The Nick Taylor Horror Show

Latest Episodes:

SHARKNADO Director, Anthony C. Ferrante [Episode 40] Jul 09, 2020

Show notes

Anthony C. Ferrante is an American filmmaker, director, and writer, best known for being the man behind the Sharknado franchise. In addition to Sharknado 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, Anthony has directed such horror hits as Boo, Forgotten Evil, and Zombie Tidal Wave.

Anthony and I talked a lot about Sharknado, as well as how he’s able to make his sets an unbelievably fun experience that attracts his cast and crew to constantly want to work with him. This is a real art when you’re working with low budgets, which all of the Sharknado movies were on, but Anthony has a lot to say on the topic of making your sets enjoyable. So we get some tips on that, discuss COVID-era filmmaking and hear more about what he has in store next. All of this and so much more on today’s episode of The Nick Taylor Horror Show.

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with Anthony C. Ferrante.

Embrace the energy of desperation. The Sharknado movies are what Anthony calls $20 million movies made for $1 million. When you have a scope that big and a budget so low, every minute on set counts as does every dollar spent. Collectively, this can cause filmmakers and crew members to often scramble and hustle on sets because time is money. These kinds of circumstances and this energy often translates to the screen and it makes for a very interesting and fun vibe. (Just look at Evil Dead.)

Having less time and less money also forces quick decision making and this decisiveness will only serve you as a director in the future, given the millions of decisions that have to be made on productions.

When big budget films are shot at a slow, lumbering and comfortable pace, and everything goes smoothly, it often translates to a pretty boring movie (of course there are many exceptions). But, you’re an indie filmmaker, your movies are supposed to feel rough around the edges because they were such a bitch to make! Don’t fight this, embrace it because it will serve your film and give it a noticeable energy.

Sometimes they just got to trust you. Anthony described a case on one of the Sharknado movies where he had to improvise a brand new complicated scene on set because at the last minute, certain important props and center pieces weren’t available. Flying by the seam of his pants, he had to improvise an elaborate action sequence that he could see in his head and he had 20 minutes to do it. He went to his actors and simply said: 'trust me and follow exactly what I’m saying' and they worked it out in one shot that was filmed and edited in real time. Sometimes you’re not always going to have time to explain every last detail of every last decision to every single actor. In order to properly orchestrate what you see in your head, you need to build trust with your actors. This often comes with time, and definitely has to be earned.

Empathize with your entire crew. When it comes to low budget movies, there is such a fine line between a fun set and a hellish set. Low budgets, punishing schedules, and grueling elements can either wear everyone down or pump them up. Some indie movies are a blast, and people talk about how they were paid next to nothing and loved every minute of it. When you hear Howard Berger & Greg Nicotero talk about working on Evil Dead, there’s a clip where they mention that they were paid $400 a week but every single day was like summer camp and they would have done it for free.

I’m not saying not to pay your cast and crew as well as you can, but what I am saying is that it is part of your job as a director to build a set that people are going to want to come to, partially because you are going to want crew members to become longtime collaborators. Anthony talked about how the key to doing this is understanding that everyone is doing a job, and that you have to give them the time, space, respect, and resources to do their jobs. This largely comes down to empathy and understanding what each job entails which is why Anthony always urges aspiring directors to learn as much as they can about every job done on films. He actually has worn multiple hats across multiple productions which has helped him empathize with his crew and run better sets.

Will you have to continually inspire your crew? Will you have to remind them you’re running out of time and money? Will you have to crack the whip sometimes? Of course, but there’s a conscious & respectful way to do all of these things. Mastering this concept can turn your rag tag indie crew into a community and ultimately an unstoppable force. So make a conscious effort to make your productions an enjoyable and overall positive experience, because it can so easily be the opposite.

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THE WRETCHED Directors, Brett & Drew Pierce [Episode 39] Jul 03, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to the Nick Taylor Horror Show! Brett and Drew Pierce, known in the industry as The Pierce Brothers, are the director duo behind The Wretched. Picked up by IFC Midnight, The Wretched is a contemporary witch story about a teenage boy sent to spend the summer working at a beach town marina only to discover something weird going on with the house next door. Turns out the neighbors are under the control of the spirit of a wicked witch from the woods!

