9DCU0113HD_Directors_Cut_Studio_Transcript

 
 David came here wanting to find out if mother knew about it.  I'm sure she did.  But she never brought it up with me.  Maybe it was a bit too touchy of a subject.  I told him he'd have to ask John.  The whole thing kind of set him off kilter.  It's understandable though, finding out your father and your aunt were carrying on.  Might set you off a bit, don't you think? Hi, and welcome to Director's Cut.  I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane.  Here at Director's Cut, we're dedicated to bringing you the best in independent films and filmmakers.  Our film this week is "Reeseville. " "Reeseville" is a murder mystery set in Reeseville, Wisconsin.  It's about a young man who returns to Reeseville to silence the demons of his past, but shortly after his arrival, his father kills himself.  The town coroner played perfectly by Mark Hamill of "Star Wars" fame, suspects foul play and uncovers one by one, the small town secrets.  "Reeseville" was written and directed by Milwaukee native Christian Otjen.  Christian, it's great to have you here today.  Thank You.  Hey, we didn't get to show it because it had such strong visuals, you know, for public television, but the opening of your film was really intense and really strong.  Why was that done? Because the rest of the film wasn't like that.  Were you kind of throwing the viewer off? I'm looking-- Partly when you're dealing with independent film, is you usually don't have the certain cast level, so a lot of reasons independent films don't get beyond a certain point is that they don't have a star, or that ability for someone to just sort of pick up and be able to go with the story for a while.  So I wanted a nice visual shot to bring us in, to kind of capture the audience saying, this is a film, okay, sit back and enjoy it. 

 So kind of setting the stage and saying guys get the popcorn ready, you're in a different world for a moment.  Correct, yeah.  That's a good idea.  You have a background in horror.  Yeah.  This is not a horror film.  No.  So why the switch from horror to murder mystery? Originally, the first film I did was a horror film.  And it was more so because coming out of film school, horror films were still big at the time.  But also, the foreign market was eating them up.  And horror films at that point, were pretty forgiving if some shots weren't in focus, or the acting wasn't great.  They also weren't star-driven.  So I used that to kind of cut my teeth on a lot of different things.  The end goal wasn't to be the great horror maker.  No, I don't think so.  I think there's plenty of them out there.  Let's see another clip from your film, so we can talk more about it.  Can you set this one up for us? This is Zeek figuring out that maybe there's foul play afoot in this suicide.  The main character, David, has come home to the town and found that his father has hung himself.  Zeek is the coroner of the town.  He's taken down the body, and he's basically at his morgue area. 

 And what's happened is that he's noticed that there's multiple scars on the neck.  He's suspicious that it's not a hanging, that it could be something else.  Well here's another clip from the film.  These what you're looking for? Where did you find them? Out back, under the porch steps.  What's wrong now? I think we've got troubles, Jason.  How's that? The neck.  I found two bruises, two.  Something isn't right.  What do you mean? Take a look.  There's a second bruise on the front of his neck.  That's ante-mortem.  The V-shaped one is from the belt.  See the difference? That belt was post-mortem.  What does that mean? Well, if I'm right, somebody hung him up there after he was dead.  That's a mistake.  If it is, I'm in the wrong profession.  They strangled him from behind.  Somebody held a hard object across his throat, like that.  All right, okay.  I sure hope you know what you're talking about.  I mean, you're positive? 100%. 

 ( sighs ) Forgive me.  I've never seen this stuff, except in books.  Well, what else is bothering you? I'm worried, Jason.  This morning I was thinking, here I've got a man dead and I'm acting like it's some kind of entertainment.  For Christ's sake, somebody might have killed him.  Life is not supposed to be this way.  It's sick.  That was a clip from the film "Reeseville. " Christian, you know that we just saw Mark Hamill in that clip.  We saw Sally Struthers in the first clip.  This has a pretty decent set of actors.  What do you think drew them to this project, and drew them to you.  Well, I wouldn't say money, because we didn't spend an over-lot on talent.  But we did have a financial position that we were able to offer the deals.  Some of the people worked for SAG, some a little bit above SAG's scale.  But the script really helped.  Basically, we went out to LA to cast a lot of the major parts I was working with a casting director out there.  And the studios got wind after the first day that I was actually working with pretty much anyone that came through, even through we had 40 or 50 people come through in a day.  I'd take time, and give a little direction and see.  So, even if somebody I was passing on, I'd give them the time to do it, because they're giving me their time.  And also, sometimes you get a different read from someone you're not going to use, but you might use that read in the film, or a direction in the film that you didn't have before. 

