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Your film Invasion of the Not Quite Dead - in a few words,
what is it about?
Invasion of the Not Quite Dead
is a planned horror trilogy thats a unique take on the ZOMBIE
genre, we will be taking horror back to when it was believable &
scary, so there will be NO CGI gore or explosions, if it's not do-able,
we won't be doing it...
You have decided to rely entirely on
fan-funding to get the budget for your film. Why, and how is funding
coming along?
It has always been important to me that we make this a personal movie,
personal to the horror community, for over 2 years I hit nothing but
dead ends, no one
cared about my movie to fund it, but in 2009, the horror community over
on Twitter all stood up & said, yes, we will help you, and that
means a hell of a lot to me,
& no matter what & no matter what offers end up on the table, I
will keep this movie project 100% fan funded, no outside interference,
so thats how it came about,
and since using Twitter to fan fund since May 09, we have had over 1100
people from 27 different countries donate, with over £45,000 raised so
far, we are
currently in the process of re-launching our main website in the hope
that it will help increase our fundraising capabilities...
Invasion of the Not Quite Dead
film has received endorsement from quite a few prominent names. How did
that come about?
Over the past few years we have been endorsed by a lot of big names from
the film industry, and 9 times out of 10, it's been because they have
come across
our project on Twitter, the most recent people are Emilio Estevez, Tim
Roth, Gale Anne Hurd, Carl Weathers, Andrew Ellis... The support coming
in for the
project has been incredible...
Over the years, there have been
countless zombie movies. What sets Invasion of the Not Quite
Dead apart from the rest? I am a huge ROMERO fan, his
first 3 zombie movies are the BLUE-PRINT for any zombie filmmaker, but over
the years we have been flooded with ZOMBIE movies,
most of which are unwatchable, most companies that make these movies are
NOT zombie fans, they just seen MONEY from an easy genre, so, with this in
mind
I find that the best POST ROMERO zombie movies are those that are done by
TRUE fans of ROMERO & filmmakers that have put there own spin on the
genre,
like for example, Shaun
of the Dead, Return
of the Living Dead, 28
Days Later, Resident
Evil, to name just a few, I am hoping that my NEW
spin on the genre will also help it to stand out from the overly crowded
zombie movies... Is the zombie movie a
genre especially dear to you, and your genre favourites? It
is... Some of my earliest film watching memories include watching Night
of the Living Dead & Dawn
of the Dead, these are timeless classics,
and my
biggest inspirations to make my own ZOMBIE movie, it's way too easy to just
copy someone else's work, which is why I spent over 3 years developing my
own
script for Invasion of the Not Quite Dead... How
did you come up with the ingenious title Invasion of the Not
Quite Dead in the first place, and how does it relate to your zombies?
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Well,
basically, when I first began promoting the project back in 2006, I was in
my final year of university doing a film degree & I managed to get the
official
Newport Uni press officer on board & he began helping me promote my
project, he was the guy who said, if you're going to promote this film
project, then you
best come up with a film title that's catchy, so that evening I wrote down
4 titles & went around my film campus & just gauged everyones
reactions - Invasion of the Not Quite Dead was the stand out winner, making everyone laugh or
chuckle who I said it out loud to, so I knew that was the one, then a few
months later, I had a very talented illustrator design the poster, which
has a smoking zombie, which is a perfect combination to show off that this
film is
something a little bit different, so much so, you can't really tell, if
its a comedy, horror, or somewhere in between, there is a lot of mystery
behind the movie... What
were your initial inspirations to write Invasion of the Not
Quite Dead? I
have a few favourite movies that inspired me when I wrote Invasion of
the Not Quite Dead, they
are: Invasion
of the Body Snatchers, Dawn
of the Dead, The Thing, An American Werewolf in London
& Return of
the Living Dead - when I
began writing Invasion of the Not Quite Dead my main goal was to write my all time
potentially favourite movie, keeping in mind all the things that excited
me about other movies of the past, so essentially, Invasion of the Not
Quite Dead is my
favourite horror
movie that's yet to be made... From what I've read, Invasion
of the Not Quite Dead has some comedic aspects about it. How would you
describe your brand of comedy? The script so far does
include a few bits of dark comedy, more in the tradition of An American
Werewolf in London, that's a movie that doesn't overdo the comedy, in fact,
the comedy you do get makes the horror that much more scarier... You
plan to turn Invasion of the Not Quite Dead into a trilogy,
right? Would you like to elaborate on that? Yeah,
its a planned trilogy, I have enough ideas to make this into a really cool
franchise & best of all, each new film will answer more questions,
which I think is
a great way of storytelling, and it keeps the fans excited, not all films
should be popcorn for the brain, sometimes it's cool to learn more with each
movie in a franchise, it worked for the Saw-movies...
