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Your new movie
Bluetooth Speaker - in a few words, what's it about?
Three siblings go to their grandfather's property out in the middle of
nowhere, and find a bluetooth speaker. Be careful what you find... or
what finds you.; I guess I just have to ask first: Why a bluetooth speaker?
Great question, in 2019, I was with my girlfriend at the time, and she
came over to my house and brought over a bluetooth speaker. She put the
bluetooth speaker on the table, a very similar one to the one in the film, and the idea
just came to me like that! What were your sources of inspiratiion when writing
Bluetooth Speaker,
and is any of it based on personal experiences (not the possession angle I
hope)? Haha same answer as the last question answered. But
yes, the film is inspired by some true events. The film is talking about
my real grandfather and a lot of the stories are true about my grandfather
in the film. The story about Blanco is somewhat true. The amount of women
been with is true. I have described
Bluetooth Speaker
as being part buddy comedy - so would you at all agree to that, and if so,
do talk about the brand of humour of your movie for a bit!
Yes I do agree and great question. So I wrote this film in 8 days back in
2021, and it is very low budget of course, however, our production company
didn't have the money or resources yet to make this film, hence it has
come out now. But what I was going for when I wrote
Bluetooth Speaker was the following
(and I think I accomplished this): I was going for the 1980s
Troll,
Critters,
Ghoulies, Phantasm meets
Neverending Story meets Private Resort
meets a couple of episodes of Married with Children.
Married with Children
is my favorite show of all time and I wanted to write almost a couple of
episodes within this film with that type of humor, especially when the
sister is in the scenes. So the humor is out there and it will definitely
piss some people off, and that's okay; if it didn't then I didn't write
the humor correctly. You of course also have to talk about
Bluetooth Speaker's
approach to the science fiction and horror genres?
Haha answered this question in the last. But yes, I was kind of going for
classic 80s and early 90s horror, not so much in the likes of
Nightmare on
Elm Street, but more in the likes of Phantasm,
Ghoulies,
Troll, Critters,
Neverending Story, etc. I wanted the feel and ambiance to make it 'feel'
that way, and the cameras we used gave it that look. Also, I kind of took
something from Gremlins as well, where Phoebe Cates' character in
Gremlins
all of the sudden takes the film on a complete 180 by talking about how
her father died, and I wanted to do that as well in this film where Brim
talks about a dog named Blanco (which part of that story is true).
What can you tell us about your overall directorial approach to your story
at hand? As you know it's a lot of hard work, even on an
indie level. Storyboarding, writing the script, casting actors, dealing
with different actors and keeping everyone happy, finding music, checking
audio, editing, a lot of hard work lol. From the beginning of this shoot
to finishing it, it took a year to do. I have a certain idea for the film
but I usually let the actors go with it because we have to be checking on
lighting, good focus, etc. So I trust the actors are doing what they're
doing correctly. I had a couple of stand-ins because we needed to get
certain shots just right. For the Brenda role, I wanted Chloe to actually
play the role more bitchier, but in the end I think Chloe Gay Brewer did a
perfect job, she nailed it! Also, I'm very good at multitasking. Doing a
lot of multitasking, I'm very good at that, so filming and directing and
producing and writing, it's right up my alley, and i'm very patient when
it comes to that which you have to be, as you know, you have to be
extremely patient in directing and producing, it's such an incredibly
difficult process, and a lot of things kind of have to come together just
right too. Do talk about your co-director (and
co-star) Ryan Vania, and what was your collaboration like?
So this is our seventh feature film together. I met Ryan years ago and I
owe everything to Ryan, he kind of taught me everything about indie
filmmaking, and none of these films would have been possible without him
teaching me the first few films that we did, so I owe a lot to him. He is
my business partner and my best friend. And my strengths make up for his
weaknesses, and his strengths make up for my weaknesses , which is the
best kind of partnership you want to have. It's always great working with
Ryan. We both own
Dark Launch Productions, so we split everything down the
middle, taxes and all. You also play one of the leads in
Bluetooth Speaker
- so do talk about your character, what did you draw upon to bring him to
life, and did you write Brim with yourself in mind from the get-go?