 If you have a script that's out there, that has certain types of roles in it, word gets around.  And Mark Hamill contacted us, as well as Rod Steiger.  So it just worked out well.  If I remember, Rod Steiger was initially going to play the role that Mark Hamill played.  Yeah, and Mark Hamill had a different role in the film.  Rod Steiger, unfortunately, died.  He was supposed to come on the third week of shooting.  And at the second week of shooting, we got word that he'd went into the hospital and wasn't going to be able to come.  And he passed away about three days after that.  So at that point, we shifted Mark Hamill into Rod Steiger's role.  It was a completely different dynamic, but I think Mark Hamill did an amazing job.  Yeah, he did.  He really took that role, I thought, very well.  Rod Steiger, when we originally had meetings with him, he's more of like a kind of Marlon Brando at the end of "Apocalypse Now. " He's very big, very forceful.  And so Zeek being played by someone who's more subservient to Brian Wimmer as the sheriff, I think gave it a really nice touch.  Tell me about Mark.  What was it like to work with Mark Hamill, because he's a bit of a superstar.  And now you're in a small town in Wisconsin.  That must have been kind of interesting.  Yeah, Mark from the get-go was dynamic. 

 We had just come with a really long intense meeting with Rod Steiger, where we'd offered him the role of Zeek.  And we went over to Mark Hamill's house.  He and his wife were there.  She had baked some chocolate chip cookies, had us out in the backyard with some lemonade, just kind of chatted and talked.  He was just such a nice, fun person.  And when he came onboard, Reeseville is a pretty small town, and we were in Lake Mills, also.  And his last day shooting in Lake Mills, he made sure, as soon as we cut and were done with the take, he'd run out and sign autographs for the kids that were waiting around and tell stories.  Sure, Luke Skywalker.  Also, we have a day where the crew, who had all the Star Wars stuff, and our gaffer had, you know, one of the original lightsabers, the plastic flashlight ones.  He signed all that stuff.  He's basically like a little kid, but he's extremely talented.  I'm curious, I've watched a lot of independent films for this show, and I love them, I think they're great.  But yours has a different quality to it, that I think that must be certainly about it's budget, as well as your talent.  But what was the budget for this film? About a little over $1. 5 million.  In the world of Hollywood, that's extremely small.  But in the world that I'm interviewing people in, that's extremely large.  And where do you put it? How do you define it? I'd say it's a good amount of money, but obviously, if you have more, I think it's a little better.  If you would have had more.  Say I can give you another-- I was the guy that gave another five or ten million, what would you have done differently? How would the film have been better do you think? I think only if maybe there was like just another half million there or something.  The weak points in the film that I see, are just basically when we didn't have the set up time, or the amount of takes that I wanted to cut the right scene, or to maybe quicken a scene that was a little slow. 

 We didn't have anywhere to go to.  But I think everyone has that problem, unless you're above a certain budget, where you can shoot, and shoot, and shoot.  George Lucas can probably shoot as often as he wants.  Right.  We're going to see another clip from the film.  This doesn't need any set up.  This is absolute murder mystery, horror classic.  This is another clip from the film "Reeseville. " (dog barking) Ben.  What's up? Do you hear something? ( pounding, echoing sound ) * ( fast, percussive music ) ( door slams as music stops ) Oh, I love that clip! That's such a classic.  Let me ask you a question about that clip.  It's about music.  The music is really good in this film.  I love the choice of music mixed in with the sound from the key.  How was the music done? I know that it's pretty expensive to do music.  How does an independent filmmaker do music? Well, I've worked with the composer on the last film that we did, "Lady in the Box. " And this film, basically what I did was I gave it to him and I said, let's see what you can come up with, and then let me guide it.  Because I was able to trust him after the work that he did on the one before.  And so, he came up with some good themes for a lot of the different characters that would weave in and out.  And then I'd give him ideas on the tempo and the pacing that I wanted him to create.  And then basically, Kevin and I would sit in a room and he'd be playing stuff, and I'd kind of direct him as to, you know, can we go this way or this way with it. 

