October 23, 2025 • 52 mins
Len Kabasinski shares his journey from childhood dreams of monsters and martial arts to becoming a prolific force in the world of independent B-movie filmmaking. He recounts the origins of his first feature Swamp Zombies, revealing how a passion for horror and action films, coupled with sheer determination and minimal resources, propelled him into the director’s chair. With stories of on-set challenges, like actors no-showing and rewrites done on the fly, Len highlights the resourcefulness required to survive and thrive in the micro-budget world. His deep respect for martial arts and love for genre films shine through as he explains how even his earliest projects were fueled by vision, grit, and a DIY spirit.
As the conversation unfolds, Len Kabasinski reflects on the evolution of his filmmaking, from improving technical aspects like sound and lighting to writing scripts that align with available resources. He discusses working with cult personalities like Dan Severn and Jasmine St. Claire, and how casting is not just about fame but about attitude and collaboration. Looking forward, he shares excitement about upcoming projects like Hellcats Revenge and Challenge of the Five Gauntlets, emphasizing his desire to showcase his martial arts roots in full force. Throughout, Len remains grounded, humble, and fiercely committed to telling the stories he believes in—proving that true creativity doesn’t wait for permission.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.
As the conversation unfolds, Len Kabasinski reflects on the evolution of his filmmaking, from improving technical aspects like sound and lighting to writing scripts that align with available resources. He discusses working with cult personalities like Dan Severn and Jasmine St. Claire, and how casting is not just about fame but about attitude and collaboration. Looking forward, he shares excitement about upcoming projects like Hellcats Revenge and Challenge of the Five Gauntlets, emphasizing his desire to showcase his martial arts roots in full force. Throughout, Len remains grounded, humble, and fiercely committed to telling the stories he believes in—proving that true creativity doesn’t wait for permission.
Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/bulletproof-screenwriting-podcast--2881148/support.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
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Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four forty two.
Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
When we really should be working on that next draft.
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Now.
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Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, and that's that's so awesome. Yeah again, thank you
for doing this. I know you've probably got like a
million things to do today, and.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
You know what might the hard part at all that
stuff is over for me. I just sit back and
relax now. So I just I just show up at
the venue at you know, before the doors open, I
look at the movie on screen and make sure it
looks pretty or sounds pre and that's about all I
do today. So I sit back and relax. And it's
more about the cast.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And crew anyways, that than me.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
My job for everything is has been done for a
little while, so I just hope they come out and
have fun and then it premieres for the public in
a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Here and that's really cool, Len, and I'm going to
make sure to link to everything in the show notes
that we talk about too. And by the way, you know,
Len and I are probably about an hour away from
each other because you're in Western Pa. I'm here in Philadelphia.
So usually when I interview everyone, lend they're either in
New York or LA. That's like, so usually, yeah, their
(02:34):
weather is amazing, and it's like, you know, a humid
or it's a rainy day out here in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah. You know, I'm a biker guy.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
I've been a motorcycle guy for most of my life,
so you know, when it's ninety degrees humid and hot,
or Vegas and it's one hundred and fifteen and people
are bitching and moan, and that's the weather I like.
I like it the kind of hot that people complain about.
So the hotter the better.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, right, because you know, if you go out when
it's when it's too wet out or something you would
like wipe out. Right.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, it's not fun. Ray rain hurts when you're running
a motorcycle. Trust me, it's it's not a fun time.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So so you known, and you and I too have
a lot of things in common, more shorts and filmmaking,
and I wanted to get ask you about your your
filmmaking career first, you know, because you've done a lot
of really cool stuff and I wanted to ask you know,
you've been working since about like I think two thousand
and five when you created your first movie, Swamp Zombies.
So I wanted to ask Glenn, you know, at what
(03:30):
point did you get bit by the filmmaking bug where
you said to yourself, Hey, I want to go out
there and I want to make my own film.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Yeah, you know, it's It's something I wanted to do
ever since I was little little, you know, when I
was you know whatever, six years old or whatever, I
started to want to do things or creatively imagination type
things where started to run as my mom would stay
up and watch science fiction and horror movies with me.
There was like a late Great horror show it was
(03:57):
called on Saturday nights at midnight. It wasn't a school night,
so my mom would let me stay up and she'd
watched like Man with Two Brains or or any number,
Godzilla versus the Smog Monster or so it was something
like that. So, you know, and staying up and watching
these and they were all PG rated stuff, so but
still it kind of planted the seed in my brain
that hey, look at all this creative stuff that's in
front of me, and they get to do monsters and
(04:18):
dinosaurs and scientific experiment dudes with two brains and this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So I thought, oh, this is so cool.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
So but going along, and you know that that spurned
my love really for B movies and stuff like that,
and that got me on track that you know, I
still love that kind of stuff to this day. I
still watch that stuff to this day. You know, my days,
if it's not watching sports or obviously working, which is
it seems like I worked five.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Jobs at times.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Other than that, you know, I'm watching B movies on
Amazon Prime or seeing what the latest Trauma flick on
Prime is or the latest God Free ho movie on
Prime is or whatever. So I watch a lot of
Amazon Prime stuff. But yeah, I'm staying up with me
watching those films that got the ball rolling. But as
I went into high school and college, and you know,
back then it's you know, the early nineties and stuff.
(05:09):
There is no digital video or mini DV even at
that point, or anything like that. It's like if if
you wanted to shoot your film or do a film
that was you had to film on thirty five millimeter. Now, yeah,
sixteen and stuff was around, but I mean nobody really
got out there shooting on that stuff. I mean, you
had to do thirty five millimeter. I'm really to be
taken seriously even so, I mean even in movies to
(05:32):
this day that like you see Riff Tracks makes popular
movies like Future Force or something like that with David Carrodding.
You know that's nineteen ninety that's still shot on film.
I mean it might look like a movie with a
twenty thousand dollars budget, but I mean that's thirty five
millimeter film. They had six figures right there just shooting
on films. So, you know, I didn't have obviously the
(05:55):
knowledge or anything like that to you know, I didn't
go to UCLA Films school and those kinds of things.
I just kind of always wanted to do it, but
didn't have the real knowledge, you know, and still might
not to do, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
But as I went along, Mini DV came about.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
I started just kind of hanging out at like horror
movie conventions. And science fiction conventions and stuff like that
where I had ran into again, this is a really
really condensed quick version. I years later ran into Bob
Zadar and Chris Watson, who directs and writes and does casting.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
He does a lot of stuff. He's an author. He
has a few books out there. Chris Watson did.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
A movie called Zombie Gedd and he was working on
again a very low budget movie.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Populated it all.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
I mean, in my opinion, he really started the boom,
if you will, of the one day on set things
for you know, name actors and actresses in micro indie movies.
He would get Tom Savini for a day, or he'd
get Bob Zaddar for a day or two, and he'd
get all these zombiegein and is packed with b name
you know actors in it.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And that's what he would do is.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
Go around to these conventions, you know, pay him a
few underducks or whatever it was, and you know, get
him on set for the day and bam there in
his movie zombie getting So I kind of learned some
things from him, and and right then the mini DV
thing was the ball was was getting rolling pretty good.
And that this is around two thousand and three, two
thousand and four. So so that's pretty much how it
(07:25):
all got started there.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know, you mentioned film school in and that's something
that we talk a lot about on the show because
some people have gone to film school. I didn't. I
didn't go to film school either. You know. I find
that it's kind of there. You know, there's a million,
million and one different ways to enter this business right there.
You can do a ton of different ways to get in.
And you know, I think the people that are are
(07:49):
quote unquote normal are the people that are that you know,
maybe sit on the couch or they're driving or and
they always saying themselves, Oh man, I wish I could
go out and make my movie. I wish I want
to make a movie. That's why. You know, with guests
like yourself there and the other guests of have On,
is that really normal because you're actually out there doing it,
you know what I mean, You're actually out there and
you know, I mean, as we're going to get into
(08:11):
it's so damn hard to make a movie because you
have to wear five different hats at least, you know,
you're always juggling ten different things, you know, and it's
like the fact that a movie even comes together is
a small miracle in of itself.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yeah, and you know, I've been there twelve times now
or something like that, So it's not that it can't
be done. But yeah, the amount of work and effort,
I tell you, along the way since two thousand and four,
it's I've probably.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Met I don't.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Know, hundreds of filmmakers put it that way, but I've
met thousands of want to be filmmakers or wish they
would make films. I don't want to see They want
to be as in derogatory, I mean, you know, want
to be want to do stuff that kind of. I've
met thousands and thousands of them, but most of them
quit along the way somehow when they find out how
(09:03):
really difficult it is. You know, I'm not interested in
just being called a filmmaker.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I am one.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
This is what I do, you know what I mean.
I don't have projects and then just not make them.
I mean, in my brain and the way I am,
I mean, I have to do this stuff or you know,
it's like sharks, they swim for it all the time
and if not, they die, sir. So that's kind of
how I am. I feel creatively. I always have to
keep being creative or keep working towards things, and that's
(09:31):
just kind of how life has lived for me.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So yeah, and I completely understand what you mean. I
mean it is and when you finally go sit down
and start to write a script or you know, you
go over and you're wearing your producer hat and you're
thinking yourself, all right, but we got to make sure
our schedules are going to coordinate for these shooting days.
And then you gotta wear another half for a marketing
you know, from a marketing standpoints. You made the thing
and you're like, oh crap, now I got to get
(09:55):
it out there and how are people going to be
able to see it?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So we'll be right after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
So, so, Lene, way, when you were making Swamp Zombies,
which which was which was your first film? You know,
at what point did you sit down, you know, and
start writing the script and then say to yourself, oh, man,
you know what, I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna I'm
gonna direct this. This is gonna be my first feature.
You know what, you know, was there anything, was there
an impetus that happened where you finally said, you know what,
this is the year I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
You know it was after I had met Chris Watson
when I when I when I had been on set
of Zombie Get In. And I still talked to Chris
Watson to this day. I talked to him a week ago.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
You know, I.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Knew that his plan and what he was doing, and
he was talking to people from either Trouma or or whatever.
There's thousands of you know, distributors out there that want
to sign your movie. So yeah, I knew right after
Zombie Get In. I knew that what kind of camera
he used?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
What what could I do? And I thought, wow, you know,
being on set of this this film, I I could
do this. Finally.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
You know, this camera costs you know, a couple thousand
bucks or whatever. You know, I'm in college at the time,
I'm in medical school at the time, and I said,
you know what, that's it. I'll use a charge card,
which is what ninety nine percent of micro INDI people
do a lot of times, and you know they put
all their initial equipment in those kinds of things on it.
And to this day, even though I do not use it.
I still own the camera that shot Swamp Zombies, which
(11:24):
is a canon GL two, but it's still a nice camera.
It's just not a twenty four P It's in beautiful
thirty frames per second and just like Uncle Ted's video
camera twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
So you know that's what we did.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
But I knew that, yeah on'es on Zombie get In.
I came back and I sat there and thought, man,
you know I could do this. But the script I
wrote for Swamp Zombies, and I love writing scripts, but
the script I wrote back then, I mean again, I
still don't have any real experience. It was a pretty
ambitious script that I needed to have my head examined
(11:59):
trying to produce a movie like that is my first film.
But Tom, in terms of getting it out there and stuff,
I did have a plan though. I mean even when
I didn't know what I was doing, I did have
a plan. I knew I wanted to get eyeballs on
the movie, and I knew I wanted to pick genres
if you will, or entertainment outlets if you will, like WWE,
(12:21):
or the adult film industry or UFC, which was not
in two thousand and four, this big thing that it
is today. UFC was just kind of still kind of
getting rolling kind of thing. So that's where Dan Severn
came in, That's where Blue Mini came in, That's where
Jasmine Saint Clair came in. I mean I strategically obviously
went and wanted to use these people because of their
(12:42):
names and kind of a following that you know, hopefully
would come along. So yeah, there was plans like that.
I mean I didn't go in just completely well, I'm
just going to film this and whatever happens happens.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I didn't go in like that.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
I kind of thought, you know, this is my plan.
