|
|
||
|
A Zone’s Eye View with Jay Woelfel |
Please Visit Our Sponsors |
|
|
On the strength of his body of work, Jay was selected as one of the six best film students in the United States in 1996. He was sent to the 1986 Cannes Film Festival where two of his short films were screened. He has written and directed several feature films, worked on 79 films and won 23 awards for his work. He has also lectured about filmmaking at UCLA and IFP west. The Zone's Eye View By Laura Alber
Z: First of all, The Entertainment Zone would like to thank you Jay for your time. We have a few questions we would like to ask you about your past, present, and future projects. JW: I'm happy to talk about it, and since there's no director's commentary on the DVD this is a chance to share some stories about the film. Z: You have just released "Unseen Evil" on Home Video and DVD starring the unforgettable Richard Hatch (Captain Apollo-Battlestar Galactica). Could you tell us a little about the movie? (Your own version of the plot) JW: My pitch for the movie was that it's "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" meets "Predator". But I hate pitches so it's about a group of student and professional archeologists who go into the woods to look for a famous Indian cave site. They find it; it's filled with gold. One member of the party actually intends to steal the gold, which they do, but are then chased by an invisible monster that was protecting it. There's more to it than that, but I don't want to give it all away. It was shot in not quite three weeks, funded independently and then picked up for release by Mainline Releasing and distributed in the US by Monarch. It was shot on 16mm on a limited budget and has about tripled it's budget in gross money earned so far. So they've done well for, and with, the film. Many of the crew and cast were people I'd worked with before and since, when you find people that work well together the trick is to keep them together, you need all the help you can get to make a movie, on any budget. The Battlestar trailer that I CO-directed and which has been shown at conventions over the past few years grew directly out of this film. Z: What was the filming experience like for this movie? JW: The cast really liked each other and that gives the movie a group of very good performances--the best as a group of any film I've done. The next thing I remember is poison oak. Almost everyone got it to one degree of another. The first sound man quit after two days he had it so badly. I got it so badly one day that my eyes swelled shut. Richard Hatch wore a parka and gloves (we shot the film in the summer) when walking to the cave location to avoid poison oak which he did.
We shot about half the film out near BIG BEAR near LA and we were up to high that there were no crickets at night; it was so quiet at night it was actually hard to sleep. The poison oak was from locations inside LA, if I had it to do over again, and if it had been my decision, I would have shot the entire film out in BIG BEAR, those locations were so much easier on all levels than the ones in LA. Because it was about an invisible monster the film was mostly in my head rather than on the set when we made it I don't think many people knew what to make of it. Several people since seeing the film have said they had their doubts about the movie at the time but now think it's my best film. I don't know that I agree with them, but it just shows the surprises and doubts that happen in relation to a film. Did I just knock my own film? Okay, they are right it's my best film, run or take the fastest mode of transportation available and see the movie. Z: I understand that the 'unseen' alien is being compared from some people as being similar to the "Predator," the invisible yet, prominent figure. I assume this was done with CGI technologies. If so, how difficult was this process and will you be using it again in your future films? JW: Actually the title is UNSEEN EVIL, not ALIEN. It was originally called, as is still called in some countries UNSEEN. Then there were some supposed problems with that title and they wanted a new title, we didn't think of UNSEEN ALIEN, though that isn't a bad title. I prefer the original title since UNSEEN is the name given to a specific Native American God that helped form the world. The film is known in England as THE UNBELIEVABLE, which I can best describe as being a lousy title. Actually I worked to keep the movie as different from Predator and Alien as possible--I like both those movies, but we needed to have a personality of our own. Someone at the first screening told me afterwards "Arnold wouldn't have stood a chance against this thing." So if you do an invisible movie in the forest/jungle you're certainly going to be compared to Predator. Or if you do a monster movie where you don't see much of the monster you're going to be compared to Alien. It's tough since both those movies had very big budgets and are so well done. Anyhow, I tried to make it different, rather than copy elements from those movies. The invisible effects were done in several ways. Some as simple as tying mono filament wires to tree branches and other being completely done with CGI. The best effects in the movie combine both on set and Cg elements. We tried a lens effect for the "monster vision" segments but we didn't really have the proper lens to make the effect work, or the time to rig it to the camera for each shot, so in post we came up with a sort of watery, breathing Point of View look that I was very happy with, since I usually hate movies with lots of POV monster vision in them and found myself making one.