The Wretched is another great entry into this new season of the witch era of horror, on par with Gretel & Hansel, The Witch and Hagazuzza.

The Wretched has also been in the news recently for breaking COVID-era box office records. As the result of a strategy from IFC Midnight, The Wretched was one of few movies that were released to audiences during the lockdown to the last safe bastion of public cinema, drive-in theatres. This strategy has allowed IFC Midnight to carve out a top position in box office charts during a time when just about all other studios have frozen their release schedules.

To date, The Wretched has earned $660,000, which is so close to being 666 but I digress… Furthermore, The Wretched held a top box office position for about five weeks. Again, this is one of the only new movies being released and who’s box office numbers are being tracked right now, but it appears that horror on a big screen as a shared experience is still cherished even during these troubled times. All in all it seems Joe Bob Briggs was right, and the drive-in will never die!

The Pierce Brothers grew up on the set of Evil Dead, since their father, Bart Pierce, was on the special effects makeup crew. So it’s clear that indie horror film-making is very much in their blood. We talked about their history, The Wretched, their first movie Deadheads, what they learned, how they pitched producers outside of the film industry and we geeked out about ancient witch mythology, all of this and so much more on this episode of The Nick Taylor Horror Show.

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with The Pierce Brothers:

Develop your idea with mythology. When conceiving of the main idea behind The Wretched, Brett and Drew observed that witches were gaining in popularity but there were no hard fast, 'silver bullet,’ 'stake through the heart' rules about witches like there were vampires, werewolves and zombies so they invented their own. To do so, Brett and Drew looked into a number of lesser known but deeply fascinating witch myths like Black Annie and the Boo Hag, which they turned to for ideas and then composited their own witch concept by picking and choosing from ones that came before.

This gave their witch a deeply textured history that was grounded in established myths. This is probably why the movie was so resonant because the mythology was based on deeply rooted stories.

Shoot in places where nobody shoots. Brett and Drew chose to shoot The Wretched in a little town in Michigan near where they grew up. They mostly shot in actual locations and hired local extras. As a result, their movie was such a spectacle that excited the local community and everybody eagerly wanted to get involved. People volunteered their houses and generally had a helpful attitude about the movie because it was so exciting.

The willingness of people to give them access to land, houses, vehicles, etc. significantly boosted their production value and the easy permits helped as well. If you’re working with a low budget, this is what you want, a helpful community. The fishing is best where the fewest go so consider shooting your movie in locations that don’t get a lot of production action. Clearly this has drawbacks in how there are no local crews and if you crack a lens it’s difficult to get a new one, but you take the good with the bad. A lot of states with fewer amounts of productions often have tax incentives as well, so look into those too.

Finish what you’re working on. Small note worth mentioning: the fact that The Pierce Brothers had completed their first film, Deadheads, on a very small budget indicated to producers that they were legit because they knew how to make a movie with very few resources. Having a history of completed projects or just one completed project that demonstrates your ability, is a big asset when it comes to raising money for your movie. So whatever you’re working on now, finish it - it can help you tremendously get the next project made.

Pitch the rich. The Pierce brothers pitched both of their movies to multiple people, many of which were not in the film industry; a lot of them were actually dentists. As Dov Siemen’s book Reel to Deel points out, dentists usually have a lot of money and frankly don’t know what to do with it, making them perfect people to fund your movie. Sam Raimi and Bruce Campbell did exactly that when they were making Evil Dead. They’d actually go to these dental industry dinner parties with a bunch of dentists and their wives and pitch them Evil Dead, and that’s how it got funded. So find some local dentists and pitch them what you’re working on; it worked for Sam Raimi and it worked for The Pierce Brothers.

Books

In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Mirch

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PORNO Director, Keola Racela [Episode 38] May 18, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to the Nick Taylor Horror Show!

Keola Racela is the director of one of FANGORIA’s new acquisitions, PORNO! Porno pits a hapless group of upright religious & abstinent teens against a deviant sex demon who they accidentally release by watching a satanic porn film one night at the theatre they work at. Porno delivers laughs and scares in equal measure and is a blast of a film. Porno is out now on VOD, and I highly recommend you check it out.

