Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here. Weresmurf’s one of our regular chatters, just a normal guy living in Australia who loves indie horror. When he turned in an interview with Jeffrey Riddick a week or so ago, it seemed like a fluke. But then he told me he’d contacted these guys, the makers of the micro-budget zombie film AUTOMATON TRANSFUSION, and that he’d be doing interviews with them. And he’s working on a few others, just for the fun of it. This is the sort of interview I always enjoy here on AICN... a regular guy talking to a filmmaker who is doing it independently... and I hope you guys enjoy the read. More importantly, I hope more people agree to chat with Weresmurf in the future, especially people looking for a venue to discuss horror films that are fighting for an audience.
Well guys, here I am again, fresh from my Jeffrey Reddick interview, with the first part in a 2 part interview with the Producer and the Director of a new independent zombie movie called “Automaton Transfusion”. I love it when someone passionate about their project elaborates like both Jeff and William have, it pulls you into their own little world and lets you get a better picture of what you’re gonna get yourself into if you see this movie, no matter what it is. So here we go with part 1:
Subject: Automaton Transfusion. Victim: William Clevinger, Producer.
The Weresmurf: How hard has it been to ‘sell’ for lack of a better term, Automaton Transfusion to possible distributors? William: The hardest process of making “Automaton Transfusion” has been trying to sell it. Ironically, before we even went to make it we already had an offer with a very small company for distribution. So we went into it with the mindset that no matter what, it would get distributed and we could make small projects until we didn’t want to anymore. When we started shooting Automaton we realized that it could end up being bigger than we had anticipated. That’s when we decided we were going to hang onto it and test the waters. There are thousands of Independent films made each year but there our only a handful that get any kind of recognition and most of those have some name actor or two in them. Our film was special, we made a very low budget movie that no one could tell was low budget and we were getting recognized before we even finished shooting and it steadily continued throughout the past year. It was a lot like the Blair Witch scenario, funny thing is those guys were also from Florida. I had been saying when we started shooting, after our first day with 500 extras running around in downtown Orlando, Fl, on Fourth of July weekend, that I wouldn’t be surprised if we started getting phone calls from major distributors. The only other person that agreed with me at the time was our lead actor Garrett Jones. We were shooting the scene where Jackie is in the bathroom and zombies are eating people in the other room. I was sitting outside the house and my phone rang. I answered it and it was New Line. They had seen the trailer that we had put online after our first day of filming. I didn’t know at that time but that phone call is when the year long distribution process began. If we had wanted to we could have sold the film a year ago but we patiently waited for the right offer from the right company. That’s what took so long and was the most frustrating thing. You have so many people telling you how good your film is and I can’t believe you made it for that much but no one would make an offer that would benefit us, our the film. That’s the hardest thing, saying no to offers. Eventually you can’t say no anymore. Lucky for us we had something that people wanted and kept coming back and checking on. We learned a great deal about how the whole process works. We probably went to over 20 meetings and it eventually got routine and somewhat discouraging but we never gave up and now millions of people will see “AT” and it’s getting released by one of the big one’s. The Weresmurf: The movie was apparently self funded by a group of kids with their college fund I think? (Correct me if I’m wrong by all means.) How does that affect the spending of the money, do you find it a more ‘careful’ situation, trying to stretch every dollar even further than normal because of this factor? William: The film was primarily funded by Mark Thalman, whom also served as Executive Producer and Camera Operator. The additional production funding came from Aaron Fiehn, who grew up with me and heard me talk about the dream of making movies my whole life. He decided to contribute money that his father had left him to help make my dream come true. He also joined the film as an Executive Producer and ran around and witnessed all the craziness with us. A family friend of Mark’s threw in some money and the rest of the production funding came from Kurt Anderson who has been in the business for over twenty years and has become a mentor and great advice giver. Steven’s parents contributed most of our post-production funding. We had such a limited amount of money especially during production that we did have to watch and pay close attention to what we were doing or trying to do. They were things that would have been so much bigger in the film had we had more money to work with. Steven saw, as did I, such a bigger movie but we worked with what we had and we go a lot out of what we had and I cant speak for Steve but I am pleased with how it all turned out. We benefited greatly by going back home where I grew up and using resources that I had there to get things done. The Weresmurf: Did their mothers and fathers ever come knocking looking for blood from you guys??? William: It never resulted to that but there has been a lecture or two….All of which have been very positive and encouraging. The Weresmurf: Myself, I’ve found the genre of horror quite stale in the last decade and a half asides a few gleaming gems like Shaun of the dead (Ironically not horror but it reinvigorated the zombie genre for sure better than most other zombie movies have.), The Hills have Eyes, Jeepers Creepers 1 and 2 (Oh come on 2 was SO 80s it almost hurt in a good way!) and Dog Soldiers.