Actress Tina Krause Interview (+facts & funny stories)
This is my interview with Tina Krause, a famous American B-movie actress,
director, producer, cinematographer, and production designer.
I
interviewed Tina on video, which I’m embedding below.
To keep
this page even more informative, I’m also including a pretty massive
section of interesting and amusing facts and hilarious anecdotes from Tina
Krause’s career and life that I learned from her other interviews.
Finally,
for those who prefer reading the interview rather than watching the video,
I’m adding a text version of the interview below the section with
facts.
Now, let’s get down to business.
Tina Krause Interview (Video)
Contact me if you want me to show you Tina’s short film Picturebox that she mentions in the interview.
And if you haven't seen Tina Krause's film Limbo, here it is:
Additional Facts About Tina Krause
In this section, I gathered the most interesting facts and surprising
stories about Tina. I compiled the information from her many other
interviews I found online.
Some of the stories were told by
Tina in multiple interviews. But in one interview Tina
may omit some of the details that she mentions in another one and vice
versa.
So for each anecdote, I put all the available details
together to combine them into as complete stories as I could.
Also,
I have a whole separate article about Tina Krause’s 1999 movie Limbo
explaining its meaning and featuring many more anecdotes.
Beginning of Tina’s acting career & Wave Productions
In Tina’s childhood, acting was the last thing on her list of what she’d
like to do when she grows up: acting requires learning actor’s lines,
which is similar to what you have to do in school. Tina hated school.
In
1994 (presumably), Tina was supposed to go to a horror convention (Chiller
convention held at the Fairleigh Dickinson University in Hackensack), with
her boyfriend. But they broke up, and Tina kept the tickets. So she took
her sister (who wanted a Jason mask) to the convention.
Although
Tina has always liked horror movies, she didn’t care about the movie
industry enough to dream of becoming involved in it. She went to the
convention just because she already had the tickets.
At the
convention, Tina was approached by the guys from Wave Productions (Aven
Warren and Gary Saul) who asked her if she was an actress. Tina said,
“No”, and when they were about to walk away, Tina added,
“And if I lie and say I am, will you give me a part?” And they
said,
“Yeah, right now. Let’s see how you look on the camera”.
Tina thought they were kidding or lying. But they
weren’t.
The guy pulled a script out of his pocket (as Tina
says, “like a [_]ing magician”). He explained her role, obviously a
victim.
The director told Tina that they’d shoot just outside
the building — there still were many convention attendees walking around.
He said they’d just ask any passers-by not to walk in front of the camera,
but they could watch if they wanted. Knowing she wouldn’t have to go with the
guys to an isolated place, Tina felt safe.
According to Tina,
it was a short clip in Virgin Sacrifices*. They filmed it right
outside the convention, near the wooded area, where Tina’s character gets
choked.
After filming, Tina and her sister returned to the
convention and bought the mask (which was expensive, so Tina jokes that it
still bothers her to this day).
Up above, there was a large
screen that played videos and many people in front of it. Tina’s sister
noticed that some people watching the screen were also looking at Tina and
pointing at her. Out of curiosity, she looked at the screen too and saw
that it was showing the very scene Tina had just filmed outside the
convention about an hour before. Tina was very surprised to see it. At
that point, Tina realized that it was not a joke — she had just acted for
a film that was being seen by the audience, for real.
For this
one scene, Tina was paid an amount of money equal to the sum she earned at
her regular job per week. Tina thought it was the “easiest money in the
world”, and it would be a shame not to use this opportunity, so she
continued acting.
The guys from Wave Productions explained to
Tina that those films were low-budget shoddily made videos and that she
shouldn’t expect to become a star. As we can see, Tina was okay with it
and continued acting with Wave Productions, and later with many other
companies.
The reason why Tina was approached by the Wave
Productions guys is that one of their fans had a fetish for women with
very long hair, which Tina had at that time. Wave Productions’ business
model involved shooting films that included details suggested by their
audience — people paid to have films or videos made based on their ideas.
Many of the requests Wave Productions got were very specific and far
weirder than a long-haired girl being strangled… There was also an option
to order a film with a specific actress…
Not all films
contained nudity. For example, Rana, the Queen of the Amazon didn’t
(although there is a pretty long scene of Tina in sexy underwear).
However, generally in all films the outfits were somewhat revealing or
suggestive (such as a “no bra with a T-shirt” policy in some of the films,
including Rana).
One of the most popular fetishes (but
not the weirdest ones) was drowning in a quicksand. To make a “quicksand”,
Gary dug a hole in a swamped area in the woods where they were shooting,
put a plastic bag into it, filled it with water, and threw there the same
dirt he had just dug up. The problem was that the dirt contained all the
bugs (including leeches that another actress once has had on herself). It
was awful, so this is one thing Tina didn’t continue doing. Another part
Tina disliked (but Gary loved) was shooting in the woods in general: there
were always a ton of mosquitoes. Once, Tina came back from a shooting in
the woods looking “like a pepperoni pizza”.
Tina became one of
the most popular actresses for Wave Productions.
*It’s strange
that Tina says it was Virgin Sacrifices. This film came out in
1996, while Tina’s earliest roles were in 1994.
Dawn Murphy in a quicksand scene in Rana, the Queen of the Amazon, 1994 by Gary Whitson and Wave Productions
Tina’s weirdest role
One of the weirdest things Tina was asked to do on camera is popping
balloons. She didn’t have to get undressed. She didn’t have to pop
balloons in any seductive way. It was just popping balloons by squeezing
them with her hands.
When asked about what kind of context this
had and what the plot of that movie or video was, Tina answered, “These
have no plots”.
Apparently, it was also shot for Wave
Productions, upon a request of one of their fans.
Tina’s first role in a big production film
Once, Tina got a tiny role as an extra in Montana, a 1998 film for
the nationwide TV channel HBO. Tina was very excited because it was her
first mainstream big production film.
When Tina arrived on the
set, one of the casting agents came up to Tina and said,
“Do you mind playing a bigger part? You have a whispering part, but
there is nudity involved. However, you will be playing with Stanley
Tucci.”
Being excited by the fact of playing with Stanley Tucci, Tina
didn’t care about nudity (although, she had probably been nude in her
previous films anyway).
The whole role consisted of Tina, being
all nude, whispering something in Stanley Tucci’s ear — a very short
appearance.
When filming, because of being among celebrities,
and especially playing with Stanley Tucci, Tina was so nervous that she
couldn’t stop making Tucci laugh. After being told,
“Stop making him laugh”, Tina did it right.
It’s only
after this role that Tina told her parents that she was an actress.
However, she forgot to tell them that this role included nudity.
Tina’s
parents told all of their friends about it so everyone could see Tina on
HBO the day the movie was aired. So, when Tina’s parents saw the scene on
TV, they were shocked to see their daughter all naked.
The
worst part is that the next day, Tina’s mom had to drive her to the
airport (for a flight to shoot another movie in Florida):
It was a short distance, but the longest drive I’ve ever had in my
life. [imitates her mom]: “Why didn’t you tell us!... Our friends saw,
they tuned in!..”