Porno is Keola’s feature debut, and we get into the ins and outs of low budget filmmaking, gore gags, and a particularly, ahem, nut busting sequence from Porno. Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with Porno director Keola Racela.

Play it straight. When it comes to horror, there are countless movies that are intentionally campy, and as a result, cheesy. In some cases, this can be a good thing, but in horror, it’s important to be cognizant of the fine line between exploitation and camp. The way to ensure that your movie is taken seriously is to make sure the actors always play their roles straight and take the material seriously. If the actors wink at the camera too much, the audience checks out. There are a lot of thoughts on the balance between humor and comedy, and in Keola’s case, he recommends ensuring the actors keep their performances dramatic and letting the humor come from the circumstances.

Move fast. Making a film is making a million decisions, and getting hung up on small details can be the silent death of your movie, or at least substantially slow things down. Keola and his filmmaking partners had a very small window to make Porno in, and they rose to the occasion. The momentum of the fast-paced pre-production and production imbued the movie with a sense of fun and hustle that was infectious to the cast and crew. In the world of filmmaking, over-thinking is the enemy. Condensed timelines and limited resources require quick thinking and decisiveness but can also enable opportunities. Many very established directors claim that they actually prefer working on lower budget movies because the limitations of time and money offer more opportunities for creativity. When you can't throw money at a challenge on set, you have to resort to your own resourcefulness and creative ingenuity, and this often results in very interesting and unexpected things happening on camera. There is also a creative purity that can occur when you’re forced to move fast; effects legend Steven Johnson often talks about how Clive Barker taught him that the first draft of everything is often the closest to the original idea, and therefore the purest. Because of this, it’s important to ‘vomit’ out the first draft of anything as quickly as possible because the idea is less likely to be at the mercy of being watered down or butchered by overthinking & overdevelopment.

Explore grants and programs. Keola applied to be part of the Sundance editing program, whereby he would have gotten a polished editor to work on his movie for free. Considering that he was making a movie about a sex demon that came out of a satanic porn film, it was a long shot for Sundance to consider his movie, but dammit, he tried anyway! In the end, he didn't get into the editing program, but applying to it did get him the Sundance opportunity to get his movie scored by a professional composer, which significantly boosted the production value of the film. So check out grants. Even if you don’t think you have a shot at getting them, the application process may yield unexpected opportunities.

Each film needs a north star. As a director, you need to have a strong understanding of exactly what you want to accomplish with your film. Not necessarily so, you can ensure every single specific detail is accomplished, but so you can come up with plan B when your best-laid plans come down crashing and burning on production day. Keola mentioned that a number of larger ideas he had for the film didn't work when it came time to shoot, and he had to quickly figure out new solutions right then and there on set. Luckily, he had a very strong vision of his movie and characters, so he could improvise solutions on the spot without going back to the drawing board. The distinction to be made is here, is not that your vision for your movie should be so rigid and precious that every last detail has to be shot exactly as you pictured it, no. The point is for your vision to be thorough enough to be adaptable to the inevitable trials and tribulations that come with making films. Having this kind of a north star understanding of your movie enables you to have the flexibility to improvise when best-laid plans go to shit on set. Furthermore, not having a solid vision for your film can make you prone to distractions, false starts, and dead ends. As the Cheshire Cat said to Alice during her trip to Wonderland, “if you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.” Knowing your destination enables you to adapt and get to where you’re going through a different route when trouble arises. All of this allows you to move at the lightning-fast speed required for indie filmmaking while remaining completely faithful to your film.

Books Mentioned:

On Film-making: An Introduction to the Craft of the Director by Alexander Mackendrick

Making Movies by Sydney Lumet

The Conversations: Walter Murch and the Art of Editing Film by Michael Ondaatje

Thanks as always for listening to The Nick Taylor Horror Show! Follow the show on Twitter & Instagram at @IMNickTaylor.

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ROOM 237 Director/Documentarian, Rodney Ascher [Episode 36] Jan 31, 2020

Show notes

Rodney Ascher is a filmmaker and one of the most unique and interesting documentarians working today.

His career was kickstarted by an 8 minute docs-short called THE S FROM HELL. Sidenote: this film is awesome. It focuses on this bizarre phenomenon where an entire generation of children were terrified of a seemingly innocuous corporate logo. The 1964 screen gems logo that is considered as the scariest corporate logo in history.

