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 Banner by Wes Vance |
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With very little money, a camera, and a desire to tell the stories of struggling filmmakers like himself, Christopher P. Garetano set out across the country to shoot the plight of the ultra independent filmmaker. It was to Milwaukee where Mark Borchardt (American Movie) was making his first film in six years. It was to Las Vegas where Ron Atkins prides on being controversial with his feature films, including one with conspiracy theorist John Brodie. And it was even home in Long Island, where David “Slave” Stagnari struggled with the changing times to makes his short film Catharsis. The film was Horror Business and it made its premiere in festivals around the world in 2005. On March 13, Horror Business is released nationwide on DVD to retailers around the country and brings Garetano’s story full circle. Since then, Garetano has been working simultaneously on five projects, all varying in topics from fiction to non-fiction, from a look at the effects of an animal shelter to a no holds barred docudrama on the making of a horror classic. Garetano took time out of his ultra busy schedule to discuss these topics and more.
CHRISTOPHER P. GARETANO: Hi Colonel. Colonel's Crypt: Greetings and congrats on the release of HORROR BUSINESS, which comes out this Tuesday from Image Entertainment. How long have you been working on the project? CG: Thanks man. Well if you count the work I’m doing right now which is part of a promotional campaign for the DVD release and rewind back to when I started shooting, a little past its conception, I’ve been working on it since January of 2003, so four years. CC: How did you come about with the idea for the film? CG: Well, in general, my idea from very early on was not to make a horror movie documentary per se. It wasn’t my intent to make a movie on horror movies, popular horror movies, it was really about that type of obsession created and so what happened was the films that came out in the 70s, the horror films, the drive in films, actually influenced a whole generation of people including myself where they went ahead and began to practice on an amateur level to become filmmakers with whatever equipment they could acquire. Some of them went on to film school and others didn’t, but there are many who continued to practice and practice. That was born out of an obsession when they were children, an obsession they had with horror films in general, and that possessed a lot of these people and inspired these people to go ahead and try to attempt to do this for a living. The most fascinating thing to me is the reality of it all is completely non-glamorous. This fascination that started when they were very young somehow consumed them the rest of their lives because it just started as an obsession and continued to snowball into something greater and greater, now you have it that they are in their twenties and reaching 30 and they’re still obsessed. Some go to school for it and others just keep doing it. You can spend an entire life trying to get somewhere as a professional where you’re actually making money doing this because ultimately that’s the goal, and unfortunately you get caught in that web when you’re a kid and continue on and on and on and very few of these people go ahead to make money doing this. So that’s the position I was in and I started to realize a year after I got out of film school that this was not going to be easy and so I made a movie about that feeling appropriately at the time. I wanted to make something about what I was going through, something that spoke to me and I could speak to people about how I was feeling, something authentic, so that’s what I ended up doing with HORROR BUSINESS. CC: HORROR BUSINESS is 82 minutes long? CG: That’s correct. CC: How many hours of footage did you record and how long were you filming, being you started shooting in 2003 and the film premiered in 2005? CG: I was filming throughout if you include several sequences in HORROR BUSINESS that were created out of a visual collage of different things. There was very little stock footage, only the obvious stuff was stock footage like the silent film era clips and reference material to 9/11 and other things. The rest of it, the sequences that was blooming with colors or moving around, that was all the dreamy aspect of the film that I wanted, and I wanted it all to feel authentic so I went out and I shot… the title sequence is the greatest example for the film. I shot fireworks, I shot burning celluloid film strips. I would write the titles on a piece of glass and burn a fireplace behind it and shoot it at a particular way. I wanted to try different things. I think experimental filmmaking is my favorite thing to do because it really frees you up to do something original. If you try to adhere to rules in everything that you’re doing, there’s really no point to it because basically what you’ll end up trying to do is either remake something you’ve seen or try to be just like it, and either way you’re still kind of robbing from another source of inspiration. If you look at your own life primarily, look at things that inspire you, and I’m also talking visually, that’s where originality comes from. If you really dig deep and try to look into your own life and what’s in front of you as opposed to other pieces of film, other motion pictures, I think that’s where you start to work with yourself at a very pure and