I'm going to get it signed with the distributor. They're
going to use and market my my star people here,
and uh we'll see what happens from there. So that's
how that came about.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, you know, I actually have seen Swamp Zombies and
I actually watched it on Amazon Prime and.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Uh so you've seen the condensed version of it, You've
seen the the ninety minute version of it.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, exactly, I a good deal. I actually went on
a len Kabazinski sort of run. I actually saw that
face of the vampire cursal wolf skull Forest. I think, No, no,
I don't think skull Forest is on there yet. When
I watched it, maybe it was. Yeah, I was gonna say,
I don't. I think that's when I was. I was
on your Facebook, you know it was it was Bridal
Party massacre. That's actually oh yeah yeah. So yeah. So
(13:41):
when I watched Swamp Zombies, by the way, I was like,
Dan Severn looks exactly like you think a police chief
would look. He he look, he has that look to
him where he looks like a detective or you know
what I mean, like like him and Don Fry could
be like.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they trained together back in the
day too.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I mean they look like those horror grizzled tough guys
and they both are legit tough guys too, which is
even you know. I mean, Dan Severn, I'm a huge
UFC fan, Like I was saying, you know, we have
me too, yeah, yeah, like you know, we have two
things in common, martial arts and movies. And you know,
I remember I remember the early days of the UFC,
and it was like they had to have it in
like Casper, Wyoming, and it was just like there was
(14:19):
three rules, you know what I mean, and it's.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Just I remember, yeah, but Dan was my favorite even
back then. But when I approached him for Swamp Zombies, yeah,
it was super nice.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Man.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Actually, in Swamp Zombies, he came to Eerie for the
day because I had this swamp cabin type location that
you see in the movie where I'm doing a cotta
or something to introduce my character. We had that location
and a couple of cast members their dad or something
owned it. So I was like, man, this is a
super awesome location. So I was really fortunate to have
(14:51):
stuff like that in the movie. Dan Severn came out
to that location to film some scenes and then I thought, man,
you know, I just don't have him fighting enough at
this point. So I contacted him and said, Dan, you
know what, he's in Michigan. But he had all kinds
of woods and stuff around his property, and I said,
you know what, what if I come to you, you
don't have to do anything, just eat breakfast and come
outside and fight sot baser at it. So I'll come
(15:14):
to you, Dan, because Michigan is only like four and
a half hours away drive for me, So I just
we went up there for the day and what a hospitable.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Just nice guy.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
I mean, he was super nice and we always wanted
to work together again. But scheduling wise, you know, once
my film schedules are set, I can't really change him
because I do vacation from work and leave and those
kinds of things, and once I take my dates, my
dates are my dates kind of thing, and it just
never could work out.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And he's a super busy guy. I mean, even to.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
This day, he does tons and tons of stuff, whether
it's law enforcement or UFC promotional things or wrestling. He
still that promotes those kinds of things too. And yeah,
nice man. I hope to work with him again in
a Yeah, he was awesome.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, I've seen all the things he's done over the years.
I know he went back into MMA, I think last year.
I mean he's got like a what is it like
he think he's like one hundred and five or one
hundred and ten and like nineteen losses, like unbelievable career.
I mean, most guys in MMA they last for maybe
you know what, eight ten fights. You know, a lot
of the guys and the upper echelon guys keep going.
(16:19):
But I mean, you know, I mean he has over
one hundred fights for God's sakes, I mean.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Yeah with him too. Though he's got a style too.
Though if you look at him, I mean, look at
the dude. He just has not taken tons of damage
throughout his career.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
He's got a style.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
That lends him to, you know, not get beat up
a lot in fights. So I think that's one of
the reasons he's lasted as long as as long as
he did.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Oh, I agree completely, Len. He was definitely one of
the forefathers of you know, he has more of a
wrestling background. He uses that in the Gauntlet. I'm sorry,
the Octagon. I'm jumping Ahead'm thinking about your movie Challenged
with the Five Gods. That's what I'm thinking of. And
so well, yeah, you know, I agree completely. And you know,
he's just used his style so well. And when you know,
(17:00):
and you also look at somebody like Don fry kind
of similar style, Don Frye might trick a little more.
I'm sure that all the people listening to this for film,
by the way, probably like Virelin and Dave talking about you.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Say about the MMA, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So you know, but but yeah, helped two awesome guys,
and I actually was fortunough to meet Don Fry before,
but not Dan, and I'm glad to hear that he's
an awesome guy, yeah, because he seems pretty intimidating by
the way.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Like you know, oh yeah after the one h after
we shot Swan Zombies and in Meadville, Pennsylvania there we
all went out to Pizza Hut afterwards, and he was
like as nice as like a librarian type person. He's
eating his pizza with a knife and fork and he's yes, sir, yes,
ma'am to the waitresses, and I mean, he treats everybody
(17:45):
super good, so you can tell he's, like I believe
he's from Missouri and he's got that kind of hospitality
thing going on for him. So he's extremely nice to everybody.
And with that too, he's got the wrestling base, but
he acts like a true martial artist though. He as
that respect and that nature about him that you can
tell those kinds of disciplines kind of molded his character
(18:07):
probably personally as well.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So very nice guy and.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's awesome to hear.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You know a lot of those wrestlers from the Midwest,
you know, amazing, amazing stuff they do out there, and
so just getting back to to swam Zombies learn. So
when you finally, you know, you were putting this together,
and you mentioned, you know, you had a few, you know,
pieces of the cast and crew, you know, helped you
get maybe a location here, location there, or maybe a
resource here and there. You know, was there ever a
point in time where you had like a huge problem,
(18:33):
like a production problem. My question was, yeah, I'm glad
I brought it up there because I love to hear
stories like this about how filmmakers overcame this. You know,
you have a sort of like a resource problem and
you know, so what was your biggest problem and how
did you overcome it?
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Oh? God, biggest problem? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
I can think of one off at the top of
my head. I don't know if it was the biggest problem,
because we still would have got around it. But we
had a local actress. Well, nobody's actors and actresses. We're
all just starting, but we'll just say actress who wanted
the role. She was the friend of Pamela, such as
character in the movie. They're going on the beach and
(19:12):
stuff like that, and sunbathing and just girls hanging out
on the beach kind of thing. Well, the one character
did not show up, and I had just talked to
them the night before and actually met with him and said, Okay,
this is what we're doing. We're going to show up
at this beach at X amount of time. I'll have
you done with the probably four or five hours, and
that'll be that.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
And they're like, oh, great, this is awesome. I'm so
excited to do this. Blah blah blah blah blah. So
Pam such is on set. We're all down there waiting
and this person just doesn't show up, doesn't call me,
doesn't do anything. And I thought, oh man, now what
so And back then my brain wasn't running where it
didn't it. I'll get into a Hellcout's example in a
little bit here. But now, if something like this were
(19:55):
to happen and somebody would know show, I'm pretty confident
in my abilities. I could script write on the fly
and fix it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Whatever the situation is.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
I'm pretty I have that confidence now that I'll fix
any problem that arises like this. But yeah, the actress
no showed and I was stuck without a character there
and I thought, oh god, I'm panicking and stuff. And
then one of the extras comes up to me and says, hey,
I know this local girl that works as a stripper
here and she might, you know, come out and do this.
And I said, okay, offer one hundred bucks to get
(20:34):
down here, like right now, you know, for the day,
and he's like, okay, like go, and sure enough he did.
And an hour later came this red haired, tall, good
looking young girl that comes out and girl woman probably
in her early twenties there that comes out to set
and sure enough we made the scene happen and it
got done, and yeah, she's the character that's Pamela such
(20:57):
as friend.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
They go on the beach and she gets killed by zombies.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So uh yeah, that was that was a major problem
where somebody just didn't show up who we pretty much
fully expected to show up.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So uh yeah, we had to pull that one out
and luckily we did so.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
But yeah, it's funny you're watch it on Amazon Prime.
I had done the re edit on that movie and
I chopped about a half hour from it and put
it on Prime. And actually the movie has been out
of print for several several months now I probably close
to uh, I don't know, almost going on a year anyways,
because I got the rights back to that film. It
is not available on DVD. It's out of print now,
(21:34):
so you're going to pay potentially big bucks to try
to find it right this second.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
But it's coming. It's coming back to DVD in like
a month.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I'm just sending it out to get authored now the
dbd SO and then it'll be out and selling again
on DVD with a couple of new commentary tracks, so
it'll be a brand new package, new artwork, all that
kind of stuff. So it should be just about a
month or maybe even a little less and Swam Zombies
will be back on DVD.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Oh that's really cool. I mean, you know, and by
the way, I mentioned that about production problems and how
you overcame them, you know, when you were talking about
somebody not showing up, that happened to me too, Lenn.
I completely understand where you're coming from, because when I
started doing movies too, that was one of the biggest
problems was people who would say, Oh my god, you know,
it's it's I've always wanted to do this, I'm going
(22:20):
to show up and the day of they know show
no court.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, but that's a it's a
good lesson learned and going forward in the future when
I when I'm doing extras, and a lot of times
I didn't have to coordinate extras going forward, sometimes I did,
but but then is I got associate producers come on
board and things I would have like my associate producer
for for quite a few films now Ruth Sprague does
a lot of coordinating with extras and things like that.
(22:47):
But the main thing I do is if you aren't
one million percent sure you're coming, just please, you know,
I'm marking you down a as a no. You know
what I mean, I don't maybe these are nos to
me now in filma and it's like I try to
only do the shore things and if they show up, great.
If it's a maybe and they show up, great, If not,
(23:08):
I didn't count on them anyways kind of thing. And
that's kind of how I treat that.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I concur if they're not into it a million percent,
and if they even say, well, you know, hey, Len,
I'll try to show up or you know, I'll try
to be there. I was like that that that's that
subtext meeting. That's that's the part right.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Right, right right. I don't try anything. I just do it.
So little faster pussycat reference there.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Yeah, it's there is no uh do it or not?
There is no try yoda yea from the and uh.
But so you know, as you actually got you know,
some zombies, you got it done. You know, you're you're
able to just sort of market it. So when you started,
you know, going into your other projects like Cursal the
Wolf and Fist of the Vampire, you know what, what
are some of those things that you that that you
(23:53):
started to do you know, maybe more of or less
of meaning? Did you start hiring more crew members to
like help you out? Did you maybe say, you know
what I'm gonna I'm gonna get a person just for
marketing and maybe I'm going to find some producers that
I can actually work with, you know that I can
keep using for project to project project because that's something
I found out is too is like you know, Kevin
Smith has Goot Mesure, Quentin Tarantino has Lawrence Bender. It
(24:14):
was always at that that tandem. So were you were
you able to start you know, finding more and more
people that you wanted to work with.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Yeah, you know the way I tried to do it.
After Swampsombies, I went into Curse of the Wolf, and
the first thing I knew I had to improve right
off the bat is I looked at other films and
looked at my peers and.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Things like that.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And as I said, MiniDV was still fairly new at
that point. But so it was twenty four P cameras
for consumers, and I knew once I saw twenty four
P and one of my other peers projects were looking
like I knew right then and there, I need to
go twenty four P. And I need to just try
to get a hold of a good camera for Curse.
So I had bought a Panasonic one hundred DVX one
(24:52):
hundred D off of a guy that was filming biker
documentaries for the Discovery Channel and he was local making
motor cycle engines or something, and he said.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Hey, I got this camera. I'll sell it to you
five hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And that's the best five hundred bucks I ever spent
because it went on to shoot, you know, three or
four more movies for me on the DBX, and it
was just a workhorse for me. So I knew I
had to improve that, and I think we pretty much
did that. And I think there's a big jump between
Swamp Zombies and Curse of the Wolf. I can see
a big divide between those two films in terms of
look at least. But yeah, it's a shit, you know, dude,
(25:30):
it's a you try to I want that when I
do my pictures. I want to have a cast that
I can run with for a while. And I thought
it would happen back on Curse of the Wolf. We
had changed editors because the editors of Curse of the
Wolf were actually on set doing effects, so they really
lived with Curse of the Wolf.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like I did.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
And he was not begging, but really strongly lobbying, len,
let me edit this movie.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Let me edit Curse. Let me edit Curse.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
And I was going to use the same editor as
Swamp Zombies, but he kind of convinced me and Lisa,
who was the producer of that film, to use him,
and going forward, he ended up editing Fist to the
Vampire as well. And at that point, I'm like, Okay,
let's do like a three picture tight handshake deal here,
you know what I mean. In the micro world, you
(26:16):
don't pay somebody ten grand to edit three pictures. That
just doesn't happen. You shake hands and say, hey, I
want to use you in the next three movies.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Let's do it.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
So that's what we thought would happen. But he edited
two pictures and then I kind of just let him
go from there. Just the amount of work and stuff
and being a perfectionist and myself, it's just like, I'm
not happy a lot. I tend to really try to
just push and push people and get the best out
of things. And you know, that's kind of a personality
(26:45):
quirk of mind that doesn't always work out all the
time anyways. You know, it's kind of like a leader
of a band that goes through a lot of musicians.
