Above: Byron Gibson on the set of 'Bet Dead Casino' (Exclusive!) Dan's Movie Report and Action-Flix.com
Greetings
Valued Dan's Movie Report and Action-Flix.com readers. Byron Gibson
always has innovative and creative ideas in the film business. Due to
the 2020 pandemic, large crews and huge action sequences were not
allowed. Byron adapted his style and form to work on a brand new film
entitled 'Bet Dead Casino'. He shares his thoughts on working during
the pandemic and discuses his recent efforts 'Haphazard' and 'English
Dogs in Bangkok' Always honest, looking to kick ass, while being
creative, Byron is never one to shy away from a fight, or a detailed,
action packed interview. Sit back and prepare for a textual beat
down, take it away Byron!
Above Image:Ron Smoorenburg and Byron Gibson on the set of English Dogs In Bangkok (C)
Danny
Templegod: Chat about the development and working with Taffy and
Brent in the creation of your character in English Dogs in Bangkok.
Byron
Gibson: When the idea first came up, we had a limited budget but a
very good business plan which we are implementing now. Taffy asked
me to form a team of reliable people in two different countries. I
knew it would be difficult because of the budget, and a new frontier
for me, so I was up for the challenge. I got down to business and I
put an ad in a film website and had over 138 people come forward just
to edit the film from the UK alone! I interviewed 10 editors I liked
on Skype. Then I had various meetings with editors and we chose Brent
Zillwood, who was on a very famous TV show in the UK called
Undateables. We met had a few beers at a pub near Liverpool Street
Station in London. We got on very well and bonded and had the same
goals and he got the job, simple as that. We loved his editing and
work he had done previously. We had over 300 actors willing to work
on the film too, even though it was a low budget indie film. So that
gave us a lot of confidence. I then had to recruit the camera guys, I
was recommended a guy called Jack Everitt who had already done a film
in the UK and some documentaries. He was the camera guy for some of
the UK scenes and for Thailand I used Yan Frame who was building up a
great reputation as a good cameraman. He now has gone onto film
another 4-5 films since English Dogs and I think 2 have been with
Daniel Zirilli. So then we had a small team in two different
countries. The UK scenes Taffy directed and for the action sequences
Ron Smoorenburg was the man in charge.
The
next thing was the casting, and I put the word out for the people I
wanted to work with in Thailand and the UK. We wanted to create a
small team of willing people to take part and thankfully everybody we
approached was willing to work on the film. I think we got some of
the best Actors in Bangkok. You may recognize some of them from
various films from 'Never Back Down,' Strikeback' and many other films.
And from the UK we chose from the people who came forward from the
castings. So it was overall a team effort.
Regarding the music wee approached Danny Diablo from New York, he had a track
called 'Sex and Violence' which we all liked, it includes Tim Armstrong
and Everlast singing! He was more than welcome for us to use it,
he has a big Hardcore and Rap following in Queens. Also from the UK
we had Nave who supplied much of the soundtrack, there will be a
music video for the film performed by Nave coming out shortly. We had
Jay Turner from the underground scene from Brighton who supplied the
tracks Big bad Boys..
The
story is based on an English Guy who was part of a gang calling
themselves English Dogs, he fell out with gang because of his own ego
and wanted to be the leader The Alpha male, so some of the dialogue
is based on the life of dogs. This led him to doing a runner to
Bangkok Thailand. He went on to become one of the biggest steroid
dealers in Asia. So we developed the story doing research on this
guy from personality to lifestyle to where he started and finished.
He became very powerful in the world of steroids so much so he was
worth 8 million within 3 years. When he was arrested by the DEA he
had a list of celebrity’s actors he was supplying and to acting
agents, I wish we could have expanded on that but because of the
obvious we couldn’t and also budget. So it was a very interesting
story, and plus in the story there are no winners, it’s all dog eat
dog there’s no heroes and no anti-heroes. With the steroid dealer
we managed to work out where he used to hang out in Bangkok and in
London etc. We did a lot of research on him. Also I know so much
about steroids now even though I have never taken them. This guy was
quite a funny guy in a dark way and we wanted to portray that in the
film, so there is a lot of dark humor in there. It’s not all
violence in fact the film is really a Drama Comedy in the dark form.
Ron Smoorenburg has his biggest speaking role to date.