In it we hear first hand accounts of people who were terrified by the logo and its accompanying music which was considered by many to be demonic. It’s a great watch, and you can find it easily if you Google The S from Hell.

Anyway, next, Rodney directed perhaps his best known doc, ROOM 237, which focuses on the exhaustively diverse amount of theories surrounding THE SHINING. This is another fascinating watch. Rodney’s other projects include: THE NIGHTMARE, a terrifying doc about Sleep Paralysis, and THE EL DUCE TAPES, about the shocking frontman of the band the mentors. His next documentary A GLITCH IN THE MATRIX will focus on the idea of simulation theory - the belief that all of reality is a digital simulation similar to THE MATRIX.

All of his work is extremely unique and transcends traditional documentary formats. By relying mostly on archival footage to spin the narratives, hypnotic music and sound design, and palpably cerebral sensibility, Rodney’s documentaries have a very cinematic and Kubrick-esque feel to them and are great watches.

The common theme amongst his films is the subjective human experience, as his documentaries are less interested in being journalistic and more focused on gaining insights into the human condition through individual perspectives.

He is a fascinating filmmaker who I’m a huge fan of and I really enjoyed speaking with him.

Directors & Films Mentioned:

Craig Baldwin

Bruce Conner - Tribulation 99

Books

In the Blink of an Eye by Walter Mirch
On Directing Film by David Mamet
Shock value by John Waters

Misc

Red Letter Media Review of Star Wars

Jungian Philosophy

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READY OR NOT Director/Producer Trio, Radio Silence: Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, & Tyler Gillett [Episode 35] Jan 24, 2020

Show notes

Radio Silence is a filmmaking collective comprised of Chad Villella, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, and Tyler Gillet. These three are behind such films as Devil’s Due, Southbound, VHS, and last year’s outstanding Ready or Not. I personally loved Ready or Not, and was really struck at how seamlessly it was able to balance horror, comedy, and tragedy, while being an outright thrill ride of a movie. This was hands down one of the funnest cinematic experiences in years, which made me super excited to speak with these guys.

They have a really fascinating origin story about how they began their career-making shorts on YouTube for years, finally working their way into the Hollywood system - there is a lot to think about from the perspective of being a collective instead of a solo filmmaker. As the old cliche quote goes: ’alone you’ll go faster, together, you’ll go farther.’ That clearly is the case with these dudes as they’ve kicked the door to Hollywood wide open with Ready or Not and they did it together.

Really enjoyed this interview a lot, Matt, Tyler, and Chad are a blast to speak to, and you can tell how much fun they have working together.

There are a number of huge lessons which I’ll recap at the end as always, but one of the most interesting elements of their major career boost, is how they prioritized having fun throughout the course of their career and how was not only infectious on set, but enabled all of them to endure the hardships that come with breaking into the movie making business. All of this, and so much more on today’s episode of The Nick Taylor Horror Show.

Start or join a collective.Just about everything about filmmaking and production is grueling and difficult. Filmmaking is a marathon and the hardest part can be breaking in. By creating a collective, Tyler, Matt, and Chad could withstand the hard parts because they had a support system between the three of them. Having a tight group of friends in your corner, working together towards the same mission and helping you carrying the burden can be a complete game-changer. So try to find or create your tribe - a few places to start would be by taking screenwriting or filmmaking classes, or, hop on over to the BlackList or the Bloodlist and reach out to screenwriters who are writing the kind of stuff that you like. Or, start a podcast. Having a tribe is not only much more sustainable than going it alone, it’s more fun. On a psychological level, people are able to work harder and withstand more hardships if they are having fun in the process. Which brings me to my next point

Enjoy the process. On their path to directing features for major studios Matt, Chad and Tyler constantly made short movies for nobody but themselves, for no money for ten years. Their shorts primarily lived on YouTube, and eventually got the attention of Brad Miska from Bloody Disgusting, who gave them a segment in the anthology film, VHS. VHS led to Devil’s Due, which they made for 20th Century Fox. The bottom line of their origin story is that kept making stuff and putting it out for the fun of it, with very little expectation of outcome. Because of this, their early work had a purity of vision to it that solidified their directorial style since they were making these movies for themselves. But beyond this, Tyler, Matt, and Chad naturally create a fun environment on set which seems to be infectious throughout the cast and crew. A fun set can make morale skyrocket and enable everyone to be more resilient and willing to work harder during grueling productions because they’re having fun. Try to make sure that you’re having fun throughout the course of your projects - it will carry you through the hard times and make you, as well as your cast, crew and production partners, more resilient, all of which can only make your movie better.

