Questions from Paul Downey from the U.K.

1) Where did the idea come from for Ghost Lake?

First from the location, Rushford Lake in New York State. My grandfather bought the property and had the cottage built in a day in 1935. It was a so called “kit” house, big department stores used to sell these houses out of their catalogs like you could buy pants of shoes or anything else. In the summers my side of the family used to live on the lake for a week once a year since I can remember. Once when I was maybe eight I was up late one night couldn’t sleep and dreamed or hallucinated that my mother was in the room with me. There is a scene in the film where Rebecca’s parents come alive, out of a picture in a photo album. That scene takes place right where I saw my mother. There was also a sump pump in the basement of the cottage that used to make ghastly corpse-like gasping noises that used to frighten me. So the idea, really ideas, came from things and various places in and around the lake, the eeriness and deep water around the dam and stories of how there were two towns at the bottom of the lake which is true. And of course, sadly, the stories of people drowning in the lake, we shot at many of those same spots where these events happened. But as important as all these moody locations are to the film, and that’s pretty important, it still isn’t the story of the film.

The story and characters came as a reaction to my first feature BEYOND DREAM’S DOOR as GHOST LAKE was originally written as a treatment for a film during the last stages of that film’s completion. Let me quickly plug the current re-release of Beyond Dream’s Door: that’s it, consider it plugged….

That film was about a man/boy on the verge of adulthood, meaning when you truly are on your own in the world to sink or swim. The character, Ben Dobbs, has no family and has no dreams and these elements are the weaknesses that bring the supernatural horror into his life that is waiting for anyone who has the same faults that he has. In Ghost Lake—which for years had no title it was just The Lake idea—is about a single girl/woman Rebecca Haster, (a name derived from Lovecraft) who in her case is being prevented from being an adult by a prolonged family crisis. She dreams, that’s sort of all she has of her own and is strength. One night, really at her parents’ insistence, she goes out and has a one-night stand with a stranger. While she’s gone her parents die in an accident. She feels guilty because her one night as an adult and of sexual pleasure destroyed her family but also because maybe she knows on some level that’s the only way she’d really ever be free to become a true adult herself.

Which I think can, at least in an old fashioned view of women and girls, be what happens. You are no longer someone’s daughter when a woman becomes or potentially becomes a mother herself through sexual activity. These sorts of pressures I thought destroyed my first relationship with a woman/girl so I had personal experiences here that I wanted to express/address/ dramatize/ exorcise. Anyway Rebecca’s guilt and her dreams give her the ability to see dead people, to quote a fairly recent cliché, and she is vulnerable to the dangers of supernatural horror because of her guilty connection to death. The shooting title of the film was THE EMPTY LAKE, but the distributor felt that sounded like it could be a woman’s picture, which it is in a way.

By the way both characters, in both films, I think ultimately overcome, as best they can, their supernatural challenges, though there are many bodies and a twisted reality left behind. So hopefully the character challenges and moments of decision directly effect the story turns too. I think you need that to happen in any kind of movie, horror, and comedy, whatever….

Horror as they say, and as I’ll say now too, is a symbolic way to deal with the eternal struggles of good and evil, life and death. But done in a way that excites the imagination, I hope, not in a way that’s a dreary slice of life sucks and then you die TV melodrama or in some remote “religiouso” dry theoretical, or worse, preachy, way.

2) Is Ghost Lake similar to any movie or movies in the horror genre?

For all the real world inspirations in the film I’m sure there are plenty of films that helped inspire it as well. The idea for the film predated my seeing some that I’ll mention now. One in particular that I strived not to be too much like is the excellent LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH. Strangely there is a little known little seen film called RED HOOK when I saw it. Not an especially good film but one that did a few things I was hoping to do. I think you’re best getting inspired by misfire films than by aping great films. SHOCK WAVES and seeing it again relatively recently inspired me to actually turn my lake idea into a movie script and then a movie.

Visually, the movement of shadows and such were inspired by THE INNOCENTS. Mario Bava, whose favorite horror film I later learned was THE INNOCENTS, did some great creepy kid moments in movies that’s where those element comes from. The recent horror films from Japan and the recent group of zombie films did not have anything to do with Ghost Lake, though it’s been judged against those films after the fact. I didn’t know while making it that zombies would become so popular or that PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN would do such great water logged zombie skeletons etc. So I guess I was hungry for something that others filmmakers and the audience wanted or thought it was time for again. I think/ hope there are so many vague influences that it, or any film you make, doesn’t become about ripping off, or I’m sorry, paying homage, to any one film in particular. I don’t’ think those kind of films usually have much worth. You should bring more to the table than a recap of all the movies you like.

3) What makes the horror genre so unique?

It deals with fantastical elements, like Science Fiction and Fantasy do, but in a way that is more emotional and visceral. It dramatizes almost metaphysical questions and conflicts in a way that is more entertaining and engaging and I’d even say more convincingly than in a “serious” drama. It also has things to offer for you as a child and as an adult. Horror Films are dealing with fear, certainly a part of life we face daily, and when that fear is a monster from outer space and you see it kill and or be killed, there’s certainly vicarious enjoyment and wish fulfillment, or nightmare fulfillment, going on. Horror can also be completely reality based, meaning serial killers and the like, though what they are suggesting if they create fear or horror are still digging into those bigger questions of life death, hell….

4) Do you like horror films?