Ken Thomson was largely responsible for those shots. Of course the battle is that distributors and buyers want to see your monster and see it right away, so it was a balancing act to show the monster the right amount that you don't feel that you never saw it, and so you don't feel you've seen it too much. Maybe it's easier to do some subtle things if you can argue, well the monster's invisible what am I supposed to show? There are a handful of rules you need to know to work with CG, they limit you in certain ways but offer opportunities that are worth the limitations if you can remember the rules. CG is used too much these days, they try to do everything with it and it seems that almost any film with CG will have some shots that look just terrible. With film you always run out of time in production eventually and what Mike McAdams, the other CG guy on this film who designed the CG version of the monster itself, told me was that every once in a while some CG thing just won't work and it's hard to tell how long it will take to fix it--and therefore when you run out of time some rough CG will end up
being your final CG. It certainly happened to them on THE MUMMY RETURNS near the end of the film. On our budget GREG FEILER (who also did the make up on my new film Trancers 6) who designed the monster built us a top half of the creature which we had on set and used, but we couldn't afford to do any mechanical movements with it so CG allowed us to have our monster do things we couldn't afford to do. And of course nobody figured out how to build an invisible monster yet. I just hope that mechanical skills in creature making don't become a lost art in this time period where everybody does everything in a computer. Seems like every interview you read someone will say "well nowadays we can do everything completely realistically with CGI, so effects are so much better." I just don't think that's true. But CG is a tool to use in filmmaking, but you should use other tools too. Z: EZ also heard about the hopes of bringing back Battlestar Galactica in the form of "Battlestar Galactica: The Second Coming". I know you and Richard Hatch made a trailer to take to the famous Comic Con in hopes of stirring up interest in the project. How was it received? JW: The trailer was very well received especially at that convention which was it first screened as a finished piece. It showed to an audience of about 3500 people in the morning and at night to about 5000. You just don't get audiences of that size in any theater so to hear a crowd that big applaud and cheer is very powerful. Some fans actually cried. To an extent any film is a guess about how to reach and please the audience, and each film has a different audience so you can't just use the same formula over and over again, I personally wanted to do certain things in the trailer and felt the fans would respond, and the response was in the spots I hoped it would be, but the amount of response was much more than I thought it would be. Perhaps though playing to that crowd, at conventions was too seductive because that's the only place it every played, and continues to play to this day. That was a mistake. People make fun of fans especially Sci Fi fans (Galaxy Quest anyone), even the fans themselves make fun of other fans. So I'm afraid that those genuine reactions were dismissed by some of the upper level brass at studios and the trailer became known as "Richard Hatches trailer made by fans." And not taken seriously as being made by a production team who could bring back the show. What it did do though for Battlestar itself, if not for those of us, who made the trailer, was revive interest in the show to a degree that it seems now that a new, at least movie will be made for Sci Fi channel. Including our trailer there were 4 various groups that tried to get the show going again and those who are doing it are a completely new group, so it just shows you how much effort it takes to get anything made. I hope this production does get made, I hope too that it's good, but regardless I feel the trailer succeeded in it's goal of getting the show going again.
Z: There is a petition for bringing the movie to fruition; do you think we will soon be seeing a reunion of sorts soon with this movie? JW: My information of this would have been totally different just a week ago, but it seems the Sci Fi channel movie won't bring back the original cast, or that's the way it looks right now. That was also largely true of the DeSanto/Singer efforts as well. In a world where there's never been the same Batman for more than two movies in a row yet the movies make money it's hard to argue that anyone notices the actors. I don't feel this way, but I think it's a majority opinion currently. Let's face it most remakes and sequels aren't any good. There are some major exceptions to the rule; it's just not easy. I think you can retain elements, and certainly cast is a major element of any film, in remakes to acknowledge the original in a way that fans will enjoy and not have it get in the way of new fans as well. I think you should build on the existing audience rather than dismiss it to go for a better, or bigger audience. Z: Will you be broadcasting the trailer for the public anywhere? I know there are still many fans that would appreciate seeing even a clip of The Second Coming. JW: I wish it would be and had already been available on a much wider basis, but it's up to Richard Hatch who owns it and is responsible for various deals to get the trailer made. There was some talk of it being put on a Battlestar DVD set. It almost was going to be part of a special the Sci Fi channel did on Battlestar but the deal fell through at the last minute. There are reasons it hasn't been made available but those problems could be overcome and I hope they are both for the fans and for all of us who worked on it. Z: You have done many films including your most recent, Trancers 6 and Demonicus. Is your main interest sci-fi and horror? JW: My main interests when I started making films were sci-fi and horror, I try to be interested in everything, but so far have managed to branch out and like new things but retain my love for those genres also. Horror was my favorite of the two because it was more about people and life and death than Sci Fi, but one of the first films I ever saw was 2001 and I was a huge classic Star Trek fan back before that became an industry unto itself. It's a struggle to grow as a person and not just grow up or grow old. Many films and books I loved as a kid I still love as an adult, but as an adult I now love things I wouldn't even