Above Image: Poster from 'English Dogs In Bangkok'
Danny
Templegod: Very cool cool information about how the film came together, Did you have any input to adapt your own personality and
dialogue in the script especially that your character name is your
actual name Byron?
Byron
Gibson: Yeah 100 percent, we had the script to go by but we were
allowed to adapt it to our way of saying things to make it more real.
I like that way. In the film I have two names because he changed his
identity, one is Byron Harrison and the second is Jimmy Harrison. Now
the reason for that is we couldn’t use the real character’s name
which the story is based on. In the past Jean Claude van Damme liked
my name and so did Nicolas Winding Refn they used it in their films
when I worked for them, so we used it again, I was told its good
marketing too lol. So we thought why not! We let some of the actors
write some extra scenes in themselves too. Especially Damian with his
pimp scene playing Joe.
Above Image: Photo by Jack Everitt - © 2019 English Dogs in Bangkok
Danny
Templegod: Chat about production and casting, seems like you were
able to get Ron, Dean, Mark and people you trust involved. Chat about
your smoothness to work with many of the same people in your films,
and your producers to seamlessly transition into adapting, a
collaborative effort.
Byron
Gibson: Yeah we got Ron on board who then brought in Mark Stas. Me
and Ron have worked on loads of projects together. I asked Dean
could he help out and he obliged. Dean filmed a few scenes and did a
small cameo for me in the film. I like to surround myself with
positive people, not negative, The problem with the acting game is
there are many who have big egos and act like bitches in a
playground. If there’s any element of any school ground playground
stuff I won’t be part of it. Dean is a fine example of a man who
has self-financed, produced, written, and completed now 2 films and
now is on his third. Most people can’t get past a short movie! I
like to surround myself with people like Dean, Ron etc., people who
don’t talk and wine but do. That’s why I will always work with
these people, that’s the only way you will grow. We had the same
with the UK and we will use these people time and time again. Keep
your circle tight and you will succeed. We had a lot of people help
us out on this first project and we will not forget that.
Danny
Templegod: With regards to the production, how many days did you
shoot in Thailand and U.K.?
Byron
Gibson: Well the film was shot over a time period because of the
actor’s schedules, some being away for 6 months etc. so I would say
in total approx. 3 weeks.
Danny
Templegod: I watched a behind the scenes and said you filmed a fight
with Ron, and accidentally fell down due to the tightness of the
ally, how did you adapt to the fall, looks like you worked around it.
Perhaps share a story from that sequence and angles you wanted to
portray, was it always supposed to be shot in the alley?
Byron
Gibson: What actually happened there was the cameraman I
wanted to use was away working on a documentary in another country.
So I filmed both the fight scenes with Mark Stas and Ron Smoorenburg
on two separate days. The first fight we filmed in 2 hours and the
second fight 3 hours. Now the fight where I fall into the trash,
basically what happened there was I was following their body movement
and I spun round so quickly as I was looking at the monitor and I
lost my balance and smashed into all this rubbish. I thought I broke
the cam but lucky for me it turned out alright. I had some very bad cuts and
grazes, I was a bit paranoid about needles as it’s a right dump
down there. Anyway we carried on. The thing about that alley is, it’s
a back street to around 20 blow job bars in Bangkok. A real seedy
area. It’s actually where they filmed the Hangover Part 2 which we
actually worked on lol, they took over the whole street and paid them
a fortune to use the bars. We got it by knowing and paying the local
mafia guys on one condition and that was we didn’t upset the trade
what was going on down there. So we shot the scene actually in a live
street. We wanted to use it as it’s a right dump and looked good on
camera. With the angles we wanted to show some great movement
especially with Ron’s kicks and Marks elbows I think we achieved
that.
Above Image: 'English Dogs In Bangkok' Poster
Danny
Templegod: Chat about the fights in English Dogs, what types of
styles were Ron going for, seems raw street-fight purposely
unpolished brawling.
Byron
Gibson: The fights from me we wanted them as close as possible as to
a real fight. I am not a big fan of over the top martial arts fights,
there is far too much of that now. Keep that for Marvel and big
budget movies we wanted something raw! I like old school fights,
Bronson etc. A lot of these martial arts films you get the guy being
hit with kicks jumping thru the air like a ninja superman and the
other guy waiting there to receive this amazing blow. It’s not
reality I know we are making movies but this style is not for me, I
am a fan of the old school action stars it’s more raw. If it
happened for real and the guy received a solid blow he would be down.