Yes, I like and love all kinds of films but I certainly will forgive a horror film more than I will other types. I’ll give what is probably going to be a bad horror film a shot where if I hear bad things about a comedy or drama or art house film I’d probably accept the general negative vibe more willingly than I will for a horror film. It’s, I suppose, too bad that many people who don’t like horror films make them because the genre is considered sort of fool proof commercially. Horror films have long been an area where taboo elements like nudity and violence fit right into the film so they can be produced and later dismissed as exploitation and therefore treated as lesser films
That’s wrecked the horror films critically and helped ghettoize horror films. It also leads to gluts every so often that drive them into periods of non-production. I’ve sadly started to hear rumbles that we may be on the verge of a horror films being “out” again.

But a great thing is that a horror film can be excessively violent and work and or be very subtle and still scare you. They are easy to like I suppose in part because they can be widely and wildly different from one another.

The only snooty thing I’ll add is that I like horror written fiction a great deal as well and certainly true crime stories are fertile, or recently an overly fertile source material for horror.

Horror films can be deep or shallow and still work, you can’t say that about many genres. It can be fun to be scared by a movie just as it can be fun to have any movie create some feeling in you as an audience. When a “fake” movie can create a real emotion/ reaction that’s one of the great powers of film.

5) If so what is your favourite and why?

Once I get started on a list like that I rarely stop. I’ve mentioned some in my influences section already. JAWS is a film I love and still do. Water’s involved in that one; I took an ocean liner to Japan when I was very young. Being in the middle of the world seeing nothing but water perhaps started an interest/ fear of the beasts of the sea. And that film just does most everything right in every way and it’s scary lets face it.

Carpenter’s THE THING is easily the best film he’s made and or sadly likely to make it seems at this point. It was a landmark in the way of grotesque imagery, images that really are works of art they reach that level. And it has that great sense of isolation in the snowy environment. Snow…always beautiful to me in an imposing and dangerous way.

A number of Frankenstein films would be in there, I had the book read to me as a little kid the first film I saw of it was the excellent FRANKENSTEIN: THE TRUE STORY. That worked and the whole Frankenstein world works because you identify with and are scared of both the monster and the monster maker. It’s a man’s creation nightmare.

HEAVENLY CREATURES I thought was fantastic, I say it’s a horror film because it is ultimately about the horrible thing they are driven to do by real life forces on an odd pubescent quasi-sexual friendship that the world is forcing to an end. HATCHET FOR A HONEYMOON continues to sort of fascinate me. THE BIRDS, PSYCHO these films remain fresh and mean different things to you with repeated viewings. The original TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, most of the accepted classics though it’s dangerous to freeze a film with that status. All these I guess create a world that is their own.

6) Are there any directors that you look up to?

All those who directed the films I’ve already mentioned, I presume we’re staying in the Horror film director realm which at least limits my favourite list to controllable size. Of current horror directors I especially admire Larry Fessenden. His films are both serious and scary in a way that is frankly hard to get away with commercially. Takashi Miike is one of the few directors currently who earns the right to be as grotesque and graphic as he gets. You’ve got to earn that kind of right and he does with style and content. Cronenberg, again a great who seems to have his best work behind him, though I still hope the so-called “older” directors will pull one off and they do from time to time. When you work, or try to work, as a director in the real world you come to appreciate directors who maybe never got the budget or producer support they needed but still had unique visions to share. People like Lucio Fulci. Directors can work for years and never get to make a script that they thought was really good. Then there are some so called main stream directors who only made one or two real horror films but the ones they did make are kind of special, Robert Wise, Richard Fleischer, even of all people Bob (PORKY’S) Clark. Clark’s horror films I think deserve a book of their own.

7) Describe Ghost Lake in 3 words?

Guilt, Ghosts and Water.


8) Why should people see Ghost Lake?

Anyone interested in guilt ghosts and water should see it maybe a couple of times. I really always seek to make movies that you can’t tell how they will end from how they begin. Anyone interested in a story and character driven, rather intricate, story that does not answer all the questions it raises. Now that may sound off putting, but I think I did it fairly, the story and central characters all resolve themselves, what I do not resolve is the ultimate reason for the hauntings of the lake or the power of numbers/numerology/ mathematical equations that control our world and hold the universe together. No one knows those answers and I didn’t presume to either. It would be too much for this story to take on these topics. It’s full enough already.

Anyone looking for zombies eating people’s brains and a gore fest should look elsewhere. Did I just mention liking Lucio Fulci? This just isn’t one of those movies. I hope Ghost Lake, like my first film Beyond Dream’s Door and some of my others, rewards, but does not demand repeated viewings. I personally think any film worth seeing once is worth seeing again.

9) Do you feel the Saw trilogy has raised the bar in the horror genre on what can be shown on screen?

There have certainly been just as extreme things seen before. Some of the founders of this type of graphicness, Cronenberg and Fulci, these guys had a certain degree of personal medical background that I think “allowed” them to conceive of graphic images in a way that didn’t really seem all that shocking to them. Or perhaps given what they knew they had to go further to shock themselves as well.

Real graphicness came in great numbers in the Slasher cycle of the 1980’s which I later learned was really a lower grade steal from the Giallo films in Italy. Those, especially if you find uncut versions of them certainly did things just as extreme. What may be different, and I think context is everything, I’ll accept or enjoy almost anything in the right context, about the SAW films, all of which I more or less liked by the way, is that they are really about torture, prolonged self mutilation scenes. This is what makes them seem so graphic or more graphic, there is not really on the face of it anything in those films that hasn’t been seen in films before. They are mainstream releases and make major money but are still in reality low budget genre productions and many of those have reached into the blood box before SAW to get attention and make a profit. The Slasher films were killed in part by a major public backlash, I wonder how long until the storm clouds break over this current trend too.

