in the make-up of all the main characters. The story is really how they navigate their way to accepting themselves and forming those bonds - and what can happen if you get it wrong. (Hint – Blood, lots of Blood.)
Dion Winton-Polak
Rating:
Geek Syndicate
GGGGG
INTERVIEW - Ryan Levin
As you can tell from the preceding review, Geek Syndicate has good things to say about the film Some Guy Who Kills People. We had the chance to interview the film’s writer / producer. Here’s what was said. GS: At the Geek Syndicate we’re great advocates of independent projects, whether they be films, games, comics or what have you. How do you balance independent creativity with the need to find an audience and a means of distribution? RL: Some Guy Who Kills People was the first feature that I’ve made, and I’m not living off that film. I currently make a living writing for television, (but) as time’s gone on my interests have shifted towards features. The only downside about television is that it cuts into a huge chunk of your time as far as working on the projects that you’re really passionate about. I would love to be able to write a script and sell it for a couple of hundred thousand dollars to a studio. At the same time, there’s a ninety-nine percent chance that I will not have a single piece of creative control or creative input once I’ve sold that script. At the end of the day I’ve got the credit and financially that’s great, and I’ve got my foot in the studio door. Most independent filmmakers would say yes, yes I would love to do that, but at the same time that’s going to afford me the chance to work on a project that I’m much more passionate about and much more connected to. I (could) go out and make in just the same way as I made Some Guy Who Kills People and take it to the festivals and enjoy that whole experience. GS: You brought John Landis on as Executive Producer. For those readers not familiar with behind the scenes roles, what did his job entail and what did he bring to the party? RL: He’d read the script and was very interested in sitting down and talking. About one percent of the conversation was actually about the film, but a lot of it is like, can we... get along? So anyway, by the end of the day he had called and said “I wanna direct the film” and from there we worked a handful of times on the script. He gave me great notes that helped strengthen it. T here was a company that had already read the script and really liked it, but without any attachment wasn’t gonna give us any money - but once we got Landis they basically said “Okay, we’ll finance this film.” Literally the day they said that was the same day that this other project, that long preceded us on (John Landis’) radar – called Burke And Hare – finally got the green light. He’s an extremely kind man and was very apologetic, but he said “I have to back out and go and do this film.” So, I said to him, “We’re gonna have to go out and raise the money for this film starting from scratch. May I say you’re Executive Producer?” because he did have an input and we did work together on it. I was thinking like, down the line when it comes to selling it, showing it or getting it into festivals having his name on there will really help in some way, shape or form. He said “You can’t do that now, because I don’t want my name attached to the film unless I see the film and like it,” which was totally fair, and I said fine. I raised the money myself, so we shot the film. We sent him a rough cut to get his thoughts, and he called and left one of the nicest voicemail messages I’ve ever gotten about the film. He was saying “I can’t believe that on the budget you had, that you made this film... Your cast is amazing, the director is great, you got every penny’s
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