Yes, I did. I think as an actor it's always fun to play roles like this,
and that's what I love about directing and producing, because I get to
play the leads in films and play some really cool parts too; that's really
what you always want as an actor. What I personally try to do as an actor
is I try to really figure out who the character is first, such as what the
other characters think about this person?What this person thinks about
himself? What the script says about him, etc. Then once I have the
character down solid, then I really try to get the lines down. And then
lastly, I try to like mix the character or actually have the character
absorbed within slightly by 2 other characters; what I mean by this is,
once I have the character down to a T, then I absorb one last thing,
almost like adding a little extra salt to the character. So once I had the
character of Brim down, I felt this character Brim was almost like
Ace
Ventura meets Patrick Bateman, and then I kind of absorbed that a little
more into the character as well, but don't get me wrong, I think about it
one time and then I don't think about it again. I think as an actor if you
overthink things it can give you a dull and boring performance and you
want to keep things spontaneous. I think the first take is usually the
best because it's the most spontaneous. Some actors will write a whole
biography of what this character is like which I never do, because I feel
for myself at least, I would get too much inside the head of myself as an
actor and as an actor you don't want to be so much in your head with a
role. Acting is kind of like Aikido, you want to learn and then forget;
true technique is no technique. So with acting I like to learn the role,
but then forget, I like to absorb other characters into the role, but then
forget because thinking about it too much makes for bad acting and a 2
dimensional character and real moments and spontaneous moments don't
happen when you're too much in your head on a role. So I think it's really
important to learn the character and to know the character, but then stop
thinking about it. And that's how I go into each role. And of course, with
film acting there's certain cinematic techniques you need to do for film
acting versus certain techniques you would do for theater acting etc. So
you have to incorporate all of that into the role as well.
What can you tell us about the rest of your cast, and why
exactly these people? I've been working with Chloe Gay
Brewer and Ryan Vania for many years, and we did a TV webisode together
that was on Prime for many years. I've been working with them for seven or
eight years now. And then I've been working with some of the other actors
in my films for the last couple of years. I also do music for my film as
well, but I have a couple other actors that also do music for it too, and I
think music is really important in film and very happy with my music team
that I have for my films. I cast Malia Arrayah because I thought
originally I wanted to do this role with a woman that was a little shorter
than me or the same height as me, but then it made more sense to actually
cast somebody that was taller, and she's beautiful too. So it really
brought The Seductress character to full life with casting Malia Arrayah.
My dog Daisy Dolittle Roberts, I've been putting her in every one of my
films since my first film. Unfortunately Daisy passed away about three
years ago, but I have so much archive footage on her that I'll continue
putting her in my films for the rest of my life. My goal growing up as an
actor was to make 10 feature films and I've made 7 so far. So I have 3
more to make, and hopefully I'll make many more after that. I'll always
put Daisy in every one of them. She was my love of my life. I consider her
my first child and I will always honor her with putting her in my films A few words about the shoot
as such, and the on-set atmosphere? Overall, it was a great
shoot, there were some trying times, there were some trying times with
some of the actors and with some of the filming. Me and Ryan got sick a
few times because we had to wake up real early, we didn't get a lot of
rest, it was very cold when we shot, so we got sick a few different times
within the few months of that shoot. But overall it was good, but a very
tough shoot too. The overall atmosphere was good. The overall vibe was
good. And overall, I was happy with the way the shoot went, and it went
pretty smoothly overall, but with any film, there's always going to be
some bumps and bruises along the way, always, there's no getting around
that. The $64-question, where can
Bluetooth Speaker be seen?
At the moment , it's streaming on one streaming channel called Typhoon on
Demand. Hopefully,
it will be streaming on many more streaming channels to come. Most of the
other 6 films I've done though stream on Tubi, Prime,
Plex and many more.
I think The Last Request, our first film, I believe that one streams on
about 60 streaming channels now.There's so many streaming channels out
there now. Anything you can
tell us about audience and critical reception of
Bluetooth Speaker?
It hasn't been seen by too many people yet as it's only streaming on one
channel, and it's only been getting critic reviews and film festival
reviews, but overall, I think it's getting a mixed review. Some people
really hate it. Some people think it's okay and some people really love
it, which is pretty cool. I like that and that's kind of what I was going
for. Any future projects you'd like to share?
Yes, I'm currently working on the sequel called The Sketch Comedy
Movie 2. Which the first one plays on YouTube TV and on
Prime,
and I'm working on the sequel for that. And then i'm also working on a
documentary about animals.
Your/your movie's website, social media, whatever else?
dallasryanactor.com
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or just google "Dallas Ryan", lol. Anything else you're dying to mention and I have merely
forgotten to ask? I hope more people in the world always
keep animals in the conversation. It's important to help all animals of
this world. It is my hope more people produce fruit and follow the
Northstar. Thanks for the interview!
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