IFH 810: The No-Excuses Filmmaking Philosophy of Len Kabasinski

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/indie-film-hustle-a-filmmaking-podcast--2664729/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
You are listening to the ifh podcast Network. For more
amazing filmmaking and screenwriting podcasts, just go to ifhpodcastnetwork dot com.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Welcome to the Indie Film Muscle Podcast, Episode number eight
ten Cinema Should Make You Forget.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
You're sitting in a theater, Roman Polanski.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
Broadcasting from the back alley in Hollywood. It's the Indie
Film Hustle Podcast, where we show you how to survive
and thrive as an indie filmmaker in the jungles of
the film biz.

Speaker 4 (00:32):
And here's your host, Alex Ferrari.

Speaker 2 (00:35):
Welcome, Welcome to another episode of the Indie Film Huscle Podcast.

Speaker 4 (00:38):
I am your humble.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Host, Alex Ferrari. Today's show is sponsored by Rise of
the Film Entrepreneur How to turn your independent film into
a profitable business. It's harder today than ever before for
independent filmmakers to make money with their films from predatory
film distributors ripping them off to huckster film aggregators who
prey upon them. The odds are stacked against the indie filmmaker.

(00:59):
The distribution model of making money with your film is broken,
and there needs to be a change. The future of
independent filmmaking is the entrepreneurial filmmaker or the film entrepreneur.
In Rise of the Film Entrepreneur, I break down how
to actually make money with your film projects and show
you how to turn your indie film into a profitable business.

(01:20):
With case studies examining successes and failures, this book shows
you the step by step method to turn your passion
into a profitable career. If you're making a feature film, series,
or any other kind of video content, the Film Entrepreneur
method will set you up for success. The book is
available in paperback, ebook, and of course audiobook. If you

(01:42):
want to order it, just head over to www. Dot
filmbiz book dot com. That's film b i ZBook dot com.
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Speaker 5 (01:54):
Hi, thanks for having me.

Speaker 4 (01:55):
Yeah, and that's that's so awesome. Yeah, and again, thank
you for doing this. I know you're probably got like
a million things to do today, and.

Speaker 5 (02:03):
You know what, the hard part and 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 pretty and that's about all I do today,
So I sit back and relax, and it's it's more
about the cast and crew anyways, that than me. My
job for everything is has been done for a little while.

(02:25):
So I just hope they come out and have fun
and then it premieres for the public in a couple
of weeks.

Speaker 4 (02:29):
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

(02:49):
weather is amazing, and it's like, you know, a humid
or it's a rainy day out here in Philadelphia.

Speaker 5 (02:55):
Yeah, you know, I'm a biker guy. 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 4 (03:13):
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.

Speaker 5 (03:18):
Right, Yeah, it's not fun. Ray rain hurts when you're
riding a motorcycle, trust me, it's it's it's not a
fun time.

Speaker 4 (03:24):
So so you know, 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 I think two thousand and
five when you created your first movie, Swamp Zombies. So
I wanted to ask Glenn, you know, at what point

(03:45):
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 (03:51):
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 were started to run is My mom would stay
up and watch science fiction and horror movies with me.
There was like a late Great Horror show it was

(04:12):
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 any number, Godzilla
versus the Smog Monster or so 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 dinosaurs and scientific

(04:37):
experiment dudes with two brains and those kind of stuff.
So I thought, oh, this is so cool. 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

(04:59):
seems like I work five jobs at times. 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,
my mom's staying up with me watching those films that
got the ball rolling. But as I went into high

(05:20):
school and college, and you know, back then it's you know,
the early nineties and stuff, 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.

(05:42):
I'm really to be taken seriously even so, I mean
even in movies to this day that like you see
Rifftracks makes popular movies like Future Force or something like
that with David Carroding. 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

(06:04):
right there just shooting on films. So you know, I
didn't have obviously the knowledge or anything like that to
you know, I didn't go to UCLA Film 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. But as I went along, Mini DV came about.

