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Your new series Dramatica
Diablos - in a few words, what is it about and what's the
overall theme?
Dramatica
Diablos is a ten part
series of short, quirky films that are introduced by Count
Funghoula.
Each one will be a different genre.
The main idea behind each one is to challenge the way people think.
Why make an anthology series to begin
with, what attracted you to the format? I’m making short films
anyway, so I thought that it might give them a bit more meaning if they
were grouped together to form something bigger.
Most are between 5-15 mins, so if all are put together, they can be
packed up to make a feature, or just to be released on DVD. (Other) sources
of interpretation when dreaming up Dramatica
Diablos? I had shows like The
Twilight Zone and Outer Limits in mind when I came up with the
idea. I grew up on these
strange films that took you to new worlds and often had a twist.
This series gives the leeway to explore sci-fi, fantasy, horror and
maybe even arthouse. You of course also have to talk about Dramatica
Diablos' host Count
Funghoula for a bit, a character you have used in other projects
before - so a few words about his creation and evolution, and what made
him the perfect host for this?
I used Count
Funghoula in
Horror House, which was an expensive series to make in comparison to the
films that I’m making. The Count
Funghoula minis had only just come out when I realised that I
wasn’t likely to do a second series of Horror House.
At least not in the short term.
I decided to keep the Count alive by making him the host of this
new series and it’s been working well.
I do love being the Count!
What can you tell us
about Dramatica
Diablos' episodes so far?
We have 3 episodes finished so far
and will be shooting a fourth very soon.
The first one is Quest of Questions.
In that, we got to do a bit of sword and sorcery and explored
today’s changing values. It’s
a comedy but has depth.
The second episode is Blargenfloof and the Seventh Golden Shamrock.
This one is completely in rhyme and is intended to be like a
children’s story book. It
also has a twist in it and a moral.
The first two have Vixey The as my
co-star, and I love the job she did with her characters.
The third episode, Sinister
Symbiosis, is a gory horror story.
Anastasia C Kouloukas plays a bondage mistress in this.
I don’t want to give away what happens, but throughout the movie,
there are spots that make you think. This
isn’t just splatter for splatter's sake.
The next one is going to be more
arthouse and is a commentary on the decay of the modern world and how
progress has moved as backwards, rather than forwards.
It’s called Klink, Klunk, Klonk and will be filmed under
lockdown conditions.
Do talk about your
series' approach to both humour and horror for a bit?
I’d love to, but most
people really don’t believe what I am going to say, even though they
could research it and see that my thoughts do have teeth. Basically, I see the black humour
I bring to the films as being traditional Jewish humour.
You see this in a modern context with Mel Brooks and Lloyd Kaufman.
You also see it with actors like Gene Wilder and how he interprets
his roles. More to the point
though, you see it in Jewish works going right back to biblical times.
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People might not always see the
dark humour in the biblical stories, but you can see it more clearly when
you read Antiquities of the Jews by Josephus.
In his telling of the Book of Esther, there is a scene where the
king has found out that his prime minister, Haman, has used his seal to
make a day where all the Jews will be killed.
The King finds this out at the same time as he is told that his
Queen is Jewish, so the king goes looking for Haman to punish him. Haman finds out that the king has
found out and runs to the queen to beg forgiveness before the king finds
him and sentences him to death. Haman
finds the queen lying on a couch and kneels down to beg, but finds himself
quivering and blubbering. He
keeps moving closer to her until he is wailing and virtually on top of
her. At that moment, the king
bursts in and can’t work out wtf is going on.
The King screams – “Haman! First you try to kill my wife and
now I find you trying to ravish her????” - that humour is the very same style
as what I use. The Jewish
community tends to be quite conservative and would be horrified at me
claiming that my humour is traditional but you just see it coming out,
generation after generation, century after century by so many Jewish
writers.
You
play one of the leads in (so far) every episode of Dramatica
Diablos so far - was that intended from the get-go or did it just
turn out that way? And do talk about your characters for a bit? The main reason that I make
my own films is so that I have roles to act in.
I wasn’t getting into very many local productions so it was time
to just do it myself. Earlier
this year, I did produce one film that I’m not really in, unless you
count background actors. That
was Hamlet for the Fireys. It
was to help raise awareness during our bushfire crises.
In that case, the cause was too important, but aside from something
like that, my main purpose in writing and producing is so that I can act.
What
can you tell us about the rest of Dramatica
Diablos' cast, and why exactly these people?
We haven’t filmed all ten
episodes yet, so I can only talk about Vixey Teh, Anastasia C Kouloukas
and Glen Cook. These 3 have
been with me since I started making indie films.
They were all in my first indie horror film, Dark Night of the
Zomboogies. All three have
their diplomas in filmmaking and have helped me learn and become the
producer that I am. The
$64 question of course, where can Dramatica
Diablos be seen? Dramatica
Diablos is being released on my YouTube channel -
https://www.youtube.com/channel/
UChNUuG84Sakk7AVSpJ4yTOg.
Later on, I’ll be getting
it out whereever I can. I’m
already in talks with a couple of places that want to feature it on their
outlets, but it's early days so I’ll let people know when/if that
happens.
Anything you can tell us about
audience and critical reception of Dramatica
Diablos? So far, people seemed to be
liking the series. Neither of
the first two episodes has gone viral yet, but they both got a decent
amount of views each on YouTube. It’s
probably too early to know who things will pan out though. So what does the future hold in store
for Dramatica
Diablos, and other future projects you'd like to share? Dramatica
Diablos will
probably be going until mid next year, and then I’ll be looking at what to
do next. During this time, and
as soon as the lockdowns are over, I’ll be getting the last few days of
filming my feature Badass Bunyip out the way so that we can release
that.
Your/your
series' website, social media, whatever else?
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I gave my
YouTube site
before, but here is my Twitter: @DarkVisible - social media itself is like a house of cards, and fellow film makers
are finding their YouTube, Twitter, Facebook etc being locked, out of the
blue, and with no way of recovering them, so if one ever disappears, try
the other. I am also spreading
my films out to other places, such as Vimeo, and to anyone that will put
them on their site.
Anything
else you're dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask?
Not really.
The current lockdowns have given me pause to think and re evaluate.
What people are seeing now is the various projects that were set in
motion before we all ended up quarantined.
Although I don’t have any big plans in place, I am spending time
studying up courses and will possibly have something to announce in the
next few months. For now
though, I’ll be finishing off the series and my feature film. Thanks
for the interview! Thanks for having me on your blog again, Mike!
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