You know, they either think he's a dick, or they
push him to work too hard for too little money,
and all those kinds of things. But I understand and
all that stuff. I mean, I know my limitations when
it comes to that. But yeah, you know, it works
(27:06):
out where you end up using the same people for
two or three movies or so, but then they move
on or you know, something happens where you know they
go onto their own projects or something.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Like that.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
But you know, at the end of the day, when
when my people want to go off and do things
or do that, that's totally cool. But you know, for
Killer roll films, at the end of the day, I'm
the one still here, you know what I mean. I'm
still here in working no matter what. Everybody else can
leave and branch off, but you know, at the end
of the day, I'm still here doing stuff and that's
not going to change.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yeah, you know, And I think you always have this
sort of being the master of your own fate, you
know what I mean. You always have to be not
only I mean you're like me, Lenn. You want to
write your own scripts and I and honestly because it's
your story, is your own special sauce, so to speak,
and you want to say, you know what, I actually
want to see this done. So I'm going to lead
the charge to get this produced. Obviously I'll direct it.
(27:56):
And then you know, and you want to make sure
that that the last part of that left is the production,
you know, and you want to make sure a do
I have some kind of you know, money to you know,
you know, cash is king, right, and then you know, resources,
the locations and stuff like that, and then we go
into the whole cast and crew stuff of you know,
what's my list? And like you said, Lena, as you
keep doing this, your list grows more and more. So
(28:18):
if somebody does drop out, you know, hey, well I
have a couple other people now and I'm not I'm
not you know where. You know, when you first start out,
your list is very small, and then as you start
going out more, you network and you start meeting new people.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Yeah, when I A big turning point for me with
the less is more kind of thing is between a
movie I did call Ninja Prophecy of Death, which was
one of my higher last like higher budgeted movies for
what I do, I went in and did a movie
called Skall Forest. Where Skall Forest I tried to like
not dumb it down, but I tried to do a
(28:50):
less is more thing where, you know what, I'm not
trying to get twenty seven different locations. I think Skall
Forest might have four or five locations total in it
and something like that. But I knew that I'll condense
the story.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
I'll make it.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
You know, we're not going to be running around on
a film like a day planner, you know, day one,
we're in the woods. That's it, where they're all day.
Day two we're in a dance hall or something all day.
And I knew I got really I got better at
day planning for you know, what's shooting on what day?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
That thing.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
I and the last several films that went really smooth
for me to shoot. So day planning and constructing. Usually,
if I have extras, I put them all on one
day for example, like hell, because extras are always the
hardest thing for me anyways, is to round up a
bunch of people, get them all on the same day,
on the same schedules, and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
That's hard. So if it's one.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Group of people that I want to really have fun
on my movie sets, it's not even so much my
lead actors. It's my extras because those are the people
that populate scenes and make them look good, you know
what I mean. So so the number one group of people,
if you will, on set, that I want to come
out and have fun is the extras, because when I
do my next film, I want them back.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
To do something else if I need them. So yeah,
on Hellcat's Revenge that's coming out here, and it's already
it's signed a worldwide multimedia, so it's out of my
hands now, but I do think the DVD's probably come
in by like Thanksgiving ish time here for Helcat's Revenge.
But we did a clubhouse, if you will, a female
(30:31):
Hellcats like motorcycle clubhouse, and we shot all those scenes
on the same day. We did an eight hour day
or whatever, and all we did for that eight hour
shift was film all the scenes where it's really really
populated in the clubhouse, and it worked out really really well.
So and we did the same thing where we were
at a strip club. We shot all the strip club
scenes on one day. Got a bunch of people who
doesn't want to come out and be an extra, and
(30:52):
a strip club, so it's like we got a bunch
of people on that day. So that's one thing I've
gotten better at as we go along. But yeah, it's
those elements that you've got to it's not about cutting
or trimming, it's about really what I think I've gotten
better at is writing scripts that I know I can
accomplish kind of thing. And I get a lot of
(31:13):
emails actually saying, well, then how did you go about
doing this or that or how did you get this
or that in your films and stuff? And I said,
you know what, if you want to accomplish your film
and you're just getting rolling, or it's your first movie
or second movie.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Or whatever, write one.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Write your script to what you know you can get.
If you have a script that calls for a double
decker bus in France and sharks coming at you from
the sky, but you can't get those things, don't do it.
You know what I mean, don't write it. So and
I'm not trying to limit your imagination, but what I'm
trying to do is get you to have a film
that's realistic for you to shoot kind of thing. And
(31:50):
it's stall force being example, it's woods, it's guns, it's
fight scenes, and that's about it. So I knew I
could get that done. But so I tell them that,
And then I said, you know, at your cast and crew,
everybody wants to do a movie. Every joe blow off
the street wants to do a movie. But when it
comes time for them to show up on your set
and they don't, you know, don't be surprised kind of things.
(32:12):
So you know, don't don't make your cast real expansive
and stuff. Just to start off, I would say, start
start small here. And speaking, I know, we've talked a
lot about swamp zombies and yeah, I mean coordinating. God
bless everybody that helped me out for that film. But yeah,
sometimes it was just hell trying to coordinate twenty zombies
on set or whatever. I mean, And I was doing
it all back then. I didn't have an associate producer
(32:34):
or anything. I mean, I was on the phone and
doing Oh man, it was I ain't going back there again,
put it that way. But but everybody that helped out
was super great. I mean, I've been really blessed that
out of whatever, a dozen movies or whatever, it is
now very very very I can't I can't remember many
(32:54):
dickheads or jerks really, so I've been really fortunate there.
And yeah, even back in the day to kind of
prevent that stuff, I had met Jasmine Saint Clair and
Blue Meanie and talked to Dan Severin and well before shooting,
because I knew I didn't want to bring these people
on that were getting paid for their roles and everybody
else is covered in swamp crap and zombie makeup and stuff,
and they're not getting paid.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah, the last thing.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I'm gonna do is bring Jasmine on Saint Clair on
set and paid roll and have her treat my people
like jerks or whatever. So I made sure everybody I
used had a cool personality and stuff, and I still
kind of work that way to this day. If there's
a more name person that maybe once involved, I would
talk to them and just kind of make sure that
it's gonna be.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
A personality fit. I'm a real blue collar guy.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
So it's dibas and those kinds of people. They're just
gonna hate me. I'm gonna probably hate them and it's
just not gonna work.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So you know, yeah, you know that that's the thing, Lenn.
You have to get those bad attitudes out of there.
And that that's so true, because those bad attitudes spread.
It's almost like a like a disease, you know, It's
almost like it was like a zombie GIRs. You know,
it's like it affects one person that it affects two.
And and that's why it's so good to sort of
like hire slow, fire fast, as you're saying, out of business,
(34:09):
and that's something I've learned over the years too. Is
you know, I've been there. We were just mentioning about
swam zombies where you're on the phone and you're trying
to coordinate all these people. You know, I've been there too,
where you're you're like, okay, you're on the phone trying
to give somebody directions. People are coming up to it
at the same time asking you for stuff, and you're like,
my god. You know it's it's a lot, right, So
that's when you need to have, you know, the crew
to sort of you know, to sort of delegate the
(34:31):
you know, all these assignments, and you want to have
everyone have that upbeat attitude. Hey, look, you know we're
making art. We're actually out here doing something and we're
getting treated well for it. The director is not talking
down to us. You know, we all feel like we're
a part of the team. And I and you know
I and that is so key because you know, I've
been on those sets here in Philadelphia where you know,
you show up and the director acts like, you know,
(34:51):
who the hell is you know, what are you doing here?
Don't talk to me or whatever, and you're like, come on, dude,
you know, we're all in the same boat here.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Yeah, yeah, with stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Out of the opposite, I wish I could hang out
and talk to the extras more, to just talk to
people in general. I mean, there's people that had starring
roles in my films too. I probably spoke three sentences too,
you know, just because I don't I don't have time
on set and with a wonderful internet here. I mean,
a lot of my directing, if you will, to the actors,
(35:20):
it's done months beforehand. You know, we're communicating online or
you know, they'll message me questions about their characters. That
I do a lot of the directing remotely, so when
by the time they show up on set, they know
what's expected of them, you know, character wise and things
like that. So it does make my job easier come
actual you know, film time, when the camera's rolling, that
(35:43):
they know what I'm expecting of them. And that doesn't
mean I still have to kind of direct them and
reel them in from here or there. But it's it's
a good process that I get to nail a lot
of direction really ahead of time a lot many times.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
And that's good. That's really too because that way when
they get there, you're you know, everyone knows what was
expected of them, and you can just rock and roll
through this and then a lot of you know, waiting
around between takes and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Oh yeah, Hellcats Revenge.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
I rewrote the script at the last minute, literally last minute.
We had a cast member drop out, and I thought, well,
I'm still filming this. I'm just going to change a
couple of things. And I'm you know, I had people
in from Vegas, I had people in from La already
on set, and I had to change the script. And
but I did it. The movie premieres tonight. It's like
(36:33):
it's out there. It's gonna come to DVD later this year.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
And I mean, wow, that.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Was one of the craziest experience in film ever to
have like a lead, you know, not be there and
then me have to just kind of rework everything at
the last minute. And it definitely worked out for the better.
So it's one of those moments, Yeah, you just got
a nut up and figure out, you know, what are
you going to do this? Are you not going to
do it? Pick a direction and go and and mine
was go make a movie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So yeah, and and usually lend that is the best
option to go with, is you know what, you got
to put your head down and just keep going forward
because you know a lot at the time, it is
the right decision, you know, because it's better to make
it than not make it right. So and so, as
we talked about Hellcats Revenge, could could you just give
me a you know, give everyone a log line about
(37:19):
the film?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Basically, Hellcats Revenge is your your kind of biker revenge movie.
I mean, you're not going to get some kind of complex,
you know, seven ish story out out of it or
something like that.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
H biker leader of a female gang is killed and
so her her hellcats if you wear her gang writing
club or whatever you want to call them, kind of
go out and try to find out who killed her,
and they end up coming up against a criminal gang
called the Vipers and.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
They kind of go at it kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
So it's a female gang versus a male biker gang
in the film. And then there's kind of some like
fence sitting shady characters that kind of kind of play
bow both sides there. But yeah, it's not an all
out martial art film. There is some fight scenes obviously
in it, and stuff like that. It moves along at
a pretty good pace. It's like an hour and twenty minutes,
I think, so I was pretty pleased with the run
(38:13):
time and all that kind of stuff, So I think
it moves along good. We had an Osmo camera for
this one, so we have some really cool steady tracking
shots and those kinds of things. The Osmo camera was wonderful,
so I think, I think what people will see is
increase production values, just even stepping up from like Angel
of Reckoning, So I think they'll see those kind of
(38:34):
productions like lighting and all those kinds of things. Sound,
we adr'd a lot of stuff in it, so we
wanted to make sure because that's a common problem, especially
micro indie stuff, is lighting and sound are the two
big things that you know usually need the most work
or end up sucking. So we try to really and
we did that with Angel of Reckoning too, but even
(38:55):
Hellcat's Revenge even more so that we wanted to, you know,
if we had the ADR stuff, it is what it is.
Let's just make it the best, you know that we can.
And so yeah, it's just a crazy little action picture.
There's a lot of guns, few fight scenes, some hot chicks.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
So I hope people enjoy it. It continues my trend
of like action movies without being martial art movies. But
that being said, you kind of mentioned this briefly, and
I'll touch on it now real quick. Is I've got
Actually we'll backtrack to Hellcats one second here. I've had
a lot of especially like red letter media fans and
stuff like that, messaged me that Len, when are you
going back to doing like a lead type role, because they,
(39:32):
for whatever reason, like when I'm I'm acting and doing
that kind of stuff, And for the last couple of pictures,
I really haven't been. But for those that want to
see me in a lead type role Hellcats avengel Be
or movie, I play the character Snake in the movie,
who is like the lead villain type character. So for
those that want to see me in a lead role
Hellcat's revengel Be or Movie, it's Lisa Nield, Playboy cover model.
(39:54):
Lisa Neild plays the Cat, the leader of the Hellcats,
and I play Snake, the leader of the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
For those that want to see me in a lead role,
that's the Hellcats is your movie. But that's a question
I got was when when you do an a lead
role again? So there's the answer to that. And then
the other question I get a lot is lend your
last couple of movies like Angel of Reckoning for example,
art really martial art movies. When are you going to
do your martial art movie? Well, that's coming next year.
(40:32):
I'm writing now a movie called Challenge of Five Gauntlets,
which is a all out.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Martial art picture.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
It is done in the vein of stuff I really
love in the seventies like Shaw Brothers Studio, martial art
pictures or.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Kung fu movies, those kinds of things.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Got a Challenge of Five Gauntlets will be in that style.
So it will be my first all out, you know,
martial art picture. There is no vampire, zombies, you know whatever,
none of that is in it. It's all it's in
all out kung fu pickure. So and that starts filming
next next sprint.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
And I know you mentioned that there's a certain somebody
from real Letter Media who's going to play the the
wise old kung fu master.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I'm hoping that happens.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
If it doesn't, you know, It's not like I'm not
doing the film or whatever, but I thought it would
be funny, you know, if that happens. It's not a
comedy film obviously, but if it happens, I think it'll
be really funny for the fans. If not, and they're
still interested in checking it out, they're gonna get what
they want out of me. They're gonna get that all
out martial art, you know picture. So even now I'm
(41:35):
currently as i'm writing it, I'm studying a lot of
fight scenes from that area, really studying the choreography and things.
