Saturday November 24, 2012
Brandon Scullion and Maria Olsen
Tonight's guest was filmmaker Brandon Scullion and actress/producer Maria Olsen of the independent feature horror film Live-In Fear.
It should be noted I worked on the film, which shot in Brian Head, Utah back in freezing February 2012.
Brandon described that growing up in Las Vegas, where lots of films and TV shows are shot, he got into the idea of movie making and such at a very young age, utilizing action figures and camcorders. As he had to leave at the halfway point, Brandon discussed the making of Live-In Fear, as well as his upcoming film December about cabin-fever, in pre-production for which he wants to film next spring.
I asked about the lost website; Brandon had let the original bought liveinfearmovie.com domain name expire, allowing some Japanese corporation to snag the domain name, so Brandon had to get a new domain name, to have a new Live-In Fear website.
Maria spoke about her coming over from South Africa, auditioning, and realizing getting into movies was a direction to go. She spoke of her experiences working as Mrs. Dodds in Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, and Kat and I stressed what fans of the book series we are.
Brandon and Maria got to experience our weekly What Is Up With Skype Now, as we began getting some strange echo-y feedback.
Kat asked about the inspiration for Live-In Fear. Brandon indicated that initially he had been reading the urban legend of the vanishing hitchhiker; at one point whilst driving on Mulholland Drive, he realized the imagery would make a cool movie, hence Live-In Fear.
Before took us into the first break (momentarily forgetting Maria's surname), Maria indicated having done pretty much every genre of film, apart from western, though something could be in the works.
It is often joked that despite their interest in the paranormal, both Henry and Kat cannot abide horror films; Brandon and Maria clarified the distinction between a slasher film (generally a serial killer), and the rest of the horror genre.
Brandon had enough time to convey what went on during the ten-day shooting schedule (we joked about the ceiling still having "blood" splatter on it), working with the script as written as opposed to much ad libbing. (He also is the first guest to actually drop the F-bomb, as it were, while to date the "worst" has been sh!t...) Henry asked about the budgetary aspect of the film and its possibly being distributed. Brandon indicated his friend Gene Shaw doing the artwork for the poster, and with a few minutes left before having to leave, he talked about his upcoming project December, along with some of its The Shining cabin-fever similarities. We couldn't help but point out that were any of we hosts to spend a month or three at the Stanley Hotel would be too busy investigating to cabin-fever (Kat has even stayed in Very Haunted room 408 there)...
Brandon also had time to discuss working with the film's leads: he started off that Nancy Wolfe and my scenes, that were done in the first three days, anyone to whom he's shown our scenes as "The Pats," that not only are they hilariously we're wonderfully creepy and awesome with whom to work. He praised Maria not only as an amazing actress but as producer and having loved with with her, and her creepy performance and the Look of the film.
Brandon stressed that they were some of the best people with whom he's ever worked. He had worked with David Lautman on his thesis film The Black Guitar January 2011; David was the first actor to come to Brandon's mind to play Seth in Live-In Fear. Maria had introduced Chris Dorman to Brandon, Chris being one of about five actors recommended to play Eric, but Maria pointed out Chris had always been her top choice for the role. Arielle Brachfeld had already been cast, and Chris auditioned opposite her and Brandon liked their chemistry. Brandon was impressed that Chris never complained, considering for the film he'd been buried in blood-covered snow, and had to cough up chocolate-y syrup goo, etc.
Brandon had met Sarah Greyson, through a mutual friend via web series. Having had problems casting Becca, and while normally a super sweet and upbeat person, she had enough of a Sad Look that worked for the role of Mallory.
Brandon credited Maria for finding both Myles Cranford and Charlene Geisler. Brandon had recently come across Myles again, coming to the school where Brandon works; Myles' scenes are really cool, considering what a gentle soul he is. Brandon didn't go into detail about Charlene's scene, but clarified she's also an Associate Producer on the film.
I half-joked Brandon should get Live-In Fear to Cannes; maybe Charlene could become an Accredited Producer they way my mind-lost former-friend was, due to those at Cannes being unaware my friend only self-believed being a producer, and couldn't produce anything else any/or self-sabotaged projects on which said former-friend was "producing."
The halfway point having been reached, Brandon provided the new Live-In Fear website location; that he has a YouTube Channel and his being on Facebook. He didn't bother regarding Twitter, comically enough.
Maria returned to her story, working on an interactive horror haunt called Delusion: the Blood Rite, which is similar to a horror-play/haunted house. The house that had been used, just northwest of USC campus, was over a hundred years old. In the room in which her character is situated there is a four-poster bed on which they sit before a performance. Once while she was sitting there, someone behind her either sat or leaned on the mattress, causing her to turn to see who it was, and there was no one (visible). Another time while in the maze after the special effects were done, so it was very dark, Maria felt someone touch her on her back. Expecting it to be one of her fellow actors or one of the security guards, she turned only to find she was by herself. One of Maria's fellow cast members had seen something walk out of an otherwise locked room; faucets have turned on on their own: an interesting house with an interesting vibe.
