The Point Radio: Some Indie Film Magic

We jump into the world of independent movies starting with Elliot Diviney. He’s a talented editor for projects that include LOST and BATTLESTAR:GALACTICA, but he is also an indie film maker with a new movie that puts him into the super hero feature arena, Then meet Karen Lam, celebrated horror writer and director whose film EVANGELINE finally hits the U.S. this month.

Next week, Greg Poehler (along with sister Amy) is bringing back WELCOME TO SWEDEN for a new season on NBC. We get an exclusive look.  Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Transcript

the point radio. It's Mike Rob. We jumped in in the world of independent filmmaking with a couple of seasoned veterans that take on some well pretty

popular genres for and superhero films. How do they make their projects different from what we've already seen? We'll ask that and more. Let's

get to the point. This is the point. The point radio. Get the point radio. Elliot Dibney is a film maker, having honed his crafts, working on projects for

Grey's Anatomy, Lost and Battlestar Galactica. He's also an indie film maker as well, having written some five indie films over the past few years,

one of which is hitting DVD this month. It's American Rescue Squad, a superhero satire film. And I was curious with all the heavy competition out there.

Why go superheroes? I've always been a superhero fan, particularly the newer Marvel movies, starting with X-Men and most recently Avengers. They

sort of loved the superhero idea and knew that if superheroes were involved, people might be willing to take this journey with us. You know,

that they might lower their inhibitions a little bit. So what's the film about? There's a superhero named the taxpayer that the government always

calls upon to solve all of their problems. And he's just a normal guy. And this evil group called the Alliance, they kidnap him and they plan to torture him.

And the mayor is passed with assembling this crew of superheroes from the past. One of them is called common sense. One of them is called personal

responsibility. And one of them is called birth control. And society is sort of keeping up on them and turn their back on these superheroes. And so the

mayor has to bring these superheroes out of hiding and sort of reunite them and get them excited about the cause. And they have to together then

go in and rescue the taxpayer from this evil organization. The arch enemy of every independent filmmaker, the limited budget. How did he

overcome that? I was sort of I grew up in the independent film world. So you just sort of figure out a way to do it. The nice thing was being a costume

designer that made all of our superhero costumes, which are really colorful and vibrant and fun. And then we hired a kung fu choreographer, Jared

Crooks. We had seen his stuff. He had been making movies in Wisconsin and was really good at sort of Jackie Chan style fighting in kung fu. And so we

we cast him as one of the bad guys and brought him in for all the fight scenes. And so my thought was if we had really good costumes and really good

club teams, then it would seem like maybe we had a bigger budget than we actually did. So who were his superhero filmmaker inspiration? Oh, so I

mean, this movie is dedicated to Trey and Matt from South Park. My brother and I wrote the script together and we just really love the way South Park

deals with politics, but just in giving you an issue and showing it to you a different way and allowing you to laugh at it and sort of think about it

maybe differently. And we wanted to try and do that with politics in general. And we knew that film was a good way to do that because it's not censored

at all, especially on the independent level. You know, we just went out and made this movie. We didn't have to ask anybody. And sort of that is

sort of influenced by Trey and Matt as well. But Kevin Smith was a big influence Spielberg and Lucas, John Hughes movies, you know, the list goes on and

on and on. One of the biggest controversies right now when it comes to superhero films is dark versus light. The dark nights of DC versus the brighter

Avengers. Where does he weigh in on that? Yeah, I like all of it. I mean, I really do. I really adore Christopher Nolan. I think he's one of the greatest

directors of all time, you know, from Memento on inception. Dark night. I love I like that we get to kind of have both superhero worlds. You know, the Marvel one

is going on is a little more fun and energetic and then the Nolan one is more thoughtful and dark. And I think it's great. I think we can have both. I think

those two worlds can coexist and that it's sort of great that we have this DC versus Marvel war going on. It's very cinematic. You know, Elliot's

latest project, American Rescue Squad is available right now on DVD. TV takes the center stage in pop culture this week. It's

those few weeks in the TV business where the acts is hauled out and swung pretty gingerly at maybe some of your favorite shows ending their run