Later, Tina brought her parents to screenings of her other
films, where her roles were much more shocking, but she had warned them
appropriately, so it went well. Before one such screening (Salvation by Blood, with Tina’s very violent and perverse role of a sadistic psycho
murderer — really over the top, according to Tina), Tina asked her parents
to either leave before the film or stay until the end, even if they prefer
to keep their eyes closed, but not leave during the film or yell at Tina.
Her parents stayed until the end. Afterwards, Tina, anxious, came up to
her mom to ask what she thought. Her mom gave Tina a strict squinting
look, and, after a pause, said “You’re a good actress. That’s all I have
to say”. As for the dad, Tina didn’t worry: he’s always been cool.
Another cop anecdote
When filming at the Wave Productions studio (which was in a strip mall),
Tina’s character was being roasted:
He’s [Gary Whitson] like, “It’s a cannibal one, you’re gonna be
roasted”... He brings out a heating thing that turns red like a toaster
oven: “It’s gonna be the fire”. I’m like, “What?” [laughs]. And he’s
like, “We’re gonna tie you to the spit, and I’m gonna put barbecue sauce
all over you, and then you’ll look like you’re being roasted.” I’m like,
“This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard in my life…”
While acting, Tina was screaming, so the neighbors called the
cops. When the cops came, the director put a blanket over Tina.
So now, I’m covered in barbecue sauce, it’s hot, and there is a blanket
over me. And I’m just like “You don’t think the cop’s gonna ask what’s
under the blanket?” [laughs]
In another interview, Tina says it was a towel (and then a
blanket again):
I’m yelling through the towel:
“I’m fine!”
“Can we
see?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
And by
law, they have to…
The policemen took the blanket off Tina’s face. Tina expected
the cops to annoy them for a long time with questions and paperwork, but
the cops just laughed and asked if they could watch the filming. The
director said, “No, it’s a closed set”.
Tina has never done hardcore films
Although she has been made such offers many times, and the money offered
for it was “astronomical”, Tina has never accepted: she didn’t want to be
labelled this way, be known for this, and she “wouldn’t be able to live
with herself” if she did it.
Although Tina has had many
softcore roles in
American exploitation films, she sees hardcore as something different, so she has “never crossed
that bridge”.
Instead, Tina has always been drawn to horror and
tried her best to get into this genre. She also enjoys comedy. Tina has
even had a role in a romantic comedy — More than Money’s Worth (one
of the three stories in Bent, a 2004 film by Jason Santo).
Tina’s childhood and love for horror
Tina went to a private Catholic school, where she’d sometimes get into
trouble for bringing Fangoria magazines about horror movies and reading
them during lessons. The magazines were full of violent images and,
obviously, were considered vulgar.
It was Tina’s dad, a horror
fan, who shared those magazines with her. Tina’s mom’s favorite film was
Halloween. Every Halloween, she made a bowl of popcorn and asked
her children to watch the film with her because she was scared to do it
alone, even though she had seen it many times.
Tina has always
had troubles with sleep — insomnia and nightmares. So in order to keep
Tina quiet, her dad left her in front of TV late at night, to watch horror
movies that children aren’t supposed to watch.
Also, Tina would
often get into trouble for fights, because she knew how to stand up for
herself (notably, Tina did martial arts). She has been expelled out of
multiple schools because of the fights…
Sources of all
these facts and stories:
interview by Unboxing the Underground,
interview by Master Chaos,
interview by the Slices Podcast,
SUB 25 Entertainment interview,
interview with Show Me Something Wrong,
interview by Indie Film Cafe Network,
interview by Gruesome Hertzogg.
Text Version of My Interview with Tina Krause
Let's start with you telling us what you're currently working on.
Right now I'm working on a new horror movie. It's going to be
called Bughouse.
It's about a group of youtubers that go
out there, and they explore abandoned buildings, and they happen to
stumble upon this one abandoned building which is an insane asylum, but it
has an urban story attached to it. They want to go find out if it's real,
what the whole deal is about this place and stuff.
They run
into a group of people that tell them not to go in at night because it's
dangerous, fair enough, right? But they don't listen. And it gets bad from
there. I'm going to leave it at that. I don't want to give too much
away.
It's a feature. I'm going to be looking at casting in a
little while as soon as we get the rest of the budget together. That's
pretty much where we're at right now.
And I also have a film festival coming up in Atlantic City. It's a horror
film festival. It's called Wicked Garden. So, if anybody wants to submit,
it's there.
I'm also in the middle of shooting of
Luna and Persia Go to Atlantic City. We are shooting next weekend,
I believe. It's going to be fun. We already shot, I'd say, about a little
less than half. So we'll probably be at the halfway mark by the weekend,
and then we'll figure out the rest of the schedules for the rest of the
cast and get that out there.
Are you doing an Indiegogo campaign to raise funds for these two
films?
We may. I don't want to say right now exactly yet because
we're actually talking to investors. So, depending on what goes down,
we'll figure it out from there. So yes, maybe. Let me say maybe.
I think I saw a campaign on
Indiegogo for Luna and Persia.
Yeah, that's a separate company. I'm only the cinematographer
for it. I have nothing to do with production as far as that goes. Yeah,
they probably do have an Indiegogo for that. I'm pretty sure they do.
Now let's move to your debut as a director — to Limbo. I know
about a few things that inspired you to make this film. But apparently I
don't know about the main thing. So what was that?
So you know about people not taking female directors
seriously at the time, and especially at that time. And then I also didn't
want everything to be based on sex. If you watch Limbo, it's not
based on it. There's really no nudity in it.
Limbo was
originally supposed to be a vampire movie, like you know, “rawwrrr!” —
fangs and all — “I suck your blood…”
I didn't write the vampire
movie. That was Patrick O'Connor. He had made a comic book, and he had
asked me if I could make this into a movie, and I had said yes after
reading the comic. But the problem was I was getting typecasted at the
time for vampires all across the board. And the last thing I wanted to do
was directing a vampire film. Like I was just, "No, I'm not doing this."
So, I talked to Pat, and I said, "What if we make it different? Something
really cool or whatever." He didn't have any objections with it, he's
like, "Sure." And then eventually I started writing.
And you
heard the story where I talked to my friend, and we had a power cut off,
and I was trying to figure out how am I going to make this like cool or
whatever.
And I ate those stupid chocolates… without asking, of
course, because I didn't know… He had gotten back from, I don't know, some
hippie gathering, whatever. A “Rainbow Gathering” — that's it. I ate one
of these chocolates. The last one that was in the dish. And it was loaded
with whatever it was loaded with…I don't even know. It was a three-day
hallucination. I was going in and out of hallucinations. It was crazy. But
then I was like “Damn, that almost felt like hell.” And I was like, “Oh,
let's just write a purgatory, man. It's a far more interesting story.” And
it just changed into that. So I never made it a vampire movie.