Don’t abandon projects - it’s better to make a bad movie than to make no movie. In addition to talent, production value, and resourcefulness, producers value commitment. They want to know you can take a movie all the way. If you have a portfolio of half finished projects, it’s a red flag to anyone investing in you. Finish what you start - even if it’s not perfect, it can prove to producers that you are committed, plus the experience can be a stepping stone for your next project.

When the chips are down, return to basic principles. After Devil’s Due came out, the guys experienced somewhat of a dark night of the soul. The movie got pretty negative reviews and their phones stopped ringing. For the record, Devil’s Due is a lot of fun and a great watch, but don’t take my word for it, Eli Roth was extremely outspoken about how awesome and scary it was and really went to bat for it. Regardless, after the negative reviews, Matt, Chad, and Tyler, regrouped among themselves and went back to doing what they did best, making movies that they wanted to make, and having fun along the way. They then approached the anthology film, Southbound, with full force, which got them back on their feet, after which, Ready or Not was just a hop, skip, and a jump away. The lesson here is to evaluate what put you on the map in the first place and return to it frequently, especially when the chips are down. For the record, I still think Devil’s Due was a great movie and recommend it.

Thank you all for listening and a big thank you to our guests, Radio Silence, for taking the time. If you haven’t seen Ready or Not, you really oughta drop what you’re doing and check it out right away, it is a complete and total blast.

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Carter Smith on Directing MIDNIGHT KISS for Blumhouse and THE RUINS [Episode 34] Jan 10, 2020

Show notes

Welcome to The Nick Taylor Horror show! Carter Smith is a writer, director, and photographer who has directed such movies as The Ruins, Jamie Marks is Dead, and the recent Into the Dark film for Blumhouse, Midnight Kiss, which is now available on Hulu.

Carter has had a really interesting career, having shot fashion photography for publications including Vogue, GQ, and W Magazine. Carter’s directorial career began with directing commercials for clients such as Lancôme, Tommy Hilfiger, and Tiffany's. In 2006, Carter directed the short horror film, Bugcrush, based on a short story by Scott Treleaven. The film won the Short Filmmaking Award at the Sundance Film Festival, which led him to directing features. We hear his entire origin story, thoughts on the state of queer horror, and do a fair share of geeking out about our favorite movies of 2019.

All of this and so much more on today’s episode of the Nick Taylor Horror Show.

As always, here’s a summary of key takeaways from this conversation with Carter Smith.

Remain on the radar. Hollywood is a business where producers and executives are bombarded with multiple projects, timelines, people, meetings and concepts simultaneously, at all times, non-stop. In other words, they are some of the busiest people in the world and if you are lucky enough to be in an active conversation with them about a project, it’s unfortunately very easy for them to forget about you. Therefore, you have to find a way to remain on their radar. When Carter was being considered to direct THE RUINS, his first feature project, Dreamworks, the studio behind it, was speaking to a ton of other directors, including huge names like Roman Polanski. This was Carter’s first film, so to remain on their consideration list, Carter sent short but sweet emails to remind the producers that he was still very interested and passionate about the project. I’m willing to bet nobody else did that - as you can guess, Carter got the project. The big lesson here is that as important as talent may be, being top of mind is critical when it comes to getting your movies made. If you’re in conversations with busy executives, find a way to remain in touch without annoying.

