Friday, August 10, 2012
Monday, August 6, 2012
Sci-Fi/Action Film Liberator Premiere August 11th at Holly Shorts Film Festival!
As a supporter of action and short films thanks to actress Tara Cardinal, who plays Gaia, I found out about this cool film starring Lou Ferrigno called Liberator. The plot description from the film's producer is:
Ed Migliocetti (Lou Ferrigno, "The Incredible Hulk") has served his
country. When the war began, he put aside his football career to sign up
for the military. And when the powers-that-be drafted him into the
Enhanced Abilities Initiative, he became The Liberator.
Teamed with supers Sidewinder, Gaia and Volt, Liberator represented the best of America. Or so he thought. He soon found himself doing the government's dirty work: assassinations, regime change, infrastructure sabotage. Through it all, Ed followed orders. He was a good soldier. But when a black op went horribly wrong, Ed was thrown under the bus the fall guy. In the blink of an eye, the Liberator literally went from hero to zero. After serving a decade in federal prison, he emerged a pariah. In the eyes of the public, he was a traitor. That, quite frankly, he could take. What he couldn't take was his own daughter Sonya (Jessica Jade Andres) hating him.
Above Pic: Sultry Peta Wilson in Liberator.
Determined to set the record straight and win her back, Ed pens a tell-all book that immediately draws the ire of his former chief General Augustus Pollard (Michael Dorn, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ). Pollard dispatches undercover spook Marla Criswell (Peta Wilson, "La Femme Nikita") to investigate. When they realize that Al plans to blow the whistle after all these years, they have no choice but to take him out.
After Ed battles his way out of a US military contractor compound, President Whitlock (Ed Asner, "Up" ), declares the Liberator Public Enemy Number One and sends his old teammates (Don the Dragon Wilson and Tara Cardinal) to bring him down by any means necessary.
But this time, the Liberator is not going down without a fight.
Teamed with supers Sidewinder, Gaia and Volt, Liberator represented the best of America. Or so he thought. He soon found himself doing the government's dirty work: assassinations, regime change, infrastructure sabotage. Through it all, Ed followed orders. He was a good soldier. But when a black op went horribly wrong, Ed was thrown under the bus the fall guy. In the blink of an eye, the Liberator literally went from hero to zero. After serving a decade in federal prison, he emerged a pariah. In the eyes of the public, he was a traitor. That, quite frankly, he could take. What he couldn't take was his own daughter Sonya (Jessica Jade Andres) hating him.
Determined to set the record straight and win her back, Ed pens a tell-all book that immediately draws the ire of his former chief General Augustus Pollard (Michael Dorn, "Star Trek: The Next Generation" ). Pollard dispatches undercover spook Marla Criswell (Peta Wilson, "La Femme Nikita") to investigate. When they realize that Al plans to blow the whistle after all these years, they have no choice but to take him out.
After Ed battles his way out of a US military contractor compound, President Whitlock (Ed Asner, "Up" ), declares the Liberator Public Enemy Number One and sends his old teammates (Don the Dragon Wilson and Tara Cardinal) to bring him down by any means necessary.
But this time, the Liberator is not going down without a fight.
LIBERATOR will be Saturday, August 11th at the world-famous Holly Shorts Film Festival.
We are headlining the Saturday night Sci-fi/VFX block. The screening will be at the legendary Grauman Chinese Theater on Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood . There will also be a Q&A afterwards with the filmmakers. We couldn’t be more excited, and we hope to see you all there!
Many ways to connect with Liberator:
Blast your muscle bound browsers to the official site @
Facebook like @ https://www.facebook.com/Liberatormovie
Youtube video Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/LiberatorMovie
Twitter Link @ https://twitter.com/liberatormovie
Director Adam Deyoe Interview (Exclusive)
After graduating
from Emerson college in Boston Adam Deyoe moved to Los Angeles to
work on film. His most recent work Dead Season,
released by Image
Entertainment on July 31st of 2012, represents a major step on his rise up the Hollywood success ladder. Adam takes time
out of his busy schedule to conduct this exclusive detailed interview
with Dan's Movie Report, and describes some of the highs and lows of
independent filmmaking focusing on Dead Season.