symbiotic level. You start giving back to yourself as an artist and you start to discover what your true voice is. I think that was basically what I was doing with HORROR BUSINESS in general. In the footage, I started to just shoot a lot of elements, trying to work things into it. To get back to your question, the footage itself, which in general might not be a lot for a documentary but you have to understand the situation if you adjust things like I was the only person shooting for this doc and traveling to different places by myself with one camera. I tallied up to about close to 98 hours or so of footage for HORROR BUSINESS altogether including those elements I was telling you about, and I was shooting throughout. I didn’t stop shooting at any time so those elements I was discussing with you a few moments ago, those things here and there were brought in to say if you were painting a painting and you needed an extra color towards the end of the painting and you needed this or that, I went out and got extra things, so I was shooting throughout the process here and there. Even up until the very end I think I shot a couple of interviews. Heavily, mostly in the first eight months or so, that’s where I got most of the footage from. CC: During those eight months of primary footage, what would you say was your biggest challenge during that time? CG: The biggest challenge for me, like I said I did everything myself, so when I was traveling, I carried everything myself, I shot everything myself. I was keeping my eye out for things and so here and there I would see stuff that was really interesting across the room but I was shooting something interesting so I couldn’t shoot both things at once, it was really difficult. The ideal situation would be to have a second cameraman I could trust that would be perfect for the job that I could trust their eye enough that they’d be interested in the same things I look at and they would shoot in another room. I think that would’ve been the ideal situation for me because I think that was the hardest thing knowing I could’ve been getting more but it was just impossible for me in the situation and that’s what the whole idea of the movie was I think in general was using what you had, so the movie was made authentically. Now it’s not scrawled all over the film in title cards saying “Hey the guy making this movie right now is struggling just like the other guys,” but that’s exactly how it was made. It was made with me knowing that I could do a lot more but focusing on what I had and what I could do with it because I didn’t have much to work with. CC: With all the footage you shot, what is the one thing you feel you regret most about taking out if you have any? CG: There were just moments, interesting moments, a lot of them, a lot of things that were interesting to me in regards to the people. I don’t wish I could’ve done it differently but maybe if I had more time because there were so many interesting people in the film, that’s why sometimes their visits seem so brief because there’s so many of them. My choice to put so many of them in one boat together may have been the reason why you might feel like you would’ve liked to see more of each individual if you had that feeling at the end of the film. Everybody feels that way. Some people have expressed that they would’ve liked to have visited more with some of these people, but I chose to make it more of a collaborative essay, all these people speaking about the same obsession in many different ways, so as you would be interested in sitting down with some of these people a little more and spending time and learning about them a little more, that wasn’t my intention. My intention was to get you to see that all these people have the same sensibilities and they feel the same way about this obsession. If you notice, there’s a rhythm to the editing where it goes back and forth but usually there’s patterns where they’re always talking about the same thing. It’s different people, different situations, different reference images, but it’s all referring back to the last thing that was spoken about. That is there and it is apparent. CC: On the DVD, there’s a behind the scenes featurette on it, and one of the main elements in this was the screening at the Alamo Drafthouse. You had the screening in October of 2005? CG: Yes. CC: How was that feeling of having that film playing in that theater? CG: I can speak to say just being there, the people, the way it was received, the way I was treated, the way the film was treated, with a lot of respect, they seemed to really enjoy the documentary so they treated it with respect. They treated the screening with respect. They promoted it properly. For an independent filmmaker like myself, and I mean truly independent, actually finishing a feature and traveling while paying all my expenses and paying for the advertising and everything else. To be treated that way by a place I already had admiration for just by reading about it for a long time, was a wonderful feeling. You get there and the people are great too. Kate Garland and everyone else that worked there were so grateful. Joe Bob Briggs came down to host the show two nights in a row. Edwin Neal, from TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, came down both nights. It was an extremely warm reception for something that took me so long to make and I had put so much time and effort into it that it was one of the nights I felt truly well received. I went to bed with a good feeling that