I think I saw in Limbo a shot of this woman, the main character,
biting the man on the neck.
That was dedicated to the comic book, because I changed it so
much that I had to give him some kind of… we put a little bit of vampirism
in it. I had to give him something for it. I mean, he was the producer. It
wasn't just me. It was him, too. He was the executive producer. So yeah, I
did put a little bit of the comic book in there, but changed the story
completely.
Because of that bite on the neck, I thought that probably the meaning
of that statement, “you cannot accept who you are, and because of that
you have these problems”, was that she was going through a
transformation into a vampire, and she couldn't accept being a vampire,
but apparently it's not the case.
No, she was going to hell for murdering people.
So she couldn't accept the fact that she was a sadist.
Yeah.
Because she gets those people die in different ways, if you've noticed.
Not everybody gets the normal bite on the neck. Like the other girl was
totally emaciated. Another one was poisoned. You'll see if you look. One
was hit by a car. One was ripped to pieces, but you only see him screaming
— you don't see everything. You'll see the blood come down, but,
obviously, he wasn't bitten on the neck.
And then, as you
noticed, as she's chasing one girl, she comes down, and you see what looks
like Jesus Christ on a cross — the girl that gets her middle insides
ripped out. And that's kind of the mockery of the Holy Trinity — to have
that in the base of hell pretty much. And just as the beginning of where
you're going — having her insides torn out by random hands. That's not
vampirism at all. That's straight up hell.
So when she comes
down until the very end, where you see the writing on the wall, and the
days gone by, and it's just like forever, and it's that question on the
wall. And if you noticed, she looks back, and when she turns around, there
is no face because this is it. Like, you made your choice. You didn't ask
for the forgiveness you probably should have. You see where it's going.
But
again, you could do that with anything, like technically you could say
that I guess about a vampire. I don't know much about vampirism. But I
would assume if you can't walk into the light and you're going to burst in
flames, you're probably not a good person.
So yeah, anything
could be there. You know, one of the demons, it goes down the line.
The image of the personal hell where she gets in one of the sequences
at the end, it's urban decay, and you actually gravitate to abandoned
buildings. Can you tell me more about it?
There's a couple of reasons for that. I happen to love the
way abandoned buildings look. I have such a love for that stuff and the
history of it and just the old decaying look. It looks almost like an
insane asylum. It's really-really weird looking.
One of the
other things that I do for a job is I'm a production designer. So I have
an eye for these things, like “this is what I want it to look like”. I
want you to feel, I don't want the normal brimstone and fire and all that,
because we don't know what hell is. We have no idea. It could be a maze
for all we know. It could be complete darkness. In my mind, it would be
these rooms that you would go into and just find whatever it is that
you're going to find, and it's not going to be pretty, and it's not going
to feel comfortable. It's going to be cold and damp. In my mind, that's
what it would be. Weird and just uneasy, it wouldn't make sense to me. It
would be frightening.
There's symbolism of the elevator going
down, things of that nature. So there's a lot of symbolism in there. But
the other thing is it's sitting in my own backyard. So I lived in that
building…
For about seven or eight years.
Yeah. I lived in that
building, and when I was looking around, I had my hellish experience in
that building when I ate that candy. All the ideas were there, and so it
became a part of that hell. Why would I go anywhere else to shoot it when
I have everything right here? It is where I had the experience and where
every thought and all the meetings and all the back and forth — all
happened in my apartment. It all happened in that building. So, I'm like,
you know, use it. And I did.
You especially like exploring insane asylums. Why?
Yeah.
You know, I'm not 100% sure why insane asylums in particular. Maybe
there's a little bit of a horror factor there. Might be a little bit of
one, but there's also the history of some of this stuff and the things you
find is like… if I didn't I would have never known this existed.
I
never knew that there were wheelchairs made out of wood and they were
gigantic, like who is this big, but I've seen that, and they have the
spring coils on them. You find a lot of things.
I found a
whole lab — a whole lab, I don't even know what they did there, to be
honest with you, I'm just like “whoa!” But some of these insane asylums
have movie theaters and things like that, and all kinds of crazy stuff
that you wouldn't ever know.
And then they have some, you could
say, some very dark-dark history. I found, as we call them, people cages.
I had to look it up. I was like “What the hell is this?” And it's not even
wide enough — if I were like this, crunched up, to fit me and no one
bigger than me. And I'm only 5 feet. I found out that they were the cages
that they transported lobotomy patients to go to wherever they're going to
stay and be a vegetable, whatever bed they're assigned to. And I was just
like, “That is HORRENDOUS”.
I found so many different things
that I had to look up that would make your stomach turn. But then I looked
up what the medicine was back then and of course it's not like it is now.
They didn't know. They were going by other things, and everything was a
test. I remember a lot of medicine and stuff like that was… how do I want
to put this… torturous, man — torturous. Nobody knew until later, and
until medicine started refining, and they were learning more about plants
and more about certain medications and more about healing — time and
experiments. So nobody's going to go for a lobotomy right now. That's
caveman style. But that's what they did.
Even the way the
buildings were structured and the thought behind it — some of the insane
asylums were farms, and they were farms that they took people, let's say
that had Tourette's — they didn't know what Tourette's was. They didn't
know that these guys think normally — it's just they have a tic that they
can't help, if it's speech or if it's a twitch, whatever. But they're not
crazy. And so there were different levels of certain people. But society
was allowed to dump them, and just have the state take care of them.
That's it. You know, “the devil put a curse on them” or whatever garbage
they believed in. And doctors figured it out. So they let them go out and
farm, and that fed that whole entire area of like 900 and something acres
of land.
There were underground tunnels that they used to
transport food or patients. We don't think about it, but up in the far-far
north you get a lot of snowstorms. That's a long way to go. 980 acres.
That's a long way not to be fed for a month or being taken care of. Yeah.
Underground tunnels…
It's very interesting how people thought
back then. And that's probably why I am so intrigued. I want to see what's
left behind.
There were chapels in there. There was all kinds
of crazy stuff in there that you wouldn't think of: cafeterias, reading
rooms, like “What, in an insane asylum? What are you talking about?” There
were kids' hospitals. Oh, wow. Kids hospitals. Lots of lots of different
stuff there.
I even took a doll from one of the insane asylums
in Rockland County, I think. They had a hospital for children who needed
shock therapy, if you could believe this. And I found a couple of those.
They only had like maybe two left, but the whole area had slots for all
the shock treatment beds, and they had the dials of how high they can go
with the electric. They had the leather straps for the feet, the arms, the
head, across the waist… So, they weren't doing little tiny things. They
were shocking the hell out of these kids. And these platforms I could not
fit on. So, they were for children, and it made my stomach turn. We were
like, "What the hell?" And then upstairs was the playroom. And I took one
of the dolls in there, and it was so crazy because the doll is like a rag
doll. It was a really weird looking rag doll. Hold on. Hold on one second.
I'm going to show it to you.