If you have a real fight you get injured, you come out with a shiner
or broken bones, I wanted this for me in English Dogs.
My
character is no hero and no superman either so we needed to portray
that. I am a big fan of Bas Rutten, I love his style. My main
opposition in the film was Crazy Dave. Now Dave walks around at
130kgs, the guy is a monster, a former Australian Champion Strongman
winner. I walk around at 85kgs. The weight advantage is huge. So we
came up with a plan to use my characters trade mark in the film the
knuckle duster on two occasions. We needed the weapon to be used
because I would never be able to beat him and this evened out the
equation. I think we did well to achieve that. Dean Alexoundrou
filmed these scenes with Ron Smoorenburg.
With
the Ron Smoorenburg and Mark Stas Fights we liked the concept of the
elbow master fighting the kick master. Ron choreographed the fights.
But we needed it to be raw. We got some nice hits in that one.
Danny
Templegod: Always interesteing to chat with you about the action. Any funny behind the scenes stories from English Dogs?
Byron
Gibson: The alley fight was quite interesting. There’s all
kinds of stuff down that alley, at the front of it you have all these
over the top bars with girls offering blow job services outside but
behind it where we were its like they take a tea break, or chuck out
bad punters, chuck trash, there’s rats, bones, dead animals, and trust
me its Dread central! You even see some of the girls taking a pee
standing but really they are men. You see a lot of Fat sexpats
leaving from the back entrance of these establishments. I don’t
know what they thought when they saw Ron and Mark fighting when they
came out the back entrance. I could have made them a movie star put
them in the shot of the film! In between the fights we had some of
the girls coming out asking would we like to have blowjobs after we
finished filming, I kid you not, it’s a crazy location at times it
was chaos. We actually used it 3 times in the film.
Another
time we were shooting in England in a garage when a guy walked in asking
to move some cars as they were blocking his entrance to his premises.
He walked in just has Jungle was pointing a gun at my head, he didn’t
know we were filming a movie. So I had to explain lol. This scene
was cut from the film.
Another odd story
was we were filming outside a house in the UK and some kids had
stolen a sofa from a house and they were taking it down the road. We
actually filmed them and put them in the movie!
Danny
Templegod: Cool stories, always entertaining, chat about working with
Leigh Barwell, I really think she brings a strong female character to
the film. Also chat about the powerful dynamic and importance of
having a strong female presence in films you are involved in.
Byron
Gibson: Leigh has been my acting coach over the years and now she
wants to get back into acting as she had been involved in the film
industry before. She has been a top level dancer and choreographer
for years and she auditioned for the part as Tracey in the film. We
all agreed she would be good to play Tracey. Now Tracey character is
full of personality and she is this Chavy Gold digger who was out for
what she could get. You need a strong female in all films especially
one who is an antagonist too. I think she played her very well.
Danny
Templegod: Regarding the movie, I really enjoyed it, I saw that you
are possibly doing a second film, what are some things that can be
improved upon with a larger budget and possible increase in
visibility? I mean if you had filmed the first film with say double
the budget, give an example of locations, sets, props or additional
star power.
Byron
Gibson: I am glad you enjoyed it, yes we will be doing a second film
to English Dogs, and it was confirmed last week. It’s all about the
money and risk. This was a test basically to see what we could pull
off on a very ltd budget. In fact I am pleased to say there will be a
documentary coming out in one years’ time on how we made the film
with the restraints we had with uncut footage from the film which we
couldn’t use. In the film business you have to prove yourself and
create good credit, otherwise your script will be in limbo land for
years. No credit no movie it’s as simple as that, create the fan
base then the credit will come and that is what we are doing. I have
a very good advisor from Sony who has advised us on what we should be
doing over the next 2 years. You could build a house with the budget
of some films, and as one property developer told me “what’s the
point of investing in a film that may fail when I would have a
guaranteed income from a house ”It’s a good point. So now we are
making ourselves credit worthy. So we can go onto bigger and better
things. If you can shoot low and your film sells then you need to
expand on that. Rome wasn’t built in a day, it takes patience and
planning. The next film we will have a bigger and better budget and
so many things will be improved, we will be shooting in the UK, Spain
and Thailand and other places for part 2. We may even have a budget
for a big named actor. The good thing is the dogs did the trick and
that was the game plan all along. Now we have 2 films to shoot
within 18 months, which will get bigger and better all round. Better
sound, better cameras, better everything! If that goes well then
after that we will be chasing the bigger boys!