night because sometimes it feels good to be truly validated for what you’ve done, for people to recognize there was a lot of effort put into this film and they enjoyed it, they had a really good time. CC: One project we’ve talked about is SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, which I know you’re very passionate about. Was that visit to the Drafthouse was what set the wheels in motion to decide to make SOUTH TEXAS BLUES as a feature? CG: No, I had the idea for SOUTH TEXAS BLUES in my first year in film school. I remember somebody interviewing me and I’ll probably never find where the fuck this thing is but someone was interviewing all the first year production students. He was just making a collection of aspirations of these students. This was in 1996. After two years of community college I went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan for four years so this was my first semester of the first year. The interviewer had asked everybody what they’re favorite imovie was, something really simple like that, so I said TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE and I remember in that interview that I had said that I’d like to make a movie about what happened on the set because it was so outrageous and such an interesting story to me that I had heard. At the time it was articles I had read and there was one documentary made on the subject. I named it at the time, I said I was going to call it SOUTH TEXAS BLUES. That was over ten years so that’s how long I’ve been thinking about this project. It’s become more interesting and important to me now because the script that I’m writing, which is based on those stories, but it is very much my own story, my own idea. It’s like PRIMARY COLORS, the book that was written about the Clinton administration in the 90s and a movie was made that yes, it’s based on all these people, yes it’s based on these incidents, and yes it’s factual. But at the same time I’m taking my license to do what I like and please with it and so I’m putting a bit of myself and my own experience into it and the reason why it’s so special to me is because the story is about a 30 year old filmmaker, which was Tobe Hooper at the time, based on Tobe Hooper, who is at a point in his life where he needs to make something that’s going to make him a professional, it’s gonna make him money. At the same time he wants to make something artistic. At the time Tobe Hooper wasn’t the horror filmmaker that he is now, or we all know as, he was a guy who made a picture called EGGSHELLS and a few other short films. He got some respect for those and maybe won some awards in some smaller places but did not become the horror filmmaker that he is yet. It was until after TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE that he did that. He was 30 years old, like my age. He had made a couple of films like myself and achieved some recognition for it but hasn’t really achieved it as a professional yet. In my story, the character Tobe has this epiphany, has this idea for this horror film, but at the same time is striving, he has all this internal dialogue, all this narration in his head that you’ll hear in the film where he talks about retaining his artistic quality where he’s fighting for it. He starts to put together this Samurai Seven-esque group of people together to make this horror film one summer which was titled SATURN IN RETROGRADE, which may have been one of the original titles of TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE. You never hear the words TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE in the film, it’s obviously that’s what we’re talking about. It’s just mainly about this filmmaker at a time in the world where things were very explosive, towards the end of the Vietnam War, a lot was happening, and this was his expression at the time as an artist. It wasn’t like “Let’s make a horror film.” It was more like “I need to make some money but at the same time I’m artist” so that’s what SOUTH TEXAS BLUES is about. It’s a director’s horror movie. That’s what it’s going to be. CC: You’re making a pitch film for SOUTH TEXAS BLUES called ON THE ROAD TO SOUTH TEXAS. Anything you’d like to say about that? CG: ON THE ROAD TO SOUTH TEXAS is a fifteen minute documentary about my obsession with this project SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, why it means so much to me to make it. It will also include some interviews, some of my location scouts to Texas, some design work that’s being created for the film by myself and my production designer Trevor Cook who’s an incredible artist, the care and time that’s going into just doing that and our ideas for the project and how it’s going to be executed. That right now I believe, I don’t wanna reveal too much, but I think that should help get this project into motion, in addition to the other things I’ve done. I think if people see the idea as opposed to pitching it by vocalizing it, I think if they see the work that’s going into it, and if they can trust you as a filmmaker, cause what I’d be working for is the proper people to work with from the top to the bottom. Everybody who’d be interested in working together to make something spectacular, not just people that are coming to a job every day, and I’m also going to keep SOUTH TEXAS BLUES a very independent production. I try to keep it under a certain budget because the more money that comes in the more people come in to try to alter the picture. Even in the very beginning they’ll tell you “This is brilliant, we need to do this.” By week three or week four, they’re already changing things. They’re changing the script, they’re changing this, they’re changing that. If it was so fucking brilliant, why don’t you just leave it alone and let it be what it is? This needs to be director’s pure vision because I have a vision of the film and it needs to be apparent on the screen, so I think keeping the budget private, not extremely low but private. We don’t need to get any big stars for the movie, it’s not necessary. I think the movie will speak for itself when it’s finished. I think people will enjoy it and enough word of mouth will spread that by the film is complete, the experience watching it will be enough for them. It’s not just who we have in it or how many cameos we can put in there from ex-horror monsters, that’s not the idea. The idea is to tell a story and I think if you tell the story well you don’t need a lot of shit to let people see your film. CC: I have to say with all the projects you have going on, I find it amazing you get anything done during the day. CG: I don’t know. Maybe because I multitask like I’m doing work as I’m talking to you. CC: Well you’re a machine that’s for sure. One project you’re just about done with is a short film called COTTONMOUTH, other than having a great assistant director, what was your experience working on it? CG: My experience was very positive working on it. A couple of little things here and there got to me but I think no film is without that. Again, as I was saying before you have to find the right people to work with. If there’s any kind of negativity or animosity, you can’t bring that onto your set. You really need to screen people before you work with them, down to the smallest thing, because everyone needs to be in sync, everyone needs to be on the same page, and have the same kind of energy level. If there are five negative people on the set and the rest of the people are positive, I’m sure the five negative people are going to bringing things down. You have to be sure that everybody wants to do the job that they were hired to do. It doesn’t hurt to check and screen people, actors and crew members, just make sure those are the people that are right for the project. That’s what I have to say about that. COTTONMOUTH had for the most part that, it was a good feeling throughout the couple of days on the shoot for the short film. Everybody felt very good about what they were doing. CC: What made you decide to make a short film like COTTONMOUTH? Some people feel making a short film after a feature is a step backwards. I disagree but what was it about COTTONMOUTH in particular that drove you to make it? CG: It was something I really liked when I was young. It was based on a short story in a comic book called GORE SHRIEK. The title of the story was the same as the film, COTTONMOUTH, and it was drawn and designed and written by Steve Bissette, who’s an excellent artist. I needed something kind of short and sweet that somehow made a statement. This was mainly created, first of all to be creative and work on something because it’s the only time that I’m happy and I wanted to do something fictional. I had been working on several documentaries so I wanted to break away and do something fictional. A short film would’ve been perfect so I did it, and it would also bring attention to SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, it’s just another piece that’d be out there. You have to have strategy as a filmmaker, it’s not like painting. It’s not like “I could come home from my day job and then come home and paint a picture at night.” This consumes your life. Without strategy, where would you go with this? You have to go somewhere with it, so part of the strategy was to create an interesting short that would accompany ON THE ROAD TO SOUTH TEXAS that would be used to promote the group of filmmakers that plan to get together and make SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, and a lot of us are filmmakers. If there’s anything I’d do to get closer to that goal of SOUTH TEXAS BLUES, I’ll do it, and I love COTTONMOUTH and it is an important piece to the puzzle. CC: COTTONMOUTH was a test for SOUTH TEXAS BLUES? CG: Yeah, sort of a warm up. CC: You’re also working on a sequel to HORROR BUSINESS called SON OF HORROR BUSINESS. This is going to take a different approach, and aside from having the filmmakers you profiled in the first one, there’s a lot of new filmmakers featured. What will we expect from it and any highlights from the shooting? CG: I’ve been shooting SON OF HORROR BUSINESS for two years now. It started off originally as something I had planned to accompany HORROR BUSINESS when it came out on DVD, but it evolved. I started meeting new people and I started to have a different sensibility about it so I couldn’t make the same kind of comment again. I wanted to further it, I wanted to say a little bit more than that. Again, it needs to appropriately represent where I’m at in my life right now. It’s another step as a filmmaker but at the same time it’s time to examine, “OK we’ve had some success and we’ve gotten further but where exactly are we going and do the hardships stop as a filmmaker?” Is there going to be any kind of pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? But it will be a positive feeling of “Yes it’s worth fighting for” but examining some of the pitfalls. For instance, Debbie Rochon, who’s an incredible person and has had an incredible career as an