(06:29):
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.
He does a lot of stuff. He's an author. He

(06:49):
has a few books out there. Chris Watson did a
movie called Zombie GETD and he was working on again
a very low budget movie. Populated it all. 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

(07:10):
get Tom Savini for a day, or he'd get Bob
Zadar for a day or two, and he'd get all
these zombie gining is packed with b name you know
actors in it. And that's what he would do is
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 Geining. So I kind of learned some
things from him. And and right then the mini DV

(07:32):
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
all got started. There.

Speaker 4 (07:43):
You mentioned film school then, 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 quote

(08:05):
unquote normal are the people that are that you know,
maybe sit on the couch or they're driving or and
they're 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 and the other guests that have on, it's
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

(08:26):
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 (08:41):
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 met I don't know, hundreds of film
makers put it that way, but I've met thousands of

(09:03):
want to be filmmakers or wish they would make films
I don't want to see. They want to be as interrogatory,
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 really difficult it is. You know,
I'm not interested in just being called a filmmaker. I

(09:24):
am one. This is what I do you know what
I mean, don't 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 ford all
the time and if not, they die. So that's kind
of how I am. I feel creatively. I always have
to keep being creative or keep working towards things, and

(09:46):
that's just kind of how life has lived for me.

Speaker 4 (09:49):
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
think yourself, all right, but we gotta make sure our
schedules are going to coordinate for these shooting days.

Speaker 3 (10:06):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
And then you gotta wear another half for marketing, you know,
from a marketing standpoint. She made the thing and you're like,
oh crap, now I got to get it out there
and how are people going to be able to see it?
So so so, then when 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

(10:35):
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 5 (10:44):
Yeah. You know it was after I had met Chris
Watson when I when I when I had been on
set of Zombie Getting and I still talked to Chris
Watson to this day. I talked to him a week ago.
You know, I knew that his plan and what he
was doing, and he was talking to people from either
Troma or whatever. There's thousands of you know, distributors out

(11:04):
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? What could I do? And
I thought, wow, you know, being on set of this film,
I could do this finally. 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.

(11:25):
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 is a canon
GL two but by, and it's still a nice camera.
It's just not a twenty four P It's in beautiful

(11:47):
thirty frames per second and just like Uncle Ted's video
camera twenty years ago. So you know that's what we did.
But I knew that, yeah, one's 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 Swam Zombies, and I love writing scripts, but
the script I wrote back then, I mean, again, I

(12:07):
still don't have any real experience. It was a pretty
ambitious script that I needed to have my head examined
trying to produce a movie like that is my first film.
But 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

(12:31):
if you will, or entertainment outlets if you will, like WWE,
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

(12:54):
went and wanted to use these people because of their
names and kind of a following that you know, hopefully
would come along. So 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. You know.
I didn't go in like that. 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

(13:16):
market my my star people here, and we'll see what
happens from there. So that's how that came about.

Speaker 4 (13:23):
Yeah, you know, I actually have seen Swamp Zombies and
I actually watched it on Amazon Prime.

Speaker 5 (13:27):
And so you've seen the condensed version of it, You've
seen the the ninety minute version of it.

Speaker 4 (13:34):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 5 (13:34):
I a good deal.

Speaker 4 (13:36):
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 what
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 when I watched Swamp Zombies, by the way,

(13:58):
I was like, Dan Severn look exactly like you think
a police chief would look. He he looks, 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.

Speaker 5 (14:09):
Be like oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They trained together
back in the day too. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (14:13):
I mean they look like those hard, grizzled tough guys.
And they both are legit tough guys too, which is
even you know. I mean, Dan Sever, I'm a huge
UFC fan, Like I was saying, you know, we have yeah, yeah,
like you know, we have two things in common, martial
arts and movies. And uh, 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,

(14:33):
and it was just like there was three rules, you
know what I mean, and.

Speaker 5 (14:36):
It's just remember yep. But Dan was my favorite even
back then. But when I approached him for Swamp Zombies,
uh yeah, it was super nice man. Actually in Swamp Zombies,
he came to Eerie for 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 have that location and a couple

(15:00):
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 stuff like that in
the movie. Dan seven 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

(15:20):
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
so hot viser in it. So I'll come 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, just nice guy.
I mean, he was super nice and we always wanted

(15:41):
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. And he's a super busy guy.
I mean, even to this day, he does tons and
tons of stuff, whether it's law enforcement or UFC promotional

(16:02):
things or wrestling. He's 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 4 (16:13):
Yeah, it's I've seen all the things that 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, you 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

(16:33):
keep going. But I mean, you know, I mean, he
has over one hundred fights, for God's sakes.

