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Your new movie The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots - in a few words, what is
it about?
The movie is about a futuristic streetwise loner (NNen) and his robotic
companion (A.M.) that visit a local eccentric goods trader to make a
deal... but he soon finds himself in the crosshairs of the goods trader's
forceful and deadly ways. How did the project fall together in the first
place? Well first we were going to put together a series of
short movies with interesting concepts and ultimately combine them to make
one long movie, sorta like Cat's Eyes or Creepshow. One of those short movies had a character named NNen defusing
a bomb to save a young lady. But as we explored the character of NNen, we
felt as though his character and the region (The Campbell) had staying
power. We could make it DARK but HUMOROUS... and it involves ROBOTS and
GANGSTERS. It's actually hard not to make that interesting if you can
blend it all together. What were your inspirations for writing The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots? Although
we see a lot of films that involve the future and robots, we've never
actually seen it told from our cultural perspective. How would people that
grew up in the hip hop world from its inception view the future? We
imagine that the future is going to be cool and fresh, and heavily
influenced by the culture that we grew up in. The Campbell is a cool
place... hard but cool. We as people are comfortable with seeing robots
act like robots but in reality, we would be more comforatble acting
relaxed and cool. We want to explore those types of things.
The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots was mostly filmed in one
rather featureless, darkened room - so what kind of a challenge was it to
keep things visually interesting nevertheless - and do talk about the art
direction in your movie for a bit! Filming all in one area
forced us to be creative so we relied heavily on lighting and set design
to keep the look interesting. We chose items around the characters that
were, or at least appeared hand crafted to give more of a unique look.
Given that it was a sci-fi movie, we could be creative with the lights and
not appear "over the top". Sci-fi also allows lots of flourescent
colors... something love stories or comedies rarely call for. We tried to
take advantage of that. And finally, we changed the entire color scheme
during the duel to give somewhat of a feel that the location had changed,
even though it was apparent it hadn't. What can you tell us
about your overall directorial approach to your story at hand? Since
we weren't working with a million dollar budget (laugh), we felt as though
the dialog had to carry the story. If the dialog is good, you don't
necessarily need all of the fancy additives to keep people's interest. So
we tried to make sure they were always talking about something to keep
your interest, and let everything else work around it. You
have worked with one another on The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots through pretty much all
the phases of filmmaking - so what was your collaboration like, and based
on the experiences with this film, could you ever be tempted to work with
one another ever again? Well we're brothers (Rasheed/Saeed
Green), and so collaborating with one other was natural for us because we
work together on other things as well. As far as collaborating with the
other players, we would definitely work with anyone that participated in
this film. Chuckey Charles with music, Eva Jane Bunkley with makeup, Yoon
Chul Park, Steven and Joseph Digiacco with acting, Ron Andereson and Joel
Steven with coloring... it was a pleasure working with them and everyone
else involved as well.
Saeed, you also play one of the
leads in The Campbell:
Traders, Gangsters and Robots - so what can you tell us about your
character, what did you draw upon to bring him to life, and was he written
with yourself in mind from the get-go? We didn't want to
force the hero into a customary "macho" type of character.
NNen's power seemingly comes from his ability to "think" his way
out of situations. He wasn't written with me in mind, but our temperament
doesn't vary much so it worked. What can you tell
us about the rest of your cast, and why exactly these people? "Wonnie"
played by Yoon Chul Park and his servers/henchmen played by twins Steven
and Joseph Digiacco were heavily chosen based on the "character"
in their faces. As a matter of fact, the henchmen don't talk at all, but
the look and feel in their faces said everything. Plus, to give contrast
to Wonnie's height, we wanted the henchmen to be abnormally tall, which
the twins were so it came off in the footage. A
few words about the shoot as such, and the on-set atmosphere? The
atmosphere was cool. there weren't any ego issues for one because none of
us could really afford to have one. But more importantly, we all just
basically got along. Yoon wasn't available as much as Steven and Joseph
due to other obligations but he made time when possible until the project
was completed. The
$64-question of course, where can your movie be seen? The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots is available for $1.99 or $2.99HD on
Itunes, Amazon Video and Google Play. You can also visit www.WelcomeToTheCampbell.com
to purchase through those same outlets.
Anything
you can tell us about audience and critical response to The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots? More than
90% of the people that have actually seen it are like "wow... I
really enjoyed it!" Most people are drawn to the feel of it because
they haven't seen anything that they can directly compare it to. Visually
is where we're probably getting the most feedback... but everyone likes
something different about it. Me personally (Rasheed), I'm a dialogue
person so that's what I'm most proud of. If it has good dialogue, you can
actually cut the lights off and still be entertained by a movie. I hope
others feel as though our film accomplishes that. Any
future projects you'd like to share?
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We're just now putting
the final touches on the full length script to The
Campbell: Traders, Gangsters and Robots. We also have
a psychological thriller that I can't wait for audiences to see that I
believe will be a signature piece. We also have a light comedy in
development that will be easier on the faint hearted. Your/your movie's
website, Facebook, whatever else? Of course:
www.WelcomeToTheCampbell.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/Green-Company-Pictures-1756249801316956/
InstaGram: www.instagram.com/greencompanypictures/
Anything else you're
dying to mention and I have merely forgotten to ask? Yes...
Search My Trash is the joint!! Thank you and Salute*** Thanks
for the interview!
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