(Alas I have yet to see The Descent as it just came out here and I don’t believe in downloading movies…) To me Dog Soldiers had a wonderful 80s vibe to it, it wasn’t self referential and parodying like something along the lines of the average Scream rip-off movie, yet it sure as hell didn’t take itself too seriously at the same time. Does A.T fit into that sort of category do you think? William: Recently there are only a handful of gems that have gotten it right and you and I agree on all of those and don’t forget about The Descent, when you get a chance to see it you should. It will scare the shit out of you. Steve, Mark, & I have always had a profound love for 80’s films and not just 80’s horror but 80’s in general. My ultimate goal is to remake Summer School and Swamp Thing. Ha-ha. When we set out to make this film one of our main goals was for it to look and feel like a film from the 80’s and for it to have the feel of the first 15 minutes of the 2004 Dawn of the Dead re-make. We wanted to use old school make up FX, unknown actors, Friday the 13th like locations, and create a new horror film trilogy all shot in the south. Florida as a location is an amazing place to shoot. More filmmakers that are considering doing horror films should go and scout some of the locations in Florida. Jeepers Creepers was shot completely on location there and when we were scouting we almost used some of the same locations. The sheriffs’ office in Jeepers Creepers is actually an old middle school. We didn’t have enough time to get clearance to use it so we were lucky enough to land a private Christian school. That is a story in itself. Lol. I ran off track there sorry. I definitely do think “AT” falls into that category and quite possibly its own altogether. We wanted to add a fresh new horror film and possibly make something that could become this generation’s Evil Dead. It’s an 80’s film made in 2006. That’s one of the things that the audience needs to realize when they are watching it. I’m sick of hearing people say stop making zombie films and that it’s been done before. If you can put a new spin on it, I am all for it. Some pre-judge AT without seeing it just because it deals with zombies. It’s not just another take on the zombie genre but it’s really a throwback to the relentless horror films of the 80’s just with zombies thrown in, when people actually watch it they will realize that. Even those that have criticized the film in some aspect have actually found something in the film that they really enjoy. So for every negative comment there has always been a positive. There is a huge social commentary to AT that we are going to tackle in the sequel and the sequel will take you places that no other “horror” film has ever tried to go. Hopefully we can create a franchise that will be talked about after we are dead and gone. The Weresmurf: Being the producer behind A.T, were there any initial doubts you had about the movie? Did you at any time doubt its release, doubting its quality etc? Bare in mind that I’m not asking you to trash your own movie, but moreso, was it a situation where you were confident from the beginning or had to evolve to a level of confidence in the project? William: I never once doubted the film or what we were doing. There was something very special about it all from day one that I can’t really sum up with words. Everyone involved from concept to finish busted their ass and put so much energy and heart into everything that they were doing and the result is what you see on screen, it definitely comes across. I never doubted the quality of Automaton for how much we made it for. Budget aside, I felt that we had made a special little movie, that when people sat down, and believe me we sat many people down and they liked it and enjoyed it in some aspect or another. I watched it so many times though on so many different occasions that I started asking myself is this even that good. I got so immune to everything in the film. On any other project that I do from this point forward I am seriously going to limit myself on how many times I watch it. Over time my confidence level on the film did evolve because of the response the film was receiving and the meetings that we were having. I knew we had a quality piece of horror filmmaking and that eventually the right company would see that, and they did. The Weresmurf: Any words about Steven Miller and your experience with the guy? William: He is a talented filmmaker. The Weresmurf: Sum up your experience with AT in less than fifty words! William: It has been the best and worst experience of my life. Friends have been made and lost, but that’s the nature of what we do. I aged quite a bit in life experience as well as business and I ate lots of Taco Bell. I can handle any situation on a producing level that comes at me now. It has put me in a great place at an early time in my career and I CAN’T WAIT FOR THE WORLD TO SEE WHAT WE MADE. Note from the ‘Smurf: (Dude, that’s 85 words… ah well, you’re excited, all’s forgiven!) The Weresmurf: What’s the next project you’re looking into producing, or are you moving into a new area of film production? William: I am actually in the early stages of producing two more horror films. These are significantly bigger on a budget level than Automaton was. The first is Jake Kennedy’s “We All Fall Down.” It’s the feature adaptation to his short which was one of the winners of Fangoria’s Blood Drive horror fest last year. Jake is an immensely talented filmmaker and will be a household name soon. The other is a script from Michael Wormser entitled “Bleed.” It is like nothing that I have ever read or seen and if we pull it off it could be something special in the horror community. I also have some surprises up my sleeve that I can’t talk about yet. The Weresmurf: What movies are you looking forward to in the New Year and beyond? Spill your guts… William: Okay you asked for it - I’m really looking forward to several sequels coming out in the next year – Spiderman 3, Die Hard 4, Rush Hour 3, 28 Weeks Later, Oceans 13, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, Pirates 3, The Bourne Ultimatum, Resident Evil: Extinction, National Treasure 2. There are a few films this Christmas I’m really looking forward to seeing - The Pursuit of Happyness, The Good German & Dream Girls and next year I will be catching all of these if I get a chance - Alpha Dog, Pathfinder, The Hitcher Remake, Smokin Aces, Rogue, The Number 23, Ghost Rider, Finchers’ Zodiac, 300, Danny Boyles Sunshine, Blades of Glory, Mr. Woodcock, Grindhouse, Fracture, Transformers,1408, Knocked Up, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, Michael Clayton, The Heartbreak Kid, 3:10 to Yuma, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, 30 Days of Night, Eli Roth’s Cell, American Gangster, & of course Automaton Transfusion. P.S. I want to give a very very special thanks to my mother and my stepfather. Without them I would not be in Los Angeles doing what I am doing and my three best friend’s Anthony Woodby, Jordan Johnson, & Aaron all of whom who I can honestly call my brothers. Thanks for your time William! It’s been a blast. Well there you have it guys, part 1 of our 2 part Automaton Transfusion interview. Remaking Summer School? As long as you don’t drop the idea of the Teacher and the two Hollywood effects students, not that god awful idea I heard a while back where it was to center on a student attending school and foiling a horrible teacher!!! To quickly recap, I haven’t praised this movie, and more importantly, I haven’t damned it. I’m eager to see it, that’s apparent, as I love all things Zombie. Hell I sat through House of the Dead part 1 twice… UGH. I guess I tried to like it. God knows I did. Oh and an official challenge: Monki and his crew, I’m getting broadband and xbox live soon… I hereby challenge you and anyone else up your tree to GoW deathmatch when I get it!!! Ciao bambinos. Weresmurf out! p.s. They actually made a movie called Mr Woodcock???
