Co-Directors Scott Wheller and Davey Jones stop by the chat bout there new film Journey to the Centre of the Earth.
B MOVIE NEWS: What got you interested in Visual Effects and Film Making? DAVEY JONES: I think the story is pretty much the same for just about everyone my age in the film business. It was Xanadu. When I saw it, it was like something inside me just flipped and I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life. I’m just kidding of course. It’s the same old story: Star Wars.SCOTT WHELLER: I think like most people in my age group that moved into the movie business, Star Wars, was probably the tipping point where I knew I had to work on FX and movies in general. The advent of the personal computer brought me to computer visual FX. I wrote a bunch of line drawing programs in high school and college that we filmed with a super 8 camera and later portable video cameras.
BMN: How did you get involved with The Asylum? SW: Dave does these amazing fine art pieces where he combines real painting techniques with computer generated images. A local band wanted him to do a cover for them and the lead singer’s boyfriend was a director at the Asylum. Since up until then the Asylum had been having trouble with getting their FX done we got the intro to the Asylum and signed on to do FX for “The Apocalypse”. Since then we have done about 12 movies with them.
BMN: What’s your feeling about mockbusters in general? DJ: As a filmmaker, the “mockbuster” concept is interesting in that it gives you a general framework for the movie right off the bat. Once you get past the name, the actual stories (for the most part) are original concepts that that writers/directors/producers tweak to fit inside that framework. The original concept for Journey was something that Scott pretty much thought up on the spot. I have to admit that I’ve never read the book, but I’m familiar with the story. As far as I can tell, the Asylum’s telling of the tale is a complete rethinking of the concept.
SW: Just about every movie is a variation of another film. Nobody seems to make a stink when a big budget movie makes a variation of a low budget film. Frankly I think its marketing genius. It’s the film equivalent of drafting in NASCAR, you slide in behind the other film and let him block the wind for you. The big budget film uses their tremendous marketing machine to pitch the big budget movie and the low budget one tags along for the ride.Hell, you think its a ‘Coincidence’ that you get “Dantes Peak”/”Volcano”, or “Mission to Mars”/”Red Planet” or “Armageddon”/”Deep Impact”. The studios have been at this for years.
BMN: How did you get involved in JTTCOTE? DJ: We’ve been working with the Asylum for going on two years now. They asked us to pitch ideas for upcoming movies that they had on their slate (Journey being one of them). I guess they liked the concept we had enough to say yes and the rest is history.
SW: We were sitting in the producers office looking over the FX schedule for the year and they asked us to pitch some ideas. On the spot we pitched them the rough premise of a team stranded after a teleportation accident. The original story was much darker as the stranded team dealt with the local primitive humanoid inhabitants. But, it was off the top of our heads in 30 seconds and “The Core” of the story remained the same all the way through to the end.
BMN: I noticed that there a less lesbian undertones in Jules Verne’s original novel? What liberties did you take with the source material and why? DJ: We never thought “let’s try to stay true to the original” or anything like that. I might go so far as saying that other than the fact that they get stuck somewhere underneath the surface of the Earth and there are dinosaurs there, that anything else you can find that resembles the book is purely a coincidence.
SW: Our story really has nothing to do with the original story, there is a center of the Earth, and there are creatures there, that’s about it. Originally the team was 3 women and 3 men and we killed off 2 of the guys at the very beginning so it was 3 women and 1 man. Dave and I had different views as to how many women/men there should be. Finally he said “If you are gonna do that you might as well make them all women”… done. We changed the story to all women and left the romance sections/implications in. I figured we would just explain to the girls what had happened and we would not be playing those scenes that way. But, Sara showed up day one and asked “Where is my girlfriend?” so we left it in.
BMN: The film invert a lot of popular action film cliques was that a conscious decision on your behalf or did evolve naturally from the characters and the course of making the film? DJ: Scott had pretty much fleshed out the overall concept by the time I came on board to help with the writing. I believe that most of the overall film cliques and references were already in there. In the course of developing the characters, they begin to take on distinct personalities of their own, and you do start seeing the certain similarities in them to characters in other films. Then finally, when you get down to the nitty gritty of it and your standing out there in the hot sun listening to someone trying to cough out a line that worked so well on paper, another evolution of the story takes places as the everyone reworks it on the spot and so you have everyone pooling from their collective memories of characters and motivations. And so you can’t help but sub consciously put attributes on them that other characters you liked in the past had.
