Interview J e r e m y D i c k
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about your short films ‘Buttermilk & Cigarettes", ‘Maybe Next Year’ and ‘Abortion’. Tell our audience a little more about these films and the
point of making it. fooling around with a few friends with my mother's camcorder. Last year, I showed the film to my friend Jason Morris, a Columbus actor, who adored it, and suggested turning it into a professionally made short film. I agreed, and rewrote the story. Jason then produced the film while I directed, and B & C was born. Maybe Next Year is a remake of an animated movie that my friend Michael Storch did. I thought it was brilliant, and asked his permission to turn it into a live action short film. Changing just a few minor details, and retelling the story with my own vision, Maybe Next Year became a real movie. Abortion, the animated movie of mine, isn't based on anything prior. The idea simply came to me naturally, and I put it into script format, and along with Santiago Miglionico, we turned it into an animated
movie. It may be turned into a live action film down the road. BFM: First up, Abortion seems to be an interesting title, what made you want to make a film on such a subject? JD: I'm personally indifferent on the subject of abortion. I'm neither for it, nor am I against it. So the point of writing this story wasn't based on my personal opinion on the issue. It's just an idea that I had one day while trying to think of a dark-themed story, as I enjoy writing stories of a horrific nature. I'm not sure how I thought of doing a movie on abortion, as it just seemed to pop into my head while brainstorming movie ideas. BFM: What software did you use to animate “Abortion” and explain how you produced
it? (Talk about how you
animated each frame for example) children to make their own movies. Obviously, though, the program can be used to make movies of any nature, not just G-rated stories. The limitations are pretty much endless. All of the scenery, which was made by Santiago Miglionico (who also animated the movie) was constructed by using hundreds of various 3D shapes, such as cylinders, spheres, etc. It does in fact, take a long time to do. Animation is just as time-consuming, as well. It pretty much needs to be done frame-by-frame, which, of course, can become a tad tedious. It took us several months to complete Abortion. There are a handful of other short cartoons that I have made using this program, as well, that haven't been released yet. As an aspiring filmmaker, 3DMM is what I used to make movies before I finally started getting into live action films.
BFM: How long did it take to learn the aspects of animating this film? JD: I've been using 3DMM for about seven or eight years now, so for this particular film, learning the aspects wasn't a problem as Santiago and I are both already familiar with how it works. Learning the program doesn't take very long to do. It's the actual animating and scenery constructing that's the long and hard part.
conclusions and emphasizes the common mistakes that humans make. What influenced you want to make
a film on this subject? I realize that there is a moral with this film, which is not to always jump to conclusions, but the moral was unintentional. I just wanted to tell a story where something really bad happens to
somebody, but in a very comical way. character commit suicide? JD: The mother in this movie could not bear being without the children she loved on what should be the most joyous holiday of the year, and killed herself to end the pain. Sadly, this is a problem in real life as well, as the Christmas season has the highest suicide rate of the year. In this particular story, the mother had received letters from her children stating that they wouldn't be attending this year's Christmas gathering, but she just couldn't accept that. She was in denial that her children would really not show, so she still set up the dinner, tree, and presents anyway. It was only when her children really did not show up that the realization of it hit her so hard that she decided to end her life. BFM: How much did each one of these films cost to make? (Please break down in
sections how the money was spent? JD: Abortion didn't cost anybody a dime. Santiago and I already had the program, and we didn't have to spend anything other than our time to turn this into a cartoon. Maybe Next Year was coincidentally shot during the week of Christmas, so we didn't need to purchase any of the food items, presents, tree, or anything of that nature. We went to my mother's house, set up the table using food from her kitchen, and that's pretty much it. The camera and dolly were lent to us free of charge, and Andrew James Thomas, who provided the music, also worked for free. No money was spent on Maybe Next Year. Buttermilk and Cigarettes, on the other hand, did cost me and Jason a little bit of money. The opening animation, done by Don Drennan, cost us $50. Drennan didn't ask, but we donated the money to him anyway for helping us out. I bought a bottle of fake blood for about $10 for the beating scene. Jason threw in another $10 for a couple jogging headbands for the jogger character to wear. We bought all of the crew and actors breakfast and lunch that day, as well, totalling about $60. We were lucky to use the camera and equipment for free this time as well, so in total, we spent about $130.