Speaker 5 (16:37):
I mean 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. He's got a style 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 4 (16:55):
Oh, I agree completely, Len. He was definitely one of
the forefathers of you know, he has more of a
rest sling background. He uses that in the Gauntlet. I'm sorry,
the Octagon. I'm jumping ahead. I'm thinking of your movie
challenge with the five, That's what I'm thinking of. And
so yeah, you know, I agree completely, And and you know,
he's just used his style so well. And when you know,
and you also look at somebody like Don Fry kind

(17:17):
of similar style. Don Fry might shrick 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 5 (17:25):
Say about the MMA, right, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 (17:27):
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
he's an awesome guy. Yeah, because he seems pretty intimidating
by the way, like.

Speaker 5 (17:40):
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 it's everybody is

(18:00):
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 has
that respect and that that nature about him that you
can tell those kinds of disciplines kind of molded his

(18:21):
character probably personally as well. So very nice guy and.

Speaker 4 (18:25):
That's awesome to hear. 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 litcation here,
location there, or maybe a resource here and there. You know,
was there ever a point in time where you had

(18:47):
like a huge problem, like a production problem. My question was, yeah,
I'm glad I brought it up 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 5 (19:04):
Oh? God, biggest problem? I don't know. 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.

(19:26):
They're going on the beach and 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 them, probably four or five hours, and that'll be that,

(19:47):
you know. 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.

Speaker 3 (19:58):
What we'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (20:09):
So and and back then my brain wasn't running where
it didn't. I'll get into a hellcout's example in a
little bit here. But now, if something like this were
to happen and somebody would know show. I'm pretty confident
in my abilities. I could I could script right on
the fly and fix it whatever the situation is. I'm
pretty I have that confidence now that I'll fix any

(20:31):
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
down here, like right now, you know, for the day,

(20:52):
and he's like, okay, like 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
as friend. They go on the beach and she gets

(21:14):
killed by zombies. So yeah, that was that was a
major problem where somebody just didn't show up who we
pretty much fully expected to show up. So yeah, we
had to pull that one out and luckily we did so.
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

(21:37):
of print for several several months now, I probably close
to 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,
so you're gonna pay potentially big bucks to try to
find it right this second. But it's coming. It's coming
back to DVD in like a month. I'm just sending

(21:57):
it out to get authored now the DVD, 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 4 (22:15):
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

(22:35):
going to show up and the day of they know, show.

Speaker 5 (22:38):
Now court 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 dan 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, uh with extras

(23:01):
and things like that. 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 as a
as a no. You know what I mean, I don't
maybees are nos to me now in filmmaking, 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, I didn't count on

(23:24):
them anyways, kind of thing. And that's kind of how
I treat that.

Speaker 4 (23:28):
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, you know, I'll try to
be there. I was like that that that's that subtext meeting. No,
that's a part right.

Speaker 5 (23:40):
Right, right right. I don't try anything. I just do
it so a little faster pussycat reference there.

Speaker 4 (23:48):
Yeah, it's there is no uh do it or not?
There is no try yoda yeah from the oda. And
but so you know, as you actually got you know,
some zombies, you got it done. You know, you're you're
able to to sort of market it. So when you started,
you know, going into your other projects like Curse of
the Wolf and Fist of the Vampire. You know what,
what are some of those things that you that that

(24:08):
you 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 Scott Mesure, Quentin Tarantino has Lawrence Bender.

