Last Monday, May the 23rd, 2011 - something incredible happened. Our film, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK, was released in the UK and Australia by the wonderful team at Bounty Films.
The first stock at Amazon UK sold out that day - they have since restocked because Amazon is rad like that. In addition to the release, we have had the brilliant Steve Hill getting us in touch with cool folks to talk horror, hooker, and all things twisted with. One particular very lovely gentleman was Darren Jamieson of WhatDVD.net.
How did you go about raising finance for the film?
Sylvia: We didn’t. We have been huge Robert Rodriguez fans for years – not only do we love his films, we love his ten minute film schools where he explains how to independently and modestly make some very cool looking tricks. He accounted his first feature filmmaking experience in REBEL WITHOUT A CREW which followed him from donating his body to science to raise seven grand to make EL MARIACHI. It really hit home with us that you can make a good film with a humble budget and that’s what we did.
A lot of that was possible because of our team. There was a writer’s strike at the time that freed up everyone’s schedules. We were able to get the best in the business coming out, donating their time to make a great project. We were very lucky.
Jen: What we did have to pay for ended up maxing out our credit cards. We had about a few between the two of us and every time we ended up with an expense that needed to be paid for, we charged it. That was for costumes, prosthetics, equipment rentals, and food for the actors. Almost everything, including the cast and crew’s time was donated to the production. We got a team together of people who love filmmaking and are passionate about it. It was amazing to have so many talented local artists coming together to bring DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK to life.
At the end of it, the real expenses came from taking so much time off and not having an income to pay for basic necessities. Our parents, Agnes and Marius Soska, and our producers, MaryAnn Van Graven and Donald Charge, knew the situation we put ourselves in and gave us the money we needed to be able to finish the film in post and get it out there. It was so kind and generous of them. We’ll never forget that kindness.
We had an amazing time talking with Darren who is a fellow filmmaker and has his own share of interesting experiences from making his own projects. Please click here to read the whole interview as we talk about how we the film actually got made, various challenges from highly ambitious concepts to very modest budgeting to bring said concepts to life. It's a very film-minded chat and if you are thinking of making your own indie (and we hope you do!) this piece will give you our take on how it went for us on this project.
I would like to thank Darren for taking the time to chat, Steve for being rad and setting everything up, and you - the one reading this - for checking out the site, our work, and for the support. You make this all possible and we really appreciate the kindness!
~Sylv
No comments:
Post a Comment