Friday, March 2, 2012

Birth of a Psychodrama



A few months ago, I was playing the lead in Moliere’s “The Imaginary Invalid”. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience, but it proved to me what I’ve always known: I am a director, not an actor. Around the same time, I was preparing “Haz-Mat Harry”, a film you might remember from a few posts back. But even the dirt cheap budget of this existential monster movie proved to be outside our capacity. It was then that I opted to write something significantly scaled back. 

Looking at independent films in the past, I picked out a few that I admired. The first was “Clerks”, the indy classic that made me want to make movies in the first place. Then there was “The Evil Dead”, and other movies of that ilk: Ultra low budgets, unnecessary violence, and art direction that made everything look wonderfully lived in and dirty. In addition to these were the “Teenage Apocalypse” films of Gregg Araki. 

So, the idea was to write a slasher movie with teen angst and (hopefully) snappy dialogue. This turned into a story that would ultimately be the final segment in TCD’s three story structure. Unfortunately, on it’s own, it proved to be “boring”. This led me to scour my stack of notebooks for ideas. Two floated to the surface: A story about a redneck psychopath with a heart of gold trying to make amends by breaking out of jail. The second: The story of a bratty teenager hitchhiking across the country with a drug dealer to get revenge on the salesman that tore out her eye after knocking her up. At first glance, these stories didn’t form a cohesive trifecta. But after what must have added up to five pots of coffee, I built them around something personal: The hurricanes that ravaged Florida in my youth. While a real, relatable tragedy would give my story some depth, I decided the hurricane in the story would be my own fictional one. This would remove me from accusations about bad taste and exploitation and free me to do just about whatever the fuck I wanted. 

As I began to sculpt my ultra low budget, magnum opus, I had to find people. First and foremost was Sam, my producer and most loyal actor. We’ve been making movies since our early teens. Next was Maria, a beautiful and almost frighteningly efficient actress. She’s been in two of my films (in addition to a role in a film that was never finished) and played my daughter in the play I was in. Next came Nick. I met him while doing the sound work for a children’s theatre. He immediately proved to be a welcome member of the group, not just as an actor but as a friend. He, in addition to Christoff (both of whom starred in our recent short “Creeps, Critters, and Croations”, were assured roles from day one. One role, the most psychologically complex, proved tricky. Until Nick suggested Anderson. Anderson is a wonderful actor and a good friend. We met while working on the play. As a war veteran and an actor, Anderson presented an interesting personality to bring into the role. The rest of the roles, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, had to be assembled through a (still ongoing) audition process. This got us a few good actors. Doris, who has embraced the role of the pregnant avenging angel. Patrick came on board for the role of Harry. This was tricky (though, there isn’t a single role in this movie that isn’t) because we needed someone who could pull off an older character (Harry is in his thirties) and bring sympathy to a role that begs for our contempt (he does partially blind a pregnant teenager). Next we had Matt and Mohammad, who had to fill out a pair of similarly small, but vital roles. Then came the money. We had none, and agreed this was the perfect budget for our film. After all, if it fails, all we’ve wasted is time, right? What little money we do have comes from my job as a Chinese delivery man. Making movies is all I’ve wanted to do since I was twelve. So, who knows? I’ll make this film, come hell or high water. Expect a teaser trailer by May.

-Chris Krider, director and writer of "The Chainsaw Diaries"

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