 But he's a very creative person.  So he would basically play all of the instruments on keyboard, until we got everything that we wanted.  Then we had two live sessions with musicians, a cello and strings, and stuff like that to give it, not a synthesized sound, but more of an orchestral sound.  It's great.  Since we're talking about the budget bill to do that and some of the money, are you an independent filmmaker? Is this an independent film? I'd say it was.  I classify independent film basically as if you're making a film and don't really have a direction for it locked in when you're done with it.  So it's not really qualified as budget to me.  If I was able to put together $5 million and made a film, and didn't have a distributor lined up for it, then I'd still call myself an independent filmmaker.  Once you're tied to a distributor, I believe then that title tends to get blurred.  Why would you want to be tied to a distributor then? I've always wanted to ask somebody that.  What's the beauty in that? Why not just be alone? Well, you work very hard and ask a lot of people to give up a lot of their time into the creative process.  And once the creative process is done-- Not just financially, it's you want people to see your work.  You want to be able to get it out there.  So, having distribution on the way in, I assume would be much better, because you know at least it's going to be seen.  You say with a smile.  You want a distributor for your next film.  You live in Milwaukee.  I know there's independent filmmaking.  Many of the people we interview are from Milwaukee.  There's a scene there.  But it seems that when someone gets really good, like when you make your next film, it really rises up, do you just move to LA? Or do you stay here? Is there an infrastructure, is there a possibility for someone to be a big filmmaker and live in Wisconsin? I believe there is. 

 The film industry in Wisconsin is gaining some ground.  They passed some budgetary help in '08 that people are using.  Also what it does, is it allows me to be more of a normal person, in a sense.  I think it will help me as a director, because you have normal friendships, you have a normal wife and family, a beautiful wife and family, and I can grow on those things.  So those things tend to be at the top of my pyramid, where film is something I always want to do.  I'd like to make a consistent living at it.  But it is number two to home and family.  That doesn't happen out it LA.  Is there an infrastructure here for it, though? You and I were talking earlier, and you were saying you've got to bring people from LA in, you've got to bring actors in, for example.  Yeah, a lot of talent-- I think on the next one that we're trying to start, the leads, you really have to go outside, unless you get lucky.  There's a lot of acting talent in Milwaukee.  And it's getting to be more of a film crew town, too.  That's good.  Yeah, it's great.  You're part of the Milwaukee Mentoring Program, right? Can you tell me about that? Mark Metcalf is the head of it, and it's basically something where high school kids submit a short screenplay.  We go through a lot of them.  We talk to them all individually, have different sessions with them.  It gets narrowed down from 50, 60, 70 submissions to ten.  We narrow the 10 down to one.  Then everybody goes to work on one, with that student, and that gets made into a short film.  Wow, we'd like to have that on here. 

 That's a good idea.  That's not going to happen out in LA, is it? No, I don't think so.  An LA student mentoring program.  No, I don't think so.  This would be the fourth year that it's going on.  I'm really glad to have the time to do it.  Mark Metcalf has done a great job with it.  The kids just love the input back, even if they don't get chosen to do their film.  Sure, they learn a lot.  And one of the things that I've noticed is these kids, you know, they come in and you're like, have you made anything before, have you written anything before? Some of the kids are like, oh yeah, this will be my fifth film, or my fifth thing I've written.  Wow, just they have computers and access to computers, and stuff like that, where they can edit.  Yeah, that's awesome.  We're going to see another clip from your film, "Reeseville. " Why don't you set this one up for us? This is the one where David and Iris meet for the first time.  All right, yeah.  Iris is sort of seeing David as a loner coming into town, sort of from a distance.  And she's decided to come over and try to approach him, and at least welcome him back to the neighborhood.  She sort of has a little bit of a crush on him.  It's their first conversation, and it's a little clogged up.  Here is David and Iris meeting for the first time.  This is another clip from "Reeseville. 