Not so much to like rip off things, because that's
really not my deal. It's more to like understand, like
in a Shaw Brothers fight scene and challenge if I
or challenge in Five Element Ninjas. You know, here's this
(41:56):
big fight scene, how many moves do they go with
before cutting and switching an angle or doing stuff like that.
So really trying to like see how the fight scenes
are in those films, and really I'm going to try
to mold my fight scenes in a similar fashion.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
And that's awesome line because again, you know you're a
big martial arts fan, you're a martial art yourself, you know,
I've read about your background. I know you've done a
lot of taekwondo, a lot of pangs sudo you know,
and that's awesome when you can bring that to through
the to the films. You know, you do fight choreography,
and I actually can't wait to see challenge with the
five goal. Let's and see what you do with it.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's I'm excited to do an all out
martial art picture. I really am.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
Because now when it comes time for distribution, you know,
back in as we mentioned mini DV booming and the
early micro horror type stuff coming about. Now I don't
need to play to anything. I can just do a film.
And you know, I realized a couple of films ago,
and I try to be a humble guy about things,
but so I never see myself as somebody like this
(42:55):
popular star type person.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
It's just not myself.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
But but now people seem to want to watch my
films for me and not for you know, a certain
actor I put in them or whatever, you know what
I mean. So that kind of allowed me the freedom
to go kind of go out and make you know,
gauntlets here and say, you know what, I don't have
to worry about trying to get a gimmicky name or
do something like that. And I can go out and
be myself now and people will watch it for me
(43:20):
and I don't have to worry about trying to draw
them in with something else.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
So yeah, and you know, I found that too, Len,
because when I was showing I think Swamp Zombies took
a few people. They actually were like, hey, where's lenn Att.
They actually and I'm not just saying next, I'm all,
you know, doing this interview with you, but I'm dead serious.
They were like, you know, they they always felt that
the movie really, you know, quote unquote came alive, you know,
when you were on screen, So you know, honestly, and
(43:44):
that that works well honestly, Len, because just like you said,
you can actually focus on Hey, look, you know what
I'm in the movie. It's just me. You know, people
want to watch for you, and you don't have to
you know, you know, do anything, you know, you know
what I mean, And that that's a great advantage to have.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
Yeah, and and come to challenge off, I've let's there.
I will not disappoint them. I am the lead character
in it. I don't know how many lead roles I
got in me anymore. I mean, I would like to
stay behind the camera more, much like I did for
Angel of Reckoning, which I got a lot of love
for that film. I think it turned out pretty well
for you know, that kind of thing. But you know,
even going back, as I've had to close caption my
(44:18):
films from the Amazon Prime, I've really been living a
lot with the movies like Swam Zombies and Curse of
the Wolf and Fist of the Vampire lately. And I'll
say this though, for Fist of the Vampire, I was
you know, I would put that movie up against a
lot of micro INDI stuff being made today, and Fist
of the Vampire is ten years old now, so there's
I still think there's some good stuff in there. You know,
(44:40):
Swam Zombies, Curse of the Wolf, there's a lot of
growing pains. But but this I think has some some
decent stuff in it still that that can translate to
today's micro filmmaking world.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
So oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, you know,
just as we as we all grow and we all
do our different films, we see different things happening, and
in this world that we're in is constantly changing, you know,
there's constantly new technology coming out, there's constantly new distribution realms.
I mean, I mean, hell, in two thousand and six,
for First of the Vampire or twousand and seven, Amazon
(45:10):
Prime was even a thing, right, you know what I mean.
It's it's like now, all of a sudden, you know,
there's a there's an article friend of mine wrote. He goes,
if you're an indie filmmaker today, what's better YouTube or
Amazon Prime? You know which one is going to help
the filmmakers more? And at the end of the article,
you know, spoiler alert, he picks Amazon Prime and yeah,
and he feels that that's much better because YouTube has
(45:32):
a lot of different selections of like, hey watch me
play video games, Hey watch me you know, practice guitar. Well,
if you're on Amazon Prime, it's there to watch movies
exactly right, You're just there to watch movies.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah, there is no you know, music whatever that.
I mean, YouTube can be anything. It'd be some I'm
not playing with his dog in the backyard or whatever.
But I mean when you're in Amazon, right, you're there
to watch movies. So yeah, I think that's a good
way to go. And I think I'm going to go
that route when I've got a movie called blood Prism
coming out that's going to wrap in probably two months here.
(46:06):
And that is another one though, where again fans might
see it and be like, ah, man, where's Len, Because
I am not in the movie. I just I wrote,
I co wrote and direct it. It is a dark comedy.
There is no action fight scene type stuff in it.
It's a dark comedy film. But I also with that
want to show people, I mean, if they check it out,
it's a you know, I'm not a one trick type thing.
(46:27):
I mean, yeah, I love martial art films and stuff
like that. I love micro horror movies and stuff. But
I also want to show that I'm not old school
or new school. I want to be all school. So
and that's what I'm trying to kind of prove to
people in Blood Prism. So hopefully they'll check it out.
But it's a very very very different, different movie.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, and I'm gonna make sure to link to all
your stuff in the show notes.
Speaker 4 (46:48):
Len.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You know, I know we've been talking for about forty
five minutes now. I know, you know we're running out
of times. I know you have a you know, you
want to you have a couple of things to do
before the premiere tonight, So len just in closing, just
to sort of wrap up everything. Is there any thing
that we can get a chance to talk about that
maybe you want to talk about right now, or anything
you want to sort of say, just to put a
period at them this whole conversation.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Just to check out, Like, we just started a Patreon page.
It's only a two dollar we just have a two
dollars level. It's a patreon dot com slash Killer Wolf
Films if you want to check it out. I feel
new content every month, So it's not like you're giving
me two dollars and it just sits there or whatever.
I really just only kept it at that level. It's
not really more than that. It's a you know, it's
(47:30):
not a cash grab type type thing for me. It's like, hey,
you know, help me get lights or a camera, get
a stunt man or something like that in by by
you know, joining our patreon. So so we did start
the Patreon campaign there. I'm on Twitter, Twitter dot com
slash Sparical Films or you can pit me up at Facebook.
I'm out of like friends things now, So you can't
(47:50):
friend me because it won't let me. I guess I'm
at a limit or something like that, but you know whatever,
that's stupid. But yeah, they put a limit on your friends.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
So that's very uh whatever.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
That seems like communistic almost, But yeah, you have a
cap on the number of friends you can have. But
check me out at Facebook dot com. It's slash len
dot Coposinski or Killer Wolf's Films.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Is on there too.
Speaker 5 (48:14):
But yeah, there's those new things I'm doing now. There's
so many new things coming out as Swamp Zombies, Curse
of the Wolf, is the Vampire, They're all coming back
to DVD. They're out of print now. I'm working hard
on them now to get them back out there. Like
I said, Swamp Zombies will probably be first up and
it should be out by October first, I would imagine.
So there's those things. Hellcat's Revenge should be on DVD
(48:37):
by the end of the year, coming from Worldwide Multimedia.
Blood Prism Again is another brand new movie that I
just got done shooting a few months ago that should
be out by the end of the year on DVD.
And then Challenge of Five Gauntlets I'm writing, but also
something that kind of fell into my lap within the
last week or two.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Here was a sequel to.
Speaker 5 (48:56):
Swamp Zombies, which I know we didn't get to talk
about much, that might start, That could start shooting as
soon as a month away, and that's filming in the
Philadelphia area there, so swam Zombies two would happen. It's
kind of a running Man mixed with Survivor mixed with
a zombie movie type story. So Newt Whalen, who owns
(49:19):
a theater in Philly there, he actually wrote the script
and I was kind of just kind of changing and
picking at things with them there. It's a really cool story.
So I hope the ball gets rolling on that and
it'll continue my stuff. Like like I said, swam Zombies too.
With a name like Swan Zombies, you are not expecting
to get gone with the wind type stuff there. But
you know it's I told him that, you know, much
(49:41):
like I told Red Letter Media when we were kind
of talking about a Bite of the Mummy picture. Is
you know, I'm still Len. I'll still be Len, But
at the same time, the swam Zombie production kind of
Len is long gone, you know what I mean. I'm
not interested in not.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Show getting better with lighting and sound and those kinds
of things. So if you want that more shittier level
of production, I'm not interested in going backwards. I just
want to, you know, I want to continue my trend
of getting better at those things. So as long as
they were cool with that, I was cool with that.
I still love trauma movies. Swamp Zombies two will still
be that campy, trauma ish kind of movie, but yet
(50:27):
still have really good lighting and good sound in those
kinds of things. So I hope everybody can check it out,
drop by my Patreon, or hit me up on Twitter
or whatever. So I try to be super interactive with
the fans. You know, I get dinged every time somebody
sends me a message.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So it takes me. You know.
Speaker 5 (50:42):
They're like, Len, you must not have anything to do
if you're responding to all these fans, and I'm like, no,
it's not that. It's just it takes me ten seconds,
if not less, to just drop by and say hey,
thanks for watching my.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Stuff or whatever.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
So I appreciate everybody that's kind of supported Killerble Films
through the years. Here and like you said, it started
in two thousand when I started writing Swamp Zombies, and
we're in the twenty seventeen now, and you know, much
like I said before, I'm still here, so I'm not
going anywhere, So jump on board.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Len Kabazinski. I want to say, man, it's been an
absolute blast talking with you.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Thanks for having me on any time.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
As we get closer to other, you know, newer releases
I have towards the end of the year or whatever,
let's do it again, brother.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
You know what, Len, I love to have you back
on any time.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
Man.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
You know, you and I could talk all day about
this stuff. Oh you talk about old movies too, Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a wealth of stuff.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
And speaking of that, just quickly on the Patreon page,
I have a Len's Forgotten movie den where I talk
a lot about directive video maybe films you haven't heard of.
Usually it's a lot of like eighties films or early
nineties films, but I talked about movies like Overkill with
Aaron Norris, or I talk about Georgia Vera's Fist Fighter,
a movie I adore from the eighties. So yeah, just
(51:52):
just on a tangent there about talking about movies all day.
I try to do that, and I pick a film
each month to try to bring to your attention. I
don't critique them or anything. I just kind of say, hey,
there's this movie I really love. You should check it
out kind of things. So again, thanks for having me, Man,
and enjoy your Sunday.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
You too, Lennon, and I wish you the best of
luck with Hell Ofcat Revenge and now all the other
things you got going on. So I wish you, but
I know the premieres tonight, so I wanted to focus
on that, So best of luck with that, my friend.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
Thanks a lot, Man, take care.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
Forward slash for forty two. Thank you so much for
listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
dot tv.
You are listening to the IFAH podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
For more amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to
ifahpodcastnetwork dot com.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Welcome to the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, Episode number four forty two.
Your dream doesn't have an expiration date, Take a deep
breath and try again. KT Whitten broadcasting from a dark,
windowless room in Hollywood.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
When we really should be working on that next draft.
It's the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast, showing you the craft and
business of screenwriting while teaching you how to make your
screenplay bulletproof.
Speaker 1 (00:36):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari. Welcome, Welcome to another
episode of the Bulletproof Screenwriting Podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
I am your humble host Alex Ferrari.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Now, today's show is sponsored by Bulletproof Script Coverage.
Speaker 4 (00:50):
Now.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Unlike other script coverage services, Bulletproof Script Coverage actually focuses
on the kind of project you are in the goals
of the project you are, so we actually break it
down by three categories micro budget, indie film, market, and
studio film. There's no reason to get coverage from a
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(01:12):
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Speaker 3 (01:14):
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So if you need your screenplay or TV script covered
by professional readers, head on over to covermiscreenplay dot Com.
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.
Speaker 4 (01:39):
Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
Yeah, and that's that's so awesome. Yeah again, thank you
for doing this. I know you've probably got like a
million things to do today, and.
Speaker 5 (01:47):
You know what might the hard part at all that
stuff is over for me. I just sit back and
relax now. So I just I just show up at
the venue at you know, before the doors open, I
look at the movie on screen and make sure it
looks pretty or sounds pre and that's about all I
do today. So I sit back and relax. And it's
more about the cast.
Speaker 4 (02:05):
And crew anyways, that than me.
Speaker 5 (02:07):
My job for everything is has been done for a
little while, so I just hope they come out and
have fun and then it premieres for the public in
a couple of weeks.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Here and that's really cool, Len, and I'm going to
make sure to link to everything in the show notes
that we talk about too. And by the way, you know,
Len and I are probably about an hour away from
each other because you're in Western Pa. I'm here in Philadelphia.