(24:29):
There 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 (24:35):
Yeah, you know the way I tried to do it.
After Swampszombies, 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 things like that. 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

(24:55):
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 hundred a
off of a guy that was filming biker documentaries for
the Discovery Channel and he was local making motorcycle engines

(25:15):
or something. He said, hey, I got this camera. I'll
sell it to you five hundred bucks, 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 DVX, 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

(25:36):
those two films in terms of look at least. But yeah,
it's a shit, you know, dude, it's 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

(25:59):
editors of Curse of the Wolf were actually on set
doing effects, so they really lived with Curse of the
Wolf like I did. And he was not begging, but
really strongly lobbying, len, let me edit this movie. Let
me edit Curse. Let me edit Curse. 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,

(26:21):
he ended up editing Fist of 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 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. Let's do it. So
that's what we thought would happen. But he edited two
pictures and then I kind of just let him go

(26:42):
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 quirk of
mind that doesn't always work out all the time any anyways.

(27:03):
You know, It's 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 all that stuff.
I mean, I know my limitations when it comes to that,
but yeah, you know, it works out where you end
up using the same people for two or three movies

(27:24):
or so, but then they move on or you know,
something happens where you know, they go onto their own
projects or something like that. 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,

(27:46):
at the end of the day, I'm still here doing
stuff and that's not going to change.

Speaker 4 (27:51):
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 no
only I mean, you're like me, Lenn. You want to
write your own scripts. I and honestly, because it's your story,
it's 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 and then

(28:11):
you know and you want to make sure that that
the last part of that left is the production phase,
you know, and you want to make sure a do
I have some kind of you know, money to 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,
lend you As you keep doing this, your list grows

(28:32):
more and more. So 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 (28:45):
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

(29:05):
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. I'll make it. 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

(29:26):
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? That thing? I and the
less 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,

(29:47):
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. That's hard. So if it's one group
of people that I want to really have fun on
my movie sets.

Speaker 3 (30:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (30:10):
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 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 to do something else if I need them.
So yeah, on Hellcat's Revenge, that's coming out here, and

(30:31):
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
Hellcat's Revenge. But we did a clubhouse, if you will,
a female 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

(30:53):
eight hour shift was film all the scenes where it's
really really populated in the clubhouse, and it worked out
really really well. 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 in 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,

(31:16):
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 emails actually saying, well, Len, 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

(31:36):
and you're just getting rolling, or it's your first movie
or second movie or whatever, write one. 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. Yeah, I mean,
don't write it so and I'm not trying to limit

(31:58):
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 it's skull 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,
limit your cast and crew. Everybody wants to do a movie.

(32:19):
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. So you know, don't don't make
your cast real expansive and stuff. Just to start off,
I would stay 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

(32:40):
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 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
everybody that helped out was super great. I mean, I've
been really blessed that out of whatever a dozen movies

(33:03):
or whatever, it is now very very very I can't
I can't remember many 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 Meani 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

(33:23):
their roles and everybody else is covered in swamp crap
and zombie makeup and stuff and they're not getting paid. Yeah,
you know, the last thing I'm gonna do is bring
Jasmine on Saint Clair on set and paid role 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

(33:45):
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 a personality fit.
I'm a real blue collar guy, so it's dibas and
those kinds of people. They're just gonna hate me. I'm
gonna probably hate band and it's just not gonna work.

Speaker 4 (34:01):
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 girse. 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.

(34:24):
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 coming up to it at
the same time asking you for stuff, and you're like,
my god, you know, it's it's it's a lot, right.
So that's when you need to have here the crew
to sort of you know, to sort of delegate the

(34:46):
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 and you
know I and that that 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,

(35:06):
who the hell is you know, what are you doing here?
Don't talk to me or whatever, and you're like, good,
come on, dude, you know we're roll in the same
boat here. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (35:13):
Yeah, with stuff like that, I'm kind of the opposite.
I wish I could hang out and talk to the
extras more, dude, just talk to people in general. I
mean there's people that had starring roles in my films too.
I probably spoke three sentences to 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, it's done months beforehand.

(35:37):
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 they know what what I'm

(35:59):
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 4 (36:13):
And that's good. That's really efficient 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 5 (36:24):
Oh yeah, Hellcats Revenge. 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.

(36:46):
The movie premieres tonight. It's like it's out there. It's
going to come to DVD later this year, and I mean, wow,
that 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

(37:08):
what are you going to do this? Are you not
going to do it? Pick a direction and go and
and mind was go make a movie.