Here we go. Can you see it?
Yes. And it looks pretty new, I'd say. Did you restore it?
No, it never left the children's seat. It's dirty. It might
be the coloring, whatever. But it never got destroyed. It was sitting in a
rocker, so I just grabbed it. It was in the children's playroom. In that
particular hospital, all the paint was peeling off the walls and stuff,
but for the most part nobody destroyed stuff there. It was really weird. I
mean it was cool looking, but no one ever destroyed anything there. So, I
actually got a chance to get some good photos from there.
They
had a small wheelchair in one of the… the tunnels that go up, and as
you're going up, there are these mini windows, because it's going
underground. So, as you're going up and starting to hit whatever hospital
you're going to, because they veer off, there's different tunnels for
every different place. They have these little windows so when the sunlight
comes in, it gives you like slits of light so that you can see without
using the regular lights on. It just gives you slits of light so you could
see as you're coming up to the top of the tunnel. It's pretty wild. I
caught a wheelchair in there with the slit of light coming down and
hitting the wheelchair and then it's just like an endless nothing behind
it. It was kind of cool.
I have a book out. I'm going to be
working on another one, as a hobby, just on my downtime. It's UrbanEx. We
have it on Amazon.
And that one's really cool. That's got a lot
of the places I visited.
I visited a concrete city, which was
insane. It was a whole city made out of concrete. Pretty wild. And a
couple of other places. A hat factory. The really large one was the
aerosol factory. It's like three factories or four factories connected to
each other. It's huge. And then a couple of graveyards. We did a couple of
graveyards and an old diner. I took trips around and stuff like that. But
that's an interesting one. I think the next one I'm going to put out I'm
probably going to do just the insane asylums. It would be cool because I
have some really good images.
So, UrbanEx is the name of your book. And I heard in other
interviews that it was supposed to be a video project.
Yeah. We're not saying that we're not doing that. We're going
to do the book first and just get that done. And while I'm compiling my
videos of the places and stuff like that, then we'll put that out. The book
is easy to get out and keep it going. I still have to edit and I'm still
running around getting all the video footage and stuff, but yes, I do have a
lot of video footage. And we are going to put something out there pretty
soon.
Will it be on YouTube or elsewhere?
Probably YouTube.
In addition to what you told me about Limbo, you were also
inspired by nightmares. If it's not too personal to ask about, could you
please share about these nightmares? What exactly happened in them?
I've always had nightmares about the end of the world. I don't
know if we really want to talk about this, because the way things are
looking right now, it ain't looking too good.
I had nightmares
for a long time — about nuclear war and about hell — pretty much the two. I
saw crazy stuff.
One time we had a nuclear war and everything
went black and it was a beautiful sunny day, by the way, and it was always
July. For some reason, I always feel like it's in July. It's definitely a
summer month, but it just was bad. Fireballs were coming off the water and
burning everybody. The sky went black. And then the next day, everything got
cold. It looked like snow, but it wasn't. It was ash coming, like hailing
down.
And then I just saw this person. They were in pieces. They
were cut up in pieces, and they assembled themselves together and walked
over to me, and it was the devil. I just knew it. He just showed me [makes a
gesture with her arm] — he just went like this “See what everybody did?” And
kind of wanted me to follow him, but I wouldn't. I went back. There was
bleachers or something, and I went up on the bleachers and I told him, “I'm
not following you”. He just shrugged his shoulders and went, “Fine”. And
everywhere he went things were dying.
It was the craziest.
There's so many I see. But it's always based around a nuclear something. And
so now here we are today, and what's in the freaking news? And I'm not going
to worry about it. I'm just like, “You know what? Here we go.” I'm gonna
make my movies, and let's just focus there because I can't even think about
this. I'll have more nightmares. I'm trying not to. I’m going to make
another nightmare movie. [laughs]
[If you want to read about more nightmares, I have a post where I write down
my own real
nightmare stories
every time I have an interesting scary dream. And I have a separate post for
weird dream stories
that aren’t scary.]
Do you ever try to deliver any kind of serious message or make a
statement through your films?
A lot of my films are basically just horror. I don't know how
serious… I mean in that one, you know, purgatory [Limbo], a message
in itself is “Don't lie to yourself”. If you want to look at it that way,
that's pretty serious, right?
But I haven't made a drama or anything
like that that's like, “Here's the message of the day”. No. It's more
storytelling. The other thing is when I do the UrbanEx thing — that's more
history.
There is a message in the sense of “This is true, this
is a real thing. There is history behind it. There is a reason why something
happens.” You just can't make things up out of the blue. And you can't just
sit there and go, "Oh, they're horrible." Because you don't know the reason
why.
And I don't want people to look at those things as being
just junk buildings. They're not. They got so much to say in themselves. But
as far as the movies, the only message that I would make, unless they decide
to do something that is religious-based or whatever, I think the only
message would be, “Pay attention to how your movie looks and the story
you're telling”. Look at everything. Pay attention to your actors. Pay
attention to everything. Don't just make a movie because you can or you
think you can. Really do the work. Put the leg work in. That's the only
kind. But there’s no message my movies would say, like, "Oh, be good to
kids…" — nothing like that. I do whatever I want to do and I write whatever
I want to write. It's kind of where it's going to go.
When filming with a small budget, you have to get creative. But this also
may lead to solutions that compromise safety. Have you ever gotten in
situations where things turned dangerous or even scary when filming?
Most of the stuff I knew how to do. I just knew it wasn't going
to be a problem. But there was this one scene where it looks like he's going
to get hit by a car. An actor thought it would be a good idea to actually
hit him. And I was like, "No! You can't do that! I'm even uncomfortable with
him coming close.” He's like, “He knows me. We're buddies. We're boys… He
knows to stop at a certain point.” I'm like, "No way. No way."
So
I went to the actor and I said, "I'm going to put a tape line down, and I
want you to not only not cross it, but stop way before it." And he was like,
"Why?" I'm like, "Because I think my buddy's going to hit Nikki with the
car."
And he tried to, but he didn't hit him.
But
yeah, I was like, "Oh my god, are you crazy?"
There are times
where you know you could get hurt. In any B film making there's always going
to be running scenes and stuff like that. Of course, somebody could trip,
somebody could fall.
Most of the places that we shot in that
building, I've been in a thousand times before. I did artwork down there or
whatever. And that whole back area, I checked it out before we shot or
anything like that. But yeah, it is an old building, not everything is safe,
but as far as being clean, super clean and whatever and padded floors,
no.
I remember a scene in Rana, the Queen of the Amazon, where Rana is
standing on a log that is burning, and she has a loop around her neck. It
was disturbing to watch, because I actually was scared for the actress. Do
you remember anything about this particular scene? Did she have any
support, like another rope that ensured she wouldn't lose her balance?
So, what it is is that rope that's… all right, we're giving
away a secret, aren't we?... That loop around her neck, it's not really
attached to her and attached to anything. It's just dangling in the back.
