Film Fervor Podcast |filmmaking | Crowdfunding |positivity |independent Film | Justin Kincaid

Today I'm joined by Tyler Christensen, the writer and director of House of Purgatory. We did a review of the film on Film Fervor last week and I really wanted to touch base with Tyler to talk about his work and find out more about him. I will warn you, the audio quality isn't the greatest because Tyler is driving while the interview is going on but it's quality stuff and I do recommend you listen to what he has to say. Tyler provides a great deal of wisdom about House of Purgatory, from the difficulties he had making it come to life to the awesome experience it was to actually get out there and make the film happen. This is a perfect example of what you can do with a limited budget and a Give 'em Hell attitude. Tyler and his crew pull off an amazing film with an awesome throw-back horror concept that we really enjoyed watching. If I had to take away something most important from the interview is the importance of getting the right people connected to your film. It just goes to show you that if you get out the

Today, I spoke with Michael David Lynch, the writer and producer of the hilarious comedy Dependent's Day (You can check out our review here). Dependent's day is about a man (Cam) who gets claimed as a 'dependent' by his successful bread-winning girlfriend Alice. Cam struggles to prove himself as he stumbles through different jobs and life's obstacles in the hopes to live out his Hollywood dream and finally rise to the occasion. Dependent's Day is a great relationship comedy about the adventures of being in love and making it work.   Normally I wouldn't get so excited about these types of films because I'm just so tired of seeing men portrayed as bumbling morons who can't survive without their wives/mothers/someone to help them get past that childish adolescence and move into self sufficiency, however, Dependent's Day doesn't rely on those tropes to carry the story. Dependent's Day is an awesome story with a genuinely funny tone that tells a fairly realistic story of how a man can follow his dreams, if he

Today, I spoke with Austin Keeling about his film The House on Pine Street, a psychological horror about a young woman coping with an unwanted pregnancy after moving into a seemingly haunted house.   Let me just say this up front, I love these kinds of horror films. The House on Pine Street allows us to insert our own horror because it activates the most powerful fear-generation machine in the world: our imaginations. This film is a throwback to the classics in the horror genre, it's about the atmosphere and characters building to a real visceral sense of dread, rather than trying to frighten us with a rubber mask or a CGI character. I'm in love with the films that go back to that old school methodology of experiencing fear. Once you see a monster it's no longer frightening, so the biggest thing you can do to extend that fear and dread is to keep the monster in the shadows, both literally and figuratively. Austin and his team really wanted to spread the horror by keeping the film grounded in as much psyc

Today's episode is with Jeff Frumess and he's here to talk about his film Romeo's Distress. The film is described as a Weird, Shakespearean, Gothic, Horror-Thriller that tells a story of a boy name James, his unrequited love for a girl named Jane, and her father's sadistic (yet dutiful) response to it all.   The biggest takeaway I have from this interview is the passion and pleasure Jeff has for film making. He's energetic and upbeat about the whole process and tackles the difficulties he's faced in making films with a unique mindset that allows him to overcome obstacles as quick as they arise. One of the most interesting things about Romeo's Distress is the idea behind the film and how it plays on established tropes to tell a refreshing take on the story. I love the fact that this film was done on such a shoestring budget that it's almost non existent and yet it manages to pull of a wonderfully crafted tale that really makes you stop and think about the details. Romeo's Distress is a perfect example of

Today I spoke with the co-creators of Letters from Baghdad, Sabine Krayenbühl and Zeva Oelbaum and their incredible journey into film making. Letters from Baghdad tells the extraordinary and dramatic story of Gertrude Bell, the most powerful woman in the British Empire in her day. She shaped the modern Middle East after World War I in ways that still reverberate today. More influential than her friend and colleague Lawrence of Arabia, Bell helped draw the borders of Iraq and established the Iraq Museum.  Letters from Baghdad is the story of a true original—Gertrude Bell—sometimes called the "female" Lawrence of Arabia. Voiced and executive produced by Academy award winning actor Tilda Swinton, the film tells the dramatic story of this British spy, explorer and political powerhouse. Bell traveled widely in Arabia before being recruited by British military intelligence during WWI to help draw the borders of Iraq and as a result helped shape the modern Middle East. Using stunning, never-seen-before footage

Today, I spoke with Jen Ponton about her film Love on the Run, which she plays the character Franny. When Franny woke up one morning it was another day of possibilities to have all her dreams come true. Her optimism can't be silenced even when Rick takes her hostage while robbing a bank. Jen is an incredible person with an absolutely awesome personality. She's a powerhouse of energy, professionalism and excitement for her trade and I'm not just using buzzwords.   http://www.jenponton.com/

Today I talk with Vanessa Wright and Kevin Peterson about their film Rainy Season, based on the short story by Stephen King. A young couple arrive in the town of Willow, ME for summer vacation. After warnings from town locals to leave, they stay and learn the horrific price the town must pay for prosperity. Writer & Director Vanessa Wright seized the opportunity to obtain the non-exclusive rights to Stephen King's Rainy Season through his special program. One of the coolest things about Stephen King is that he has a program called "Dollar Babies" (See this link for more information) that allow for students of film to license some of his work that is currently not licensed to any projects. Once a project is approved, students actually have the permission to use one of his stories to develop their own skills and to put out a film with a significant pedigree.  In order to bring this dark tale to life, she assembled a creative dream team, consisting of Director of Photography Mark Simon and Executive Pro