How did the idea
of Dead Season materialize?
The idea for “Dead Season” came about (as many ideas do) in a bar. I was in Puerto Rico with Loren Semmens, the other producer of the film, scouting locations for a completely different movie that we had written together, a comedy titled “Boat Island.” In the script for “Boat Island” it called for a deserted tropical island. We planned on making that particular film but didn’t have quite enough money to do it right. Our idea was to go see the island and then adapt the script to what we found there to cut costs.
The island of Vieques is located off the east coast of Puerto Rico and nestled nicely within the Bermuda triangle. We went to that particular island because we had a free place to stay thanks to the generous filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell. It also sounded as if it had exactly what we were looking for - deserted beaches. What we didn’t know until we arrived was what else it had… Abandoned hotels engulfed in jungle, underground tunnels, military bunkers, rusted trains, an abandoned coliseum, cliffs and extremely helpful locals.
One night after spending the day at the beach and going over the script for “Boat Island” we went to the local bar and started a conversation with a few new friends we had made over the last few days. Loren and I mentioned how bummed we were that if we made “Boat Island” we wouldn’t have been able to utilize all of the amazing military locations and abandoned buildings due to the fact it takes place on a deserted island. That’s when I said, “Too bad we’re not making a zombie movie.” Then we all started talking. “There can be military guys… and they use the bunkers… and then they go to the tunnels… then there can be a crashed boat…” and it went on and on.
We decided then and there that we would make a zombie film instead and put off “Boat Island” for another day. It was also the moment the title “Dead Season” was born. One of the guys we had made friends with mentioned how we needed to make the film during “dead season” when no tourists were on the island. Dead season is another term for the off peak season, but for a zombie film it has many meanings.
How about the screenplay? There were two other writers, how did the writing process transpire? How was the collective effort?
We had a very narrow window of time to make the film. We didn’t have the money to postpone the movie and do pre production a second time after setting up “Boat Island” so we had to just go! The location scout of Vieques was only a little more than a month before we were to ship out for principle photography, so in that time we had to write the script, gather the crew, get most of the financing and cast it, among about ten-thousand other things. This is where having three writers came in handy.
Did you have a location idea as the screenplay was written?
The entire screenplay was based on what we saw on our location scout. We literally wrote out ideas for scenes as we drove and hiked around the island. It was all very practical and “producery.” I would say, “…if we shot in this particular location we wouldn’t be able to get the truck in.” Then Loren would say, “OK, fuck it… lets write the scene to take place in the jungle over there instead.” It was all based on the island!
How long did the
screenplay take to write?
We wrote it primarily in one month as we did pre production. As we shot we were re-writing every night and even on set with the actors. Since we had no leeway in our schedule we had to do it like this. It was not ideal by any means! Since Loren and I were also producing we brought on our friend Josh Klausner to work on it with us. We presented him our idea and basically stayed up for a month straight working on it forty hours a day between us. We love writing with each other, but if I had to do it again I would never rush the way we did. We all went insane from lack of sleep.
Did
you have a specific company in mind to send the completed Dead Season
final draft to, or was the process more arduous?
We
had no specific plans on what we were going to do with the film when
we were done with it. We mainly wanted to go the festival route
and see where that took us, but after our first screening of the film
for buyers we got offers right away. It usually doesn’t
happen like that, so I guess we really lucked out. The process
though was very difficult and time consuming setting everything up on
our own. We were completely new to this and had no money to
have people help us. It was quite a learning experience.
Now Image Entertainment has it and we really like what they’ve
done!
Above Pic: Adam (far right) at 2010 AFM being presented an award by lovely actress Tara Cardinal.