10) Did Ghost Lake have any problems with censorship?

In the states it got an R rating which I expected, though I was curious that they mentioned sexuality instead of nudity. I’ve had the difference explained to me since. Amusing how they try to define these elements. The other R element mentioned is Horror imagery or something like that. Certainly I was striving for that. There are a couple of graphic close-ups of these water logged corpses, I kind of feel that stuff is most effective if it’s thrust into your face. If you’re showing something gross be bold about it otherwise what’s the point? But the film, as far as I know, has not been edited for content anywhere yet and the ultimately film is almost entirely bloodless. Remember the three-word definition, ghosts, guilt and water. Those were the images the mood I was after.


11) Would you consider a sequel to Ghost Lake if asked?

Our sales rep has asked me, repeatedly. I’ve avoided doing sequels to my own films, and do not concoct them in a way to have a sequel; I hold nothing back and try to make the most of that movie in and of itself. Several films I’ve done have generated sequels which is flattering. And other people have asked too in Ghost Lake’s case. I have a few ideas for a sequel to Ghost Lake and other people involved in the film have brought out more. Rushford lake is drained half the year and I’d set at least part of a sequel at that time of year, its an odd landscape the exposed bottom of a lake and there are some remains of trees and foundations there from the old towns. I see Rebecca following a path of footsteps that just ends there in the middle of the mud and ruins as we see a specter close behind her that she cannot see… A sequel could happen.

Rebecca I think would now not be able to see the ghosts for reasons anyone who’s seen the movie would know. Part of what she’d have to do is find a way to see them again, and that would be, well unpleasant.

12) What are you working on at the moment?

I’m working on the re-release of my first feature Beyond Dream’s Door that’s finally available in a version that is edited and mixed the way I always hoped it could be. I’m finishing up a short version of Hamlet. Yes, more ghosts, in this one. It’s a very unusual film that involves manikins as part of the cast. Also I’m directing and rewrote a vampire film LIVE EVIL that is darkly gruesome but funny at times too. And there’s another, long in the mental works film, SEASON OF DARKNESS that some preliminary FX work is already being worked on. I’m also putting together an anthology of my short fiction that I’m excited about. These are new and previously published stories that you definitely could not do as films, meaning the subject matter is verboten in filmed horror. There’s more about all this on my website www.jaywoelfel.com

13) What was the best scene to film in Ghost Lake and why?

Feature films have to be more than the sum of their parts or they are failures. In a failed movie you’re more likely to say, my favorite scene is this or that, because you hate the rest of the film. . It’s the combination of these favorites that add up to that sum that is more than the parts if the movie works for you. In general the scenes in GHOST LAKE which feature one character or a couple of them isolated in the lake and cottage itself are among my favorites. These can be montage scenes of even that simple scene of Rebecca and her potential lover, Stan are alone on that dock at night. We all lived at that lake making that movie. That dock and that bench became kind of the spot where the actress Tatum would sit to be on her own in that crowded environment, I’ve sat there or places like that and talked with someone and I think that’s really the way that place and those moments feel.

But I won’t cop out on your question even if I’m trying to say it’s a SOPHIE’S CHOICE type of question. I guess it would be the sequence where Rebecca goes to Stan’s cottage and they become lovers while the little girl seems to go off to her death. There is a song in the movie that plays over that whole sequence. Perhaps I like that section because the most balls are in the air at one time so to speak. The hardest part of the juggling act that I was striving for and I think works and doesn’t look difficult but easy natural or more importantly inevitable. It features sound, music, image, story, and all working at the same time. Inevitable is a good word things should go together in a way that they look like that’s the way they must and only can go together.

14) Do you feel that the best kinds of horror films are reliant more on a good narrative rather than loads of gore?

If I had to choose one of the other, which I don’t, I’d prefer a good story. But that should come first. The film should only be reliant on both in equal measure. Or when both need to be there for the story to work. Anything super subtle or super gory can have its place in the proper story even in the same story.

Look, most young filmmakers like to shock or gross out people. It’s really a safety net they can hide behind. If you an audience member says, “That was too gross to look at, “ or, “I turned it off.” That’s a victory of sorts because they can’t attack you personally as the filmmaker. Making a film is a performance and every performer as much as they want to perform for an audience is also terrified the audience will hate what they do which means, to the performer, they hate them as an individual. You want to be as they say with maybe accidental meaning, “up there” on that stage but not be exposed.

Of course part of what you should do is expose yourself intellectually and emotionally, you’re trying to tell your view of the story to people. Your own view of things is your only valid reason for making a film. If you aren’t telling a story that you are connected to then you will only ever be a second rate filmmaker. The only real Steven Spielberg is Steven Spielberg you’ll at best only be a Spielberg copy. See what I mean?

When we’re little kids you open your mouth with half-chewed food and you are certainly in power/control part of the situation. Also young people feel they basically can’t be hurt and will live forever. So it’s easy for them to deal with bloody violence and death, it’s fantasy for them as much as the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, actually death is less real to them than the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus. Critics misjudge why so-called kids watch this stuff. It’s because it’s something they are fascinated by as an unreality, death won’t happen to them, so they can watch it and be entertained by it. They learn, in their own way, how to deal with fear and death through other characters. That’s healthy for kids at some point or another. When people get older and stare death in the face they may no longer want to see or read about it, it will be real to them all to soon. Or another way to look at it is to say death is part of their routine by then and therefore not something they want from movies anymore.