So usually when I interview everyone, lend they're either in
New York or LA. That's like, so usually, yeah, their
(02:34):
weather is amazing, and it's like, you know, a humid
or it's a rainy day out here in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4 (02:40):
Yeah. You know, I'm a biker guy.
Speaker 5 (02:41):
I've been a motorcycle guy for most of my life,
so you know, when it's ninety degrees humid and hot,
or Vegas and it's one hundred and fifteen and people
are bitching and moan, and that's the weather I like.
I like it the kind of hot that people complain about.
So the hotter the better.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Yeah, right, because you know, if you go out when
it's when it's too wet out or something you would
like wipe out. Right.
Speaker 5 (03:04):
Yeah, it's not fun. Ray rain hurts when you're running
a motorcycle. Trust me, it's it's not a fun time.
Speaker 3 (03:09):
So so you known, and you and I too have
a lot of things in common, more shorts and filmmaking,
and I wanted to get ask you about your your
filmmaking career first, you know, because you've done a lot
of really cool stuff and I wanted to ask you know,
you've been working since about like I think two thousand
and five when you created your first movie, Swamp Zombies.
So I wanted to ask Glenn, you know, at what
(03:30):
point did you get bit by the filmmaking bug where
you said to yourself, Hey, I want to go out
there and I want to make my own film.
Speaker 5 (03:36):
Yeah, you know, it's It's something I wanted to do
ever since I was little little, you know, when I
was you know whatever, six years old or whatever, I
started to want to do things or creatively imagination type
things where started to run as my mom would stay
up and watch science fiction and horror movies with me.
There was like a late Great horror show it was
(03:57):
called on Saturday nights at midnight. It wasn't a school night,
so my mom would let me stay up and she'd
watched like Man with Two Brains or or any number,
Godzilla versus the Smog Monster or so it was something
like that. So, you know, and staying up and watching
these and they were all PG rated stuff, so but
still it kind of planted the seed in my brain
that hey, look at all this creative stuff that's in
front of me, and they get to do monsters and
(04:18):
dinosaurs and scientific experiment dudes with two brains and this
kind of stuff.
Speaker 4 (04:24):
So I thought, oh, this is so cool.
Speaker 5 (04:26):
So but going along, and you know that that spurned
my love really for B movies and stuff like that,
and that got me on track that you know, I
still love that kind of stuff to this day. I
still watch that stuff to this day. You know, my days,
if it's not watching sports or obviously working, which is
it seems like I worked five.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
Jobs at times.
Speaker 5 (04:47):
Other than that, you know, I'm watching B movies on
Amazon Prime or seeing what the latest Trauma flick on
Prime is or the latest God Free ho movie on
Prime is or whatever. So I watch a lot of
Amazon Prime stuff. But yeah, I'm staying up with me
watching those films that got the ball rolling. But as
I went into high school and college, and you know,
back then it's you know, the early nineties and stuff.
(05:09):
There is no digital video or mini DV even at
that point, or anything like that. It's like if if
you wanted to shoot your film or do a film
that was you had to film on thirty five millimeter. Now, yeah,
sixteen and stuff was around, but I mean nobody really
got out there shooting on that stuff. I mean, you
had to do thirty five millimeter. I'm really to be
taken seriously even so, I mean even in movies to
(05:32):
this day that like you see Riff Tracks makes popular
movies like Future Force or something like that with David Carrodding.
You know that's nineteen ninety that's still shot on film.
I mean it might look like a movie with a
twenty thousand dollars budget, but I mean that's thirty five
millimeter film. They had six figures right there just shooting
on films. So, you know, I didn't have obviously the
(05:55):
knowledge or anything like that to you know, I didn't
go to UCLA Films school and those kinds of things.
I just kind of always wanted to do it, but
didn't have the real knowledge, you know, and still might
not to do, you know, those kinds of things.
Speaker 4 (06:09):
But as I went along, Mini DV came about.
Speaker 5 (06:13):
I started just kind of hanging out at like horror
movie conventions. And science fiction conventions and stuff like that
where I had ran into again, this is a really
really condensed quick version. I years later ran into Bob
Zadar and Chris Watson, who directs and writes and does casting.
Speaker 4 (06:32):
He does a lot of stuff. He's an author. He
has a few books out there. Chris Watson did.
Speaker 5 (06:36):
A movie called Zombie Gedd and he was working on
again a very low budget movie.
Speaker 4 (06:42):
Populated it all.
Speaker 5 (06:44):
I mean, in my opinion, he really started the boom,
if you will, of the one day on set things
for you know, name actors and actresses in micro indie movies.
He would get Tom Savini for a day, or he'd
get Bob Zaddar for a day or two, and he'd
get all these zombiegein and is packed with b name
you know actors in it.
Speaker 4 (07:03):
And that's what he would do is.
Speaker 5 (07:04):
Go around to these conventions, you know, pay him a
few underducks or whatever it was, and you know, get
him on set for the day and bam there in
his movie zombie getting So I kind of learned some
things from him, and and right then the mini DV
thing was the ball was was getting rolling pretty good.
And that this is around two thousand and three, two
thousand and four. So so that's pretty much how it
(07:25):
all got started there.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
You know, you mentioned film school in and that's something
that we talk a lot about on the show because
some people have gone to film school. I didn't. I
didn't go to film school either. You know. I find
that it's kind of there. You know, there's a million,
million and one different ways to enter this business right there.
You can do a ton of different ways to get in.
And you know, I think the people that are are
(07:49):
quote unquote normal are the people that are that you know,
maybe sit on the couch or they're driving or and
they always saying themselves, Oh man, I wish I could
go out and make my movie. I wish I want
to make a movie. That's why. You know, with guests
like yourself there and the other guests of have On,
is that really normal because you're actually out there doing it,
you know what I mean, You're actually out there and
you know, I mean, as we're going to get into
(08:11):
it's so damn hard to make a movie because you
have to wear five different hats at least, you know,
you're always juggling ten different things, you know, and it's
like the fact that a movie even comes together is
a small miracle in of itself.
Speaker 5 (08:26):
Yeah, and you know, I've been there twelve times now
or something like that, So it's not that it can't
be done. But yeah, the amount of work and effort,
I tell you, along the way since two thousand and four,
it's I've probably.
Speaker 4 (08:40):
Met I don't.
Speaker 5 (08:42):
Know, hundreds of filmmakers put it that way, but I've
met thousands of want to be filmmakers or wish they
would make films. I don't want to see They want
to be as in derogatory, I mean, you know, want
to be want to do stuff that kind of. I've
met thousands and thousands of them, but most of them
quit along the way somehow when they find out how
(09:03):
really difficult it is. You know, I'm not interested in
just being called a filmmaker.
Speaker 4 (09:08):
I am one.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
This is what I do, you know what I mean.
I don't have projects and then just not make them.
I mean, in my brain and the way I am,
I mean, I have to do this stuff or you know,
it's like sharks, they swim for it all the time
and if not, they die, sir. So that's kind of
how I am. I feel creatively. I always have to
keep being creative or keep working towards things, and that's
(09:31):
just kind of how life has lived for me.
Speaker 3 (09:34):
So yeah, and I completely understand what you mean. I
mean it is and when you finally go sit down
and start to write a script or you know, you
go over and you're wearing your producer hat and you're
thinking yourself, all right, but we got to make sure
our schedules are going to coordinate for these shooting days.
And then you gotta wear another half for a marketing
you know, from a marketing standpoints. You made the thing
and you're like, oh crap, now I got to get
(09:55):
it out there and how are people going to be
able to see it?
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So we'll be right after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
So, so, Lene, way, when you were making Swamp Zombies,
which which was which was your first film? You know,
at what point did you sit down, you know, and
start writing the script and then say to yourself, oh, man,
you know what, I'm gonna make this. I'm gonna I'm
gonna direct this. This is gonna be my first feature.
You know what, you know, was there anything, was there
an impetus that happened where you finally said, you know what,
this is the year I'm going to do it.
Speaker 4 (10:29):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (10:29):
You know it was after I had met Chris Watson
when I when I when I had been on set
of Zombie Get In. And I still talked to Chris
Watson to this day. I talked to him a week ago.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
You know, I.
Speaker 5 (10:39):
Knew that his plan and what he was doing, and
he was talking to people from either Trouma or or whatever.
There's thousands of you know, distributors out there that want
to sign your movie. So yeah, I knew right after
Zombie Get In. I knew that what kind of camera
he used?
Speaker 4 (10:56):
What what could I do? And I thought, wow, you know,
being on set of this this film, I I could
do this. Finally.
Speaker 5 (11:01):
You know, this camera costs you know, a couple thousand
bucks or whatever. You know, I'm in college at the time,
I'm in medical school at the time, and I said,
you know what, that's it. I'll use a charge card,
which is what ninety nine percent of micro INDI people
do a lot of times, and you know they put
all their initial equipment in those kinds of things on it.
And to this day, even though I do not use it.
I still own the camera that shot Swamp Zombies, which
(11:24):
is a canon GL two, but it's still a nice camera.
It's just not a twenty four P It's in beautiful
thirty frames per second and just like Uncle Ted's video
camera twenty years ago.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
So you know that's what we did.
Speaker 5 (11:38):
But I knew that, yeah on'es on Zombie get In.
I came back and I sat there and thought, man,
you know I could do this. But the script I
wrote for Swamp Zombies, and I love writing scripts, but
the script I wrote back then, I mean again, I
still don't have any real experience. It was a pretty
ambitious script that I needed to have my head examined
(11:59):
trying to produce a movie like that is my first film.
But Tom, in terms of getting it out there and stuff,
I did have a plan though. I mean even when
I didn't know what I was doing, I did have
a plan. I knew I wanted to get eyeballs on
the movie, and I knew I wanted to pick genres
if you will, or entertainment outlets if you will, like WWE,
(12:21):
or the adult film industry or UFC, which was not
in two thousand and four, this big thing that it
is today. UFC was just kind of still kind of
getting rolling kind of thing. So that's where Dan Severn
came in, That's where Blue Mini came in, That's where
Jasmine Saint Clair came in. I mean I strategically obviously
went and wanted to use these people because of their
(12:42):
names and kind of a following that you know, hopefully
would come along. So yeah, there was plans like that.
I mean I didn't go in just completely well, I'm
just going to film this and whatever happens happens.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
You know.
Speaker 4 (12:53):
I didn't go in like that.
Speaker 5 (12:55):
I kind of thought, you know, this is my plan.
I'm going to get it signed with the distributor. They're
going to use and market my my star people here,
and uh we'll see what happens from there. So that's
how that came about.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Yeah, you know, I actually have seen Swamp Zombies and
I actually watched it on Amazon Prime and.
Speaker 5 (13:12):
Uh so you've seen the condensed version of it, You've
seen the the ninety minute version of it.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
Yeah, exactly, I a good deal. I actually went on
a len Kabazinski sort of run. I actually saw that
face of the vampire cursal wolf skull Forest. I think, No, no,
I don't think skull Forest is on there yet. When
I watched it, maybe it was. Yeah, I was gonna say,
I don't. I think that's when I was. I was
on your Facebook, you know it was it was Bridal
Party massacre. That's actually oh yeah yeah. So yeah. So
(13:41):
when I watched Swamp Zombies, by the way, I was like,
Dan Severn looks exactly like you think a police chief
would look. He he look, he has that look to
him where he looks like a detective or you know
what I mean, like like him and Don Fry could
be like.
Speaker 5 (13:54):
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, they trained together back in the
day too.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I mean they look like those horror grizzled tough guys
and they both are legit tough guys too, which is
even you know. I mean, Dan Severn, I'm a huge
UFC fan, Like I was saying, you know, we have
me too, yeah, yeah, like you know, we have two
things in common, martial arts and movies. And you know,
I remember I remember the early days of the UFC,
and it was like they had to have it in
like Casper, Wyoming, and it was just like there was
(14:19):
three rules, you know what I mean, and it's.
Speaker 5 (14:21):
Just I remember, yeah, but Dan was my favorite even
back then. But when I approached him for Swamp Zombies, yeah,
it was super nice.
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Man.
Speaker 5 (14:30):
Actually, in Swamp Zombies, he came to Eerie for the
day because I had this swamp cabin type location that
you see in the movie where I'm doing a cotta
or something to introduce my character. We had that location
and a couple of cast members their dad or something
owned it. So I was like, man, this is a
super awesome location. So I was really fortunate to have
(14:51):
stuff like that in the movie. Dan Severn came out
to that location to film some scenes and then I thought, man,
you know, I just don't have him fighting enough at
this point. So I contacted him and said, Dan, you
know what, he's in Michigan. But he had all kinds
of woods and stuff around his property, and I said,
you know what, what if I come to you, you
don't have to do anything, just eat breakfast and come
outside and fight sot baser at it. So I'll come
(15:14):
to you, Dan, because Michigan is only like four and
a half hours away drive for me, So I just
we went up there for the day and what a hospitable.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Just nice guy.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
I mean, he was super nice and we always wanted
to work together again. But scheduling wise, you know, once
my film schedules are set, I can't really change him
because I do vacation from work and leave and those
kinds of things, and once I take my dates, my
dates are my dates kind of thing, and it just
never could work out.
