Your new movie Avant-Macabre
- in a few words, what is it about?
It is an experimental, short horror
film about a dark figure that enters its victims home at the worst
time... whilst sleeping at night. Poems are spoken as the commentary to
try and create spooky effect. What were your
sources of inspiration when dreaming up Avant-Macabre? I
was asked to enter a silent, avant garde film festival. I had some footage
and then I started filming more. At the start, it was all silent apart
from music. Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc (who reads in
Avant-Macabre) is a poet
and kinda helped me move forward. There's a silent version and and a poetry version. The
poetry that accompanies your visuals - was that planned from the get-go or
added at a later stage? And what was there first, the poems or the
visuals? And do talk about your respective poets for a bit, as well as
your voice cast!
The poetry came about after seeing the
footage and ideas come together. I wrote the last section poem (read by
Dean Sills [Dean Sills interview
- click here]) as though it was being spoken to a young child to try and
create fear - I hope it worked.
Emma Dark (from Seize the
Night) [Emma Dark
interview - click here] read over
the opening to
Avant-Macabre and the poetry was written by musician/actor Gary Baxter
- who did a wonderful job.
Andrea Dean Van Scoyoc -
https://www.facebook.com/advanscoyoc -
wrote her own poem on the spot for the middle section and read it over the film.
She is an amazing creative soul and does poetry all the time. Amazing.
You
also play the killer in Avant-Macabre,
slaughtering your real-life brother Steven Chamberlain - now how much fun was that, actually?
Fun! lol He was a good sport to play the victim part. His ideas helped,
too.
Do
talk about your directorial approach to your story at hand for a bit!
Dean Sills, Emma Dark, John H. Shelton |
I
try to look for anything visual, a bit macabre and weird. Anything that
balances out the shots such as room objects and getting a feel for a place
as for example,
Avant-Macabre opens with a close-up of lit candles on a table. If you
can create the atmosphere in a few simple shots here and there,
it feels like magic. What
can you tell us about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? I
worked with my brother on the first half, we had a great time - I edited mostly everything.
Set atmosphere was fun.
You
also have to talk about the additional footage by Laus London, and how did
it fit in with yours? And what was your collaboration like? Laus
had something shot that just seemed to fit. The "Go to Sleep"
part was just perfect to me. It it was grainy and black white and all I
did was add a different soundtrack. Laus is a great lady who I hope does
more filming one day. The
$64-question of course, where can the movie be seen?
Here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCKxZO4qWS4
Any future projects you'd like to share?
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I'd love to make a
follow-up to
Avant-Macabre at some point and extend the horror
short. I am looking to
try and film an Evil Dead tribute too which could be fun. These will probably be
for YouTube, again.
Your/your movie's
website, Facebook, whatever else?
http://www.facebook.com/MrSheltonTV
http://mrsheltontv.blogspot.co.uk/
http://officialmrsheltontv.weebly.com/
Anything else you're
dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? I just
wanna thank Laus London for the additional footage and Paddy Murphy for
the final sound master - brilliant. Thanks
for the interview!
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