How about the casting, chat at length about the casting process, how you found the various leads for Dead Season?
We
didn’t have much time to get the casting done nor did we have the
money. We relied mainly on recommendations from friends and
using casting websites as quickly as possible… even Craigslist.
Corsica
Wilson who played Rachel Conrad was the first person cast. I
had met her six months prior on another movie I worked on doing sound
called “Clair”. We hit it off and became friends. The
part was not written with her in mind but as soon as we started the
casting process I knew I wanted her. She lived in Florida at
the time and had to do her audition over skype. It was
convenient though since Puerto Rico is so close to Florida so we
saved some money on plane tickets. That was the main reason she
was cast… Just kidding!
James
C. Burns who played Kurt Conrad came in to audition and we also hit
it off right away. On his resume I noticed he had been in a
film called “My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done?” by one of my
favorite filmmakers Werner Herzog. I asked James what it was
like to do the film and gushed about my love for Herzog. After
he left we knew we had to have him. I could direct a man that
was directed by Herzog!
Scott
Peat who played Elvis was a recommendation from Loren’s friend.
We saw Scott audition and he did it unlike anyone else. He
surprised us after seeing so much of the same. We brought him
in to read with a few other people as well and he seemed to always
bring something fun and new to the lines. We needed that!
Marissa
Merrill who played Tweeter had probably the most bizarre casting
process of all. It is a long story that will seem like it is
going nowhere, but please bear with me. The first day of the
shoot was drawing near and we still hadn’t found our girl.
Loren and I were starting to worry. We had seen so many people for
Tweeter and no one was working out. After he put up one more
desperate Craigslist ad we decided to take a break and look at funny
videos on-line to lighten the mood. After watching cats
and corgis do silly things for a bit we started talking about a
filmmaker we knew of from back in Boston (where we went to school)
who made some really odd stuff and decided to look them up. We
found their website and started clicking around on their videos.
One video in particular made us laugh so hard we thought we were
going to die. It was a fan video of Friday the 13th…
and it was ridiculous. It started with girls kissing, getting
naked, standing by a white van, and then getting killed by Jason.
One of the actresses was hilariously bad and had a very silly fake
name (I’ll call her Red Rosey Petal for
now, since that is similar enough) and we watched her scenes over and
over again until our eyes bled tears of joy. I can’t express
in writing how amazingly awful it was. After that we moved on
to a trailer to another film. This one looked really bad as
well but the girl in the trailer caught my eye. I turned to
Loren and said, “That girl there. She is the type of girl I
want for Tweeter. I want someone exactly like that. She
is perfect!” Loren agreed but we couldn’t figure out what
her name was and we went back to writing.
The
next morning I woke up on Loren’s couch with the laptop next to me
after about an hour of sleep. Loren and I had to run an errand
over at the SAG office, so we got up and headed out the door.
As we drove back from SAG to Loren’s apartment I noticed a white
van heading towards me in the other lane. I said, “That looks
just like the van from the awful Friday the 13th video we
watched last night.” As it got closer I said, “Hey the girl
in that van looks like the girl from the awful Friday the 13th
video we watched last night too.” Loren said, “I think it
IS her!” We both stopped in traffic right next to each
other. I rolled down my window and made her roll down hers and
asked, ‘Hey, were you in a Friday the 13th fan video?”
Shocked, she replied, “Yes…” I said back, “Is your name Red
Rosey Petal?” She replied, “I am! You are the first
person ever to recognize me in my entire life!” Then the
light changed and we drove away as she watched us dumbfounded.
Loren and I laughed like crazy at the odds that the girl from the
random video we watched the night before would happen to pull up next
to us the next day. We drove back to the apartment.
Once
inside, Loren sat down and checked his e-mail. We had received
only one reply from any of the ads we put up the night before.
