When we started B+ Productions we said we'd shoot a feature, toss it out to the public, and if the response was favorable, we'd do another. Well, our greatest fears were confirmed. Our first
shot-in-Cincinnati opus Vamps: Deadly Dreamgirls met with
better-than-anticipated success. Excrement. That meant we once again had to go through the amusing little Burmese disembowel- ment ritual called Movie Production. And to grind just a pinch more salt into the gaping wound, Renfield   wants us to re-live the arduous ordeal in public. Bastard. If we weren't such
money-grubbing capitalist pig-dog publicity-junkies we'd refuse to spew the toxic mojo endemic to the production process onto these pages. But then, we wouldn't be true independent movie makers,would we?

We knew that if we were ever going to see the mega-check to finance a project, our second effort would have to be more complex. While critics, and more importantly customers, have noted that Vamps is better than your average low-budget vampire-stripper flick (hey, it won Best Screenplay at the B-Movie Theater Awards, and that and 50 cents will get you on a bus ride clear across Cincinnati!) we felt the need to use a broader canvas this time around. We needed to think bigger. Bigger story. Bigger locations. Bigger stars. Bigger breasts. You get the idea.

We sifted through the dozens of scripts and fetal scripts we had filed away ("Shameless Plug For A Writing Gig" Alert) and reworked an old treatment called Satanic Yuppies. This was the working title for our story about an intrepid reporter   covering a series of ritualistic murders. We were wrestling with the title because we were afraid that, while the script had it's fair share of dark humor, it sounded like a Mel Brooks movie. Through discussions with national distributors, we were told that a lot of small video store chains and mom-and-pop operations get cramped colons over any movie title with the word "Satan" in it. Given that we wanted to eventually take lots of mom-and-pop's money, the camel's back was broken. Satanic Yuppies morphed into Evil Ambitions.

Since the murders were to be committed by a satanic yuppie cult bent upon possession acquisition and career enhancement, we thought the title would effectively sell the concept while adding "A" tones to our B+ movie: something that reinforced our philosophy as a company. We readily recognize that nobody is going to pick up our version of Rain Man. Extremely heady
premises need macro star power to sell, and we couldn't afford to hire Tom Cruise's hair dresser. At our budget levels we need
nakedness and mayhem. But just because you're doing a "B" movie doesn't mean you can't attack the process with "A" sensibilities. Alfred Hitchcock did "B" movies, he just told the story with "A" flair.

But we digress... Phase Two in Preproduction Hell commenced when one of our stars, Jenni Huss, had to drop out on us two weeks before shooting started. Jenni had done a tremendous job as "Heather" in Vamps, and we were looking forward to working with her again, but she chose to take an out-of-town project that was to overlap our schedule. It's a shame, because we would have loved to have showcased her in Evil Ambitions. Luckily the person who took her role did a wonderful job, so it probably worked out for the best. We hope Jenni is featured as well in the other production, if and when it ever gets released.  (Ooooh!  Not too catty!)

As with Vamps, when we brought in covergirl Lorissa McComas to add some name recognition/star power to the production, we
wanted to bring some national/international names to EA. We had met Bill Heinzman (the memorable zombie from Night Of The Living Dead) at the Secaucus Chiller Theater in Spring, 1996, and he had impressed us as the most gracious, easy-going, fun-loving flesh-eater we'd ever met, so we were psyched when he agreed to play our butt-tight bureaucratic newspaper editor, Miles Bishop.

Debbie Rochon brought to the project professionalism that's rivaled only by her on-screen beauty. In her role as Madame Natalie, the reporter's quirky psychic confidant, she was asked to give an exhaustive high-energy performance in a scene where she psychically connects a little to well with the murderous yuppies, and a seance turns into what amounts to a bad acid trip. After a take that left her hoarse and out of breath, Michael, always being the sensitive guy when it comes to actors needs on the set, walked up to her and said,"Great! O.K., Deb. Now we're going to do that about five more times." Not a complaint out of her. Either she's a consummate gamer, or she just thought he was part of a hyperventilation-induced hallucination.

But as day one of production loomed, we we couldn't escape one frightening fact: we were short on babeage. We had several female roles that weren't cast, yet. And call us sexist pigs, but all you have to do is casually walk down the aisle of any fan or programming show and you'll soon realize that, as a rule, low-budget features live or die on special effects and beautiful women. We knew that EA would have strong effects with Tom Savini protégé JD Bowers and Dave "Blood-Boy" Malloy covering sculpting, latex, blood and goo, and Kinetic Visions hammering digital post effects, but no B+ Production would be complete without a plethora of eye-catching females. Just as Michael was about to shave his beard and invest in implants, long-time friend of Mark's Cari Minster came to the rescue.

