Your upcoming movie The Package - in a few words, what is it
about?
It's about the delivery of a package, or a macguffin as George Lucas
likes to call these things in films, which goes a bit pear shaped. We join
it in the aftermath of one guy having taken it from his partner and friend
and what lengths the friend will go to in order to get it back and
complete the delivery. The narrative surrounding it is drawn out through
the conversations between our protagonists. You're very adamant about the fact that
The Package draws no clear line between good and evil - want to elaborate
on that? Like I put on the IndieGoGo page, I've long been
fascinated by the way we react to an incident based on the knowledge we
have of what is going on. So I want to put the audience in the middle of a
situation where they don't know what's happened and see if the opinion
they form of the characters remains the same at the end as it did at the
beginning. It may well do as I haven't written it to push people one way
or the other. You know when you join a scene in the film and the
first line is "right let's go over that one more time" so that
they can drop you in the middle of something that's been going on but tell
you what happened. This is one of those scenes except not as direct
and obvious as the "lets recap" style. What were your inspirations when writing
The Package? The main
inspiration behind the way it developed was very much Tarantino. But not
one particular film. It has the element of the suitcase from Pulp
Fiction, the set up will feel like it's a bit Reservoir Dogs, and
there's the
blend of horror/gangster that he did with From Dusk till
Dawn. Although
this won't be the vampires and excess of that, merely the blend of genre.
I also wanted to scale it back from The Tour, which had the fantastic house
to work in, the three main protagonists and a number of extras. It
meant a large set up but gave us the results we needed for a haunted
house. For this I wanted something that was a bit more tension based
and, for want of a better term, simple. What that means for me as
the director is the ability to make the camera a third person. Almost
voyeuristic. The Tour I felt was very filmic and this one I want to
feel a lot more personal. To use your film's tagline on you - how far
would you go?
Dan Palmer |
Great question. I guess it depends on what is
at stake. If it was for my family then I would go as far as I needed
to. If it was for a peanut butter sandwich then pretty far - I love peanut
butter. But if it was for the Twilight movies, well I wouldn't even bother
getting out of bed. From the looks of it, The Package
might feature some quite gruesome bits - so what can you tell us about
those, and how far do you plan to go in that direction? There
will be one or two that will hopefully make the audience go
"ouch". A seasoned horror fan may not flinch but then it would
probably need to be levels of gruesome up there with Martyrs for them!
Haha. I don't want to say too much about them as I want to keep what
happens secret. But I can say that it's not going to be all about the
gore. I want it to be more of a character piece with a splash of violence
and gore and maybe even a scare. I don't want people to leave it only
talking about one moment. I still want to do a film which people remember
something very specific from and it keeps them talking as that isn't easy to
do, and I have an idea on that but it'S not for this film. I know
that may disappoint some people who are after lashings of the red stuff;
but I want the chatter after this to be where they stood rather than what
made them feel icky. However its not going to be suitable for a 15 rating. What
can you tell us about your movie's indended look and feel? It's
certainly going to be grittier than my previous outing. I am going for a
slightly under-saturated look and as I said, a bit voyeuristic. Therefore
the intention behind the shots will be to tell you where to look and what
to look at. So I will be making a lot of use of the focus to draw people's
eyes to where I want them to be.
Tom Gordon |
Anything
you can tell us about your projected key cast and crew yet, and why
exactly these people?
The
cast and crew is in place and it's a great set-up. We have Stalled's
Dan Palmer and The Tour's Tom Gordon in the lead roles. I went for
these guys as they're both quality actors and also you don't look at
them and make assumptions about their character. If I wanted you to
think one of the roles was the bad guy I could have gone for a big
burly guy with an angry face but that's not what this is about.
These are two guys caught in a situation which drives them to
do things they wouldn't normally so i don't want them to look like
guys that would do these things.
The
crew consists of a few from The Tour. My
director of photography is
once again Richard Bell. Richard is a stand-out talent and I
know the look of the film is safe in his hands. We've also brought
back Eric Elick for the music. What can I say I loved the work he
did for me last time and I'd be foolish not to get him back on board.
And Guy Pearson is back doing any FX we need. Again he pulled
a proverbial rabbit out of the hat with some of the things he did on
The Tour - most of which were so good they went unnoticed
unfortunately for Guy. I've also brought in Paul While to do the on
set FX. Paul will be long remembered for his work on She,
which was exceptional. And I'm delighted to have Katie Bonham as our
1st AD. This is great news for me as Katie is a great director in
her own right and I'm actually currently producing her new short
film Keepsake. Katie is going to have a very good year this year so
keep an ear out for that name.
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As far as I know, The Package
is still in its fundraising stages as we speak - so what can you tell us
about your fundraising efforts? The fundraising has only
been live a couple of days as I write this. And as I've been busy on
two productions I haven't fully got myself stuck in yet although we're
almost 10% there already which is fantastic. Keepsake shoots this weekend
so I'll be busy promoting The Package
in the next few days and then after
the Keepsake shoot I'll be even more on it! I plan to do a press release
this week as well as approaching some local newspapers. I've also
designed and got printed some special The Package
mugs and pens for the
perks and a limited to three pack of horror top trumps that I designed.
The recent release of horror ones from the Top Trumps brand were so poor I
made my own. They include some classic and lesser known horror icons.
There's also going to be contributor only t-shirts, chances to have your
photo on set, DVDs, posters and more. I feel it's a great bunch of
perks that I've put together. Someone can even get one of the icky
prosthetic bits as memorabilia.
www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-package-2/x/2929504
Once your funds are
raised, what's the schedule ... and though it might be waaay too early to
ask, any idea when and where the film might be released onto the general
public yet? The schedule is already locked in for April
11th and 12th. The fundraising goes beyond that as we have payments that
we can make down the line and also there will be cost of post production.
So it's credit cards in the meantime for anything we can't pay later for!
Which the crowdfunding will enable me to pay off. I'm still paying off the
The Tour haha. The plan is to do the festival circuit again with the
optimum to release as a world premiere at Fright Fest in August. But that
all depends on the Fright Fest boys liking it and selecting it. So fingers
are well and truly crossed. Words can't describe the feeling I had when we
premiered in August with The Tour. Any future projects beyond
The Package you'd like to share?
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Well I think I might be getting ahead
of myself with what I'm planning but I am currently writing a different
take on a slasher as a feature, one which is more drama that is based
around a single horrific incident and we're still working on bringing The Tour
to you as a feature. And as I mentioned I am producing a short with
Katie called Keepsake. Your/your movie's website,
Facebook, IndieGoGo, whatever else? The Facebook page is
currently the website. Which is
www.facebook.com/thepackagemovie2015.
We are currently getting a Raedar Productions website designed which
will feature our projects on there. The IndieGoGo is
www.indiegogo.com/projects/the-package-2/x/2929504
and our Twitter is @thepackagemovie Anything else you
are dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I
think we've covered it. Thanks
for the interview!
Thank you! Always a pleasure, never a chore!
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