Your new movie Psychophonia
- in a few words, what is it about?
Phone calls from the dead meets swinging. How
did the project come into being in the first place? My wife
was watching a TV show about phone calls from the dead. Had never heard of
this phenomenon and looked it up. There are hundreds of reported cases of
people receiving phone calls from dead people. What
were your sources of inspiration when writing the story for Psychophonia
- and how fleshed out has the story been prior to being
turned into a script? What I had written for this was more
of a concept than a story, there was no flesh.
Do talk about your screenwriter Barbara Stepansky,
and what was your collaboration with her like?
Barbara is a
Nichols finalist, WGA award winner and brilliant. I let her do her thing. With
Psychophonia being
a horror film - is that a genre at all dear to you? Let
the Right One In, Pan’s
Labyrinth, Unbreakable, White Ribbon - at the height
of its game, horror is extremely dear. Horror films that are scary, but
have little meaning or beauty are of no interest to me. What got you into the filmworld in the first
place, and did you receive any formal training on the subject?
I was the president of the Ann Arbor Film Coop in the late
70’s. We exhibited 500 films a year and brought film directors to town
such as George Romero, Wim Wenders, Werner Herzog and Joseph H. Lewis.
With a potential distributor in attendance, George Romero premiered
Dawn of the Dead at Michigan and signed a distribution deal immediately
afterwards.
How would you describe yourself as a
writer and as a producer? My skill set is in the writing.
For me, the whole process begins with the intention of the story and
proceeds with the quality of the screenplay. Filmmakers, writers,
producers, whoever else who inspire you?
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As a teen, Creature
Features that played Saturday nights in Chicago (on WGN-TV). Would
watch the Hammer &
Universal movies on an 11 inch black & white
TV in bed, the movies came on late and it was so fun and magical. Senior year
in high school there was an Ingmar Bergman series on public television in
Chicago. His films had a spiritual element and the black & white
images spoke to me. Also, Val Lewton is very inspiring to me. Your favourite
movies?
Herzog’s Even Dwarves Started Small which was a perfect
depiction of my inner life as a teen.
Thanks
for the interview!
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