BFM: Did you fund these films or were you given funding? JD: The money Jason and I spent came
straight from our pockets. We didn't mind though. Explain the elements that were taken into consideration during planning for any novice. JD: We organized storyboards and shot lists for each film, something which should always be done. It's best to have an exact shotlist and visual storyboard of what you want to shoot, that way you don't have to waste any time on shooting day deciding what shots you want. We went to shooting locations beforehand and wrote down descriptions of our shots, so we could zip through it on the actual shooting days. We also got permission from the owners of the buildings we shot at or around just to make sure shooting would not be a problem. So far, we haven't really ran into any big concerns. We organized our shot lists, drew our
storyboards, and everything went fine.
JD: A Canon GL-1 was used for Maybe Next Year and Buttermilk & Cigarettes. Editing was done with Adobe Premiere. A homemade dolly was used for sliding camera angles, as seen mostly in Maybe Next Year, and lighting was provided by the cinematographers. Different colored gels
were used for different appearances of the light. there's a perfect remedy for giving it the appearance of film; a wonderful program called Magic Bullet. And when using lighting, make sure you have a wide variety of different colored gels, as they really do wonders.
agencies or were they people you knew?
done crew work for a large number of films in the Ohio area, and even some outside of Ohio. As such, he has made many friends along the way, and met plenty of other actors and filmmakers. I didn't recruit any of the people involved in our movies. Jason knew all of these people from working with them before, and asking them to help us out with our project. The actors in Buttermilk and Cigarettes are other Columbus-based actors, and the cinematographers for both MNY and B&C are filmmakers that Jason had worked for or alongside with.
BFM: Did the films come out like
you expected? and I'm proud
of them all. projects are all great people, and we all had lots of fun both in front of the camera and behind
it. We had a great team. working on these projects?
already motivated and wanting to help us out. I felt that I was extremely lucky to have come into such great people.
JD: Personally, nothing. Each of these films have certain scenes that didn't make the final cut, because we wanted the films to be perfect before we released them. We made sure we thought they were the best that they could be before we finished them, and I'm totally satisfied with the final products.
BFM: What advice would your give to
anyone who wants to get into making films? help you can find just by going to a few websites and simply asking for help. There are nice people anywhere who will always jump up to help you out or answer any questions.
you can recommend to a new film maker?
personally never used it, so I can't really compare. But, so far, there aren't really any complaints I have with Adobe Premiere, and highly recommend it to any filmmaker. BFM: What project will you be working on during this year and what plains do you have with your film making? JD: We're upping the ante bigtime in 2005. We have a large handful of scripts for short films that we want to put into production, mostly horror and dark comedy stories. We have many stories to choose from, and some will get made, and some won't, it's hard to say which ones as of right now. Currently, thought, we're in the midst of shooting a new horror short, "Shadows of the Mind".
Making films is the best way to tell your stories, because you can show them to large groups of people,
and see if they like the stories that you tell. would you prefer to write
your own films? do it. I just enjoy telling really good stories, whether it's my own or not. Either way, I'd still
continue to write my own films. JD: For years, I had done lots of animation, and have a large collection of cartoons that I have done with 3DMM. I did not know anybody in the filmmaking business and had no idea where to get started, so while I waited to become a filmmaker, I stuck with cartoons. Eventually, I'd come across Jason Morris, a great friend from high school, who told me he had been doing work in lots of local short films. I told him about my passion for filmmaking, and
together, we made Klown Films. JD: My favorite directors are Quentin Tarantino and Kevin Smith, and I love every movie both directors have ever put out. I would love to write and direct movies as great as they can, and hope that someday I can reach their level of moviemaking and create films that are just as enjoyable as theirs. As for my favorite films, aside from the ones made by the aforementioned directors, I mostly enjoy dark comedy movies, including the Cable Guy, Death to Smoochy, and, of course, Killer Klowns From Outer Space.
you could avoid?
everything went very smoothly on each shooting day.
JD: If the film is enjoyed by its target audience, then it is a successful film. If there are people out there who enjoy your movie, whether it be a lot of people or even just a few, then it has been worth all of the work.
Jeremy Dick's films '‘Buttermilk & Cigarettes", ‘Maybe Next Year’ and ‘Abortion’ can be seen in the 'Films' sections of www.BudgetFilmMaker.com.
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