And there is a harness. So, if they want to pick her up, it'll be in a
different shot, and she'll actually be in a harness. Nothing will be around
her neck.
So, she had a harness. It was well hidden.
Yes. There's
certain rigs that are done for this. A lot of the stuff is rigged like that.
So those loops in the back, they're not attached to the actual thing.
I should have understood that.
Uh no. No. I’m glad you didn’t — that means we did a good job!
[laughs]
If it makes you nervous, then it's a good job. Then we
did that right.
Have you ever had any problems with the authorities when making films?
Yes. [laughs]
I was in Florida. I can't remember
where in Florida. I want to say Springfield, but I could be wrong. We were
working on a movie called I Am Vengeance. This was a very long time
ago. I played a psycho. From like the hippie era. We shot a death scene
where I stabbed this guy to death. It was like in a barn or right outside
the barn. But it was a good scene. It was great. And I really look
psychotic, so that's fantastic.
I'm covered with blood. The
director was like, "Okay, I can't take everybody all at once. So, Tina," —
because I was staying at the director's house — "why don't you and Sean hang
back and I'll come and get you?"
So, me and Sean are in — now
this is important, okay? — me and Sean are in the barn. It's summer. There's
a “no trespassing” sign on the outside of this whole area that we were
shooting in, by the way. I should have told him to leave me the permits, and
I didn't. As we're in the barn, no one can see us from outside. But I notice
the ground's moving a little bit, and I'm like, "What the [ __ ] is that?"
And then I notice behind Sean, are these giant cockroaches, and they're
coming up off the ground, and they're walking behind him and I just said
“Run!!!” So now we're running out of there. So now we're not sitting in the
barn. Screw that. And I'm outside, and the problem is the Karo syrup is
sugar, and it is summer, and it is now starting to be like maybe 5:30-ish
now.
I'm trying to get the stuff off of me. We only had like a
gallon of water, and I was like, “To hell with this.” And I was just trying
to wash myself off. So now I have running makeup on. I have two pigtails on.
I still have blood all over me. And I'm taking my shirt off, because it's
extremely hot. I have a bra on, but I'm taking the shirt off, cause it’s
extremely hot and it's covered in Karo syrup. The special effects guy leaves
with the director, and they leave me by myself out in a field. A cop sees me
in a field with my bra on, dripping wet with fake blood on me.
I
put my hands up because that's all I know to do. I'm not realizing what the
problem is. And then I'm like “Oh my god, I look crazy. And I have fake
blood on me." And there's a knife on the floor. And it wasn't a fake knife.
It was a real knife cause we did the second part of the stabbing on the
prop. So when he got a closer look, he could see that.
I got
handcuffed. I got put in the back of the car. He asked me all these
questions. I was telling him, “I am an actress. We are shooting a movie out
here.” I told him the name of the movie. I gave him the director's name. He
did not believe me cause there was nothing there — they took everything.
They were coming back to get me last.
He has one of the cops on
the CB [radio transmitter], and he's saying, "Yep, we got a live one here."
— that's the last thing I remember. Which probably means a crazy person if
I'm to guess.
I'm like, "Oh my god, I'm getting arrested for
doing a movie in Florida. I don't even know where the hell I am." So Rich
pulls in as they're pulling out, and the cop stops Rich like,
"What are you doing, a trespassing thing?"
"We're shooting a movie
here. I'm coming to get my actress.”
"You got permits?"
"Yeah."
And he pulls the permits out and shows him. And then he and the
cop are looking back, and he's like, "Well, we found somebody. Is this the
actress?" And I'm in the back, of course, with handcuffs on and whatnot. And
I am like ready to kill. I was like, "You didn't warn them we're shooting?"
He's like, "Well, my brother's a cop, so it's not really a problem."
So
yeah. Yeah, I did get arrested. Not cause I did anything bad.
And this wasn't the only time that a cop saw you covered in fake blood.
The other time you were in a car.
Yes. Okay. Wave Productions. Now let's talk about B film
making, because that's really B film making. I mean that might be like Z
film making if we're being honest.
So his studio is… handmade.
There's no real shower or anything to wash off of. And at the time, it was
in like a mini mall, I think. It was one of the back areas that he rented
out and built out a studio. So, obviously there's no shower. There's a small
sink.
We had a bloody scene. I'm covered in this stuff, and I
can't get all of this off, and I got like a 2 and a half hour drive. I'm
leaving the studio. The best I could do is get it off my face, but
everything else is just on me. So, unless I want to drive home naked, and
that's not going to happen… I think I’d get in a lot more trouble for that.
So, I'm driving back home, and it's summertime, so I have the windows open
because I'm trying to dry out anything that's wet.
A cop sees me
at a red light, and I'm sure there's a lot of things running through his
mind. He pulls me over, and he's like, “License and registration…” and
finally I'm like, “Officer, why did you pull me over?” He goes, “It's not
obvious?” And I'm like, “No.” He's like, “You're covered in blood. Are you
all right ma'am?” And I'm like “Oh… No this isn't real blood. I was doing a
horror movie, and we don't have a shower, and I'm trying to get home so I
could wash this off.” He's like, "You have the windows open and such. You
could have put AC on." I'm like, "No, because I need to dry it cause it's
wet and gooey. If it dries off, it'll peel off, and then I can wash it off.
If it's gooey, it's going to take forever to come off."
So, he's
looking at me, and he's not really understanding it, but he's like, "All
right. Let me just run your license and stuff and make sure everything
checks out."
I'm pretty sure in the back of his head he was like,
"This girl murdered someone.” So he does ask me a few things, and I'm like,
"No, it really is. I mean, you can take a test.” And then I even licked it
and I was like, "It's Karo syrup."
And he's looking at it, and
you could see through it — that's obviously not real blood. And then he
looked, it's stained pink and then he was just like, "All right, fine, well,
everything checks out… What kind of a movie is this?" And I told him the
name of the movie. I think it was like Cannibal Slaughter or some dumb [ __
] like that. I don't know. He's like, "I'm going to look for it." But I'm
like, "Yeah, it's primo acting."
I'm like, "If you need to verify
anything, the studio is at this address. It's Wave Studios, blah blah blah”.
You know, I'm pretty sure they verified it. Yeah. That happened.
So, you worked with Wave Productions, with Factory 2000, with Seduction
Cinema, with other companies. Which company or director did you have the
most fun working with?
It's really hard to say, because all of them were fun in their
own way.
Factory 2000 were friends of mine, and we always goofed
around. That was fun and they would always tell me like the crazy thing that
we were going to do… and I'm just like, “Are you serious?” And they'd be
like, “Tina!” I'm like, “If I ever get married and have kids, the stories
would be ridiculous!”
Then you got EI Independent Cinema, and I
know those guys, and most of that is comedy, so of course it's going to be
fun. We're all laughing and giggling the whole freaking time. You know that
they're going to say something ridiculous. Sometimes you can't even finish
the scene. You got to do it a couple of times, because you just burst out
laughing. Because it's just dumb. You're going to say something dumb or the
scene itself is written comedic and you can't help but laugh. And those guys
are always fun to work with.