and making room for new ones to premiere in the fall. ABC jumped up to bat first to announce cancellations for forever. Cristela resurrection

revenge and the taste and last man standing may be added to that list sometime over the next few weeks as well. In the meantime, a few surprising

renewals once upon a time gets a fifth season. Marvel's Agents of shield get to season three and agent Carter will be back for a season two at some point

over the next year. ABC also renewed a castle, Nashville and scandal as well. It looks like legends of tomorrow will be the name of the arrow flesh spin off

set to debut in the fall from the CW. Still a lot of other questions to be answered as to where Firestorm fits into all this and who exactly this

version of Black Canary will be over the summer. More than likely that'll be revealed certainly by comic con, but the show is scheduled to premiere in

the fall on the network with both agents of shield and agent Carter coming back. It looks like ABC is dropping plans for the shield spin off.

They announced a few weeks back. The show was to star a mocking bird as the lead character, but sources at ABC say the entire project has been shelved after

having turned into script for all three Captain America films. So far, Christopher Marcus and Steven McPhee Lee have picked up the job to write the next

Avengers movie. I'll be doing Avengers Infinity War, which will hit theaters the first part anyway in 2018 and the second part one year later in 2019.

When it comes to horror writer director Karen Lamb is very serious about the subject. She's done several independent films in the genre and one of

her latest Evangeline is finally coming to the US. So what drew her to this kind of material to begin with? I've always been a horror net. So I think it's been

I think you either have it or you don't. I've been probably I started with probably horror reading like I love Stephen King and started reading, you

know, all this Gothic horror, like Edgar Allan Poe and Daphne DesMaurie. And so I think that's where I started from. And my dad used to be a horror net. And so

I think the first film I ever saw was Jaws. So, you know, I I think it's and that was at five years old. So I think that I've always I've always liked the

darker things. So what's Evangeline about? It's supernatural revenge fantasy. And I love revenge fantasies. I think it's because of, you know,

a lifelong love for like Charles Bronson and that sort of thing. But yeah, so we've been doing the film festival circuit. We finished in the late fall of

February of 2013. But we had a whole year on on the festival circuit before going onto VOD and DVD. So horror movies have been around for over a century

and with so much already out there, is it hard to create a really scary moment that'll catch today's audiences? Well, hopefully it's something,

you know, I'm the audience too. So I spend most of my time watching the same things they're watching. And I think that the only reason I ever start writing

or directing anything is because I have something hopefully different to say. And that's where it usually starts from. And then after that, you know,

as far as the creating special scares or the jumps and that sort of thing, all you can really do is just follow the material and do the best thing

you can. And and again, I approach everything from a fan perspective rather than necessarily just as a creator. So what's Karen's favorite

classic horror moment? Yeah, probably one of my favorite moments is in audition where the guy is calling her and she's just sitting there and the

phone's ringing and in the background, the burlap sack jumps. I love that moment. It's one of my favorite horror moments in a film. Of course,

you know, I can probably quote the silence of the lambs. We always do the, you know, it puts its lotion on its skin, which is probably not the best thing you

want to do, you know, usually in the drugstore. So what scares Karen? Probably demons. Demons scare the crap out of me because I am

absolutely superstitious and I've had a few instances where I think that there's something out there and I try not to mess around with the dark side. So now that we

finally get to see Evangeline, what's next? I'm actually working on, I've got actually, funny, I have two scripts that I'm working on,

feature scripts for new horror films and I'm in the midst of doing my first feature documentary, which is a band documentary, but it turns into a

creature feature and it is not a mock doc. So there you go. Check out Karen's body of work on IMDB. Evangeline is available right now on DVD and video on

demand and unlimited theatrical release as well. And this is for the podcast right now, but among the things we'll be tackling next week is welcome

to Sweden. Greg and Amy Poehler's sitcom from last summer is back again for a second season. What are the changes and where do we go from here? All that and

more will turn up on websites like ComicMix.com, MichaelDavisWorld.com, GetThePointRadio.com, and in the iTunes podcast.

You can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and always Instagram too under The Point Radio. We'll see you right back here. Radio.com.