SW: I’ve always enjoyed movies that have strong female characters. Most action movies are centered around Rock Hardstone saving the hapless Polly Purepanties from some dastardly evil doer. It’s not that that’s a bad thing, it has made for a lot of good movies. I just like women to be able to fend for themselves and be every bit as competent as their male counterparts.
BMN: I think JTTCOTE is one of the best movies Asylum movies I’ve seen. What was the production like? What was it like co-directing. And what did you learn as a director. DJ: Why, thankyou. The films are generally shot in around eleven days. With such a short time frame to work with, production faces a number of extra challenges due to time constraints. For example, the park where we shot the exterior portions of the movie was supposed to be much more flexible when it came to where we could and couldn’t shoot. When we went to location scout the area in advance, we asked about specific parts of the park and then wrote scenes around being able to utilize those. One of those areas being the huge open field where the girls originally beam in. We had planned to shoot the ending of movie there as well, and in fact had written an ending where a horde of the smaller man-sized spiders were going to be chasing down the girls… Right when you think they are about to get killed by the spider horde, a whole pack of T-Rex’s swoop in and begin feeding on the spiders. Once we shoot the opening scenes in the big field the park ranger flipped out because some grass got trampled. (Seriously I’m not kidding here.) So from that point on we couldn’t shoot in that area. When we got to the end of the movie, we had to move to another park and find a new location. So the big red pen came out and we pretty much rewrote the finale’ right there on the spot based on what we had in front of us. The hordes of T-Rex and Spiders became a single big giant mama spider, which worked out well for us since we also own and operate the f/x company that does the digital effects for the Asylum’s movies. Given the time constraints we’re working with in the post side of things as well, the horde’s would have probably become a single giant spider in the end anyway. So you have to stay open to new ideas and be able to change everything on the spot.
Co-Directing with Scott worked out well. He and I have been working together for the better part of 15 years. When it comes to v/fx and post production, we have a system that we use that works pretty well and that same basic workflow carried over to production. We tried to use it to our advantage as much as possible whenever we could. For example sometimes we both worked on a scene, other times, Scott would shoot a scene while I was busy prepping for the next one. When he was done, I would shoot that scene while he figured out what he was going to do next. It also allowed us to get a little bit more sleep, which we desperately needed towards the end of the production. Sometimes, I would come in and shoot the scenes in the morning/early afternoon and he would pick up in the afternoon and run through to the end of the day while I went home and tried to get some sleep.
I think one of the most important things that I learned was that you have to just let go of some of your original ideas and just let things happen. Be prepared to wing it! I remember for the first couple of days I was going home and drawing little story boards at night. Of course when the next day rolls around, about half the time, the place where we thought we were going to be shooting changed or we found something better, or whatever. So then I would end up sort of playing catch up to my own storyboards. On the flip side Scott just had a list on paper that with little one line notes: two shot of Kristin and Gretchen discussing the crystal. Coverage of Gretchen taking the crystal, etc. In the end I think on a production of this nature that works so much better. You just have to go with the flow and find the opportunities where you can and the thing that matters the most is figuring out how to best exploit them for the good of the movie.
SW: The production was a ton of fun. I’ve been on set doing the FX Supervision for about 10 films with the Asylum, but, the directing/writing side was very enjoyable, I can’t wait to do it again. Dave and I had scenes and sequences that we wanted to do a specific way, so we split the movie out that way while maintaining a close eye on keeping things flowing together. I learned a lot about what you need to keep in mind to help actors get the most out of their characters. We were fortunate to have a group of really talented girls for Journey. They all had specific ideas of how their characters would act and inter relate. I had to learn to be flexible with the story and the dialog to help bring out the best in each performance. It’s easy to just dictate what words will be spoken, but, if you let the process be semi-organic then everyones ideas come out and the performances flow naturally. also learned a lot from working with Dedee Pfeiffer and Greg Evigan. They are both smart as hell and great actors, so, if you don’t bring your A-Game, and you are willing to listen, they will help you.