As far as I know
several scenes of Invasion of the Not Quite Dead have
already been shot. What can you tell us about the footage so far? Earlier
this year I took a small crew to Bulgaria to film some of the INTRO
sequence, the footage we got was incredible, but we encountered a hell of
a lot
of problems, with us trying to keep costs to a bare minimum, it meant
relying on a lot of favours, some things went perfect, other things
couldn't have gone
any more wrong, this will make interesting viewing for the MAKING OF, but
trying to make a movie that's quite ambitious on next to nothing is very
hard
work, but the main thing is what we came away with, and we came away with
some amazing footage... What
can you tell us about Invasion of the Not Quite Dead's
projected cast? Currently
attached is FRANK JAKEMAN (Breathe), ZACH GALLIGAN (Gremlins), HOLLY
MATTHEWS (Waterloo Road), ANDREW ELLIS (This Is England),
TERRY STONE (Rise Of The Footsoldier), SAPHIRE ELIA (Emmerdale)... The $64 question of course: When and
where will the film be released? I
will be self distributing Invasion of the Not Quite Dead in the UK, on CINEMAS & on
DVD & on DOWNLOAD, the rest of the world will be open to offers, so
hopefully a few
international film festivals & markets will help get us international
distributors... the way things are moving now, it's looking likely to be
2013 when the movie
will be completed & ready to be shown publicly... What can you tell us
about your filmmaking experiences prior to Invasion of the Not
Quite Dead, and how did you get into filmmaking in the first place? I
have been filmmaking for over 18 years off & on, making music videos,
short films, documentaries etc, this is my first go at making a feature-length movie. Since
leaving school, I have been excited about what it takes to make films, it
has pretty much consumed my life, but it's only been in the last few years
since
doing a FILM degree at the International Film School Of Wales, that I
would say I became a professional filmmaker... Any
future projects beyond Invasion of the Not Quite Dead? We
do actually have a few other projects in the pipeline, 3 more features
from different genres, a WEB-TV-series & a feature length documentary
called Wheatus, You Might Die, & that's actually 70% complete as we speak, this will be
released in 2012... Directors
who inspire you?
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Steven Spielberg, Robert Zemeckis, George
Romero, Martin Scorsese, John Carpenter, Wes Craven, PT Anderson, Paul
Verhoeven... Your favourite movies?
Back
to the Future, Dawn
of the Dead, Invasion
of the Body Snatchers, The Aviator, Empire Strikes Back,
The Thing, The Lost Boys, 2001: A Space Odyssey, A
Clockwork Orange & many more... ...
and of course, films you really deplored? Rather than name
& shame all my WORST movies of all time, let me just say, any movie
that uses poor CGI gore & CGI explosions, any film that you
watch & enjoy, then a poor shoddy CGI sequence just takes you out of
this makebelieve world, & puts you off wanting to continue... Your website,
Facebook, whatever else? http://www.indywood.co.uk
(Fan
Fundraising Site)
https://twitter.com/indywoodFILMS
(Twitter) Anything else you are dying to
mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? Only that I am
proof that if you believe in something & have a dream, then, you have
the power to make it happen, so to anyone reading this
interview, please, NEVER give up on a dream you have, this is the year of
the dreamer... let's make our dreams come true... Thanks for
the interview!
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