Prep for your actors. Carter has directed a number of significant actors including Liv Tyler, and his key for giving them what they need to serve their performance is simply intense preparation. This seems like a given, but a lot of directors fail to do the more comprehensive development work required to accurately build a world and build a multi-dimensional character. When directing, you need to know everything there potentially is to know about your characters so if certain questions come up, you’ll either have the answer or have a way to find it. This kind of comprehensive prep work may sound extremely daunting but Carter recommends using the book THE FILM DIRECTOR’S INTUITION: SCRIPT ANALYSIS AND REHEARSAL TECHNIQUES by Judith Weston. It’s a thick read but offers an incredible amount of insight about uncovering the material you’ll need to serve your actors through a series of exercises. Carter was even gracious enough to send me a copy of this book just at first glance I’m loving it more and more. The lists of quotes from directors and actors alone are worth the price of the book. Highly recommended. Again, that’s The Film Director's Intuition: Script Analysis and Rehearsal Techniques by Judith Weston. Carter, thank you again for the copy bro.

Take up other arts that will serve your filmmaking. Carter is a professional fashion photographer, and has been for years before he began directing. He states that the photographer's eye that he developed helped him tremendously as a director because it forced him to find a way to tell a story in a single frame. If you can tell a story in one frame, imagine what you can do with 24 frames per second.

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Tarantino Documentary Director, Tara Wood [Episode 33] Jan 02, 2020

Show notes

Welcome back to the Nick Taylor horror show! Today’s episode has Tara Wood. Tara is the director of the Quentin Tarantino Documentary, QT8, the First 8. Prior to this she did the Richard Linklater documentary, 21 Years: Richard Linklater.

The movie covers Tarantino’s career from 'Reservoir Dogs' to 'The Hateful Eight', and features sit down interviews with multiple actors and collaborators and collaborators to get to the heart of who Quentin Tarantino is as an artist and a person.

I had a field day with this movie - Tarantino is a Christ-like figure in my life, so watching this was pure bliss.

There are interviews with everyone from Michael Madsen, Eli Roth, Jamie Fox, Samuel L Jackson, Larence Bender, Bruce Dern, Tim Roth, Zoe Bell, Diane Krueger, Lucy Liu, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Christoph Waltz, Kurt Russel, and the dearly departed Michael Forrester and many many more.

Available on demand everywhere.

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Directors of Freaks, Adam Lipofsky and Zach Stein [Episode 32] Dec 26, 2019

Show notes

As always each episode of The Nick Taylor Horror Show explores and deconstructs the success strategies of established horror directors while summarizing the key insights and resources that you can use on your own horror filmmaking journey.

Today we have directorial duo Adam Stein, Zach Lipovsky. Freaks is, not necessarily a horror movie, but it did deliver a very decent amount of blood (which may make it ‘horror adjacent’). Regardless, this was a fascinating movie that, on one hand was an independent character study, but on the other hand, delved deep into superhero level mythos - it was fascinating to see how Adam & Zach were able to play with such outlandish subject matter on such a small budget.

That and the movie is loaded with very compelling performances, with Bruce Dern and Emile Hirsch, and overall it was one of the most surprising movies of the year. This was Adam and Zach’s first feature and we talk at length about how they were able to get it off the ground, how they got Bruce Dern involved, and how they were able to do so much with so little - all of that and so much more on the Nick Taylor Horror Show.

Here as always are key takeaways from this conversation with Adam Stein, Zach Lipovsky, the directors of Freaks.

Make your Casting Director your first hire. When Zach and Adam began to raise funds for the movie, the first investment they made was in a casting director. Why? Well first of all, they knew that in order for their movie to work, they needed great actors who could pull off the deeply emotional characters, and a casting director would be able to pitch the movie to stars. As we all know, big actors are a cache that can attract more funding which is what makes this such a critical first step. Casting Directors also have access to studios as well which can also help with funding. Find a casting director early, and invest in them.

When it comes to the script, correct course as you go. After writing the screenplay, Zach and Adam were constantly rewriting it, even on set as they were shooting. They stated that if some piece of dialogue felt like it didn’t work they had the presence of mind to try out different improvisational exercises to find dialogue that suited the scene better. In other words they were not so bound to the script as to treat it like it was the bible. This really is a testament to being as present as possible on set and adapting your material to the present moment. Zach and Adam had the flexibility and wherewithal to adapt the script to the moment and it suited the actors and the movie which had a very naturalistic feel to it. Doing this requires keeping everyone completely aligned and on the same page to ensure that everyone is making the same movie.