I don’t think that people fascinated by serial killers as sort of cult heroes really understand what these people do to their victims and themselves. These aren’t mavericks of counter culture; most of them are sociopaths who use killing to aid their increasingly isolated and self destructively masturbatory sexuality. Current thought on why they develop into serial killers has more to do with the way they are raised than genetics. There are some truly disturbing things that people who wear nose rings and black Ted Bundy T shirts don’t think about. Even if they know, they don’t really get it, feel it.

We can, at best, on some level prepare for and, at worst, be superior to, the horrors of life by watching horror films. I don’t think it turns kids into killers but it’s some way of dealing with horrors on screen and off. And we’d all better learn how to deal with life’s ugly moments as well as the pretty ones. I think the bromide that horror films are only for catharsis has about out lived its use.

All movies are a story and most bad ones lack any, not just horror films. So-called structures taught in film schools and certainly in Hollywood would make every story into the same movie. The arch of the story would be the same no matter what, if you strictly follow the rules. Bad films have bad stories, well really only part of a story or an idea; they just keep going until all the attractive young cast is disfigured to death.

So getting back to the original question. Gore or no Gore? It’s whatever is appropriate to tell the story you are telling. If you’re telling a story about a baby-eating cannibal, I expect to see some righteous baby eating. You’d better earn the right to tell that story by doing something more than that, but I still expect to see some feasting. I may choose to not watch it if I don’t’ want to see that but it’s appropriate, even necessary for that story.

Is it profanity or gore you need? Maybe so. Maybe not. You’ve got to know what you need and when and how much you need it. I don’t think gore is enough to carry a film. I don’t think you either have it or you don’t. Suspense should be used more in horror films, mystery…. Whenever we tried to work gore elements into the shooting of Ghost Lake we all just knew it was wrong for the story, the cups of blood sat there unused.

Here’s a thing some negative comments about the film have mentioned the drowned ghosts spitting up water as they died. If they had been spitting up blood I think these same people would have been cheering. It’s odd to me, when people don’t want to use their imagination or have to think some about a film’s story to be connected to it. Why is that too much to ask for some people?

Gore can be a wall you try to hide behind as a filmmaker or an element added to a film by people who don’t really know what horror films are but assume they sure need to have gore in them to sell. Tisk tisk…. You aren’t cutting edge, you’re chicken. Cutting out someone’s eye is gross but that’s not horror. The horror is the whys and what’s behind that behavior and showing how that really feels which means creating real characters to the audience.

15) What sort of research did you do before filming Ghost Lake?

When I was pitching the concept to a former producer of mine she asked, why the ghosts in the story appeared every 13 years. I suddenly thought, what is it about the number 13 anyway? I did some research on the history of that myth. I then used things that I felt were “possibles” for my story. Rebecca mentions these without really siding with any one of them. I went through the Bible looking into 13 related passages and found several, even many, that had to do with guilt and water and the end of the world or personal responsibility; all very relevant to this story. As a side note many of the dissolves in the film are multiples of the number 13.

As to the location we shot in I’d really, as it turned out, been researching that for practically my whole life. I’d wanted to make this particular film since at least 1987. Somerset Maugham used to tell people when they asked him how long it took him to write a certain book he’d always quote the age he was when he wrote it. So by the end of his life the answer would be, “It took me 90 years to write that book.” He was being serious and that’s really true of everything you do in life movie or not. It’s an outpouring of whatever you’ve been through in life up to that moment.

 

These general filmmaking questions are from Dustin Brandt a student in one of the BGSU classes I’ve helped teach.

1. During your college career what activities/groups were you involved in that helped you as you entered the business?

I took every class the university offered in film and in English that related to film. I saw as many films as possible especially those I knew very little about before I saw them. I read about the films I loved to try to see how they were made.

If a production class was repeatable I took it more than once. Out of these productions groups of us formed into social and working groups. The best of these people then went on to work with me on features and some of those still do to this day. There were no real local filmmaking societies in Columbus back then, I did however have some connections and certainly interest in Local Theatre groups and went to live theatre regularly and had some acting training before College. It was making films with other students and “being” in different crew roles on different productions that helped me most. I didn’t expect I’d be “the star” of every production and I learned craft areas of film. Talent you are born with but you have to practice and use that talent to become skillful. You aren’t born with skills. You need craft to add to talent to make it in the business. I wish there had been other official groups I could have joined and I should have done some internships, which I did not. Every film/video project I worked on was a key factor in making me better at my craft and also better at seeing various personal and production problems that arise with each new film.

Also certain professors that I got to know outside of class helped me. At the time there was an Ohio Film Bureau and I was eventually listed with them that lead to some work after I was out of school.

Also I raised money in part to make my own films by working in a movie theatre and that put me in touch with some hardcore film collectors and fans and allowed me to study films over and over again and see audiences react to them. It also, as I became a manager at the theatre got me used to being in an authority position with others and learned how to work together.

2. After college what were some challenges you faced while trying to get a job.

There was a time, or supposedly was, where people wanted hot film students to hire. That time is mostly passed, replaced by hiring commercial directors instead as first timers. Having moved to Los Angeles from Ohio no one wanted the fresh kid from Ohio to direct but because I’d worked in many areas I could get hired as an editor and that lead to knowing more people and showing them my films and eventually I became perceived as a director again. The road might have been easier, well faster not easier, had I gone to school or at least graduate school in the Los Angeles area. I did work at the American Film Institute on a film, which was a good experience and intro into LA attitudes and work methods. Though the fact that I’d made a feature film, that got released before I moved there, ultimately was maybe the biggest bonus. Because of that I wasn’t a student filmmaker and that helped. The first years are lean money wise. It’s good to save up some money. The entry-level jobs will not be the large paying ones and in order to get a better crew position you may have to work for little or nothing on smaller films to work your way up. Doing favors can pay off if done for the right people.