actress in independent filmmaking, she had an incident on set, where aside from pulling herself out of a very difficult life as a child, she had an incident on a set a few years ago where her fingers were nearly severed and physically she was damaged from this experience and emotionally and mentally and she kind of pulled herself out of it. It just shows the neglect on sets on this and how people can go wrong. There are several stories like this but there are more inspirational moments where filmmakers have gotten to a particular level and they’re still struggling, and they’re still trying to make things work in a particular way, but the spirit’s more of a guerilla warfare type spirit, where even though the hardships are difficult, they’re still gonna press forward and do it anyway. CC: Another project you’re working on is ANGEL’S GATE. What is the topic in this feature? CG: ANGEL’S GATE is something I came across by chance but was very interested in. It’s my point of view of an Animal Hospice in Northport, Long Island. It’s very unique because it’s a residential animal hospice. Usually these places are separated from residents, this is an upper middle class neighborhood, suburban neighborhood and it’s over the past two years it’s been a controversial subject in the United States and abroad because the neighbors want the hospice out of the neighborhood. If this happens, the woman who runs Angel’s Gate, Susan Marino, is going to lose her home. She’s going to lose her life, it’s her entire life to take care of these animals, these sick, displaced, dying animals. A lot of them will die in transit if they ever find anyplace to move to, so Susan and her colleagues are fighting to stay in Long Island. Aside from that, she’s an incredible human being, I’ve never seen somebody put themselves out for so much for a cause, and it’s out of the greatness of her heart. I’ve seen that firsthand because it’s such an involved thing to take care of sick and dying animals. There are detractors who say she’s doing it for donation money which is bullshit because I’ve seen it firsthand and it’s not for these reasons. There’s hundreds of animals in the hospice, everything from horses and cats. Susan has dedicated her life to taking care of these animals and rehabilitating them, and there’s such an enormous heart behind the whole thing that I feel that there needs to be a candid and honest look at it. I’m trying to stay unbiased, my heart is with the hospice but I’m trying to stay as unbiased as possible and give the audience a point of view so they can draw their own conclusions. It’s gonna be very intense, gruesome at times, warm at times. The footage I’m getting is incredible and this is a story that needs to be told. CC: You were recently in New Orleans shooting for it for a few days. How did that go about? CG: Little story behind that was a year ago Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and that region. Susan Marino had packed up a van and journeyed to New Orleans to save animals on the volunteer. I didn’t make it on the first trip because I had my trip to the Alamo Drafthouse at the same time, I had that planned for a while, so I didn’t go with Susan the first time. She was going back again, I had the opportunity and I took it. She was retracing her steps to go save more animals and it was such an incredible journey because New Orleans is still a devastated area. There are miles and miles of empty homes, destroyed homes, and the watermarks are still there on all the buildings and you can see 20 feet high watermarks on the buildings. It’s hard to imagine what happened there unless you’re there. I was standing in the middle of this, driving through all this, and I’m sure it’s still difficult to imagine what happened there. It was absolute insanity. I came back with about eight hours of footage. I went with Susan and some Angel’s Gate volunteers and came back with some incredible footage that you’ll see in the film. CC: Is there a timetable for when ANGEL’S GATE will be completed? CG: It needs to hit a plateau on the story. I’ve seen people try to set schedules for them and I guess for a particular documentary that’s fine, but if you’re really telling a good story, you can’t set a schedule on when you think it’s gonna get done. That’s not going to happen. I’ve been shooting ANGEL’S GATE now, we’re coming on two years. Maybe, I don’t know, I’m waiting to see if the hospice is moved from where it is, if it’s shut down, if it stays. Some kind of plateau, that’s what you have to wait for in a documentary. I made one, and working on four others so this is what I’m learning. CC: You’re also working with one of your subjects in HORROR BUSINESS, John Brodie, on a project called MONTAUK UNVEILED. What is MONTAUK UNVEILED and what is the purpose behind it? CG: It’s a co-production. John is the executive producer of MONTAUK UNVEILED. He had a very different idea originally of what this film was going to be and asked me to be part of it. I told him the only way I was going to be part of it was if it would be a co-production. I would have a say in a lot of what goes on and we would be able to discuss it and debate it. It would be a collaboration so that’s what it is. John commissioned me to shoot and edit and come in with my own ideas, and I brought a lot of new ideas to the table to reconstruct the original idea to something that I felt would fit better. It would be a little more palatable for people. The original idea I felt wasn’t practical with the budget that we