The Independent Film Corner: Scott Phillips

Scott Phillips is a Writer/Director from New Mexico, who has written films for Full Moon Entertainment and is a staff writer for the upcoming kids series, Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight, which will have its sneak preview on the CW Network, December 13th, before the series airs in January. Today, Mr. Philips is here to talk about his latest film Gimme Skleter, which is was released by Halo-8 Entertainment, just this past August.

Tell my readers about yourself?

I'm just a guy who grew up watching movies and wanting to make 'em. I think I started making short films on Super-8mm when I was 8 or 9 years old and just never stopped working at it. After a lifetime of that, I'm completely unemployable so if the writing career dries up I'm doomed.

Gimme Skelter is a shocking and entertaining horror film. Tell my readers, about your film.

The whole notion of the illegitimate children born to the Manson Family was something that had been kicking around my head for a long time, but it didn't really gel until Scott Spiegel, Eli Roth and Boaz Yakin at Raw Nerve saw my earlier no-budget flick, THE STINK OF FLESH, and wanted me to pitch 'em a new movie. I drove out to L.A. and met with Boaz, and more-or-less made up the story of GIMME SKELTER on the spot. He dug it and for awhile there was talk of Raw Nerve producing it, but they were going through some difficulties on another movie and it just sort of fell by the wayside.

At any rate, SKELTER is a bit of a statement (although I feel like an asswipe for saying a cheesy no-budget horror movie is "a statement" of any kind) on the sort of people who idolize serial killers as if they were movie stars or something. I find serial killers to be as fascinating as the next guy does, but I've never been comfortable with the idea of wearing t-shirts sporting the face of Richard Ramirez or whoever. When I see that, I always think, how would I feel if someone I knew had been one of his victims and here's some tool wearing his face on a t-shirt like he's Jim Morrison.

At the same time, I wanted to explore the idea that no matter how frightening or psychotic someone is, there's always gonna be someone worse. That's not a huge part of the story, but it's definitely in there.

The film's title "Gimme Skelter" has this retro 60's feel to it. How did you come up the film's title?

Originally the title was gonna be "Live Freaky, Die Freaky," which is a quote from one of Sharon Tate's neighbors after the initial murders, but I found out there was an animated movie with that title. I called my buddy Don Adams, who was the music supervisor on the movie, and asked him to come up with a new title. He didn't even stop to think about it, he just said "Gimme Skelter."

One of the things that I liked about your direction was that it looked professionally made. Tell me what was the budget like for this film?

The budget on GIMME SKELTER was a whopping $5000. I actually went through a short period where another production company in L.A. wanted to make the movie on a $100,000 budget, but they wanted changes to the script that I didn't agree with so I turned it down.

What challenges did you face when shooting some of the interiors and exteriors in Albuquerque, New Mexico especially when the film's story is set, in a small town?

There were an insane number of challenges, not the least of which was framing the shots so you couldn't tell there was a city of a half-million people just over to the left of Gunnar Hansen.

What other challenges during production that you and your crew faced besides that?

Well, there's never enough time or money and that makes it hard to do anything that's worth a damn. We lost a couple of locations just before we were scheduled to shoot at them because the owners thought that since we were making a movie, we must have had money, so they wanted to bleed us for some cash after telling us we could shoot there for free (or a small payment to cover electricity use). It took some real scrambling to replace the gas station, in particular -- we lost our original location two days before we were gonna shoot there. Our location guy, Peter Fishburn, stumbled across a guy who collects old gas station memorabilia and he offered to essentially construct a gas station for us, and that's where we shot those scenes. He really saved our bacon.

This film has a grindhouse feel to it. Tell me, how you came up with the film's story?

Well, as I said, I'd had the idea kicking around my head for awhile. There was no real effort to ape the grindhouse look and feel -- I was raised on those flicks at the drive-in so it's just the way my brain works. When you're 8 years old and your brother takes you to see VANISHING POINT, that stuff sticks with you!

The film has a very good cast that includes Trent Haaga, Elske McCain (whom I've recently interviewed), and Gunnar Hansen. Tell me how each of these people, became involved with the project?

I had tried to get Trent into THE STINK OF FLESH but it didn't work out. We stayed in touch and I wrote the part of Luther for him. Gunnar's niece Kristin Hansen played Sassy in STINK, and she showed that flick to Gunnar. He dug it and said he'd like to be in the next one, particularly if I wrote some scenes for he and Kristin together. Elske I had met at Tromadance NM, and she wanted to read for Erika even though I had told her I needed to cast a local actress. She offered to pay her own way to Albuquerque and put herself up, which was really cool of her.

What was it like working with each of those people?