And then there's Gary and the team,
we would just make fun of Gary. So, it's a bunch of girls and a couple of
the dudes just cracking on them all day. So, I would say they're all equally
fun to work with for different reasons.
Is there any part of filmmaking, acting or directing that you do not
enjoy?
Scheduling. I hate scheduling with a passion. That is the
worst. And that's like… gh, you know, you have to do it.
And
paying. I don't like to pay. No, I'm just kidding. I don't like giving money
away.
No, scheduling is definitely the worst. It's the worst. I
can't stand it. If I could give that off to somebody else, I would. But you
know… got to do it. Yeah…
My favorite films of yours stay the films by Seduction Cinema. Could you
tell me how you started working with them?
It was a lot through conventions. I did a lot of the Chiller
conventions and stuff like that. And then I met Mike Raso, and Zach, and
John Fedele, and everybody across there, and they crossed a lot with Wave
Productions.
So all of these things crossed over with each other
and a lot of the actors and stuff and even Bill Hellfire — he crossed with
Wave and Mike Raso, and that's how I got to meet everybody. It was like
little families. I like to call them little families, because they all know
each other. So it really went from that to that to that, and that's how I
got to know them.
Do you happen to know what happened to Seduction Cinema? Are they still
active?
I don't think they are. Unless they have a subsidiary or maybe
they changed the name and did something else. I kind of moved on to doing
just a lot of indies and started directing. So I fell out of that for a
while.
The only one I continued to do stuff with was Wave,
because we were still in that group of doing things. And then they had the
documentary that was coming out.
The Seduction Cinema website address is redirected to some other website
that is called Alternative Cinema, and it's a website that sells DVDs.
Then that's what it is. Alternative Cinema and that, they were
all part of each other. They're all pieces and branches of that. So that's
probably what happened. They probably stopped going into production, and now
it's just whatever is there you're going to find — the old stuff. Other than
that, I think that's it. I haven't heard about them at all.
Which of the roles and characters did you enjoy most?
There were a couple of roles that I really enjoyed doing. The
Recovered. That was a pretty good role. I really liked that. It was more
dramatic than anything. And I guess maybe because of that, it gave me a
range to play with.
That and then there is a short called Salvation by Blood that was
interesting to play. I play a serial killer. It starts off with me being
very-very nice, getting involved with a satanic cult, and then r*ing and
killing a 17-year-old kid. It's really… it's DARK. So, I really had to play
crazy on that one.
And then, as much as I don't like doing vampire roles, because I keep getting
typecasted for them, but I did play one, and that was a really good role
though, because it was different.
It's called
Saint Frankenstein. It was by Scooter McCrae. So, if you ever get a
chance to see that, that was another one that was really good.
And I do enjoy the comedy stuff. I did enjoy doing TITanic 2000. I did.
I had my fun moments with that one.
A little bit romantic as well, that role.
Yeah, but it was
more funny than anything.
And I did love Witch House 3. I
did like doing that character too, the one-off girl who's, out of all three of
them, just a no nonsense person.
There's a lot of different things, but those particular roles, especially the
ones that were playing the insane person, just because it's not the easiest to
do. You think it is, and it's not. And I guess I like the challenge of it. In
Salvation by Blood, where the range goes from really sweet into
completely demonic, and you could literally see it happening. You can see how
it starts to change, like it just starts to go that way.
I think
those things, because they're challenging, I tend to really try to make it be
real.
My favorite role of yours stays uh Dracoola. It's very funny
because…
[Laughs] We're going to make a T-shirt.
[I actually do
have about 50 free
b-movie T-shirt designs]
Yes. The way you are annoyed with your servant who is too stupid to do anything right.
Apparently, people think I have a very comedic approach to things. I've heard it quite a few times in a couple of horror movies. They're like, “You know, you're actually funny.” I'm like, “How am I funny? It's a horror. What do you mean?” But even though that one is actually meant to be comedy, obviously, you see the same annoyance a little bit in TITanic when he's drawing me, and I have to look at the picture. It takes three hours for him to draw a stick figure.
.jpg "Tina Krause in Titanic 2000 (1999 film by John Paul Fedele)")
.jpg "Tina Krause in Titanic 2000 (1999 movie by John Paul Fedele)")
.jpg "Tina Krause in Titanic 2000 (1999 film by John Paul Fedele)")
.jpg "Tina Krause in Titanic 2000 (1999 movie by John Paul Fedele)")
My friends bring it up in Witch House 3, the one when I have the bat in
my hand and she's like, "Oh, it's just a squirrel or a raccoon." And I'm like,
"It ain't a [ __ ] raccoon!" And I have the bat up like this [takes a pose
threatening to hit someone with the bat].
It's just how I am. In
real life, I'm actually like that. So yeah, I would be funny. Like I probably
would say some dumb [ __ ] like that for sure.
Is there anything in modern films that you dislike compared to the way
films used to be made decades ago?
I've had enough with the CGI [ __ ], the computer graphics [ __ ]
all of this like too perfect and too, you know, blah. And I've also had it
with the crazy found footage.
The older movies, just there
was a grittiness to it, but there was a refinedness to it. Even like paying
attention to color and movement of a story. It's just more appealing to me.
Even the old slasher movies are just more I don't know… There's something even
more artistic about it.
The ones that are new today… I think it's
too much with… it's almost too perfect, it's boring. It bores me. I don't want
to watch it. It almost feels video gameish to me.
What happened to
the days of letting your imagination take part of it? Why do you have to see
everything and what happened to good storytelling? What happened to character
driven… you know, even if you look at older movies, and I'm not even talking
about the 1950s or anything like that. I'm not even talking about Hammer
movies or anything like that. Although, let's talk about Hammer movies.
They're black and white, okay? Are they the most gloriously told stories? No,
they're basic told stories. They're your basic story, but look at how
beautifully they're lit. And look at how much attention is paid to the
backgrounds. Even though it's black and white, it still moves. The camera
angles — they move. You know what you're seeing, it moves. The lighting — it's
beautiful. It's still prominent to this day. It doesn't lose its value at
all.
Now look at movies… it's the same thing over and over. Let's
just take something different — Drugstore Cowboy — try that one. That's
not a horror movie, but it's a movie nonetheless. It's done not in the 50s,
but we're looking at like 80s, 90s, whatever in that era.
There's
your era of other movies that would be more modern, but still pay attention to
how it looks, how the story is moving, the characters. I'm not seeing a lot of
character-driven things these days. It's more like, “Oh, look at how cute he
is, or she is, and then they're going to get killed in 17 different ways.” And
that's fine. But how many times can you do that? And is it all the time? And
why is everything a computer graphic? It's kind of sad, but then there's other
movies that are done right. I have hope. I do.
Tina, I remember in one of your interviews, you said that you were shooting
a film in a real haunted house. So, I wonder if you have ever had any
supernatural experiences in your life and whether or not you believe at all
in the supernatural.