Speaker 4 (15:40):
And he's a super busy guy. I mean, even to.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
This day, he does tons and tons of stuff, whether
it's law enforcement or UFC promotional things or wrestling. He
still that promotes those kinds of things too. And yeah,
nice man. I hope to work with him again in
a Yeah, he was awesome.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
Yeah, I've seen all the things he's done over the years.
I know he went back into MMA, I think last year.
I mean he's got like a what is it like
he think he's like one hundred and five or one
hundred and ten and like nineteen losses, like unbelievable career.
I mean, most guys in MMA they last for maybe
you know what, eight ten fights. You know, a lot
of the guys and the upper echelon guys keep going.
(16:19):
But I mean, you know, I mean he has over
one hundred fights for God's sakes, I mean.
Speaker 5 (16:22):
Yeah with him too. Though he's got a style too.
Though if you look at him, I mean, look at
the dude. He just has not taken tons of damage
throughout his career.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
He's got a style.
Speaker 5 (16:32):
That lends him to, you know, not get beat up
a lot in fights. So I think that's one of
the reasons he's lasted as long as as long as
he did.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Oh, I agree completely, Len. He was definitely one of
the forefathers of you know, he has more of a
wrestling background. He uses that in the Gauntlet. I'm sorry,
the Octagon. I'm jumping Ahead'm thinking about your movie Challenged
with the Five Gods. That's what I'm thinking of. And
so well, yeah, you know, I agree completely. And you know,
he's just used his style so well. And when you know,
(17:00):
and you also look at somebody like Don fry kind
of similar style, Don Frye might trick a little more.
I'm sure that all the people listening to this for film,
by the way, probably like Virelin and Dave talking about you.
Speaker 4 (17:10):
Say about the MMA, right, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
So you know, but but yeah, helped two awesome guys,
and I actually was fortunough to meet Don Fry before,
but not Dan, and I'm glad to hear that he's
an awesome guy, yeah, because he seems pretty intimidating by
the way.
Speaker 5 (17:24):
Like you know, oh yeah after the one h after
we shot Swan Zombies and in Meadville, Pennsylvania there we
all went out to Pizza Hut afterwards, and he was
like as nice as like a librarian type person. He's
eating his pizza with a knife and fork and he's yes, sir, yes,
ma'am to the waitresses, and I mean, he treats everybody
(17:45):
super good, so you can tell he's, like I believe
he's from Missouri and he's got that kind of hospitality
thing going on for him. So he's extremely nice to everybody.
And with that too, he's got the wrestling base, but
he acts like a true martial artist though. He as
that respect and that nature about him that you can
tell those kinds of disciplines kind of molded his character
(18:07):
probably personally as well.
Speaker 4 (18:08):
So very nice guy and.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
That's awesome to hear.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
You know a lot of those wrestlers from the Midwest,
you know, amazing, amazing stuff they do out there, and
so just getting back to to swam Zombies learn. So
when you finally, you know, you were putting this together,
and you mentioned, you know, you had a few, you know,
pieces of the cast and crew, you know, helped you
get maybe a location here, location there, or maybe a
resource here and there. You know, was there ever a
point in time where you had like a huge problem,
(18:33):
like a production problem. My question was, yeah, I'm glad
I brought it up there because I love to hear
stories like this about how filmmakers overcame this. You know,
you have a sort of like a resource problem and
you know, so what was your biggest problem and how
did you overcome it?
Speaker 4 (18:49):
Oh? God, biggest problem? I don't know.
Speaker 5 (18:52):
I can think of one off at the top of
my head. I don't know if it was the biggest problem,
because we still would have got around it. But we
had a local actress. Well, nobody's actors and actresses. We're
all just starting, but we'll just say actress who wanted
the role. She was the friend of Pamela, such as
character in the movie. They're going on the beach and
(19:12):
stuff like that, and sunbathing and just girls hanging out
on the beach kind of thing. Well, the one character
did not show up, and I had just talked to
them the night before and actually met with him and said, Okay,
this is what we're doing. We're going to show up
at this beach at X amount of time. I'll have
you done with the probably four or five hours, and
that'll be that.
Speaker 4 (19:31):
You know.
Speaker 5 (19:31):
And they're like, oh, great, this is awesome. I'm so
excited to do this. Blah blah blah blah blah. So
Pam such is on set. We're all down there waiting
and this person just doesn't show up, doesn't call me,
doesn't do anything. And I thought, oh man, now what
so And back then my brain wasn't running where it
didn't it. I'll get into a Hellcout's example in a
little bit here. But now, if something like this were
(19:55):
to happen and somebody would know show, I'm pretty confident
in my abilities. I could script write on the fly
and fix it.
Speaker 1 (20:02):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
Whatever the situation is.
Speaker 5 (20:13):
I'm pretty I have that confidence now that I'll fix
any problem that arises like this. But yeah, the actress
no showed and I was stuck without a character there
and I thought, oh god, I'm panicking and stuff. And
then one of the extras comes up to me and says, hey,
I know this local girl that works as a stripper
here and she might, you know, come out and do this.
And I said, okay, offer one hundred bucks to get
(20:34):
down here, like right now, you know, for the day,
and he's like, okay, like go, and sure enough he did.
And an hour later came this red haired, tall, good
looking young girl that comes out and girl woman probably
in her early twenties there that comes out to set
and sure enough we made the scene happen and it
got done, and yeah, she's the character that's Pamela such
(20:57):
as friend.
Speaker 4 (20:57):
They go on the beach and she gets killed by zombies.
Speaker 5 (21:00):
So uh yeah, that was that was a major problem
where somebody just didn't show up who we pretty much
fully expected to show up.
Speaker 4 (21:07):
So uh yeah, we had to pull that one out
and luckily we did so.
Speaker 5 (21:12):
But yeah, it's funny you're watch it on Amazon Prime.
I had done the re edit on that movie and
I chopped about a half hour from it and put
it on Prime. And actually the movie has been out
of print for several several months now I probably close
to uh, I don't know, almost going on a year anyways,
because I got the rights back to that film. It
is not available on DVD. It's out of print now,
(21:34):
so you're going to pay potentially big bucks to try
to find it right this second.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
But it's coming. It's coming back to DVD in like
a month.
Speaker 5 (21:42):
I'm just sending it out to get authored now the
dbd SO and then it'll be out and selling again
on DVD with a couple of new commentary tracks, so
it'll be a brand new package, new artwork, all that
kind of stuff. So it should be just about a
month or maybe even a little less and Swam Zombies
will be back on DVD.
Speaker 3 (22:00):
Oh that's really cool. I mean, you know, and by
the way, I mentioned that about production problems and how
you overcame them, you know, when you were talking about
somebody not showing up, that happened to me too, Lenn.
I completely understand where you're coming from, because when I
started doing movies too, that was one of the biggest
problems was people who would say, Oh my god, you know,
it's it's I've always wanted to do this, I'm going
(22:20):
to show up and the day of they know show
no court.
Speaker 5 (22:24):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, but that's a it's a
good lesson learned and going forward in the future when
I when I'm doing extras, and a lot of times
I didn't have to coordinate extras going forward, sometimes I did,
but but then is I got associate producers come on
board and things I would have like my associate producer
for for quite a few films now Ruth Sprague does
a lot of coordinating with extras and things like that.
(22:47):
But the main thing I do is if you aren't
one million percent sure you're coming, just please, you know,
I'm marking you down a as a no. You know
what I mean, I don't maybe these are nos to
me now in filma and it's like I try to
only do the shore things and if they show up, great.
If it's a maybe and they show up, great, If not,
(23:08):
I didn't count on them anyways kind of thing. And
that's kind of how I treat that.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
Yeah, I concur if they're not into it a million percent,
and if they even say, well, you know, hey, Len,
I'll try to show up or you know, I'll try
to be there. I was like that that that's that
subtext meeting. That's that's the part right.
Speaker 4 (23:25):
Right, right right. I don't try anything. I just do it.
So little faster pussycat reference there.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Yeah, it's there is no uh do it or not?
There is no try yoda yea from the and uh.
But so you know, as you actually got you know,
some zombies, you got it done. You know, you're you're
able to just sort of market it. So when you started,
you know, going into your other projects like Cursal the
Wolf and Fist of the Vampire, you know what, what
are some of those things that you that that you
(23:53):
started to do you know, maybe more of or less
of meaning? Did you start hiring more crew members to
like help you out? Did you maybe say, you know
what I'm gonna I'm gonna get a person just for
marketing and maybe I'm going to find some producers that
I can actually work with, you know that I can
keep using for project to project project because that's something
I found out is too is like you know, Kevin
Smith has Goot Mesure, Quentin Tarantino has Lawrence Bender. It
(24:14):
was always at that that tandem. So were you were
you able to start you know, finding more and more
people that you wanted to work with.
Speaker 5 (24:20):
Yeah, you know the way I tried to do it.
After Swampsombies, I went into Curse of the Wolf, and
the first thing I knew I had to improve right
off the bat is I looked at other films and
looked at my peers and.
Speaker 4 (24:30):
Things like that.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
And as I said, MiniDV was still fairly new at
that point. But so it was twenty four P cameras
for consumers, and I knew once I saw twenty four
P and one of my other peers projects were looking
like I knew right then and there, I need to
go twenty four P. And I need to just try
to get a hold of a good camera for Curse.
So I had bought a Panasonic one hundred DVX one
(24:52):
hundred D off of a guy that was filming biker
documentaries for the Discovery Channel and he was local making
motor cycle engines or something, and he said.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
Hey, I got this camera. I'll sell it to you
five hundred bucks.
Speaker 5 (25:04):
And that's the best five hundred bucks I ever spent
because it went on to shoot, you know, three or
four more movies for me on the DBX, and it
was just a workhorse for me. So I knew I
had to improve that, and I think we pretty much
did that. And I think there's a big jump between
Swamp Zombies and Curse of the Wolf. I can see
a big divide between those two films in terms of
look at least. But yeah, it's a shit, you know, dude,
(25:30):
it's a you try to I want that when I
do my pictures. I want to have a cast that
I can run with for a while. And I thought
it would happen back on Curse of the Wolf. We
had changed editors because the editors of Curse of the
Wolf were actually on set doing effects, so they really
lived with Curse of the Wolf.
Speaker 4 (25:49):
Like I did.
Speaker 5 (25:50):
And he was not begging, but really strongly lobbying, len,
let me edit this movie.
Speaker 4 (25:54):
Let me edit Curse. Let me edit Curse.
Speaker 5 (25:55):
And I was going to use the same editor as
Swamp Zombies, but he kind of convinced me and Lisa,
who was the producer of that film, to use him,
and going forward, he ended up editing Fist to the
Vampire as well. And at that point, I'm like, Okay,
let's do like a three picture tight handshake deal here,
you know what I mean. In the micro world, you
(26:16):
don't pay somebody ten grand to edit three pictures. That
just doesn't happen. You shake hands and say, hey, I
want to use you in the next three movies.
Speaker 4 (26:22):
Let's do it.
Speaker 5 (26:23):
So that's what we thought would happen. But he edited
two pictures and then I kind of just let him
go from there. Just the amount of work and stuff
and being a perfectionist and myself, it's just like, I'm
not happy a lot. I tend to really try to
just push and push people and get the best out
of things. And you know, that's kind of a personality
(26:45):
quirk of mind that doesn't always work out all the
time anyways. You know, it's kind of like a leader
of a band that goes through a lot of musicians.
You know, they either think he's a dick, or they
push him to work too hard for too little money,
and all those kinds of things. But I understand and
all that stuff. I mean, I know my limitations when
it comes to that. But yeah, you know, it works
(27:06):
out where you end up using the same people for
two or three movies or so, but then they move
on or you know, something happens where you know they
go onto their own projects or something.
Speaker 4 (27:15):
Like that.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
But you know, at the end of the day, when
when my people want to go off and do things
or do that, that's totally cool. But you know, for
Killer roll films, at the end of the day, I'm
the one still here, you know what I mean. I'm
still here in working no matter what. Everybody else can
leave and branch off, but you know, at the end
of the day, I'm still here doing stuff and that's
not going to change.
Speaker 3 (27:35):
Yeah, you know, And I think you always have this
sort of being the master of your own fate, you
know what I mean. You always have to be not
only I mean you're like me, Lenn. You want to
write your own scripts and I and honestly because it's
your story, is your own special sauce, so to speak,
and you want to say, you know what, I actually
want to see this done. So I'm going to lead
the charge to get this produced. Obviously I'll direct it.