The girl who responded was named Marissa Merrill and she had seen our
post on Craigslist. We clicked on her resume and a link to some
of the things she was in. It brought us directly to the website
we had been looking at the night before. She was the girl I had
randomly pointed to and said, “She is the type of girl I want for
Tweeter. She is perfect!” Out of all the people in the
entire world… I pointed at ONE and the next day that ONE girl whose
name I didn’t even know was the only person to respond to our ad.
AND the other girl whose video we watched pulled up next to us in her
van. Needless to say Marissa got the part.
Were there any Dead Season casting nightmares? Bizarre stories?
No
real nightmares, but the oddest thing was something I did while
auditioning Marissa for Tweeter. Meeting with her was quite
last minute and we didn’t have an office anymore to cast out of so
we agreed to meet at her apartment and I would bring a video camera
to record her audition. Originally her character didn’t have
a machete but instead a shotgun. During all the auditions we
had an actual shotgun on hand that we would give to the girls to see
how they looked with it. It was Loren’s shotgun but he wasn’t
able to come to the audition of Marissa so I took it from his
apartment as I left to meet her. I went to the address, met
with her, talked and started the audition. We read lines and
then I gave her the shotgun and so forth. Now nothing bad
happened (it wasn’t loaded and she didn't blow my hand off or
anything) but afterwards we thought about it a bit. I had taken
a shotgun, which I have no permit for in any way, to a complete
strangers house and took it out.
When
you finally got to the island location were there any surprises,
things you had to adjust the filming of, or change entirely?
We
had gotten permission to shoot at a beautiful abandoned lighthouse,
which was to be the action centerpiece of the film. It was
going to be the biggest day of shooting and the one we were most
excited for. The morning we got to the location to shoot there
was a gate up with a lock on it and we couldn’t get the cube truck
past. Loren rushed off to government building to get the guy
with the keys. He luckily found him and he told us everything
would be all set. Then right before we were about to go unlock
the gate a phone call from an actual military compound on the island
came through. They said that they owned that property, not
Puerto Rico, and that we could not go through. We asked them
why and they responded with, “Because the area is covered in land
mines and you could all blow up.” I know that sounds far
fetched but it was true. The island was used as a military
testing site for bombs, depleted uranium, land mines and many other
things. On Fridays during our shoot we always had to stop due
to the sounds of explosions ruining our takes. The military
would sweep through the jungle, gather up all the bombs and mines and
on Fridays put them all together and blow them up. The
lighthouse scene had to be scrapped. We spent the next few
hours re writing it and adapting it to a different location, which we
were not thrilled about and was very underwhelming in comparison.
Another
story that involves our sound on the island had to do with the
CONSTANT barking of dogs and crowing of roosters. We had to
stop every ten seconds, sometimes only getting a few words of a line
at a time. It was dreadful… and editing around all that
wasn’t fun. The entire island was like this… nowhere we
went was quiet. We found out later that when “Lord of the
Flies” shot there 50 years earlier they had the exact same
problem. It is why that entire film is dubbed.
Also,
I have a little story from Loren: “We hired a LA based guy to
do location sound. He requested that we fly his new wife out to the
island, and in turn she would be a production assistant on our film.
Sounded like a fair trade to us.
On
the first day, before we shot anything, they took us aside and
complained that we hadn't supplied them with any weed. They were
really pissed off. Seeing as though it was our first day and I didn't
want to get behind, I asked a local production assistant to see if
they could find some for the newlyweds.
Over
the next couple hours, we began shooting on a beach. It was a
beautiful sunny day and aside from the sound guy incessantly asking
me about when his drugs would arrive, things were great. Then I get
called on walkie to rush back to our base camp (about 100 yards from
the beach).
I
arrived to find his wife acting like she was about to die. She was
"passed out" in a chair with a towel over her head and two
production assistants fanning her. Despite the fact that she was born
in Africa and grew up in the south, she claimed to have gotten heat
stroke and demanded to be brought back to the hotel (a.k.a upgraded
to the actor's lodging instead of the crew house). I complied and
sent her up there. (by the way everyone else on the crew was
absolutely fine)
Over
the course of the day, the sound guy eventually left set to be with
his wife where they ordered room service on our bill, and smoked tons
of weed and cigarettes in the hotel room.