Yeah, I definitely do. And yeah, I definitely have.
I
was doing a test shoot for Bughouse a while back with a cast, and
before I did it, I wanted to go and see what the lighting was going to look
like, the spacing, and where it was safe to shoot, because this is all going
to be gorilla shooting. You can't get permits to shoot there, obviously. And
we did shoot part of it on the outside, but I never finished it, because I was
still trying to figure out other things. But while we were doing a test, I was
trying to figure out if I wanted to go left or right or anything like that. Me
and my friend were in the abandoned hospital, in the women's and children's
ward. I was kind of waiting. I was like, "Hey, Mark, which way should we go?
This way or that way?" And this is summer, so you know, right?
The
door just swung open, flew back with such force. And only one of the doors.
And there's no wind, there's no nothing. And it's for a daylight summer day.
You would have to have a tornado coming through for something like that. Plus,
these doors are rusted, nobody's lubricating the doors so that they swing
properly. These have been abandoned for over 20 years, maybe longer. So we
didn't do that. I was like, “We're not going that way.“
And then
there was another time that I was doing a documentary on ghosts, voodoo, and
witchcraft. And this was really crazy. I believe it's the Del Mansion, I want
to say. I was shooting it, and then I took a photograph of the mansion, and my
partner that was helping me with this documentary, he started screaming like,
"Get over here! Get over here!" Like, "Somebody's home! Somebody's home!" He
said he saw the light go on, but I didn't see that. And then I looked, and
there was no light on. So I'm like, "What the hell is he talking about?" So,
I'm like, "All right." And then, it was that and another thing that I saw. But
I took the photos back, and I'm going through all the photos, and I'm like,
"What the heck is that?" And then I look, and I'm like, "Oh, it looks like the
lights did go on. Is there smoke through it?" And you could see like a line of
smoke. It looks like coming down the banister of a stairway.
So, I
gave it to one of my sound guys for Limbo. He also did a lot of
photography and stuff like that. So, I gave it to him to look at, and he blew
it up, and I get this call, this panicked call. He's like, "Oh my god." — and
it was like 3 o'clock in the morning — "I got to swing by. I got to show you
this." I'm like, "It's 3 o'clock in the morning." He's like, "So what? It's
Saturday. I got to talk to you." So I'm like, "Fine." So he brings it over.
(It doesn't matter. I was playing video games anyways. I'm like, "Sure, I'm
not doing anything.")
He brings it over, and he shows me, and you
can see — oh god, it was so weird — you can see all the slaves in the stair.
You can see the shackles on them. They were all like looking through the
banister. You can see the different heights. You could see it as clear as day.
It is the craziest thing. I even showed my mom, and she was just like, "What
the hell?"
I had another time I was going through an old hotel with
a friend of mine, and I took a picture of this piano. I was like, "Oh, that's
a cool grand piano that they had in there." I was surprised nobody tried to
take this, but I guess, how are you going to steal a grand piano? So, I took a
photo, and as we're looking through all of our photos, I'm like, "Dude, did
you notice anybody in the building with us?" And my friend's like, "No, hell
no. I just didn't like being there, but no, there was nobody there." I'm like,
"So, who the hell is that over the grand piano?" And you could see the guy,
it's a guy. He's like laying like this over the piano. I'm like, "I would have
seen that." And we're looking, and he had like a suit and tie on and
everything. We were just like “What?” And the whole time we didn't see one
person. That one car, just our car, was there. There's only one place that you
could park down there, unless you're in a suit and tie going through the
woods. I don't think so. That is so bizarre.
There's been another
time we were in a haunted hotel, and we were actually ghost hunting this time,
but we weren't doing it for a show. We were just doing it to be doing it. And
one of the girls that I was with got some ghost app, and I found this old
abandoned hotel, which I knew the guy that owned the property, and he said we
can go exploring, but he said it was haunted. He's like “It is haunted. I'm
just telling you.” So I was like, "All right, fine. Whatever." I think it was
called the Wellington, I believe.
So we went, and it, oh, weird
weird weird. We found some crazy rooms. There was one time that we were
downstairs, and everything was just real strange in there. And then all of a
sudden I hear like a bunch of people running upstairs. I'm like, “I thought
this guy said it was abandoned.” So, we ran upstairs, and it was totally
dusty. It was like nobody's been up there and I can't tell you how long. We
were making footprints. That's how = dusty it was. And I'm like, “Did we not
just hear, you know…” We're in the middle of nowhere. So it's not like you can
hear…
There was a lot of things. They were doing their app, and I walked
into this one room, and there was a baby crib in there, but it was one of
those rocker baby cribs out of wood. Very, very old. And I was just sitting in
the middle of this weird room that had a tiny, almost like a little fireplace.
It was weird. It was really weird. And the girl was doing her little app, and
it kept saying all these bad things like “infant death” and something,
whatever. It kept repeating these things, and I didn't feel good in the room,
and I was like “You know I'm going to step out.” I don't know if it's because
of the dirt or whatever. I was like “I just got to step out of that room.” And
as soon as I walked out of the room, her phone just kept repeating, “Stay,
stay, stay”, and they're yelling for me. They're like, "Come back." And it
kept going, “Bad, bad, bad, stay, stay, stay…” like the whole thing. And I'm
like, "I'm not coming back. You get out of the room." I know how this goes.
See, this is where a bad horror movie starts. So, I was like, "Haven't you
watched these things?" So, of course, I left.
And then, as we
walked out of the hotel — well, ran out of the hotel, shall I say — I closed
the front door and made sure that it closed. Cause I have a superstition that
if you leave the doors open, anything that's in will come out and follow you.
So, that's almost like telling a Ouija board goodbye. You don't say goodbye —
you leave an open doorway, if you believe in such a thing. So from my
experiences, I do believe in them. So yeah, I close the door. As we're walking
towards the car, one girl goes, "Why'd you leave the door open?" And I go, "I
didn't." She goes, "The door is wide open." And I turn around and look, and it
was wide open. And I just, I went, "You know what? [ __ ] it. We're out of
here. I'm not going back to close the door. I don't care. I closed it once.
It's good enough." [laughs] Like, "Byebye. We took off." So, I have no idea. I
never went back. I left that one alone. That's a clear sign, you know.. And we
went through the whole thing. There was not one person there. Not one. So
whatever was running around like a stampede of many…
Oh, there were
so many things that were going on in that place. That's just a little portion
of it. We were there for the whole entire day, and it was literally one thing
after another. It did not stop. I even found the “in memory of” bricks, and
I'm like, “Why would that be in a hotel?” Was this something else before it
was a hotel? I feel like it was a funeral home before it was a hotel. There
was one area that almost looked medical and had medical doors, but it wasn't
big enough to be a hospital. Just wasn't. So, it could have very well been a
funeral home slash parlor, and then, in the back they did whatever, and then
maybe it was changed over to a hotel. I don't know. But it gave those vibes,
and it had the “in memory of” — those bricks that you put where you put the
name of the person who died, you know? I'm like, “Okay, that's not hotel
stuff, you know?”
