Your new movie Bae Wolf
- in a few words, what is it about?
Bae
Wolf is a weird, queer and subversive retelling of the Beowulf
legend.
What inspired you to
base your movie on the Beowulf
myth, and what can you tell us about your research on the subject? And
while we're at it, why the gender cbange?
I
was inspired by the set -- a live-action roleplaying facility in Trenton,
South Carolina that was convenient to where I live (Columbia) and
affordable in my budget. When a resource like that presents itself, you'd
be dumb not to take advantage of it. Other sources
of inspiration when writing Bae
Wolf?
I
was also inspired by one of my favorite books, Grendel by John Gardner. A
postmodern twist on the Beowulf
legend and a great political polemic. What can you tell us about your movie's
approach to the fantasy genre? The
story is what makes it fantasy. I mean, there are monsters, a dragon,
swords, helmets, a horse, et cetera. The trick is pulling off a period
fantasy on a very small budget -- $37,000 in our case. Fortunately, EastWind, the LARP facility, did a lot of the work for us. There's a mead
hall and several castle wall sets. And the owner, Sherman Gills,
hand-makes armor and weapons. Toss in a few high-concept monster designs
-- Grendel, his mom and a dragon -- and you're in the fantasy business.
Where was Bae
Wolf actually filmed, and what was it like filming there? We
shot 90 percent of it at EastWind in Trenton, South Carolina. Plus there
were pickup shots out in the woods around Columbia, South Carolina and in
my friends' backyards. We dressed a friend's basement as Grendel's cave
and the mead cellar. What
were the main challenges of making a movie set in 500 AD, and on a budget,
too? The
great thing about making a silly horror-fantasy is that it doesn't need to
be realistic, per se. Bae
Wolf is enthusiastically anachronistic. The
dialogue, sensibilities and humor are modern. That said, we spent a lot of
our money on armor, weapons and monster costumes. So we had to stretch
what was left. After paying cast and crew, I didn't have enough money for
a director of photography, so I shot Bae
Wolf myself with my BlackMagic 4K. It's always hard to direct and shoot at the same time. On one hand, I
know the shots I want and shooting myself eliminates a layer of
communication and delegation. On the other hand, my workload doubles.
Do talk about your directorial approach to your
story at hand!
Bae
Wolf is fairly conventional, structurally. We build the world and
introduce the problem -- Grendel -- in the first couple scenes. Beowulf
shows up and you immediately know something's up with her. The rest of the
movie flows from there. Our heroes have to solve their Grendel problem and
their Beowulf problem. In terms of the picture, my coverage was mostly
traditional. Wide shot followed by opposite over-the-shoulders. We got
weird only when we were out of time or some actor failed to show up. That
would force us to get creative with angles. When you see long, unbroken
shots with goofy angles in Bae
Wolf,
it's because we're masking a body double or because we were shooting at
2:00 A.M. and everyone was exhausted. As far as my direction to actors
went, I told everyone to play it big. There's no advantage to subtlety in
a movie like this. What can you tell us about Bae
Wolf's key cast, and why exactly these people? The
whole movie hangs on Jennifer Hill as Beowulf and Morgan Shaley Renew as
Freawaru. I wrote Beo with Jen in mind -- and she nailed it. Big energy.
Big feelings. She's got an improv background so she knew how to play the
comedic beats. Morgan as Frea was a last-minute recasting. The original
actress caught Covid a couple days before production. We were in a real
bind. Fortunately, Morgan had read for the part and still knew it. She
came in on no notice and totally slayed. Morgan saved the movie.
A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? It
was a tough one. Everyone had the Covid jitters, of course -- and vaccines
weren't widely available. So we masked up. Still, Covid got one of our
actors right before the shoot. Another showed up on set with a necrotic
spider bite and we had to put him in the hospital. On day one, I had to
recast a lead role and rewrite the script to eliminate the spider-bit
actor's part. The weather was forgiving, thank God, but everything else
was sheer chaos. I'd hired a new lead makeup artist and she turned out to
be the very opposite of a teamplayer. She was actively combative. She
didn't seem to understand our time and resource constraints and refused to
give us camera-ready actors on time. Worse, she would walk into shots
while the camera was rolling. She interrupted one scene to berate me, in
front of everyone, because someone had peed on the seat in the bathroom.
That's when I finally fired her. Production got smoother once we got her
off the set. Anything
you can tell us about audience and critical reception of Bae
Wolf? The
response is pretty positive so far! Which is weird, because I've grown
accustomed to making unpopular movies.
Any future projects you'd like to share?
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Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned) |
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In February I'm shooting a bizzaro sci-fi Western called Acorn. It's about a
filmmaker who gets a cancer diagnosis and sets out to make her last movie.
It goes badly. And there's a man-eating tree. I also produced Shawn C. Phillips' new movie
Woods Witch [Shawn C.
Phillips interview - click here], which just wrapped. Your/your
movie's website, social media, whatever else? Follow
me on Twitter at @daxe Watch Bae
Wolf on Tubi:
https://tubitv.com/movies/642841/bae-wolf Thanks
for the interview!
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