" New shoes.  They're a few weeks old.  Well, they look fresh out of the box.  Didn't even know my father, yet you come here to say you're sorry.  That doesn't make much sense.  Well, it does to me.  There you go.  That was a short visit.  Kind of a waste of a new pair of shoes.  Well, you never know who you might run into.  Maybe before, but not lately.  What does that mean? I think you've lived in this town your whole life, getting you hair cut, eating dinner, going to school.  You know 20 faces, and you only talk to six.  You're way off base.  Really, I'm off? Then you put me on.  Come on.  Tell me something.  I have nothing to tell.  Did you ever want to get back at somebody? No.  You're lying.  Maybe I'm not the revenge type. 

 Yeah, but if you were.  I really don't want to talk. . .  Why? Are you afraid? My brother.  He betrayed a trust.  He told my parents something that I didn't want him to tell them.  And what, you got punished? Yeah, you could say that.  They left and never came back.  Where did they go? I have no idea.  They've been gone six years.  They didn't even say goodbye.  It must have been something big.  Well, everything's big in a small town.  Everything's big in a small town.  Speaking of small towns, this was filmed in a small town, in Reeseville, Wisconsin.  Tell me about the town, and what kind of reception coming and bringing in a big film makes.  Well, it's great.  What you want to do is not step on too many toes, and use the hospitality.  They offered us great hospitality, and loved to watch the process going on.  Did you have a crowd, you allowed people to watch? Sure, if anybody was, they just had an area where they could stand or watch, but mostly the people that showed up or whatever, they don't realize how long the process is, or what it takes, so they'd watch a little bit and get bored. 

 But everybody in Reeseville is really helpful.  The mayor, his daughter is actually in a little cameo.  She was six at the time.  There are some parts of the film I like, that are in the convenience store.  What's interesting about that-- Maybe it's an unfair comparison to Hollywood stuff, but I was thinking of a Hollywood film.  I can't remember what I saw recently, and there was a convenience store in it, and I'm like, it was fake.  You could tell.  It was fine.  But it was like it was a "convenience store," like a staged set design of a convenience store.  That's not a staged set design.  Tell me about that convenience store.  Well it's called the Stop and Shop.  It's on the only main street in Reeseville.  There's two taverns, a bowling alley, the Stop and Shop and a gas station.  That's pretty much all in main Reeseville there.  But again, they were really good to us there.  That's one of the things that I like, filming on location.  It comes with a bunch of problems, but you get much more of a natural feel to it.  Absolutely.  In a lot of the houses where we were filming there, you just see the layers of paint on the walls, and just things that give a little more realism to it.  You're not from a small town, but you're from Milwaukee. 

 Do you think that helps that you're from Wisconsin.  You come into Reeseville and you're talking to the Mayor, you're talking to the people, and you want to use someone's farmhouse, or whatever.  And like, you're from there, more than like you're some Hollywood dude, because I don't think people would trust the LA guy.  I can't imagine that they would in a small town.  Well, I think there are some issues.  I can use an example I just heard.  Michael Mann was in filming with Johnny Depp.  And apparently, he was a little rude to the locals.  And Johnny Depp said, basically, start to be nicer to these people, or you're not going to have me on this set.  Wow, good for Johnny.  Yeah, good for Johnny.  I always try to realize that everyone involved in the process is giving you their time.  I really don't want to go ahead with the process until I have a really good script, and the right finances, and be willing to tap my friends on the shoulder, and say hey I need you on this one, and I got the wherewithal to push it through.  And what's that like here? We're sitting here talking about your friends.  And we were talking about that a little bit earlier, about the film community in Milwaukee.  I mean, is it a network like that, where people are helping each other out and people working.  They're trying.  It's a little disjointed now.  But I think it's slowly growing.  The mentor thing with Mark Metcalf is helping, too, because you're meeting people who have the same interests that you wouldn't have met outside.  Do you want to focus for your career, I mean you say you want to stay here, which I understand. 