Speaker 4 (37:13):
So yeah, and and usually lend that is the best
option to go with. Is just 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

(37:33):
about the film?

Speaker 5 (37:35):
Yeah? Yeah, Yeah. Basically, Hellcats Revenge is your your kind
of biker revenge movie. I mean, you're not going to
get some kind of complex, uh you know, seven ish
story out out of it or something like that. I
mean it's pretty straightforward. Uh, biker leader of a female
gang is killed and so her her hellcats if you
were her gang writing club or whatever you want to

(37:57):
call them, kind of go out and try to find
out who and they end up coming up against a
criminal gang called the Vipers and they kind of go
at it kind of thing. So it's a 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 both both sides there.
But yeah, it's not an all out martial art film.

(38:19):
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 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

(38:41):
what people will see is increase production values, just even
stepping up from like Angel Reckoning, So I think they'll
see those kind of productions like lighting and all those
kinds of things. Sound, we adr and a lot of
stuff in it, so we wanted to make sure because
that's a common problem, especially micro indie stuff, is and
sound or the two big things that you know, usually

(39:03):
need the most work or end up sucking. So we
try to really and we did that with Angel of
Reckoning too, But even Hellcat's Revenge even more so that
we wanted to you know, if we have a dr 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, that kind of thing.

(39:25):
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 got
I 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,

(39:46):
because they, 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 Revenge will be or movie.

Speaker 3 (39:58):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
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, Hellcats Revenge
will be your movie. It's Lisa Neild, Playboy cover model.
Lisa Nield plays the Cat, the leader of the Hellcats,
and I play Snake, the leader of the Vipers. So
for those that want to see me in a lead role,
that's the Hellcats is your movie. But that's a question

(40:31):
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 gonna do
your martial art movie? Well that's coming next year. I'm
writing now a movie called Challenge of Five Gauntlets, which
is a all out martial art picture. It is done

(40:54):
in the vein of stuff I really love in the
seventies like Shaw Brothers Studio, martial art pictures or Kung
Fu movies, those kinds of things, UH got. Challenge of
Five Gauntlets will be uh 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

(41:14):
Kung Fu Picture So, and that starts filming next next spring.

Speaker 4 (41:18):
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 5 (41:26):
I'm hoping that happens. 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 they're still interested in checking it out, they're
gonna get what they want out of me. They're gonna
get that that all out martial art, you know, Picture So.

(41:49):
Even now, I'm 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. That's really not my deal. It's more to
like understand, like in a Shaw Brothers fight scene and
Challenge of Five or Challenge in Five Element Ninjas. You know,

(42:10):
here's this 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 4 (42:25):
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 pang sudo, you know,
and that's awesome when you can bring that to to
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 5 (42:45):
Yeah, yeah, it's it's I'm excited to do an all
out martial art picture. I really am. Because now when
it comes time for distribution, you know, back in the
as we mentioned many 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

(43:05):
I try to be a humble guy about things, but
so I never see myself as somebody like this popular
star type person. It's just not myself. 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,

(43:28):
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, and I don't have
to worry about trying to draw them in with something else.

Speaker 4 (43:38):
So yeah, and you know, I found that too, Lend,
because when I was showing I think Swamp Zombies took
a few people. They actually were like, hey, where's Lennett.
They actually and I'm not just saying next, I'm all,
you know, doing this interview with you, but I'm dead, seriously,
were like, you know, 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 that works

(43:59):
well on 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 (44:13):
Yeah, and and come to challenge of five gauntlets 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

(44:33):
films from 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 this is the
Vampire is ten years old now, so there's I still
think there's some good stuff in there. You know, Swam Zombies,

(44:55):
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 can translate to today's micro filmmaking world.

Speaker 4 (45:04):
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
and this world that we're in land 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 two
thousand and seven, Amazon Prime was even a thing, right,

(45:27):
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 a lot of different

(45:48):
selections of like hey watch me play video games, Hey
watch me you know, practice guitar. Well, if you're on Amazon.

Speaker 5 (45:54):
Prime, it's there to watch movies.