Be a curator, not an auteur. A number of directors who have been on the show including Mick Garris, Dan Robbins, and Mitzi Peirone have spoken at length about how damaging auteur theory can be to a movie. For those who don’t know, auteur theory is the belief that any and every single decision made on a movie has to come from the director. This is a limitation. Zach and Adam recommend being open to getting ideas from your entire crew and being the curator of those ideas, by picking and choosing the ones you think work best. Your job as a director is not to have the greatest ideas but to find the greatest ideas. Directing is a highly collaborative art, to not be open to the ideas that could come from the talented people around you is a wasted opportunity, particularly since they can make your movie better.

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Knives & Skin Director, Jennifer Reeder [Episode 31] Dec 19, 2019

Show notes

Welcome to The Nick Taylor horror show! As always each episode of The Nick Taylor Horror Show explores and deconstructs the success strategies of established horror directors while summarizing the key insights and resources that you can use on your own horror filmmaking journey.

Today we have Jennifer Reeder on the show. Jennifer is the writer/director behind one of the latest movies from IFC Midnight, Knives and Skin. Knives and Skin is a movie that I don’t even know where to begin describing. You just have to see it.

It’s on one hand, a trippy, David Lynch style nightmare, while being a deeply disturbing portrait of suburban America, reminiscent of Todd Solondz - but it’s not derivative of either of these directors, Knives and Skin is very much it’s own beast. In it, Jennifer created a beautifully surreal and ironic world that had the kind of clarity of vision, confidence and cohesiveness of someone like Charlie Kaufman or Spike Jonze, all while being entirely an entirely unique voice.

All in all, Knives and Skin is a real treat and a real experience and hands down one of the most exciting new visions in horror to date.

I had a great time having this conversation with Jennifer and honestly can’t wait to see what she does next.

Here as usual are some key takeaways from this conversation with Jennifer Reeder.

Consider casting theatre actors. Jennifer hails from Chicago, which doesn’t have as much of a film scene but does have a very dedicated theatre scene. As such, just about Jennifer’s entire cast consisted of theatre actors, as well as standup and improv comedians. Theatre actors and comedians not only bring a very strong work ethic to the set but are usually adept at a very unique level of nuance that can seriously serve their performances. A lot of directors have spoken about the benefits of working with theatre actors, among them Stuart Gordon who’s entire Reanimator cast were, at the time, stage actors. So if you’re making an indie film and don’t happen to live in New York or LA, you might want to consider hitting up your local theatre or comedy club for a casting call.

Learn story. Jennifer spoke about the importance of learning story and structure and how the book Story by Robert Mckee benefitted her when she approached Knives and Skin. Despite the fact that Knives and Skin does not follow traditional any story structure, it defies the rules in a way that is indicative of understanding the rules. In other words, despite operating on its own unique and surreal plot trajectory, the movie delivers the character arcs, catharses, and payoffs that come with understanding how stories work. So Jennifer recommends that you check out Story by Robert Mckee.

Stick to your vision. Throughout this conversation, you hear me talk a lot about how specific this movie is and it’s because the vision behind it feels so refreshingly raw, unique and un-compromised. This is how films should be made. A director with a signature as strong as Jennifer's comes with sticking to your guns and not compromising. These are the kinds of uniquely voiced films that we need right now, so if you’re an indie filmmaker and have a specific vision, please stick to it and follow it all the way to the screen.

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Directors of Scream Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street Documentary, Tyler Jensen & Roman Chimienti [Episode 30] Dec 13, 2019

Show notes

Tyler Jensen & Roman Chimienti are the directorial duo behind Scream Queen, My Nightmare on Elm Street. The documentary dives deep into the story behind A Nightmare on Elm Street 2, a sequel that was notorious for its homoerotic innuendo and lots of ensuing controversy.

I really enjoyed this documentary - not only because I’m a horror fan and love Freddy movies but because Scream Queens is unexpectedly emotional journey, that’s ultimately a very poignant story about forgiveness and the gay experience Regan-era America during the 1980’s.

The movie follows actor Mark Patton who was ridiculed for his gay portrayal of the protagonist in Nightmare 2. We follow him throughout the course of a year on the convention circuit interacting with fans and along the way, he confronts the producers & directors who in effect, tarnished his career.

All in all, it’s a very important watch, so I highly recommend it.

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