3. How did you get your start in the filmmaking business? (position/job) What did you like and dislike about your first jobs?

In Columbus Ohio my first job was as a runner on a commercial shoot. Despite all my film school training and knowledge I was doing a job any person off the street could do. Relatives of the production company were given more active jobs on set than I was. It soon became apparent, to me anyway, that I’d have to wait a long long time in a relatively stable and small video/film market for someone to die in order for higher up positions to open up for me as a director. I needed a bigger pond so to speak, being the big fish in the small pond where I was only meant I was running out of water. So I watched less experienced people make mistakes I would have known better than to do. I thought it was a waste of the production’s money almost more than I felt it was a waste of my time. I felt had I had a bit better crew position I certainly had things I could have learned from the experience but working my way up in the Columbus market would take longer than I cared to give, especially since commercials were the best paying jobs there and the things I had the least interest in doing. I did some other work locally in more elevated spots but there was little work to go around and less even for people starting out, or people like me, young directors, anyway. Had I done internships while in school this process would have been faster.
4. How many years did it take you to become a director?

I’d made my own films for almost 6 years before starting college, all 6 of those helped. Then in college, in group production classes at first, I was not the director—which I guess was something of a shock to me as I’d hoped I could win the director spot by hard work. The second year I took the class I did get to write and direct, certainly the failure to do so originally pushed me to learn how to pitch myself better and every class I took I learned something. On every shoot really even until this day I learn new things. In Los Angeles it was about 2 years before I was directing again. I guess my goal or my perception was that what I was best at was directing and writing to a degree although the two positions can be hard to separate on certain films. It’s what I felt I could use my various skills and talent to best effect for me and for a production. It was what excited me most, the combination of elements that a director deals with. It can take several classes and years to decided what you really want to do in filmmaking however. Friends of mine started out as directors and ended up as other things that I doubt they expected they’d end up being interested in or most qualified to do. I’d done so many short films before features that I felt I was a director but it was only maybe after my 4th feature that I started to see that I was something of a pro at it. Meaning I felt I could rely on my experience to get me out of tough spots on a shoot. I relaxed a bit more, wasn’t as nervous in a bad way before and during shoots.

5. What were some challenges you faced as a new director?

Not being treated as a new director. There is an element of this on each new production you’re hired on to do, that testing phase. You must somehow convince everyone around you on the production that you know what you’re doing, earning their trust or at least gaining enough respect to be able to fool them into thinking you know what you’re doing. If they don’t do this part of what will happen is you will constantly have to argue and explain every single thing you are trying to do to every single cast and crew person on a regular basis. There is little time for discussion and debate on a film shoot. When I finished my first real group directing thing, one of the actors asked how many productions like this I’d directed before, I said this I my first. He was surprised. So I’d pulled it off.

6. Are you involved with any guilds? Can you explain some benefits and disadvantages of being in a guild?

Guilds, no, though I’ve been a member of film societies, and could join the writer’s guild at this point. Guilds help set up various salary demands on employers automatically which reduce the amount of grubbing you have to do for money. Guilds can offer health plans and the like that would otherwise not exist at all for filmmakers as much work you get is on a per film basis. There are few long-term contracts in the film business and individual production companies come and go with the seasons. Also perhaps more important all is the work Guilds do to help collect residual or royalty payments for members. The Director’s Guild has sent me checks just recently for the first time that they collected on foreign releases of my film Ghost Lake. And I’m not even a member but they have me on a list of directors now because I’ve worked enough to be at least a blip on their radar. As an individual or even if you have an agent it’s very tough to know what’s going on with the success and monies you may be owed from foreign releases so a Guild should and does spend some of its time looking out for you in those areas.

Disadvantages to the Director’s Guild, for example, is that a producer may be glad to pay you what the Guild would consider a decent wage. But with the Director’s Guild you also have to hire a certain number of staff in support positions, Assistant Directors. And they have to pay all of them “union” rates. This may be more people and money than they plan to spend in the director section of their budget. Some guilds also forbid taking non-guild jobs, though the Director’s Guild allows this if you notify them and pay your regular dues from that non-guild job. You may join a guild too soon and find that after your first larger paying job you have to turn down several jobs and not work until the next bigger job comes along. You’d probably be accustomed to working a number of small jobs in a row and suddenly you are turning down work and hoping for another big job to come along. It’s something of a guessing game as to when is the right time.

Guilds have a standard contract that can protect you and force producers to look out for you in terms of residuals and safety issues on sets and things of this nature too. Guilds are also social clubs and you could be hanging out with a higher range of people that hopefully means you’ll make friends and meet people you always wanted to meet and of course you hope some of these friends can help you out getting jobs potentially. Guilds are also status symbols. Let’s face it that does count for something on many levels. Not everything but every bit helps.

Certain productions and companies are Guild signatories so you’d need to be in a guild to even be considered for the job. Most television is this way.

7. How do you go about getting funding for your films?

Anywhere and everywhere, or nowhere depending on the situation. Forming my own company a few years ago got us some limited but growing company credit. The process of getting money either from a studio or individuals have many of the same, dog and pony show aspects of selling not just your script or movie but you yourself to them. There is a good book I recommend to people in the BGSU classes that help people put together packages that money types will want to see that make sense to them. One big thing I say that always proves true is don’t start a film until you have enough money committed, and in the bank is really best, to get the film shot and edited. Without that you may have half a film or a whole film shot that you can’t really show in any form to get completion money.