Bill Hinzman

She had already landed the role of Tawny, the overly-eager
bridesmaid/sacrifice to Satan, and she pulled through with
connections to two of the reasons why we think the rewind and
freeze frame buttons on a lot of remotes will get more than their fair share of use: Amy Ballard and Lucy Frashure. And do you want to talk troopers? Lucy shot a fight scene with Rob "Lester" Calvert that called for her to be bare-footed. (Would it be too exploitative of us to mention she's also in her underwear for this scene?) But more to the point, Calvert was wearing motorcycle boots: motorcycle boots that prevented him from realizing that he mashed Lucy's bare right big toe into the concrete not once, but FOUR different times. Her toe was spewing blood, but she kept on going, no doubt using the pain for motivation as she kicked Calverts butt. But what's a little blood during a production that featured:

1) A beautiful pool location that, unbeknownst to us, when the wind blew the wrong direction, was suddenly in the landing take-off pattern of Cincinnati International Airport. An intimate dialogue scene is transformed into the beach assault in Apocalypse Now. Can you say "ADR"?

2) A crime scene shot on a lovely rolling meadow. A lovely rolling meadow without tree one for shade. In 95-degree heat. For ten hours. We're not sure who had it the worst: Renae Raos, who was expected to look sharp and perky in her three-piece detective's suit, or Kindra Laub who was expected to look dead and stinky in her one-piece gaping chest wound appliance. Or maybe the crew from Southern Ohio College took the biggest hit. They got to spend all 10 hours schlepping equipment and listening to Michael barking for yet another in an endless string of set-ups. But then, they should have known better than to sign up for a class called "Production Slave Ship, 101".

3) Or how about one of your stars shooting half of her scenes with a feverish case of the Taiwan Death Flu? Amber Newman flew in from LA to play Brittany, the Satanic Yuppie Priestess. Along the way she picked up a fairly lethal case of bronchial germywhatsis. But she never let it prevent her from making a shoot, and we bet that some folks will say that her voice took on that sexy Kathleen Turnery, Debra Wingery, inda hoarse after an especially noisy and rambunctious bout of love grunting quality. It worked for us. (And it evidently worked for Jess Franco. We hooked Amber and him up at the Secaucus Chiller Theater Convention, and he cast her as the lead in Tender Flesh.)

4) Finally, a day that perhaps best encapsulates the joy of the
production process. A huge, two-unit shoot using all of our actors and production personnel, at a swanky location where the folks in charge still weren't completely sold on the legitimacy and professionalism of a movie production company that had made a vampire stripper movie. Everyone shows up on time except one guy. One kind of important guy. The guy driving the grip truck filled with all of the equipment required to make a movie. No lights. No cameras. All we had left was action. This turns a movie set into really poorly- attended community theater. Months of work and the efforts of dozens are held in check by a stupid flat tire. Oh sure, we still got everything done that we had scheduled for that day, but that kind of consolation is like someone whacking you in the forehead with a ball peen hammer and then two hours later saying,"Well, it doesn't hurt as much now as it did when I first whacked you, does it?"

Being gluttons for punishment, we dove into post production
immediately after our footage was shot. We knew it was the only way we'd be able to hit our deadline of less than six months from script to final product in sellable form (i.e. cassette in a killer box). We did it with Vamps but Evil Ambitions was considerably more complicated every step of the way: longer script, more characters, more locations, more involved special effects, more costumes, more props, more set-ups per scene, 16-track digital sound, animated graphics. In short, we were trying to do Vamps-and -a-half in less total time, while still only having one full-time player: Michael. Everyone else involved with the project had other full time jobs to worry about. Are we nuts? Maybe. But we figured that quality and expediency go hand-in-hand as we approach investors for larger projects. Our mantra is "On Target; On Budget; On Time." There are countless big and small-budget movies lying in limbo, half-completed, never to be seen. No B+ Project will ever be counted in their number.

Luckily we found some folks to work with who share the same gonzo approach to project orientation. The best example: two weekends before our pre-release test at the Chiller Convention, Michael realized that despite the tireless efforts of Mark Turner's boys from SOC--James Key and Roger Baker--our sound wasn't going to be ready. The solution: an assault weekend featuring 20-hr days, including 14 consecutive hours of voice-over work put in by Paul Morris as our lead character, reporter Pete McGavin. Michael and actor turned post production sound designer Dave Levy would literally sleep on the floor of Quest Motion Pictures for a couple of hours and then hit the studio again. (Roger and James were wimps, they actually did their sleeping at home.) Michael Hauk and his colleagues at Quest were surprisingly accomodating as we turned their facility into a Motel 6, and as a result, we made deadline.

The good news is that all the trial and tribulations were eventually worth it, sort of.  Critical assessment has been strong (including the coveted "Check it out!" from Joe Bob Briggs and the New York Times Press Syndicate) and EA is now available in video stores across the country, and is being primed for international distribution. (If your local video store doesn't
carry it, tell them to contact INDEPENDENT EDGE FILMS at (727) 321-2898 or on the web at http://www.indi-edge.com.  Mention that you saw this article and they'll make sure that a star or one of the directors will sign the thing.)

Article copyright Michael Fox

Return To Archives From The Crypt