watch or read as a kid. I don't know why I'm like this, but I hope I continue to be. It's a big world and a short life, it's best to enjoy as much of it as possible, it has a lot to offer if you're open to it. Z: Can you tell us a little about each of these new films and when and where we might be seeing them? JW: Unseen Evil was just released in the United States on video and DVD so it's the most recent film. There are several others that I edited or did music for that are out or coming out, so watch the fine print on those credit blocks for those. Demonicus has been out for almost a year now, but the DVD version has only more recently been available. The DVD is my cut of the film and that's the version I'd tell people to see, both because I think it makes more sense, but also because more time was spent on the sound job which is a big part of any film. It's available on line and at Hollywood video. It was done for Full Moon and was done very quickly and cheaply, oh sorry inexpensively, and at the time there was talk of doing the next Trancers film for the company. They kept their word and Trancers was done for more money and is the first film done for my new company that I formed with producer Johnnie Young (he'd been a producer on Unseen, Demonicus and Battlestar: The Second Coming) called Young Wolf Productions. The logo for the company is a baby wolf wearing diapers. The purpose for the company is of course to grow and make bigger and bigger films, but the philosophy is to make the best films possible regardless of budget, though also do them on budget, and care about the film as entertainment or even art, rather than as soulless product. Trancers is actually part 6 of that series. Trying to do Battlestar was good training for working with a series of films and trying to remain true to it and fresh at the same time. It's about Trancer hunter Jack Deth who travels through time to save the future from the zombie like Trancers who killed his wife and nearly destroyed the world. The original premise of the series is that Jack can travels through time only by inhabiting the bodies of his ancestors in whatever era they exist in. In this one he inhabits the body of his daughter from part 3. So it's largely a female hero but with the fish out of water elements of a man in a woman's body and, we hope, more frightening and new types of Trancers than in the previous films. The female hero was the only element that was dictated to us, the rest we developed with Trancers 3's writer and director C. Courtney Joyner. Though it's a new body I think it's the same character of Jack Deth and the contrast is funny. It's a nice combination of Sci Fi, horror, humor and action that I feel is true to the premise and previous films of the series. It's the most ambitious thing I've done since Battlestar. It's current release date in July of this year; we're still editing it right now. Z: Tell us a little about your background, and how you got into the film industry. JW: I was born and raised in Columbus Ohio. I spent 6 months in Japan as a fairly small child so those are some of my first memories and I think certainly opened up my mind to the world. I'm the youngest of three children and was left alone to find my path of career though encouraged and exposed to travel and art. One winter there was a blizzard so a friend and I (who since became a television cameraman) made a stop motion animated Star Trek movie on 8 mm (no not even super 8, but 8 mm) film, I was about thirteen at the time. I then started writing short stories and continued to,
though I only became a published author last year and was recommended for a Bram Stoker award this year for another story. In making a James Bond stop motion animated film I had to build all the sets and when that was finished it was shown to a family friend at The Ohio State University. He watched it and thought I had enough talent to have a career in the film industry. He actually felt maybe I'd enjoy building and designing sets--which was the least of my interests I just had to do that because nobody else would. I made lots of films and lots of friends (both of which are necessary to get anywhere) at Ohio State though since then the film department has been eliminated from the University. I came out to LA after doing an independent Horror feature called BEYOND DREAM'S DOOR. (I hope to re-release the film on DVD sometime soon) Moving to LA I had to start all over again in many ways, but having done that feature opened the doors enough for me to remain here for about 10 years since. For all the horrible stories you may hear about the industry there are also many good people and good opportunities here and I hope to continue to find more of both. Z: What's in the future for Jay Woelfel? JW: The budgets to the films I've worked on seem to be increasing, I certainly hope that continues, but I'm not against doing things on my own from time to time. I think you have to or else you get put into a corner, or type cast as a certain type of filmmaker. I've written large budget scripts and had a few close calls with getting them purchased and will continue of course to try for the big budget projects, but I don't treat these smaller films as B movies. I think once you do that it's all over. Feedback and exposure for the films you make from the audience out there is important to keep you going and help you learn how to express yourself through the films and connect with
the audience in the way you intend. I also now that I'm getting fiction published want to continue to write since it's a whole different type of experience than just filmmaking. Z: Thank you so much for your time. We wish you much luck with this and all your projects. We wish you all the best. JW: Thanks for the opportunity and your time as well.
|
REVIEWS OF Buy "Unseen Evil" DVD Now! Click on the Cover.
|
|
Jay Woelfel has spent his career working in all phases of production and post production in film, video, and interactive media. Jay won the first-ever Interactive Academy Award for Best Documentary for Titanic: An Interactive History, a project he wrote and directed which Patrick Stewart narrated. It is one of five awards Titanic has won since its release in 1994. In 1993, he won two Emmy Awards for his production of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Birthmark. (It aired nationally on PBS stations.) He moved to Los Angeles, California from Columbus, Ohio in 1990; the first film he worked on in his new hometown
was the Academy Award nominated short film, "Bronx Cheers". 