8. What are some challenges you have encountered with your actors and how did you over come them?

Walking and talking at the same time--I don’t mean this to sound harsh, but this is something that is difficult for actors. If they talk they tend to want to stand still and look the other person in the face and play the scene. This is not realistic to real life and it’s dull in film. Blocking the scene and retaining the acting part that is the challenge. Rehearsing helps this rehearsing with the camera and sound and all the rest... Giving the actors things to do will make the scene better but they won’t necessarily naturally offer those things to you. Though with some actors you may have the opposite problem, they will like funny noses and props that may or may not really help the scene, don’t let them get bogged down in lighting cigarettes or eating in a scene if you don’t need to. On take 4 they will already be sick of smoking or eating the cold food they thought they wanted to eat. Use these types of gimmicks sparingly and try to get your actors to use the space of the room and move the camera with them or against their actions.

Relaxing is a big thing, trying to make them comfortable or getting them not to overdo the scene, over acting out of the nervous energy they will have at the moment you’re doing it can result. Relaxing also can help if they are freezing up out on repeated takes. The actors’ tension will freeze them as still as stone.

If an actor blows a line of dialog they may get really tense and apologetic about it, you have to say, no no, you’ll get it, no big deal just do it again we’ll be fine. You have to not let them freak out if they start to feel they are failing in any way to perform the way they hope to. It’s really about getting what you want from the scene, but you can’t just tell them that.

In film you have to have the right last minute idea or adjustment to give them when the camera crew is sure not to blow a take for other reasons. This last minute thing with a good actor will lead to a great performance take.

This is tough, the actor and camera people and sound people have to all be at their best at the same moment. This is frustrating in film, they rarely are. It’s not impossible but there is a certain lightening in a bottle element to film no two takes are ever identical and accidents or one time things are frequently the best things in the finished films.

9. How do you get your actors psychologically into the roles of their characters?

They have to do this through whatever method they have learned or that works for them; this is really their homework. And in rehearsal and one of one discussions with the actors before the cameras are there and every moment costs so much money. Performing the scenes in even rough rehearsals will start to make things click inside and out for you and the actors. Also if you rehearse the scene and then get away form it for a few days new ideas will occur to you and the actors.

Specifically you can help them by explaining where in the story this takes place and or within the scene. You shoot out of order most always and they may not know really what else you intend to shoot to go with the moments you are capturing right now. You need to tell them things like, you are angry here, but this is not full on anger that we need to see later in the scene. This type of thing may be of the most help to them. Where are they, the character, at this moment in the scene what came before what is about to come up in the next scenes of the script or the scenes that have happened before that you haven’t shot yet.

The writing should be the core of what the character is, the script is where the rest comes from, or that’s the common source of info for the director and the actors. Actors memorize and concentrate mostly on their own part of a scene, it’s up to you to help them fit into the whole film or remind them of non dialog elements to the character that they may forget in the heat of the moment.

10. If you were to pick one of your films that best defines your work what would it be? What makes that film stand out from the rest?

I don’t have a quick honest answer to this. If I made my best film I guess I’d stop making films. I don’t try to make the same movie over and over again so that makes it difficult to pick for me as well. Iron Thunder I think is one of my best scripts. My first feature Beyond Dream’s Door and maybe my most recent completed one Ghost Lake are certainly more from my own imagination and my own life and do things that I like horror films to do. I think they are about more than their plot, or more than about being a horror film, though they are horror films too certainly, even mainly. The different elements in them I think support the whole. Which every element must do.
Other films were works for hire so though I brought myself to them; there were elements that were mandated or forced on them to be commercial. My Titanic documentary and my Hamlet film I also consider good work as well. A pure film on as many levels as possible I guess would be a director’s best film. One that flowed along a straight good line of thought and emotion that wasn’t mucked about with too many production problems and had a lot of happy accidents and moment of inspiration to go along with a good version of that you thought and felt you’d get when you set out.

A good or great movie is more than the sum of the parts. It’s up to the audience to decide if you’ve made something great. It’s your job to work hard for that goal.

11. What aspects of the horror genre do you enjoy the most and what new aspects do you bring to the table as a director of the genre?

I don’t have a quick answer to this either. But horror films are symbolic battles between life and death and good an evil. Sometimes that’s pathetically simple and obvious in the film but it can also be complicated and psychological. Beyond that they are visceral and emotional but still imaginative. An actor friend said horror films don’t reduce everything to everyday mundane reality. I prefer supernatural elements in horror films to straight ahead killer movies. I know the genre from film and literary points of view but I know things outside the genre. I think horror films are real films. I don’t treat them like lesser films or as genre films in a limiting and restricting way.

12. How do you juggle the needs of the talent and crew with time and budget restraints? Do you do anything different if a shoot runs longer than expected?

You juggle them as well as you can, if an actor or crew person seems to be burning out you try to use what energy they have while they still have it. Do the complicated camera move now before they are too tired to be able to pull it off. You have to push people sometimes, you need to know when to stop before you push them too far, or push hard only when you absolutely have to. Say please and thank you often. You have to be able to think on your feet to come up with quicker ways to getting out of the scene what you have to when suddenly there is no time or no budget left for something. You can’t mope on set; you have to be shooting all the time as much as possible. If you find you have some extra time use it certainly, there should always be a way to do an extra take where you need it, or get an additional shot that is on your list of, “it would be nice if we get this but probably won’t have time.” That list should kind of be in the back of your head.