BMN: How much creative control did you have over the film? Did the Asylum have many demands e.g. there needed to be monsters ever ten minutes? As a co-director are your satisfied with it? DJ: I for one have to say that I was really pleasantly surprised at just how few demands the producers made on us when it came to the production. Of course there were notes and things they wanted to change for one reason or another, but for the most part what you see up on the screen is what we intended. Overall, I’d say that I’m very satisfied with the movie. We had a great crew, including Director of Photography Mark Atkins who has been working with the guy’s at the Asylum for quite a while. He has such a great sense for what will and will not work when it comes to this style of movie-making, and it saved our necks on more than one occasion. lso we had a fantastic score done by a composer named Chris Ride. He quite literally turned an entire orginal score around in less than a week. I think that’s the fun thing about these kinds of movies. Your always challenging yourself to come up with something without the luxuary of time on your side.
SW: We had a fair amount of creative control over the film, but, the bottom line is it’s not our film, it’s The Asylums and they have things they need to happen in the movie to sell it and make their money back. On balance I am very happy with how it came out as a first film.
BMN: I just have to ask this question for all the HARD CORE Asylum fans. I noticed that Michael Tower played a small character called Marty. Michael also plays Dr Alextzavitch in Transmorphers. As Transmorphers is set 300 years in the future is there any chance that Marty is Dr Alextzavitch’s great, great, great, great, grandfather? DJ: Man, that’s way above my head. Your going to have to ask Scott… or Latt.
SW: Yes. Journey is actually the beginning of a 9 part story arc that ends with Transmorphers. Marty and Doris will be back for story 3 where they open a portal to and alternate universe making the robot invaders aware we exist.
BMN: In your film there is an amazingly HOT, nerdy scientist called Grethen Lake. I know she’s a fictitious character but is there any chance you could pass on my number to her? DJ: After the whole ordeal, Gretchen went on to become a grade school teacher, and I believe is happily married to Marty. Although who knows. You might be able to take him in a fight.
SW: Gretchen is mostly reached by Sat Comm ID# N566LW. Caroline Attwood, the amazing actress that plays Gretchen, can be reached at 310-217-7638.
BMN: Let’s be honest a lot of people aren’t going to watch it and still criticize it on imdb.com for the very fact it’s a mockbuster. What’s your feelings about this? How do your prepare yourself for that? DJ: Yeah, I’ve noticed that trend on IMDB. Everybodies a critic these days. I can’t speak for Scott, but I’m not going to waste my time trying to defend what we’ve done. It would seem to me that these guys could find more constructive uses for their time. Like maybe they should send their pitches into the Asylum and get out there and see what they can do within the framework of one of these productions. If they can make a better movie, then more power to them.
SW: I find it all very amusing. Some guy with a Yoda T-Shirt in his mom’s basement will always engage in a keyboard Rambo flame war while eating cheese doodles and orange soda. Let him go for it. I enjoy reading the commentary. Every now and then a good idea comes out and I can use that in the future. If they take offense cause it’s a mockbuster I would say “grow up”, it’s marketing 101, find a product that is working and emulate it.
[EDITORS NOTE: While I was formatting this interview I logged on imdb and chekced the “JOURNEY” message board and found this. I though it was amusing enough to add. To get the full impact you might have to know that Leigh Scott/Slawner was a popular Asylum Director
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by DirectorLeighHater (Wed Jul 16 2008 21:05:06)
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Is the Assylum [sic} really doing what I think it’s doing? It’s making a ripoff [sic] of a crappy children’s version of a movie that’s been done and redone approximately seventy billion times that’s based on a book that isn’t even that good to begin with? Seriously, that’s not rock bottom low, that’s Center of the Earth low.
”Leigh Slawner only happened because Chuck Norris was taking a nap.”] |
BMN: What’s next for you? SW + DJ: We start work on the next movie “Merlin and the War of the Dragons” in Wales in 2 days.
BMN: And to end with, I’ll give one more chance to sell your film! Why should we rent JTTOCOTE and what should we expect. SW: Cause its got hot babes and they are wet for most of the movie. DJ: Ditto.
BMN: Thanks for you time. Read our review of JOURNEY TO THE CENTRE OF THE EARTH.
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