Fiendish Friday Interview:: Lycanthrope The Movie

What's special about your script?
TQ: It's a basic horror movie. Kinda old school, because instead of shocking with a lot of gore, I want
the audience to get into the characters and the story. We still have gore, though.

Where did you get funding to shoot the film?
MT/TQ: Almost completely out of our own pockets, with one investor we call "the lifesaver". Without that investor, we couldn't have made this movie. That investment provided the capital we needed for effects work.

What's the name of your movie and what's it about?
TQ: It's called "The Lycanthrope" and its a werewolf movie. I just like the sound of the word, but many
people don't know what it means. That was a plus as far as I was concerned, because if I don't know what something means and I'm interested, I find out. I figured if someone will go to that trouble to find out what our title means, maybe they will want to see it. "Lycanthrope" means a person that believes they are a werewolf and "lycanthropy" is the condition or disease there f. During my research, I found documented cases of people that ran around on all fours and bayed at the full moon.
One of my favorite movies is "American Werewolf in London". I didn't want to remake it or anything like that, but I liked the old school special effects and the humor in the story and how you felt for the doomed characters. Hopefully that inspiration will come across in our film.

How did you cast your actors?
TQ: I mostly used actors I had worked with before, but since we wanted a multicultural cast, we also held auditions. We considered getting name actors and even had talks with a few, but to keep our costs within budget we decided to go with unknowns. Besides, in a horror film, its more believable if you use unknown faces.

What sets your film apart from the others in the horror field?
MT: It has a plot. No, seriously, the characters are well developed and the story has weight. Our actors go a long way in setting this apart as well with great performances and an overall
adhesiveness to their interactions. Tony, I believe, h s an excellent eye and that transfered well to tape. Also, we're set apart from a great number of films at our level, not just horror films, simply by sound quality and our original music. Most productions at our level just throw up some GarageBand loops and move on. We've gone to great pains and expense to build a studio (literally - I'm a woodworker) for mixing our movies in 5.1 Surround Sound, which, for an indie production, is not very common. From Foley work to effects to music, we're working like a major to make sure this movie looks and sounds good, which gives our film a unique strength and presence. Plus, we've got an all-original soundtrack with 16 new songs from fantastic Dallas/National artists covering a variety of styles, for which we have already secured distribution (street date, July 10th). The songs were chosen based on the mood we wanted to set for a particular scene, so the songs have purpose. We are already selling the soundtrack from our website, and all the songs can be listened to through the streaming Flash jukebox we've built. Finally, we are separated by the strength of our complete marketing package, from the quality of our website to the care we've taken with all of our print and interactive media.

TQ: To make a good movie, you have to have a good team behind the scenes. Matt is a phenom and our production manager, Whitney Blake, is a wonderful production supervisor. We work well
together, because we all have the same drive.

Are you looking for a DVD release or a theatre release?
TQ: I want as many people as possible to enjoy the film, whether its in theatres or on DVD. So whichever way gets it the most exposure is what I want. We initially planned to go the festival route, both international and national. We'll see what happens.

MT: The film was shot in, and will be released in, widescreen format, so we're flexible.

How does the soundtrack fit into all this?
MT: I've covered most of this, but the soundtrack is the handshake for the movie. We wanted something special and all-original, not just a rehash of loops or some classical piece that's been
overused. It's all original music by accomplished, professional musicians and bands. It's
rock, pop, trance, country, reggaeton, and soul. There are some really cool songs on there and I'm proud of what we've put together. The quality and variety of the tracks gives us a good aural toolset from which to draw when we're going for a certain mood for a certain scene. Soundtracks were
important to me for movies when I grew up - Fast Times, Footloose, Nightmare On Elm Street, Sixteen
Candles. It was a way to enjoy the movie when you left the theater.

TQ: What Matt said. the only thing i would add, is that we really wanted a diverse soundtrack. There
should be something on there that will appeal to everyone, no matter what your musical tastes are.

Where did you shoot the film and why?
MT: The bulk of it was shot in Oklahoma at Lake Murray, near Ardmore, but much of it we shot around Dallas on the sly. I'm from Ardmore and had family and friends help us secure the locations
we needed. Tony handled all the Dallas locations and my old friend Matt Tobin let us use
his popular Dallas restaurant Vickery Park for our "bar scene". Our approach really worked out
well, and the Lake is close enough to Dallas that a couple of reshoots we needed were not a
total beating on our cast or our budget.

TQ: So many great locations in your backyard, why not use them??

What's your first public showing?
MT: We're possibly setting up a free showing in Dallas on July 27th, but nothing is confirmed at this point. That will be the only time to see the movie other than festivals for the moment.