 But do you also want to focus on filming in the environment here in Wisconsin? Do you want to make your films in Milwaukee, in Wisconsin? Yeah, I'd like to.  I think with Lake Michigan and just all the settings, I think you can find just about a lot of the stuff that you want to film here.  It's funny, I was thinking about small towns and your film.  Small towns do have a lot of secrets.  So I can understand why, say someone dies, and the coroner and the sheriff are trying to find out who done it, but at the same time in asking this question, you're bringing up some very personal stuff, because everything's so connected.  Sure.  People are pretty stoic in small towns, but that's difficult for a filmmaker.  Being loquacious is a lot easier to put across than being stoic.  I mean, how do you put that across as a filmmaker? Well, that's one of the tricks.  It was one of the tricks as a writer, because when everybody has secrets, they have secrets because they don't talk.  And that doesn't bode well for good dialogue.  I mean, I wanted it to have the feel, and this is being presumptuous of me, because one of my favorite films is "In the Heat of the Night," which Rod Steiger was in, and Sydney Portier.  But that has that small town secretive feel.  Nobody trusts anybody, and stuff, as well as the racism line.  So that's kind of what I was going for.  That's a good thing to go for.  Let's see another clip from the film "Reeseville. " ( gasps ) What are you doing here? The door was unlocked.  Are you here alone? I live with my brother.  Sheriff Buchanan? Yes, Sheriff Buchanan Is he home? No, he went somewhere, but-- What? He'll be back soon? Yes.  You seem nervous. 

 I am.  It should be the opposite though, don't you think? Maybe it's just you.  You know my friend Athee who works at the Stop and Shop? We met.  Yeah, how'd you know about her dog? Well, I followed her home last night.  Did you go in her house? That is-- That is just really creepy.  Okay, well what do you want in here? The door was open.  I didn't invite you in.  Yeah, but you're not kicking me out.  Hey, you want to show me around? Upstairs, maybe? ( exasperated sigh ) What? Can't do conversations? I just-- I'm trying to decide whether you're serious or insane.  Maybe, I just like the feel of getting caught.  Ooh, he likes the feeling of getting caught.  Another clip from "Reeseville. " What's interesting about this film, and there's a lot of options with the kind of budget you have, you know, you could be the big car chase or whatever, but this is a very character-driven film.  What is the difference, do you think, for a character driven film versus some of the other films that are put out? Number one in the box office right now is "Quantum of Solace," the new James Bond film.  I think one of the reasons that it's number one is the fact that it's James Bond and you know exactly what you're getting.  You're getting chases, and Martinis, and whatnot.  There's certain ways that things are packaged, where if you have a lot of character development in a James Bond film, it's not really necessary.  I mean, he's got to look good.  He's got to come out of the water.  And he's got to have a girl.  I think in any genre, if you're watching it, and you believe the characters, if you believe like Steve Martin and John Candy in "Planes, Trains and Automobiles," that's why, to me, that comedy works, that movie works. 

 It doesn't matter about the other side of it.  Where it works is because you believe the character.  That's why it's fun.  I believe the characters.  They can make me laugh.  They can scare me.  They can do anything they want, because I believe who these people are.  Do you believe them because they're good actors, or do you believe them because the screenplay was realistic? Why do you believe them? What's character driven about them? Is it about the screenplay, or is it about the actors? I think it's a combination of both.  Dialogue from the screenplay and just the general, that it's not jumping to too many. . .  That's probably what's attracting the good actors, because you wrote a good screenplay, and they're like, okay I'm going to be in this, because I want to get to act.  Sure, and one of the things with Mark Hamill, just knowing how good he was, is that he can just have a moment where you're just looking at his face.  That's where, just the character of him, he's bringing the realism to it, because he's got it in his eyes.  It's tremendous.  Wow, it must be fun.  Watching this film and listening to you talk, I'm like, I should make a movie.  It sounds like a lot of fun.  Well, thank you very much for coming in today.  Thank you Charles.  I appreciate it. 

 And thank you all of you for watching today.  Today's film was "Reeseville. " Thank you all for joining us.  Today has been Director's Cut.  For more information on today's film, or any of the films featured on our show, please go to: wpt. org/directorscut.  While you're there, send us an email, because we'd love to hear from you.  I'm your host, Charles Monroe-Kane.  For everyone here at Director's Cut, thank you for joining us.  Check the gate. ECHO is on.