The longer a shoot runs the more people will start to get burned out you have to simplify and compromise. There is a difference between compromise and selling out, you have to know the difference between the two. You can’t settle for bad, you have to settle for good enough once in a while.

13. How far in advance do you confirm all design decisions? How do you cooperate with the designers to make sure that all deadlines are met and that designs are approved before the implementation of those designs goes into effect?

The sooner the better, the problem is that the money doesn’t get spent on any film until the last possible moment. No matter what the budget this is true. So despite all the drawings etc that you get and hopefully get to revise and approve, you’ll probably be far away when the materials are bought and sometimes they either forget or can’t get what you’d discussed or they get inspired while you aren’t there to guide them and come up with something that surprises you or that you hate. I’ve refused to shoot props that weren’t right, but you’d better have something else to shoot instead that day to make room to pick that element up later if possible.

I try to get design and prop people to think outside the box, meaning giving them paintings or non-film things as references. Otherwise you get movie ideas repeated over and over. Try to get them to go to real world resources for inspiration. Of course if you are renting not building sets etc this is tougher to do. You may have to inspire your designers to do something beyond the routine and then stick with some of that plan even when money runs out. Money on films usually runs out before it is all spent, again on any budget level this is true after a point.

If it’s about money the department people need to tell you if they aren’t able to proceed because of budget holdups, the director at certain phase of production can be very powerful, he can tell the producer’s if this isn’t ready by Tuesday we’ll be a week behind and be able to convince them that is the case. If you can do this suddenly money will emerge to get thing prepared ahead of time.

You’ve got to trust people to understand and remember what you describe or mutually agree upon. It’s a tough thing. When people get tired on a shoot they forget. Communication is so important with all departments, you never get it all right but you have to. You have to stay on top of not just what you’re shooting this week but what you are going to shoot in two weeks that you saw picture of last month. Tricky.

14. What are some important elements of filmmaking (beyond the art of directing) that directors should be aware of as they develop and make their film?

A director does that to everything as from how I look at it. Some scenes the dialog is the most important element, it’d be great if it took place in a cool location or set but really if you have to choose that dialog is what matters most. You have to get that and then the rest can slide a bit if it has to. But it’s all-important to the director that is their role to direct this cacophony of elements into a film. The way they do this is what makes them unique unto themselves, let’s hope, or at least makes a good film.

I think you as the director are the audience for the film. So you have to give yourself what you want as an audience member for that scene. You have the resources of all the arts and crafts to do this. Music etc, they are all your tools to use to support a good element of hide a bad one.

Ideally you’re involved in all elements you might imagine, even how they will sell your film. If you make a film they aren’t selling it will fail. Meaning if they sell it as a comedy and you’re making a drama…. well, that’s a problem.

Understand that many people making the film will only see their small part of it, that’s okay as long as you understand the big picture. Don’t waste your time trying to convince them it’s the greatest movie ever or anything like that. Spend your time focusing their element on what it is you need from that at that moment to fit into the big picture you are after.

Lots of things boil down to the actors, if you get actors who can’t act or a star that doesn’t turn out to have the sales power the producers thought they did, or are miscast, the end result will be problematical. You need great shots and ideas and all that, but if the acting is poor lots of the rest of it won’t be noticed.

15. How do you go about getting your films screened and how do you decide what festivals to enter?

Make sure the presentation is good that is so important, that the sound and picture are as good as possible. Make sure the biggest football game of the year isn’t the night of your premier. Don’t screen anything before 8pm as a usual rule. Invite three times as many people as you have seats and worst case you’ll get a full house.

Knowing what your film is will help you get it to the right festival, and what festivals want can change from year to year, so it’s frustrating. Festivals are a market unto themselves and don’t automatically turn into commercial success. A Festival film is a polite way of saying this film is not commercial on a broader basis.

16. What are some important things to say/do when entering your films for screenings and festivals?

You need to tell them what they want to hear. Don’t sell your comedy as a drama but if you have some elements that are comedic in a real way and the fest is celebrating comedy that year, for a simple example, then explain why it is funny. Or if it’s not don’t bother submitting. You can’t turn your movie into everything for all people, but what you tell someone before they see your film will usually color their reaction to it, and you want to color it in the best way for them to like your film, or accept it for consideration in a festival’s case.

Research the fests. See the films they ran if you don’t know them already. Look at who the judges are and if they are filmmakers then you’ll have an idea of what their interests are and what it is about your film they might like. Newer festivals may not attract much press or audience.

17. How do you deal with the new technologies that enter the field? Do you ever feel overwhelmed with all the new digital formats emerging today?

Years of relative inertia have given way to a blinding array of new things. Be careful that whatever format you choose will work for your project from beginning to end. New formats don’t always have solid good editing workflow patterns laid out yet. Be careful in budgeting to make sure you have enough left over to deal with these new formats, call around get rival bids on new Hi DEF stuff prices vary by thousands of dollars. Ghost Lake was posted, sound and picture, in HI DEF for 15 thousand dollars, we had bids for twice that. Ghost Lake though posted in HI DEF has not yet been released that way; technology lags behind and is different from country to country.

18. On your site you state that you make films to tell stories visually and literally, how do you make sure your messages are portrayed consistently throughout the film process? Do they ever change?