After
we wrapped for the day, I went to check in on them. In short, they
blackmailed me into flying them back to LA on the first available
flight the next morning. They held the sound recordings hostage until
we returned to LA a month later. Furthermore, she threatened to
contact the unions and lie to them about our working conditions.
Seeing as though I really wasn't in the mood to get shut down on
false pretenses, I did as they requested and sent them on their way.
It
cost us probably about $4k, and I (Loren) had to take over sound
recording duties for the duration of the shoot. And to add insult to
injury, I actually got a call from a union about poor working
conditions. When I inquired as to who filed the grievance and told
him the story, the union rep laughed and said "don't worry about
it." If our rep hadn't have been levelheaded when dealing with
this woman, it could have resulted in us getting shut down. Dodged a
bullet there.”
It
was also very difficult to get equipment to the island. We had
to rent a ferry to get the grip truck over which was expensive and a
pain. And when our generator broke we couldn’t get one until
the next day, also by ferry. During the time there we also
blacked out the entire island twice due to the power we were
pulling. I really could go on and on. It all
reminded me of the documentary about the making of “Apocalypse Now”
called “Hearts of Darkness” but on a much smaller scale.
How
about post production work on Dead Season, was there a lot of ADR, or
additional pickup shots after the final shooting process?
There
were a lot of pickups. When we shot on the island we planned on
all the interiors and the entire beginning of the film to be shot in
LA to save money and time on the island. When we got back we
started editing before we did those extra scenes. In total,
after coming back from Puerto Rico, we probably shot an additional
ten days. One of which was an overnight shoot in Compton at a
metal recycling factory. We shot the whole sequence (which you
can see edited roughly on the DVD) and then after putting it in the
film, almost completely scrapped it. We then went back and re
wrote the opening and shot a majority of it a second time with a
completely different feel. Originally it was an action scene
but then we turned it into something much simpler and talky.
As
for ADR, we only had one session that took care of most of our
problems. Lucky for us we had a great mixer and sound designer.
If
magically your budget was doubled, describe the changes you would
have made on Dead Season?
We
would have pushed the shoot back so we had more time to prep and work
on the script. We also would have added more days to the shoot
in Puerto Rico and paid people better. We also would have had a
cook from the beginning to make people decent meals! Really once a
movie is done you look back and want to change everything. It’s
done now though and we are happy to move on! It’s been a very
long ride.
Now
the question, how about a Sequel, my readers will stand up an cheer
for more Marissa and Corsica, haha, any new ideas formulating?
We
have sail-boat-loads of ideas! We have written out treatments
for everything you can imagine. Prequels, sequels, series, you
name it. But we have to see how the film does first and if
anyone will fund it for us! Any takers?
How
about additional future films for Adam?
I just finished directing a new feature that I am editing now titled “1 Chance 2 Dance”. If you haven’t guessed it’s a dance movie. I’m really excited about it because it’s the first thing I’ve done that isn’t horror. Also, I am doing a movie about a friend of mine with Down’s Syndrome. It’s not a doc, but it has that kind of feel. It’s about what happens when someone who needs constant care loses their caregiver and how they deal with it. Also, I have an animated film I am working on in Budapest at a friend’s studio and a bunch of other horror films that we are trying to get off the ground!
Thank
you Adam for taking your time to conduct this insightful interview
For more information
on Dead Season chop your browsers to: www.deadseasonmovie.com
Slice your browsers
to the official facebook page @
https://www.facebook.com/DeadSeasonMovie
The IMDB page for
Adam is http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1951858/
Order Dead Season by following the Amazon link below.
Order Dead Season by following the Amazon link below.
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