(27:56):
And then you know, and you want to make sure
that that the last part of that left is the production,
you know, and you want to make sure a do
I have some kind of you know, money to you know,
you know, cash is king, right, and then you know, resources,
the locations and stuff like that, and then we go
into the whole cast and crew stuff of you know,
what's my list? And like you said, Lena, as you
keep doing this, your list grows more and more. So
(28:18):
if somebody does drop out, you know, hey, well I
have a couple other people now and I'm not I'm
not you know where. You know, when you first start out,
your list is very small, and then as you start
going out more, you network and you start meeting new people.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
Yeah, when I A big turning point for me with
the less is more kind of thing is between a
movie I did call Ninja Prophecy of Death, which was
one of my higher last like higher budgeted movies for
what I do, I went in and did a movie
called Skall Forest. Where Skall Forest I tried to like
not dumb it down, but I tried to do a
(28:50):
less is more thing where, you know what, I'm not
trying to get twenty seven different locations. I think Skall
Forest might have four or five locations total in it
and something like that. But I knew that I'll condense
the story.
Speaker 4 (29:02):
I'll make it.
Speaker 5 (29:03):
You know, we're not going to be running around on
a film like a day planner, you know, day one,
we're in the woods. That's it, where they're all day.
Day two we're in a dance hall or something all day.
And I knew I got really I got better at
day planning for you know, what's shooting on what day?
Speaker 4 (29:19):
That thing.
Speaker 5 (29:20):
I and the last several films that went really smooth
for me to shoot. So day planning and constructing. Usually,
if I have extras, I put them all on one
day for example, like hell, because extras are always the
hardest thing for me anyways, is to round up a
bunch of people, get them all on the same day,
on the same schedules, and all that stuff.
Speaker 4 (29:39):
That's hard. So if it's one.
Speaker 5 (29:42):
Group of people that I want to really have fun
on my movie sets, it's not even so much my
lead actors. It's my extras because those are the people
that populate scenes and make them look good, you know
what I mean. So so the number one group of people,
if you will, on set, that I want to come
out and have fun is the extras, because when I
do my next film, I want them back.
Speaker 1 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (30:10):
To do something else if I need them. So yeah,
on Hellcat's Revenge that's coming out here, and it's already
it's signed a worldwide multimedia, so it's out of my
hands now, but I do think the DVD's probably come
in by like Thanksgiving ish time here for Helcat's Revenge.
But we did a clubhouse, if you will, a female
(30:31):
Hellcats like motorcycle clubhouse, and we shot all those scenes
on the same day. We did an eight hour day
or whatever, and all we did for that eight hour
shift was film all the scenes where it's really really
populated in the clubhouse, and it worked out really really well.
So and we did the same thing where we were
at a strip club. We shot all the strip club
scenes on one day. Got a bunch of people who
doesn't want to come out and be an extra, and
(30:52):
a strip club, so it's like we got a bunch
of people on that day. So that's one thing I've
gotten better at as we go along. But yeah, it's
those elements that you've got to it's not about cutting
or trimming, it's about really what I think I've gotten
better at is writing scripts that I know I can
accomplish kind of thing. And I get a lot of
(31:13):
emails actually saying, well, then how did you go about
doing this or that or how did you get this
or that in your films and stuff? And I said,
you know what, if you want to accomplish your film
and you're just getting rolling, or it's your first movie
or second movie.
Speaker 4 (31:25):
Or whatever, write one.
Speaker 5 (31:27):
Write your script to what you know you can get.
If you have a script that calls for a double
decker bus in France and sharks coming at you from
the sky, but you can't get those things, don't do it.
You know what I mean, don't write it. So and
I'm not trying to limit your imagination, but what I'm
trying to do is get you to have a film
that's realistic for you to shoot kind of thing. And
(31:50):
it's stall force being example, it's woods, it's guns, it's
fight scenes, and that's about it. So I knew I
could get that done. But so I tell them that,
And then I said, you know, at your cast and crew,
everybody wants to do a movie. Every joe blow off
the street wants to do a movie. But when it
comes time for them to show up on your set
and they don't, you know, don't be surprised kind of things.
(32:12):
So you know, don't don't make your cast real expansive
and stuff. Just to start off, I would say, start
start small here. And speaking, I know, we've talked a
lot about swamp zombies and yeah, I mean coordinating. God
bless everybody that helped me out for that film. But yeah,
sometimes it was just hell trying to coordinate twenty zombies
on set or whatever. I mean, And I was doing
it all back then. I didn't have an associate producer
(32:34):
or anything. I mean, I was on the phone and
doing Oh man, it was I ain't going back there again,
put it that way. But but everybody that helped out
was super great. I mean, I've been really blessed that
out of whatever, a dozen movies or whatever, it is
now very very very I can't I can't remember many
(32:54):
dickheads or jerks really, so I've been really fortunate there.
And yeah, even back in the day to kind of
prevent that stuff, I had met Jasmine Saint Clair and
Blue Meanie and talked to Dan Severin and well before shooting,
because I knew I didn't want to bring these people
on that were getting paid for their roles and everybody
else is covered in swamp crap and zombie makeup and stuff,
and they're not getting paid.
Speaker 4 (33:15):
Yeah, the last thing.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I'm gonna do is bring Jasmine on Saint Clair on
set and paid roll and have her treat my people
like jerks or whatever. So I made sure everybody I
used had a cool personality and stuff, and I still
kind of work that way to this day. If there's
a more name person that maybe once involved, I would
talk to them and just kind of make sure that
it's gonna be.
Speaker 4 (33:36):
A personality fit. I'm a real blue collar guy.
Speaker 5 (33:40):
So it's dibas and those kinds of people. They're just
gonna hate me. I'm gonna probably hate them and it's
just not gonna work.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So you know, yeah, you know that that's the thing, Lenn.
You have to get those bad attitudes out of there.
And that that's so true, because those bad attitudes spread.
It's almost like a like a disease, you know, It's
almost like it was like a zombie GIRs. You know,
it's like it affects one person that it affects two.
And and that's why it's so good to sort of
like hire slow, fire fast, as you're saying, out of business,
(34:09):
and that's something I've learned over the years too. Is
you know, I've been there. We were just mentioning about
swam zombies where you're on the phone and you're trying
to coordinate all these people. You know, I've been there too,
where you're you're like, okay, you're on the phone trying
to give somebody directions. People are coming up to it
at the same time asking you for stuff, and you're like,
my god. You know it's it's a lot, right, So
that's when you need to have, you know, the crew
to sort of you know, to sort of delegate the
(34:31):
you know, all these assignments, and you want to have
everyone have that upbeat attitude. Hey, look, you know we're
making art. We're actually out here doing something and we're
getting treated well for it. The director is not talking
down to us. You know, we all feel like we're
a part of the team. And I and you know
I and that is so key because you know, I've
been on those sets here in Philadelphia where you know,
you show up and the director acts like, you know,
(34:51):
who the hell is you know, what are you doing here?
Don't talk to me or whatever, and you're like, come on, dude,
you know, we're all in the same boat here.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
Yeah, yeah, with stuff like that.
Speaker 5 (35:00):
Out of the opposite, I wish I could hang out
and talk to the extras more, to just talk to
people in general. I mean, there's people that had starring
roles in my films too. I probably spoke three sentences too,
you know, just because I don't I don't have time
on set and with a wonderful internet here. I mean,
a lot of my directing, if you will, to the actors,
(35:20):
it's done months beforehand. You know, we're communicating online or
you know, they'll message me questions about their characters. That
I do a lot of the directing remotely, so when
by the time they show up on set, they know
what's expected of them, you know, character wise and things
like that. So it does make my job easier come
actual you know, film time, when the camera's rolling, that
(35:43):
they know what I'm expecting of them. And that doesn't
mean I still have to kind of direct them and
reel them in from here or there. But it's it's
a good process that I get to nail a lot
of direction really ahead of time a lot many times.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
And that's good. That's really too because that way when
they get there, you're you know, everyone knows what was
expected of them, and you can just rock and roll
through this and then a lot of you know, waiting
around between takes and stuff like that.
Speaker 4 (36:09):
Oh yeah, Hellcats Revenge.
Speaker 5 (36:11):
I rewrote the script at the last minute, literally last minute.
We had a cast member drop out, and I thought, well,
I'm still filming this. I'm just going to change a
couple of things. And I'm you know, I had people
in from Vegas, I had people in from La already
on set, and I had to change the script. And
but I did it. The movie premieres tonight. It's like
(36:33):
it's out there. It's gonna come to DVD later this year.
Speaker 4 (36:36):
And I mean, wow, that.
Speaker 5 (36:37):
Was one of the craziest experience in film ever to
have like a lead, you know, not be there and
then me have to just kind of rework everything at
the last minute. And it definitely worked out for the better.
So it's one of those moments, Yeah, you just got
a nut up and figure out, you know, what are
you going to do this? Are you not going to
do it? Pick a direction and go and and mine
was go make a movie.
Speaker 3 (36:58):
So yeah, and and usually lend that is the best
option to go with, is you know what, you got
to put your head down and just keep going forward
because you know a lot at the time, it is
the right decision, you know, because it's better to make
it than not make it right. So and so, as
we talked about Hellcats Revenge, could could you just give
me a you know, give everyone a log line about
(37:19):
the film?
Speaker 4 (37:20):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5 (37:21):
Basically, Hellcats Revenge is your your kind of biker revenge movie.
I mean, you're not going to get some kind of complex,
you know, seven ish story out out of it or
something like that.
Speaker 4 (37:32):
I mean, it's pretty straightforward.
Speaker 5 (37:34):
H biker leader of a female gang is killed and
so her her hellcats if you wear her gang writing
club or whatever you want to call them, kind of
go out and try to find out who killed her,
and they end up coming up against a criminal gang
called the Vipers and.
Speaker 4 (37:50):
They kind of go at it kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (37:51):
So it's a female gang versus a male biker gang
in the film. And then there's kind of some like
fence sitting shady characters that kind of kind of play
bow both sides there. But yeah, it's not an all
out martial art film. There is some fight scenes obviously
in it, and stuff like that. It moves along at
a pretty good pace. It's like an hour and twenty minutes,
I think, so I was pretty pleased with the run
(38:13):
time and all that kind of stuff, So I think
it moves along good. We had an Osmo camera for
this one, so we have some really cool steady tracking
shots and those kinds of things. The Osmo camera was wonderful,
so I think, I think what people will see is
increase production values, just even stepping up from like Angel
of Reckoning, So I think they'll see those kind of
(38:34):
productions like lighting and all those kinds of things. Sound,
we adr'd a lot of stuff in it, so we
wanted to make sure because that's a common problem, especially
micro indie stuff, is lighting and sound are the two
big things that you know usually need the most work
or end up sucking. So we try to really and
we did that with Angel of Reckoning too, but even
(38:55):
Hellcat's Revenge even more so that we wanted to, you know,
if we had the ADR stuff, it is what it is.
Let's just make it the best, you know that we can.
And so yeah, it's just a crazy little action picture.
There's a lot of guns, few fight scenes, some hot chicks.
Speaker 4 (39:09):
That kind of thing.
Speaker 5 (39:10):
So I hope people enjoy it. It continues my trend
of like action movies without being martial art movies. But
that being said, you kind of mentioned this briefly, and
I'll touch on it now real quick. Is I've got
Actually we'll backtrack to Hellcats one second here. I've had
a lot of especially like red letter media fans and
stuff like that, messaged me that Len, when are you
going back to doing like a lead type role, because they,
(39:32):
for whatever reason, like when I'm I'm acting and doing
that kind of stuff, And for the last couple of pictures,
I really haven't been. But for those that want to
see me in a lead type role Hellcats avengel Be
or movie, I play the character Snake in the movie,
who is like the lead villain type character. So for
those that want to see me in a lead role
Hellcat's revengel Be or Movie, it's Lisa Nield, Playboy cover model.
(39:54):
Lisa Neild plays the Cat, the leader of the Hellcats,
and I play Snake, the leader of the.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
So we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 5 (40:11):
For those that want to see me in a lead role,
that's the Hellcats is your movie. But that's a question
I got was when when you do an a lead
role again? So there's the answer to that. And then
the other question I get a lot is lend your
last couple of movies like Angel of Reckoning for example,
art really martial art movies. When are you going to
do your martial art movie? Well, that's coming next year.
(40:32):
I'm writing now a movie called Challenge of Five Gauntlets,
which is a all out.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Martial art picture.
Speaker 5 (40:38):
It is done in the vein of stuff I really
love in the seventies like Shaw Brothers Studio, martial art
pictures or.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Kung fu movies, those kinds of things.