Kat pointed out to us that the Playboy Mansion is reputed to be haunted as well.
Maria clarified that she doesn't have as much time for working on student films (as I sadly do), her time now focused on producing, fund raising, etc. She does prefer to stick with the horror genre as it has such a wide, solid fan base.
Maria explained her process of acting in such intense roles, both human and non-human.
Tonight we had listeners from US, Canada, Belgium, the UK and the all-new... Unknown.
While I did ask about Maria's work on Haunting of Whaley House, along with fellow Live-In Fear cast member Arielle, we ended up only touching briefly on that project, as Maria got distracted from a comment in the chat-room about her accent.
Henry wondered how many times she's been killed in films. Her character's death was particularly messy in Shellter involved a gurney, an operation, acid and as props, actual animal innards; in Die-Ner: Get It? she was knifed but having come back as a zombie, she got lots of fun to do with duct-tape, ropes and hat-stands.
She's kept tabs on how many creatures she has played; one of the few things she has not yet played to date was a werewolf.
Almost surprisingly so, Maria didn't get around to speaking of the project Edward Payson's Sunday Night Slaughters in which she's been involved. She indicated at one point having played a Mynock, to which Kat and I both went to Mynocks of Empire Strikes Back with it, an aspect of the name previously to which Maria had been unaware. She's also played an orc, for the Daywalt Fear Factory, at first an eight hour make-up job, five or six hours being removed after having worked for forty minutes.
Henry queried about make-up, and Maria indicated sometimes there's no need for mega-make-up; as a teacher in DisOrientation she just had standard make-up. For Blue Like the Morning she was a homeless woman, so only a bit more make-up for that. For the horror short Curtain Maria played a Succubus, her entire body was hand-painted, which took about five or six hours to do; hair extensions and two-inch long nails, et al. For the fantasy feature Dragonquest as Hedona she'd had ten inch nails, with which, as Maria pointed out, one does not want to go to the bathroom.
Due to the NDA, she was reluctant to discuss the episode of American Horror Story on which she (and I) had worked, despite the episode already having aired. She has also worked on the FX series Legit, starring Australian stand-up-comic Jim Jefferies, and she thinks it's episode three on which she worked.
Henry had me bring up some of the acting work I'd done, and as one of my most recently projects, The Color Red had been filmed at the Gnomon School of Visual Effects in front of a green screen, it gave Barbara the impetus to ask Maria and me about working with green screen. Maria clarified that what the director has in mind is very specific: that it's more restricting that freeing; an actor has to be very careful as to where one walks, how many steps to take, etc. One feature on which she was entirely green-screened was the cryptic San Francisco 2177, at one point during which she and other principals had to walk through a crowd of people Who Were Not There. Strangely, San Francisco 2177 indeed as of this date seems to have vanished (certainly from the IMDB), so no one has any idea as to its status. (A later search by Barbara came up with it apparently existing online as a torrent. As the torrent site wanted a "non billed" credit card, I chose not to check it out myself.)
Maria spoke about the evolution of her character of Rose in Die-Ner and the fun she had playing in it.
As his question, I reminded Henry that the majority of my principal work to date had been commercials and student film, bring up as an example not only my Super Bowl commercial in which I had lines, to my AT&T commercial in which I had no lines, but I was still a principal role.
Maria was able to point out she currently had a national commercial airing in which she stars, Buffalo Wild Wings commercial titled Wheatgrass, which comically flipped out Kat who had just seen it on TV.
Ad to the future, Maria announced that via her MOnsterworks66 company, in association with Dynamic Films, the following Saturday Maria would start shooting the latest feature horror film Something Sinister, based on the horror short of the same name, written and directed by Christopher Dye. Maria is co-producing; they'd had some location scheduling issues but were now all but finished with pre-production.
Henry wondered about whether she only films in Los Angeles, but as with any actors (certainly most), she goes wherever they need; for Percy Jackson she got the full-on five-star star treatment: top notch hotels, limo service, first-class flight/s, etc. Having to go up there thrice, she actually got that treatment three different times which was, as she put it, amazingly wonderful. Kat had Maria discuss her wire-work and leaping from the scaffolding.
Maria provided her YouTube Channel and Facebook information, as well as her IMDB entry, even that she's on LinkedIn, though she admitted to the lack of having her own actual website as she hasn't the time to maintain one. She also playfully suggested listeners do a search for Maria Olsen paranormal activity 3 jelly beans as to where such a search leads.
I provided the show's various page locations (my site's Paranormal View hub page, the show's official site, that we're findable on on Facebook, et al); Kat gave out her website and we were wrapped.
During our thank-yous off air, Maria indicated that her working calendar gets filled up so quickly, she has even coined for herself; that she's "Stupid Busy".