They were all great -- aside from delivering a hell of a performance, Trent is incredibly useful on a set. He was building tents, handling the boom, all kinds of stuff. Gunnar was super-freakin'-cool, and it was a revelation to watch him work. There aren't many movies that really give him a chance to show off his acting chops, and he's very, very good at what he does. Plus, I mean, he was Leatherface, for Christ's sake! Elske was a real champ, too -- she had to do a lot of nudity and that sort of thing can be uncomfortable, both for the actress and for the people shooting the movie, but she made everyone feel at ease and really did a good job playing a Russ Meyer-esque role.

Another thing, I've noticed from this cast that Kurly Tlapoyawa. Kristin Hansen and Billy Garberina also appeared in your last film, the very entertaining and weirdest zombie movie ever, "The Stink of Flesh". How did you come to know each of these people?

I met Kurly back around 1990, when he was a kid. I used to own a video store that specialized in psychotronic movies and he'd come in and hang around forever. I met Kristin through Devin O'Leary, who played Walter in SKELTER. And I met Billy in 2000, when I moved back to Albuquerque from Los Angeles.

According to your commentary track, you were depressed about the rough cut of the film. What was the editing process like and what challenges that presented itself during the process?

There were a lot of factors involved in the depression that resulted from the rough cut of the movie. Long story short, though, I just felt like I hadn't gotten what I wanted from the movie and it was a very difficult shoot in a lot of ways, and I think I was just worn down by the whole process. I avoided looking at the movie for several months, then went back and re-invented entire sequences, mostly the kill scenes where I felt like I hadn't gotten the coverage I had wanted on the set. I started experimenting with the editing and came up with an approach that I liked, and after that I started to feel like the movie wasn't so bad after all, and in fact is quite a leap beyond THE STINK OF FLESH. I still can't watch SKELTER without seeing all the stuff I did wrong or could've done better, but that's normal, really.

What's next for you, either directing or writing wise?

Well, I'm a staff writer on KAMEN RIDER DRAGON KNIGHT, a TV series that begins airing on the CW Network soon (I think there's a "sneak preview" on December 13th, then the show begins in its regular time slot in early January). Beyond that, I'm working on some comic book projects, including a four-issue mini-series called THE CENTERFOLD that I'm doing with Tim Seeley (HACK/SLASH). I'd like to do more comics work, if I can worm my way into it. I'm also working on a movie project with Don Adams, we've just begun writing the script but that's all I'm gonna say about it right now. At the moment, I'm not planning to direct anything unless I can raise a little more substantial budget, say in the range of $60,000 to $100,000.

What advice would you give to any director that is looking to make his own film?

There was a time not that long ago where I would've said "Get on out there and make a movie, even if you don't have any money" but I'm not sure I'd offer that advice after making a couple no-budget movies myself. The market has changed a lot and it's nearly impossible to make any money on no-budget flicks, unless you get very lucky. I mean, we expected to do pretty well with SKELTER after the response THE STINK OF FLESH received, particularly with Gunnar being in SKELTER. However, at this point things don't look good for making that $5000 investment back within the next five years -- and it might not happen at all. Of course, you should never just do it for the money, but aside from the fact that it's really difficult to land decent distribution for a no-budget movie, you're also faced with the reality that almost no one in Hollywood will take movies made at this level seriously. Most people can't see past the lack of production value (and name actors) to see that there's a script happening there.

If you're determined to make a feature despite not having any money, then I say more power to you and I wish you luck. Just don't get your hopes up that somehow making a no-budget movie will kick-start your Hollywood career. Something like the Raw Nerve guys seeing THE STINK OF FLESH and wanting to produce my next movie is like winning the lottery, it almost never happens -- and besides that, I had already been working in Hollywood for ten years so I had a track record as a screenwriter. The days of even something like CLERKS or EL MARIACHI getting picked up by a major distributor are over, unless you're one lucky son of a gun.

I don't want to be a downer, but honestly, if you want to direct you're almost better off writing spec scripts and getting them out there on the market -- then refuse to sell them unless you get to direct. That's a tough path to walk, believe me -- I've been walking it since 1995, although focusing more on writing than on directing -- but if you have any hope of making a living as a filmmaker you either need to take that approach or move to Los Angeles and get work crewing on movies, try to work your way up. I've worked in all kinds of capacities on movies, from being an extra on RED DAWN to being a production assistant to doing makeup effects to being Lemmy's stand-in on a Motorhead video, and I wound up getting my first paid screenwriting work by meeting people that way. If you really want to do this stuff, you have to be willing to work your ass off and be perseverant even when it's hard to maintain any optimism, or you're not gonna make it.

I want to thank you, Mr. Phillips, for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk about your latest film “Gimme Skelter which is available on DVD now from Halo-8 Entertainment” and good luck with this film and your future projects.

For my review for Gimme Skelter, you can goto: http://www.filmarcade.net/2008/09/gimme-skelter-dvd-review-written-by.html

Also, you check out my interview, with one of the stars of Gimme Skelter, Elske McCain at: http://www.filmarcade.net/2008/10/independent-film-corner-elske-mccain.html

Until then, I'm Anthony Thurber and have a good day.