstances, the camerawork should be subtle and not call attention to itself. In Scrapbook, the camera work was fairly traditional because I wanted the spotlight on the actors.
I like hand held shots a lot. I’m not a big fan of Steadicam. Even if I could afford Steadicam, I think I would prefer putting the camera on a dolly track, on the sticks, or on the shoulder.
Also, as far as cutting, I almost never open a scene with that establishing wide shot that film schools tell you to always open a sequence with. I tend to start on close shots and then, one or a few shots later, finally reveal the setting and the spatial relationships within the scene. Starting a scene with a wide shot usually feels awkward to me.
Who is an influential director for you?
George Romero. He makes brilliant films and he knows how to run a set right. He treats his team with respect.
What one movie stands out to you in terms of directorial excellence?
It is really hard to pick just one movie. Maybe Apocalypse Now.
How much “hands-on” should a director have? It seems the Hollywood directors are slightly detached from the camera these days.
Yeah, and an alarming number of directors never take part in the editing of their movies. I can’t understand that. Personally, I want to operate camera and do the editing on every movie I direct.
Some people think that a director shouldn’t worry about the frame. They say that the camera operator and the DP should worry about framing the shot and the director should just pay attention to the performances. I disagree with this. In movies, the framing of the shot, the moves of the camera, and the even the editing really are a part of a performance. An actor can deliver a line in a wide shot and it may seem wrong. That actor could then deliver the line exactly the same way in a close up and it will seem right. The frame is very important.
If these aspects of the craft, framing shots and editing, are unimportant to a director, maybe they should be directing plays instead. I’m not saying every director should operate their own camera and cut their own movies. But I think they are only doing half of their job if they don’t pay attention to these aspects at all.
How do you approach people for casting purposes?
Starting with my second movie, The Fine Art, we have held auditions for each project. Still, there are actors who I like working with repeatedly. They end up getting mixed into casts of newcomers and that makes for a nice energy on each shoot. One exception to this was Scrapbook. We cast from people we knew and did not hold auditions for that project.
Also, when I do audition people, I look at their attitude as much as I do their acting ability. I don’t want to cast a really great actor who is going to be a prick on my set. If I get a bad vibe about someone, I don’t let him or her participate.
How do you approach people or companies about shooting on their properties?
I try to just be honest with them. I explain the project that we are working on. I do not pressure anyone. I let them know that if they would rather not have us shoot on their property, then that is okay. I let them know that we understand that we’re asking a lot and that it is understandable if they decline. Some filmmakers ask for permission to shoot on a property as if it is somehow their “right”. They then get all pissed off if the property owner says no. This is wrong. However, it must also be explained to the property owner that if they do give permission, they really need to stick to that. Pulling a location from a production, especially an independent production, is a major catastrophe. You have to go nuts and scramble at the last minute to find a replacement location if you want to stay on schedule. While I am always polite about asking for the use of property, I also try to indicate that we aren’t fucking around. If someone gives us the “okay”, we expect to be there shooting on the days we schedule there.
I also try to offer some money to the owner of the property, explaining that it is for the electricity we use or whatever. Very often, people who have let us onto their property are doing it because they want to support what we are doing and they decline monetary compensation.
Have you had to pay anyone for acting, use of property, or additional services, such as music?
So far, I have only paid for some post-production services here and there. Every other contribution to my movies has been for free. I really look forward to the day when I am paying everyone who works on my movies. All these people really deserve to be paid well for their work. But I won’t be paying anyone for this stuff until I am making real money at this myself.
Have you had any problems dealing with “closed minds”?
I have problems with closed-minded people every day! But it is always from people outside of my crew. The people who work with me on my movies are never closed-minded. They support me as a director. They have learned to really trust me. My crew and my actors have always been wonderful. I’m a very lucky director to have been able to work with so many great people.
Have you ever used artists for conceptual design? Do you use storyboards?
I have had my special effects guys do conceptual designs for effects. If they aren’t sure what I’m looking for, they will ask me to approve designs before they actually make the effect. But this has not happened very often.
As for storyboards, I hate the things. I have never used storyboards. I have seen storyboards put to good use by other directors, but they are just not for me. For the most part, I think storyboards help a director make sure that what he shoots will cut together properly in the edit. And I have always been able to edit in my head as I’m planning my shots. I just don’t need the boards.