But then they had the leather key thing, you
know, with your number and stuff. So it just could have been a funeral home
that they converted to a hotel. So I mean like that in itself is terrifying,
you know, like you're definitely going to have a lot of [ __ ] in there.
Whatever was there obviously wanted to come outside. Not sure what it was.
Do you still have those photos?
I got to look for them.
They're somewhere around. And they are going to go into one of the books. For
sure, because they were pretty crazy.
I also have a lab that I
found in Ohio. It's a big old laboratory. I don't know what they were doing
over there, but man, it didn't look good. Let's just put it that way. There
was a whole bunch of stuff. All kinds of machinery and blood sample things…
Eyewash stations in the hallways… I don't know what was going on there. They
definitely did some testing over there, and they definitely had animals there
for sure. But I have those photos, too. I have a video of that, too. It was
bizarre. But I will get those together for the next book.
And probably on your YouTube channel when it's ready?
Oh yeah, I'm definitely going to put up a whole thing once we're
done with the YouTube channel and just be like, "Here it is, guys." You know,
boom, boom, boom. The books are coming out, and then the videos will come
out.
Do you have any other passions and hobbies besides exploring abandoned
buildings and besides filming?
I surf. I love the ocean, so I'm always out there. Surfing is a
big thing for me.
I paint. I build steampunk guns. They look like
this.
And we take them to shows and stuff like that.
I have a lot of art
that I do on the side. Again, I love to go surfing, so the summertime is
definitely between my job for bartending and surfing. I'm pretty much locked
up.
Could you please also show your art?
A Dead Bride series.
[Tina also tried to show me her dust painting of the holy trinity, but it
wasn’t visible on camera because it needed special lighting.]
…It's
really cool. And then I take a fixative to it so that the dust doesn't fall
off. Everything else does, but not the dust that I lined up. And then it just
sits on top of like a glossy black.
I like things like that. A lot
of this stuff is really dark. Probably because of all the nightmares and stuff
like that. So, I translate it a lot of times in my work. Maybe that's therapy.
I don't know. I like to think so.
I've gotten a lot of people
buying them and having fun with them. So, I guess on some note, as dark as
some of the stuff can be, they can also be fun.
Do you have a website where you post this art?
No, not yet. I mostly do shows and stuff like that. If I'm doing a Chiller show or any of the cons and stuff like that, I bring it with me. I haven't really put them up yet. I probably will soon.
I'm just focusing on other stuff right now, especially with Bughouse coming out. I gotta really hunker down on that because I want to shoot that really soon. I don't want that to be something that I'm waiting on.
And then probably give me like a month or two, and I'll sit down and start getting everything together. And maybe I'll throw it up on Facebook Marketplace or something like that. Something where everybody can see. So they don't have to go looking and finding all this — it's linked up and it's easy.
What are your plans and goals for the future?
First is to finish Bughouse, get that shot. Second is to start Sundowners and go into a TV series. I hope we can do that.
And I would really like to start setting up some shooting studios.
And I plan on directing a few movies.
And another thing would be to work for Netflix at some point. So, we're working on that.
Do you enjoy shooting low budget films or rather big production films?
Both for different reasons. Obviously with big production, your quality is going to be something blah blah blah and there's teams and, you know… I don't want to say it's easier, but it moves a little differently.
Everybody's getting paid, so there's no nonsense. It's kind of like everybody's like, “Hurry, hurry, hurry”, and that could be on one hand annoying as hell but also super productive and “Great we're done. Next.”
Also, you have all the equipment and everything. Everybody's got specific roles that they're doing — that's great, but again a lot of rules — it's a very different block.
If I'm directing an indie film or something like that, my crew is like my family. So, it's a lot of fun. The only thing is you don't have everything at your fingertips. You got to really be creative with stuff or you really have to know what you're doing.
A lot of times, you have to fake a lot of things that you normally wouldn't have to fake on a bigger production, because you have this or you have that.
And on an indie, sometimes you run into clicks. I mean, you run into clicks everywhere, but sometimes on some indies, people can get really clickish and because, you know, eagles are flying and whatever. And that's super annoying because you're just like, "Oh, come on. Stop it. You are in an indie film. Stop." You are not Meg Ryan.
But on the other hand, when I'm working with my crew people, it can be a lot of fun, where you can't get away with that on a bigger production. There are things that you can get away with, like goofing off here and there. You can never get away with goofing off on a big production. That is frowned upon largely. On an indie production, you can [ __ ] up here and there. And we'll laugh about it. Or maybe you purposely did something. On a big production, that's a lot of money, and they don't find it funny. You know it, you know what I'm saying? So, there's a lot of differences.
A big production, a lot of times they're going to want you to stick really close to the script if not spot on. Indie production, maybe you ad-libbed, maybe you didn't stick to the script, maybe it sounded better. We're cool with it. I'm not the writer.
It's different. It's just a different thing. But I like both of them equally and I hate both of them equally. [laughs] For the very reasons I told you. So, I don't know. None's better than the other.
In one of your interviews, you mentioned some mainstream anthology — ABCs of Death and a part of it — a short titled M is for Matchmaker you were supposed to work on. I found it online, and it wasn't quite what you had described in the interview, and I didn't see you in the credits…
We were supposed to do something totally different, and then it just had to get changed due to a lot of… I can't even get into it. It was a multitude of things. I wasn't able to get down there, where we were going to shoot. The flight was just too much, and I had to get back to work, and I couldn't miss my, you know, where I was working at. And that was like halfway across the Midwest. So, yeah, that thing got botched up.
And I didn't know a few things got changed on it. So, it was just like, “All right, fine. I'm not going to argue with it. There's nothing we can do about it…”
How can your fans follow you online to get updates about your projects?
You just go to spacemonkey7777 on Instagram. I usually post everything that's coming up over there.
Once done with something or something's getting ready to go, it's up there. I'll throw some links up there and things like that.
I have been putting up the Wicked Garden Film Festival. So, submit. It's a film festival in Atlantic City, guys. If you're out there, you got shorts, you got student films, you got features, submit, submit, submit. It's going to be a really good film festival.
And then we've got Halloween in July. That's going to be really fun. That's going to be all horror guests, and it's going to be a burlesque show and a Halloween costume party. That's also in AC, and again — I posted that up as well.
And then we have Popped! That will be in May, and that'll be all like pop art and artistry and things like that and special guest stars, and another fun one, and also in Atlantic City.
And then hopefully we'll get Bughouse started and when I'm ready to cast, that will go over Facebook and Instagram too.
I can send you a link to a short movie that won the Best Short last year in a film festival. Picturebox.
You can show it if you want. It's not exclusive to anything. So, if you have something where you want to let people know like, "All right, here it is. We did this. It's only 20 minutes.", you know, have at it.
[Contact me if you want me to show you Picturebox]
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