04/28/2008

COLIN THEYS INTERVIEW-MovieCynics.com

For the people that are unfamiliar with Banshee!!!, could you give us a brief synopsis?

We take the Irish myth of the Banshee and re-imagine it as a very real monster behind the legend that has somehow made its way to the United States. A group of college friends on break and a handful of local residents all end up out in the woods in rural Connecticut facing off against a monster than can use sound waves to cause them to hallucinate. Fighting an enemy they don't know and don't understand, they have to find a way to kill it before it kills them all off one by one.

From the trailer, the film looks like it’s filled with some over the top moments. For the gorehounds out there, does Banshee!!! Deliver on what the trailer promises.

It’s pretty action packed. We have like 18 or 19 deaths, but it’s pretty spread out. We try to keep the pace up pretty much throughout the whole film so there are no lulls in the action. We try to keep from having too many dead spots.

What is the inspiration for Banshee!!!?

Andrew, the producer, really likes the creature feature movies, the banshee’s kind of a new creature in movies, but it’s really a new approach to it, you can do a lot of things that you wouldn’t really do with other monsters. We also really wanted to make something that people who watch these type of movies would enjoy watching. Something with a fast pace. The ability of the creature to alternate between suspense and action allows us to do a lot of different things, lots of variety.

What is your past history as a director?

This is my first feature. Before this I’ve worked as a visual effects artist. I did the visual effects on Werewolf: The Devil’s Hound. I’ve mostly done comedic horror and dark horror shorts. I did Harold & Burns which is a short film about a giant rabbit that grows to monstrous size and begins to eat people.

What has it been like working as the director on your first feature film?

It’s very different. Shorts are more personal, you’re working much more with yourself. A feature is a challenge because you’re working with everyone on the production and you’ve got to get everyone to work all towards the same goal. It’s a good experience. You get a lot more freedom. In a short, you’ll have a three minute long scene, so there’s not much you can play with. In Banshee!!! I’ve got a scene where it’s just three minutes of someone pulling a spear out their leg. It’s something you couldn’t really do in a short, because it’s kind of hard to justify spending three minutes on it. I love showing people the scene, just to see their reaction.

How is Banshee!!! different from the hundreds of other horror flicks that get dumped on DVD shelves every year?

We put a ton of effort into the movie to make Banshee!!! standout. In the effects department, we have over a hundred and thirty CGI shots. I handle all of the visual effects, so I’m able to ensure that every effects shot looks the same. There’s no variation, each shot looks to be the same quality as the one’s before it and after it. It’s also got lots of stuff: cool sets, lots of characters, lots of death. We tried to make it different. The producer and I went out and watched a lot of indie horror films to see what worked and what didn’t work, so that we wouldn’t fall into the same pitfalls that they did. It’s shot on video, we’ve got a good cinematographer who worked really hard to make the film look good. Banshee!!! has lots of action, it's fast-paced, and short but sweet. I hate when low-budget horror movies run too long, it just sort of highlights their flaws.

The creature in Banshee!!!, who designed it and what is it’s background?

The initial concept comes from Andrew Gerhard. Dan Anderson, a freelance artist who does a lot of work for us, did the design and the art for the creature. I took his designs and created the digital model for use in the film. It’s got a long face. It doesn’t have a mouth. Instead it has vibrating flaps it uses to produce sound which allows it to take on the image of whatever it wants to be. It has wings that fold up on its back. It was designed to be something that could be done without a suit. We wanted to stay away from the guy in a suit monster. As a CG artist, I hate when you see a guy in a suit and all of the sudden they cut to CGI and it looks totally different. The effects matter to me.

What are some of the challenges of working in independent horror?

I’ve been working here for about a year now. I’ve done effects work for eight years. Werewolf: The Devil’s Hound is the first feature I did all the effects for. Getting everything logistically done and under the budget is one of the more difficult things. Time constraints are another big challenge. In Banshee!!! We introduce something like 18 named characters in under 11 minutes at 12 different locations. Getting everything done and coordinating things is a real challenge because stuff changes. We actually had to switch leads on the third day of shooting due to scheduling problems. It’s a challenge to make it all happen. We had one scene, where we pushed this car off the cliff and because of time we had to leave it there. But in the meantime, we have to shoot some other scenes and we’re unable to pull the car out of the water, so we have to find a car that looks just like it. By the time we get a new car everything’s frozen, it’s December, there’s snow on the ground. We’ve got a guy out there with a torch melting the snow off the ground so we can shoot the scene. There’s all sorts of stuff like that.

Are you a diehard horror fan or is this a stepping stone for something else?

I have become more of a horror fan than I was when I first started working here. Personally I was more into psychological horror, but I’ve come to like the stuff. There’s an air of fun that other genres don’t get. Within the indie. horror genre, the movies aren’t always fantastically produced, but horror fans have the ability to sit back and relax and just enjoy a movie in spite of these things. I also like a lot of ‘50s sci-fi. Lots of old films that are just horribly produced, but I love ‘em. Stuff with really fake looking lobster claws and shadows of the crew offscreen.

John Doolan, the writer of Banshee!!!, he’s a complete diehard horror fan and the brains behind the organization. He watches everything that comes out. You can ask him about any movie that comes out… even something that came out at a single theater on the West Coast, and he’ll be like “Oh yeah I’ve seen that. I had my friend send me a copy.” He just dressed up like the guy from Saw for Halloween, with the tricycle and everything, basically terrifying everyone.

Your producer mentioned something about a drinking game for Banshee!!! As a website devoted to making drinking games for anything and everything, what’s that all about?

One thing we did, while we were shooting the film… we found in the basement, a really old yellow container of shuttlecocks with the word “Shuttlecocks” written on the side. They crew loved it and started hiding it in every shot because it was hilarious to them. If you look carefully the shuttlecock appears in the movie at least a hundred times. There’s one shot, where a camera is doing a circular dolly shot and someone put it in the middle of the shot. I didn’t notice it until after the first take, but it’s the best take so we left it in.

We shot a lot of scenes in what I like to call the automobile graveyard, tons and tons of smashed old cars from the ‘50s, ‘60s, and ‘70s. Every once in a while you’ll come across a new car. You could drink every time you see a new car… but it all depends on how drunk you want to get.

After you finish up with Banshee!!!, what do you have going on in the future?

Nothing at the moment that I can talk about anyway. Synthetic Cinema will be working on a film called Sasquatch Assault, instead of being a mean ape monster that runs around terrorizing people, the sasquatch will be released on a police station. The producer likes to call it Assault on Precinct 13 Sasquatch. It will move away from CG. They’re doing a good job on suit right now. It will be Indoor, urban action, sasquatch. A lot of the same actors from Banshee!!! Will be in the film and it’s by the same writer.

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