Danny
Templegod: You had a small scene in 'Haphazard' with Selina Lo chat
about working with her and the professionalism she brings, also chat
again about working with Dean & Ron.
Byron
Gibson: I’ve worked with Selina a few times, not only is she a
great actress and always brings something great to the table but also
a very nicely skilled martial artist too. I heard she’s in a new
film with Mel Gibson which is great, I wish her all the best she
deserves it, hard work is paying off.
Above Image: 'Haphazard' Poster
Danny
Templegod: With regards to home video 'Haphazard' is available on
Amazon as a premium purchase or rental no physical media, I really
like physical media as an option, what is your opinion of the rise in
the past few years of streaming and owning films digitally? Do you
think the DVD and Blu-Ray will be a thing of the past?
Byron
Gibson: I am hoping it’s not a thing of the past. I like dvd’s
too, I like to have a collection. This could be due to illegal
download streams. Which really is affecting the film market on low
budget films.
Danny
Templegod: Chat about the upcoming 'Bet Dead Casino', I had some fun
filming a small video as a crazy gambler, chat about the development
of the film on IMDB Leigh is listed as the writer. How was the film
developed with the Covid situation?
Byron
Gibson: Bet Dead Casino came about because after a month or so of the
Covid lock down. I was thinking what I was going to do and with many
of us stuck in limbo land we needed to do something. I hate sitting
round. So Leigh, Brent, Ron and I came up with this Dark Web Fight
Gambling network idea. Leigh wrote the script, Brent came up with the
name. We have been getting Ron to choreograph the fights under Covid
19 restrictions in Thailand and film them with a small team. I have
been filming in the UK with Leigh and some other actors under these
restrictions too, no more than 6 people. So far it has worked
perfectly. We got around 30 people to send in videos to play
gamblers which will be used on the interface of the fights. It’s
not a big budget film but so far we have all pulled together shooting
in two separate countries under lock downs and its looking nuts.
We’ve copyrighted the name, have distribution and it will be ready
for market by February 2021. I have been directing, filming, acting
and doing the sound too. It’s amazing what you can do when you put
your mind to it. I filmed a car hit last week, with just two of us!
Danny
Templegod: Chat about your character in 'Bet Dead Casino'.
Byron
Gibson: I play a guy called Slick Vic. He’s the boss of an
underground fight promotion business which he promotes on the dark
web. He’s not a very nice guy. In fact he’s a motherf$%cker!
Danny
Templegod: I am sure we can further discuss your character in 2021. How much more is left to film in 'Bet Dead Casino'?
Byron
Gibson: We’ve got about ten more minutes to finish principle
photography on 'Bet Dead Casino'. That will be done within in the
next 3 weeks.
Danny
Templegod: Finally, chat about your acting and production goals for
2021 and beyond.
Byron
Gibson: You will be seeing me
in two feature films in 2021. Both with Armande Asante who played the
original and the best John Gotti. These are 'Shooting Paul' and
'Serenas Game.' Directed by 'Wake of Death' director Phillipe
Martinez. Also I have a role in the CBS show Blood and Treasure
season 2. I also had a role in a British gangster film which has not
been named yet .The film is due for release in 2021. I have another film to shoot
once we get over Covid 19 called 'BeachComber' and of course 'English
dogs 2'. Stay safe guys, don’t sit on your backside and dream for
your dreams to happen, get up and make them happen. Nobody's gonna do
it for you. Respect to you all..
Connect with Byron:
Facebook: https://facebook.com/thisisbyrongibson/
Website: http://www.byron-gibson.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/byrongibsonreal
IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/name/nm3137542/
Keep it locked on Dan's Movie Report for more in 2021! As soon as a trailer is released for 'Bet Dead Casino', there will be even more exclusive material dropping from the sky'!!!! Keep your eyes on all of the upcoming exclusives from Dan's Movie Report and the number one independent action site on the web action-flix.com!!!