Speaker 4 (45:55):
Exactly right, You're just there to watch movies.

Speaker 5 (45:58):
Yeah, that's smart. 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 gonna wrap in probably two

(46:21):
months here, And that is another one though, where again,
fans might see it and be like, ah, man, where's
land because I am not in the movie. I just 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.

(46:42):
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 Prisms. So hopefully they'll check it out.
But it's a very very very different, different movie.

Speaker 4 (47:00):
Yeah, and I'm gonna make sure to link to all
your stuff in the show notes.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
Len.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
You know, I know we've been talking for about forty
five minutes now. I know you know we're running out
of time because 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 anything
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 (47:23):
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

(47:45):
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 Bye By,
you know, joining our Patreon. So so we did start
the Patreon campaign there. I'm on Twitter, Twitter dot com,
slash Spearbol Films or you can hear me up the Facebook.
I'm out of like friends things now, so you can't

(48:05):
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.
So that's very uh uh whatever. 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 a slash len dot Kpasinski or Killer

(48:27):
Wolf's Films is on there too. But yeah, there's those
new things I'm doing now. There's so many new things
coming out. Is 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, Swam Zombies
will probably be first up and it should be out

(48:47):
by October first, I would imagine. So so there's those things.
Hellcat's Revenge should be on DVD 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

(49:07):
fell into my lap within the last week or two
here was a sequel to Swamp Zombies, which I know
he didn't get to talk about much, but that might start.
That could start shooting as soon as a month away,
and that's filming in the Philadelphia area there, so Swamp
Zombies two would happen. It's kind of a running Man

(49:28):
mixed with Survivor mixed with a zombie movie type story.
So Newt Whalen, who owns 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, Swamp Zombies two. With a name like

(49:49):
Swamp Zombies, you're not expecting to get gone with the
wind type stuff there. But you know it's I told
him that, you know, much like I told Red Letter
Media when we were kind of talking about a Bite
of the Mummy picture.

Speaker 3 (50:01):
We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.

Speaker 5 (50:11):
Is you know, I'm still Leen. 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 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.

(50:33):
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 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

(50:54):
get dinged every time somebody sends me a message, so
it takes me. You know, they're like Len, you must
not have anything to do if your respond 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
stuff or whatever. So I appreciate everybody that's that's kind
of supported Killerble films through the years here. And like
you said, it started in two thousand and four when

(51:15):
I started writing Swamp Szombies, and we're in the twenty
seventeen now and I, you know, much like I said before,
I'm still here, so I'm not going anywhere.

Speaker 4 (51:24):
So jump on board and everybody. I will link to
everything that talked about Len and I talked about in
the show notes. It's at Dave Bullis dot com Twitter,
It's at Dave Underscore Bullets. Len Kabazinski, I want to say, man,
it's been an absolute blast talking with you.

Speaker 5 (51:39):
Thanks for having me on any time. 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 4 (51:46):
You know what, Len, I love to have you back
on any time.

Speaker 5 (51:49):
Man.

Speaker 4 (51:49):
I you know, you and I could talk all day
about this stuff. Oh you talk about old movies too.

Speaker 5 (51:53):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I'm a wealth of stuff.
And speaking of that, just quickly on the Patreon page,
I have a lens Forgotten movie Den where I talk
a lot about direct to 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 George Vera's Fistfighter,

(52:14):
a movie I adore from the eighties. So yeah, just
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, but 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 4 (52:31):
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 5 (52:41):
Thanks a lot, man, take care.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
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 any filmusle dot
com forward slash eight ten, and if you have it already,
please head over to filmmaking podcast dot com, subscribe.

Speaker 3 (52:59):
And leave a good review for the show. It really
helps us out a lot.

Speaker 5 (53:02):
Guys.

Speaker 2 (53:03):
Thank you again so much for listening to guys.

Speaker 3 (53:04):
As always, keep that hustle going, keep that dream alive,
Stay safe out there, and I'll talk to you soon.

Speaker 1 (53:11):
Thanks for listening to the Indie Film Hustle podcast at
indiefilm hustle dot com. That's I N D I E
F I L M h U S T l E
dot com.