Hopefully you don’t discover what your film’s about by accident while shooting that’s a bit late in the game. But the way to express what you’re after, well, you may find and hopefully will find moments you didn’t dream of will come up, like through-lines for behavior or visuals or props that weren’t scripted that are better than what you thought of up front. You will find that certain things you thought you had to have are completely unnecessary because an actor is so good you get a whole scene without having to speak at all. The specific style of the film will evolve based on locations and blocking of actors and elements. Follow your plan but keep your eyes open for opportunities and trust your feeling that something will work better this way, rather than the way you thought you’d do it. There is instinct involved, if you can develop that instinct you have to know when to trust your gut reaction and not realize later, as if often the case that you should have gone with your first instinct and not outsmart yourself, or let others talk you out of something that you just know at that moment is the right thing for the movie, for the scene. Things change on a set you need to know when that change is a good thing and mold the change for the best.

During editing you will usually cut away many things you thought were important and can see now that you’re watching rather than making the scenes for the first time. On several occasions the last shot of the finished film was not the one I planned or was scripted. In one case, Ghost Lake, I knew while we were shooting that this was the last shot. In another, The Birthmark in editing it suddenly seemed right to flip the order of some shots around in a way that supported the script better than anything we thought about on location or was ever scripted, it wasn’t really anything we noticed when we did the shot or not in the way it came to be in the overall film.

19. What are some things you do to prepare for a shoot the day before?

Clear your head of as much junk as possible. Reread the pages you are going to shoot that day. Review unedited and or edited footage if you have it that relates to what you’re about to shoot if you’re unclear how this should fit into the rest of the film.

If you made a shot list, look it over again, but read the script and make new notes that may occur to you. Read it once and make some notes, look at the schedule think about what is supposed to be shot first, last, etc. Then go back and read it all again and make more notes, then read it one more time and this time read your notes and the script and make sure it all makes sense to you. Make notes about what the most important thing about the scene is, if it’s one shot or one line of dialog. These notes tell you if everything else turns out to be different than my plan, these things must in some clear way be gotten across in what we shoot. These are the things you will get even if it kills you. All the other things would be nice to have but may have to be thrown aside in the heat of the shoot.

You are trying to “see” the scene in your head. On set you’re going to shoot it all out of order and everything will sometimes seem to be against you so it’s important you see what you want it to be when it’s cut into the entire movie.

With this amount of preparation you may find you don’t even look at the script for long periods of time on set, or I’ve gotten to the point where I can do that. It’s like being able to type without looking at the keys.

Prepare for the day this way, but then, if you can, see a movie or go eat, do something, listen to some music, that has nothing to do with the film. You might not be really good company and have to do this on your own, in fact that might be important, but good company can be a bonus too.

This can help you come back to the scenes you will shoot the next day with a bit of a fresh perspective. I have also had a full reading of the script recorded and listened to that in the car on the way to the shoot, if you do a cast read through use this as your source if not record it yourself, hearing the script this way you may see things you won’t if you’re reading it.

Another thing to do is see, in the script, what comes before and after the scenes you are doing and makes notes about how to get in and out of each scene. Orson Welles said the day before read the script and then when you sleep dream your film. Though I don’t remember dreaming the way the scenes should look this advice seems more important to me the more I go along.

20. What advice would you give to emerging/aspiring directors today?

Talent isn’t enough you need skill. You only get and learn skills when you make your own movies before you ever get hired make them however you can. If they suck don’t show them to anyone but learn by making them. The costs of doing this and desktop editing make this more possible than ever. Make movies in school outside of the class; help each other make films, learn how to work with people. Finish what you start, you don’t really learn the way to make films if you shoot stuff and don’t edit it and put in music etc. Study films you love give films you’ve never heard of a chance, see all the ways there are to tell stories with a camera. Don’t lock yourself off from experience or only walk the accepted or popular path as a filmmaker or as a fan of film. If you can’t love films made by others how can you expect others to like your films. Your motive should be first and last to make the best film you can. To make also a film worth making when it’s done because making even a small short is a lot of work. Don’t make films to impress people or get dates or bask in glory for it’s own sake. Try to have pure motives because the rest is muddy and complicated and doesn’t last as long as the finished film will.

Filmmaking should be a passion not an obsession.

21. Are there any important elements of directing that you feel I may have left out or that many may not be aware of?

Directing uses everything parts of all the arts at one time or another or all at once at certain times. Try to use all these tools whenever you can. Sound can get overlooked so easily for example. Working with people, actors, crew is important and a joy and frustration so get as good with people as you can. You have to be direct to direct. You have to tell people things are bad sometimes and you should tell them when things are good. Communicating to the audience with all the tools film can use and communicating with crew and producers, distributors, there are lots of strangers you have to get to know or be brave enough to be direct with about what you see as being as best for the film and then being able to communicate to them why you are right. You might not always be right either, or know the answers to the questions you yourself ask, so if you do listen to people and have people on your side they can of course come up with ways to make a scene better. There is collaboration hopefully it’s not a dictatorship but you are in a position of leadership in a group on the same side making the same movie hopefully.

General things are sometimes better than specifics. What emotion do you want out of scene or out of lighting or music? If you can’t tell them how to achieve it that’s okay if you can tell them what you’re after, their skills can fill in the blanks for you. Tell an actor that you want to see more anger. Don’t tell him to yell more loudly, for example. Or if all he’s doing is yelling and you don’t believe it find some other way for him to show the anger that works for you. Perhaps it’s better if he speaks very calmly then breaks a chair in half when you least expect it. Things of that nature…

Use your imagination always in all situations. Make a movie you yourself can only make, if you are trying to make a Tim Burton type movie, the best you’ll ever be is a second rate Tim Burton rather than a first rate you.