had so we stripped it down and reconstructed it but it’s a total collaboration and co-production. What it’s about, it’s focus is on an abandoned air force base on the eastern tip of Long Island called Camp Zero, where mind experiments, time experiments, experiments with alien lifeforms allegedly occurred, so John and I have been traveling all over the United States interviewing the subjects of these experiments, the known subjects, because it is a known topic. There are books written about it, there are websites focused on it all over the world, so this isn’t the first time this topic has been brought up. I think it’s the very first time the topic will be looked at this way and I don’t know if there are that many documentaries that are well made on the subject. I know there are couple of underground docs made on it you can order from the back of the magazine. This is a true profile of the situation and we’re being as creative as possible without having to stretch the truth. We’re having some wonderful animated sequences by Trevor Cook and his work will be seen in MONTAUK UNVEILED as well as ANGEL’S GATE. For any science fiction fans or fans of government conspiracies or alien invasions or anything of the like, this should be extremely interesting, or for anyone in general I think because my approach was and I told this to John we need to have a realistic, down to earth approach. We can’t have it like UNSOLVED MYSTERIES, where we’re shoving the history in your face immediately and try to make it spooky. I think if we strip it down to what we see and a little more of our journey in this, then it would be more interesting. CC: With all the documentaries you’re working on, how much preparation and research do you do on the subject or subjects before you start shooting? CG: I continuously do research on the subject as I go along, and always researching, always looking for new things. I think the research can be endless, you can do as much research as you want. The approach to the subject needs to be as if you don’t know anything about them so however you reveal yourself to the subject and whatever you do in your private hours should be two different things. It’s almost like you’re lying but you should also know what you’re talking about so you can form certain questions, but at the same time you should approach them like you know nothing about them. CC: I know you have a love of the horror genre, what is your view of the genre in particular? Where do you see it going in a few years? CG: I think this is going to be the very last year for torture movies, if those movies don’t tank. I don’t need to name them, everyone knows what they are. It’s just gonna be enough for people. It’s a fad and it’s gonna go away. It’s definitely getting annoying because we need more intelligent, suspenseful, well crafted horror pictures. More imaginative, no more remakes. Some of them are good, unfortunately it’s been plagued by so many bad ones. The good thing about the remakes is that it keeps the business of horror alive. The bad thing is that they’re in such abundance that the term dumbing down seems to be an actual clinical plague, it needs to be eradicated. We need to focus. What we will see next is a reaction to all the crap that’s been out there. Some of it’s fun, some of it’s been real bad. I think monster movies, recently there’s this Korean film called THE HOST. You’ll see a lot of Americanized version of that, and I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, there might be some interesting things made, like the DESCENT, where it’s a monster movie but there’s a sleazy aspect to it in a good way, kind of like the early Cronenberg films, or Q, the Larry Cohen movie. They’re remakes in a way, but that’s the kind of sensibility that people are gonna hit. Then you’re going to see more of an intelligent portrayal of suspense in terms of horror films, but done in a very interesting way, probably still with a lot of violence. The violent aspect isn’t going to go away which is interesting because some of the greatest horror film had their violent moments. You’ll see remakes of a lot of old Universal monster pictures. As you can see, THE WOLF MAN is going to be made. If that does well, you’ll see a remake of CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, and another remake of FRANKENSTEIN and another MUMMY and so on and so forth. I think that’s the future right now, but then there’ll be another series of films I think, very creative, original portrayals of horror, and those are hard to explain because they’re original. I know I have quite a few original ideas in the archives and I’ve been speaking to people as well that have original ideas and as long as those guys keep working, there’ll be a chance to make them into movies. I think eventually and I’ve been saying this that it’ll be en vogue to be good at what you do again, so a lot of the crap will be just swallowed up by the other good stuff that’s really in the foreground and people will appreciate well made horror films again and all that’s derivative. If it was derivative in a good way maybe it would work. A lot of great horror films have been derived from other sources, but mainly it’s been just horribly and aimlessly derivative where even the remakes aren’t even half as good as the originals. That just might be my opinion but that’s where I see it. CC: Any last words about HORROR BUSINESS? CG: Do you wear cologne? CC: No. CG: Well you need to!
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