Speaker 5 (40:46):
Got a Challenge of Five Gauntlets will be in that style.
So it will be my first all out, you know,
martial art picture. There is no vampire, zombies, you know whatever,
none of that is in it. It's all it's in
all out kung fu pickure. So and that starts filming
next next sprint.
Speaker 3 (41:03):
And I know you mentioned that there's a certain somebody
from real Letter Media who's going to play the the
wise old kung fu master.
Speaker 4 (41:11):
I'm hoping that happens.
Speaker 5 (41:14):
If it doesn't, you know, It's not like I'm not
doing the film or whatever, but I thought it would
be funny, you know, if that happens. It's not a
comedy film obviously, but if it happens, I think it'll
be really funny for the fans. If not, and they're
still interested in checking it out, they're gonna get what
they want out of me. They're gonna get that all
out martial art, you know picture. So even now I'm
(41:35):
currently as i'm writing it, I'm studying a lot of
fight scenes from that area, really studying the choreography and things.
Not so much to like rip off things, because that's
really not my deal. It's more to like understand, like
in a Shaw Brothers fight scene and challenge if I
or challenge in Five Element Ninjas. You know, here's this
(41:56):
big fight scene, how many moves do they go with
before cutting and switching an angle or doing stuff like that.
So really trying to like see how the fight scenes
are in those films, and really I'm going to try
to mold my fight scenes in a similar fashion.
Speaker 3 (42:10):
And that's awesome line because again, you know you're a
big martial arts fan, you're a martial art yourself, you know,
I've read about your background. I know you've done a
lot of taekwondo, a lot of pangs sudo you know,
and that's awesome when you can bring that to through
the to the films. You know, you do fight choreography,
and I actually can't wait to see challenge with the
five goal. Let's and see what you do with it.
Speaker 4 (42:30):
Yeah, yeah, it's I'm excited to do an all out
martial art picture. I really am.
Speaker 5 (42:35):
Because now when it comes time for distribution, you know,
back in as we mentioned mini DV booming and the
early micro horror type stuff coming about. Now I don't
need to play to anything. I can just do a film.
And you know, I realized a couple of films ago,
and I try to be a humble guy about things,
but so I never see myself as somebody like this
(42:55):
popular star type person.
Speaker 4 (42:57):
It's just not myself.
Speaker 5 (42:58):
But but now people seem to want to watch my
films for me and not for you know, a certain
actor I put in them or whatever, you know what
I mean. So that kind of allowed me the freedom
to go kind of go out and make you know,
gauntlets here and say, you know what, I don't have
to worry about trying to get a gimmicky name or
do something like that. And I can go out and
be myself now and people will watch it for me
(43:20):
and I don't have to worry about trying to draw
them in with something else.
Speaker 3 (43:23):
So yeah, and you know, I found that too, Len,
because when I was showing I think Swamp Zombies took
a few people. They actually were like, hey, where's lenn Att.
They actually and I'm not just saying next, I'm all,
you know, doing this interview with you, but I'm dead serious.
They were like, you know, they they always felt that
the movie really, you know, quote unquote came alive, you know,
when you were on screen, So you know, honestly, and
(43:44):
that that works well honestly, Len, because just like you said,
you can actually focus on Hey, look, you know what
I'm in the movie. It's just me. You know, people
want to watch for you, and you don't have to
you know, you know, do anything, you know, you know
what I mean, And that that's a great advantage to have.
Speaker 5 (43:58):
Yeah, and and come to challenge off, I've let's there.
I will not disappoint them. I am the lead character
in it. I don't know how many lead roles I
got in me anymore. I mean, I would like to
stay behind the camera more, much like I did for
Angel of Reckoning, which I got a lot of love
for that film. I think it turned out pretty well
for you know, that kind of thing. But you know,
even going back, as I've had to close caption my
(44:18):
films from the Amazon Prime, I've really been living a
lot with the movies like Swam Zombies and Curse of
the Wolf and Fist of the Vampire lately. And I'll
say this though, for Fist of the Vampire, I was
you know, I would put that movie up against a
lot of micro INDI stuff being made today, and Fist
of the Vampire is ten years old now, so there's
I still think there's some good stuff in there. You know,
(44:40):
Swam Zombies, Curse of the Wolf, there's a lot of
growing pains. But but this I think has some some
decent stuff in it still that that can translate to
today's micro filmmaking world.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
So oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, you know,
just as we as we all grow and we all
do our different films, we see different things happening, and
in this world that we're in is constantly changing, you know,
there's constantly new technology coming out, there's constantly new distribution realms.
I mean, I mean, hell, in two thousand and six,
for First of the Vampire or twousand and seven, Amazon
(45:10):
Prime was even a thing, right, you know what I mean.
It's it's like now, all of a sudden, you know,
there's a there's an article friend of mine wrote. He goes,
if you're an indie filmmaker today, what's better YouTube or
Amazon Prime? You know which one is going to help
the filmmakers more? And at the end of the article,
you know, spoiler alert, he picks Amazon Prime and yeah,
and he feels that that's much better because YouTube has
(45:32):
a lot of different selections of like, hey watch me
play video games, Hey watch me you know, practice guitar. Well,
if you're on Amazon Prime, it's there to watch movies
exactly right, You're just there to watch movies.
Speaker 4 (45:43):
Yeah, that's smart.
Speaker 5 (45:44):
Yeah, yeah, there is no you know, music whatever that.
I mean, YouTube can be anything. It'd be some I'm
not playing with his dog in the backyard or whatever.
But I mean when you're in Amazon, right, you're there
to watch movies. So yeah, I think that's a good
way to go. And I think I'm going to go
that route when I've got a movie called blood Prism
coming out that's going to wrap in probably two months here.
(46:06):
And that is another one though, where again fans might
see it and be like, ah, man, where's Len, Because
I am not in the movie. I just I wrote,
I co wrote and direct it. It is a dark comedy.
There is no action fight scene type stuff in it.
It's a dark comedy film. But I also with that
want to show people, I mean, if they check it out,
it's a you know, I'm not a one trick type thing.
(46:27):
I mean, yeah, I love martial art films and stuff
like that. I love micro horror movies and stuff. But
I also want to show that I'm not old school
or new school. I want to be all school. So
and that's what I'm trying to kind of prove to
people in Blood Prism. So hopefully they'll check it out.
But it's a very very very different, different movie.
Speaker 3 (46:45):
Yeah, and I'm gonna make sure to link to all
your stuff in the show notes.
Speaker 4 (46:48):
Len.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
You know, I know we've been talking for about forty
five minutes now. I know, you know we're running out
of times. I know you have a you know, you
want to you have a couple of things to do
before the premiere tonight, So len just in closing, just
to sort of wrap up everything. Is there any thing
that we can get a chance to talk about that
maybe you want to talk about right now, or anything
you want to sort of say, just to put a
period at them this whole conversation.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Just to check out, Like, we just started a Patreon page.
It's only a two dollar we just have a two
dollars level. It's a patreon dot com slash Killer Wolf
Films if you want to check it out. I feel
new content every month, So it's not like you're giving
me two dollars and it just sits there or whatever.
I really just only kept it at that level. It's
not really more than that. It's a you know, it's
(47:30):
not a cash grab type type thing for me. It's like, hey,
you know, help me get lights or a camera, get
a stunt man or something like that in by by
you know, joining our patreon. So so we did start
the Patreon campaign there. I'm on Twitter, Twitter dot com
slash Sparical Films or you can pit me up at Facebook.
I'm out of like friends things now, So you can't
(47:50):
friend me because it won't let me. I guess I'm
at a limit or something like that, but you know whatever,
that's stupid. But yeah, they put a limit on your friends.
Speaker 4 (47:59):
So that's very uh whatever.
Speaker 5 (48:02):
That seems like communistic almost, But yeah, you have a
cap on the number of friends you can have. But
check me out at Facebook dot com. It's slash len
dot Coposinski or Killer Wolf's Films.
Speaker 4 (48:13):
Is on there too.
Speaker 5 (48:14):
But yeah, there's those new things I'm doing now. There's
so many new things coming out as Swamp Zombies, Curse
of the Wolf, is the Vampire, They're all coming back
to DVD. They're out of print now. I'm working hard
on them now to get them back out there. Like
I said, Swamp Zombies will probably be first up and
it should be out by October first, I would imagine.
So there's those things. Hellcat's Revenge should be on DVD
(48:37):
by the end of the year, coming from Worldwide Multimedia.
Blood Prism Again is another brand new movie that I
just got done shooting a few months ago that should
be out by the end of the year on DVD.
And then Challenge of Five Gauntlets I'm writing, but also
something that kind of fell into my lap within the
last week or two.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
Here was a sequel to.
Speaker 5 (48:56):
Swamp Zombies, which I know we didn't get to talk
about much, that might start, That could start shooting as
soon as a month away, and that's filming in the
Philadelphia area there, so swam Zombies two would happen. It's
kind of a running Man mixed with Survivor mixed with
a zombie movie type story. So Newt Whalen, who owns
(49:19):
a theater in Philly there, he actually wrote the script
and I was kind of just kind of changing and
picking at things with them there. It's a really cool story.
So I hope the ball gets rolling on that and
it'll continue my stuff. Like like I said, swam Zombies too.
With a name like Swan Zombies, you are not expecting
to get gone with the wind type stuff there. But
you know it's I told him that, you know, much
(49:41):
like I told Red Letter Media when we were kind
of talking about a Bite of the Mummy picture. Is
you know, I'm still Len. I'll still be Len, But
at the same time, the swam Zombie production kind of
Len is long gone, you know what I mean. I'm
not interested in not.
Speaker 1 (49:57):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the.
Speaker 5 (50:04):
Show getting better with lighting and sound and those kinds
of things. So if you want that more shittier level
of production, I'm not interested in going backwards. I just
want to, you know, I want to continue my trend
of getting better at those things. So as long as
they were cool with that, I was cool with that.
I still love trauma movies. Swamp Zombies two will still
be that campy, trauma ish kind of movie, but yet
(50:27):
still have really good lighting and good sound in those
kinds of things. So I hope everybody can check it out,
drop by my Patreon, or hit me up on Twitter
or whatever. So I try to be super interactive with
the fans. You know, I get dinged every time somebody
sends me a message.
Speaker 4 (50:41):
So it takes me. You know.
Speaker 5 (50:42):
They're like, Len, you must not have anything to do
if you're responding to all these fans, and I'm like, no,
it's not that. It's just it takes me ten seconds,
if not less, to just drop by and say hey,
thanks for watching my.
Speaker 4 (50:51):
Stuff or whatever.
Speaker 5 (50:52):
So I appreciate everybody that's kind of supported Killerble Films
through the years. Here and like you said, it started
in two thousand when I started writing Swamp Zombies, and
we're in the twenty seventeen now, and you know, much
like I said before, I'm still here, so I'm not
going anywhere, So jump on board.
Speaker 3 (51:10):
Len Kabazinski. I want to say, man, it's been an
absolute blast talking with you.
Speaker 4 (51:14):
Thanks for having me on any time.
Speaker 5 (51:16):
As we get closer to other, you know, newer releases
I have towards the end of the year or whatever,
let's do it again, brother.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
You know what, Len, I love to have you back
on any time.
Speaker 4 (51:24):
Man.
Speaker 3 (51:24):
You know, you and I could talk all day about
this stuff. Oh you talk about old movies too, Oh yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:29):
Oh yeah, yeah, I'm a wealth of stuff.
Speaker 5 (51:32):
And speaking of that, just quickly on the Patreon page,
I have a Len's Forgotten movie den where I talk
a lot about directive video maybe films you haven't heard of.
Usually it's a lot of like eighties films or early
nineties films, but I talked about movies like Overkill with
Aaron Norris, or I talk about Georgia Vera's Fist Fighter,
a movie I adore from the eighties. So yeah, just
(51:52):
just on a tangent there about talking about movies all day.
I try to do that, and I pick a film
each month to try to bring to your attention. I
don't critique them or anything. I just kind of say, hey,
there's this movie I really love. You should check it
out kind of things. So again, thanks for having me, Man,
and enjoy your Sunday.
Speaker 3 (52:06):
You too, Lennon, and I wish you the best of
luck with Hell Ofcat Revenge and now all the other
things you got going on. So I wish you, but
I know the premieres tonight, so I wanted to focus
on that, So best of luck with that, my friend.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
Thanks a lot, Man, take care.
Speaker 1 (52:19):
I want to thank Dave so much for doing such
a great job on this episode. If you want to
get links to anything we spoke about in this episode,
head over to the show notes at Bulletproof Screenwriting dot tv.
Forward slash for forty two. Thank you so much for
listening to guys. As always, keep on writing no matter what.
I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2 (52:35):
Thanks for listening to the Bulletproof Screenwriting podcast at Bulletproofscreenwriting
dot tv.
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