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Your new movie Raiders
of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll - in a few words, what is
it about?
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll
(Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll) is a
short comic movie about an independent filmmaker (played my me) who, in
the middle of a crowdfunding campaign, fends off a variety of malevolent
individuals (usually agents/spies from Russian, North Korea, Iran, et al)
who seek to steal his ultimate crowdfunding perk - a Donald Trump fetish
doll.
Basic question of course, why a Donald Trump
fetish doll - and while we're at it, what can you tell us about the design
and creation of the doll?
Why not a Donald Trump fetish doll? It's an appropriate symbol for our
times in the same way a JFK fetish doll would be an appropriate symbol for
the '60s or a Reagan fetish doll would be an appropriate symbol for the
'80s. The actual doll itself was created by Scott C. Miller based on my
design ideas. I wanted the doll's look to be distinctive yet open to
multiple interpretations. Anti-Trump factions would embrace the doll's
look as representative of the evil they feel resides deep within the POTUS
while the pro-Trump factions would tout the doll's look as emblematic of
the President's inherent "dragon energy" (as described by
entertainer, fashion designer, and Trump admirer Kanye West). What were your sources of
inspiration when writing Raiders
of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll? Plato once observed that "necessity is the mother of
invention". That proverb certainly applies to the origin of
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll. I had written a short horror script called
Evening of the Evil Eye. To date, that
script has been accepted at over two dozen film festivals/competitions,
nominated 23 times for "Best Short Script/Screenplay", and won
15 awards/certificates. The success of Evening of the Evil Eye as a screenplay
emboldened me to launch a Seed&Spark crowdfunding campaign to raise
money to make a short movie based on the Evening of the Evil Eye script. For the
thirty-day crowdfunding campaign, I designed a few skits with the purpose
of drawing attention to the campaign and raising money for it. One skit
would be launched per week with a total of five skits for the entire
campaign (plus the prologue and the epilogue). At some point it occurred
to me that the skits could be further streamlined into being a short movie
in and of itself. When the crowdfunding campaign failed, I decided to go
forward with refining the skits into an actual movie that became
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll. Thus did it arise Phoenix-like from the ashes of the
failed crowdfunding campaign.
photo by Chris Esper
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Since
the Donald Trump fetish doll also features in another movie of yours, Evening
of the Evil Eye, how closely are the two films linked, both
narratively and stylistically? IMDb mistakenly lists Evening of the Evil Eye as a completed movie when in
fact the project still remains in script form. Once made into a movie,
Evening of the Evil Eye will differ from
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll narratively and
stylistically. While both projects will be short movies, the former will
be a dreamlike horror movie that meditates on the destructive power of
hate while the latter is a satiric comedy that pokes fun at both political
fanaticism and some of the crowdfunding tropes of indie movies.
Do talk about Raiders
of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll's brand of humour for a
bit! The humor in
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll is a mix of lowbrow cartoon slapstick
and highbrow verbal repartee. Audience members attuned to the nuances of
contemporary politics will enjoy some of the rhetorical clashes between
the characters. The more discerning audience members might even spot an
Easter Egg or two in the fantastic sound design work done by Chris Esper [Chris
Esper interview - click here]. What can you tell us about your overall directorial
approach to your story at hand? Because
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll originated as a bunch of skits designed
for the crowdfunding campaign of another movie (Evening of the Evil Eye), I
didn't have the time or resources to create the kind of movie I usually
make. It was a "no-budget" production that had to be shot in one
day and quickly edited so that portions of it would be seen on the
Evening of the Evil Eye crowdfunding campaign (as originally planned) as well as
it's world premiere in Westford (MA) before the end of 2018. That meant
that I had to shoot multiple scenes in one location with only one set-up
per scene. I had no formal rehearsals with the cast members; the actors
and I would tweak the scene, shoot it, and move on to the next scene if we
were all happy with the previous take. In the end, the experience making
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll
became in many ways a personal flashback to when I
first started out making independent movies in such a stripped-down
fashion.
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You also play the
lead/yourself in Raiders
of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll - so do talk about your
performance for a bit, and how close did you remain to the actual Angel
Connell?
The performance relied a lot on my own personality since I was juggling
other hats (casting, director, producer, et al). I had no time to memorize
all my lines so I had to rely on cue cards. I was exhausted by the end of
the shoot.
What can you tell us about the rest of your
cast, and why exactly these people? I put out an open casting call through social media outlets for
non-union acting talent in the New England area. I had a lot of responses
but scheduling conflicts prevented many actors from being a part of the
project. I had worked with some of the actors (Paul Taft, Kermens Atwood,
and Sissy O'Hara) in previous projects so I was confident they were going
to be a good fit for their respective roles. The remainder of actors were
assigned roles based on how their physicality matched up that of their
respective characters. Some actors, such as Corey Wells, played multiple
parts. None of the actors had to
audition for their roles. A few words about
the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? The movie was shot in a small basement. The on-set atmosphere was very
laid-back with plenty of food and drink to keep everybody in attendance
satisfied. The professionalism of the actors kept our shooting ratios very
low. The
$64-question of course, where can your movie be seen? The movie will have a limited amount of screenings in the North
American film festival circuit. Although it won't be submitted to major
the festivals (Sundance, SXSW, Tribeca, et al), I hope to see it screened
at the smaller festivals spread throughout America. Anyone interested in
checking out the movie should follow me on Twitter via #angelconnellea1 in
order to get the latest update on when & where the movie will be
shown.
Anything
you can tell us about audience and critical reception of Raiders
of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll?
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll was recently screened in Providence (RI)
and it was extremely well-received by its audience members (who, like the
people who viewed the movie during its world premiere, laughed at all the
right places). At the Q&A portion of the Providence screening, one
viewer expressed his satisfaction that, despite the politics in the movie,
the humor was universalistic and non-partisan. I'm currently in the
process of obtaining reviews from online critics but so far both you &
Michael Den Boer of 10K Bullets have given
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll great
reviews. I hope the movie can attract even more acclaim. Even the limited
film festival run
Raiders of the Hidden Donald Trump Fetish Doll
has had so far has produced
fantastic results. The movie has been accepted in almost a dozen film
festivals and its poster alone has (to date) been nominated seven times
and won five awards for "Best Poster". Any
future projects you'd like to share? The main project continues to be Evening of the Evil Eye. The script
continues to do extremely well in the festival circuit. I'm currently
looking for venture capitalists or film-friendly investors to help me
finance Evening of the Evil Eye with an eye towards exploiting the merchandising
opportunities the script & the movie would present to them. Aside from
Evening of the Evil Eye, I continue to write other screenplays and do acting
work when I get cast in the occasional indie movie or TV series. Your/your movie's
website, Facebook, whatever else?
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My movie doesn't have a dedicated website yet but your readers can keep
track of its exploits by following me on Twitter via #angelconnellea1 Anything else you're
dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I'm dying to discuss a few other projects that are in development as we
speak but it's too premature for me to do that right now. Thanks
for the interview!
Thank YOU for interviewing me, Michael!
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