What genres do you prefer and which ones do you want to try in the future? How do you feel about science fiction?
I feel most comfortable working in the horror and experimental arena. I got into making movies because I loved horror films. But I would work in any genre. If the circumstances came up that put me working on a comedy or an action movie, I would be fine with that.
My first few movies were fairly straightforward horror movies. The Scare Game tried very hard to be a Wes Craven film. Because I didn’t know what the hell I was doing back then, the movie ended up being “unintentionally” surreal. The Fine Art was my fumbling attempt at being Alfred Hitchcock. I’m actually not a big follower of Hitchcock. I like his movies, especially Rope and Psycho. But I have never had much desire to make “Hitchcockian” movies. When we made The Fine Art, I was in a situation that dictated that I make a “dry” psychological thriller. I was told to avoid bloodshed and violence, though I sneaked some in there anyway. But I took the attitude that I would try for a movie that was more Hitchcock than Raimi and The Fine Art was what resulted. However, when we made Savage Harvest, we went for that kinetic, Evil Dead style movie that was often attempted in the early ‘80s.
I have introduced new flavors to my work in recent years. I don’t want to do the same thing over and over again, so I’ve tried adding more unusual techniques to my movies. I’ve gotten into experimenting with more non-narrative structures (Ice From the Sun), more drama-based content (Scrapbook), and darker, edgy, erotic imagery (the opening video to The Severed Head Network.)
Science fiction would be a great genre to work in. I wrote a script called American Pavement that was a road movie with a sci-fi slant. I have some ideas and even some treatments written up that are more straightforward sci-fi. The script that I am currently working on, Tempest of the Dawn has a post-apocalyptic sci-fi theme in it.
I have decided that, for the beginning filmmaker, Super 8 is the best thing to start shooting on. Do you think the same way?
For the micro-budget filmmaker, Super 8 is the absolute best option. I have shot a lot of stuff on video because I couldn’t even afford Super 8 film at the time. But none of my shot-on-video movies look as cool as the stuff I’ve shot on Super 8. I’d do another feature on Super 8 in a heartbeat! But don’t let lack of funds ever stop you from creating. If you can’t afford the film and processing for Super 8, then by all means, shoot video. The only sin is to sit on your butt and do nothing.
Director Marc Fratto and the Insane-o-Rama crew garnered quite a bit of attention for their vampire-gangster debut Strange Things Happen After Sundown. Now they are poised to release a brand new feature that will put a twisted spin on the zombie genre: Last Rites of the Dead. For their second production, Fratto decided to up the quality by shooting on HDV. The format was brand new at the time and many “experts” were not convinced it was an ideal format for shooting a feature. We decided to ask Marc a few questions about the new movie and the new acquisition format.
Chainsaw Sally is a sweet ‘lil country girl with a Chainsaw. I was invited over to her house to speak with her and JimmyO about the new film they have coming out, Chainsaw Sally. JimmyO is the director, and Chainsaw Sally (aka April) is the star. Their house is in a small town In the middle of nowhere. There are Barbie heads hanging from the rafters like wind chimes, all misshapen by flame. It makes me smile. I remember when I used to melt Barbie heads as a young girl in the asylum for young orphans. Dear God, what is that smell? I must be in their living room. Sally, dressed in her thigh-high ripped stockings is busy cleaning her bloody chainsaw with her tongue, while JimmyO stands by watching approvingly.
By John Oak Dalton
Producing can have different connotations too. Sometimes producing just means coming up with the money. Other times it’s taking control of every aspect from pre-production to post and distribution as well.
If you could go back and change anything that you’ve done in the industry, what would it be?
When you were making Cannibal Campout way back when, did you think people would still be talking about it today and that would have its cult status?
Back in 1988 video rentals were at red hot and distributors were scrambling to pick up anything they could get their hands on so that’s why so many of the really low budget stuff got out there. But back then most video stores were local mom and pop establishments and more people were interested in a title that they had never heard of. I think people were a bit more adventurous when it came to renting movies too. With the advent of the Blockbusters and Hollywood Videos most of the smaller stores went out of business and the rarer titles went with them. Places like Blockbuster just don’t carry anything that isn’t mainstream. Just look at their inventory. They’ll have thirty copies of any new Hollywood release but that’s about it. And people can only rent what they see. If they don’t see a copy of Cannibal or Woodchipper on the shelf they can’t pick it up.