Today, I'm joined by David Block in the first of a series of interview for the First Glance Film Festival of 2016 in Philadelphia. I'm really excited to be able to do another round of interviews with First Glance, I've been a follower and major promoter of the #supportindiefilm hashtag and I've always loved the quality of work that First Glance brings to their festivals and today's filmmaker is no exception. For over 20 years, David Block has worked as a documentary producer/director and a freelance journalist. He is also legally blind and has been that way since birth but hasn't let that stop him from creating amazing works to help raise awareness for a number of important issues. His film Gift Horses is an awesome project that shows how horseback riding can help with physical therapy while walking with the horse, touching the horse, grooming the horse provide emotional therapy. Coming from a family with osteoporosis and severe arthritis, I can attest to the validity of the claim that horses provide an enorm

Today I'm joined by David Jaffe, a professional photographer from North Carolina and the owner of Lift-Off Studios. He's here today to talk about his unique project called Blood Night. I first reached out to David because he's published a Photo-Novel, a graphic novel using pictures rather than illlustrations, because I wanted to talk to him about the process and learn some things as we are about to create a photo-novel ourselves, but I certainly got more than I expected with this interview. David made the Photo Novel and, to build buzz and excitement for it while it was being made, he also made a short film to promote the project. What I like about this process is that it mixes multiple types of media and formats to tell a complete story and that they don't shy away from using new and exciting methods to get it done. Blood Night is a Punisher Cosplay story that follows Frank Castle on a unique mission that ends rather differently than what you'd come to expect from a Punisher story line. I won't go into detai

Today on the podcast I'm joined by Zach Lipovsky of Reel Apps Inc to talk about the absolutely amazing tool they've developed for filmmakers called Shot Lister. Shot Lister lets you professionally organize hundreds of scenes, create a shooting schedule in minutes, and customize your workflow experience in any way you desire. You can import Final Draft, Celtx and Fountain scripts with absolute ease and it automatically builds an entire project based on the files you bring in. Combined with an awesome storyboard capability that allows you to import your boards, arrange them in Shooting Order or Scene Order, and effortlessly and instantly sync your project with everyone on your team using the App, Shot Lister takes the grunt work out of the organization phase of a film and lets a crew do what it should be doing- Filming. Shot Lister is the only truly professional shotlisting app for filmmakers. It revolutionizes the art of shot listing from pre-production to the minute by minute decisions on set and delivers the

Today, I'm joined by Ben Hicks to talk about the online film festival he co-founded; The Fandependent Film Festival. Ben is a fellow filmmaker who has been working on his own film for the better part of ten years, working through multiple countries and following a couple along the decade of their lives. The Fandependent Film Festival has four festivals per year, one for every quarter, and is stacked with anywhere before forty to sixty feature films. They don't screen short films at all they focus on feature length films (50+ minutes) and they put them up on the site for free to watch all the time. It's a great thing to have your film put out on dedicated websites but what is more important and far more valuable than just putting it up on YouTube or Vimeo is getting a full distribution deal from an established distributor. While it might be easier to make a film these days, it's increasingly harder to get noticed. Getting your work seen is the greatest challenge facing independent filmmakers today. Fandependen

Today on the podcast, I'm joined by Naomi Soneye-Thomas who is currently funding her debut short film Born Evil on Kickstarter. Naomi provides us with a great deal of wisdom for someone just getting into the business because she has a solid foundation of how to just treat people in the world. One of the biggest problems that a lot of people in the film industry has is that they forget that a little kindness goes a very long way. For someone so new to the business, she has such a positive attitude toward film making, dealing with the people involved in the process, and of course dealing with our own insecurities with putting ourselves out there for the world to judge. So, Born Evil is a short film which follows Charlotte and Darren - two angels who have broken the rules. Fed up of allowing innocent people to die, they have escaped from heaven to take matters into their own hands. They now live in hiding, transferring lives from bad people to good. They are pushed to the brink when determining the fate of Louis

Today I'm joined by Alex Oshmyansky, the creator and director behind the worlds first feature length film shot entirely in Virtual Reality (VR) Career Opportunities in Organized Crime. Ever want to join the mafia? Are you on the fence about it? Let Vova, Baltimore's local Russian mob boss, try to convince you in the first ever feature length virtual reality movie. The film pretty much speaks for itself: A Russian mafia recruiter is setting up a video to get more recruits and socialize in the modern day platforms. However, what you really have to take from this film is the fact that it is shot entirely in Virtual Reality and done on relatively inexpensive "consumer" products (GoPro). The whole concept of VR is fascinating from a filmmaker perspective because you have to be so extremely aware of your surroundings both in front of the camera and behind, because your viewer can literally just turn their head and look around your set. I think this concept is really interesting because it is going to add a larger d

Today, I spoke with Eric Chaney whose debut feature film Indigo Children becomes available on iTunes on August 23rd, 2016. Eric has a solid mentality about the business of independent film, saving money and making sure to use the contacts you have in your life to get the things you need to tell your story. I really like the reality of Indigo Children's production, as Eric mentions that it took seven years of actual work to get the story planned, filmed, and then released to the public. The story is about a mysterious girl who pursues a young man in her new small town home. Coinciding deaths and a disappearance create a common thread between them as they struggle with young love and loss over the course of one summer.  There is certainly enough in the film to keep you interested from a cinematography point of view, the film looks gorgeous and it really helps with the immersion into the story world when you forget the camera is there and you just want to follow along with the characters. I've spoken in the

Today, I spoke with Teddy Cecil of Shadow Council Productions (Just FYI: My recommendation for the Greatest Film Production Studio Name Ever award) about his short film Helio which premiered at the Comic Con Film Festival in 2016. Helio is a short, visceral film (about 20 minutes long) centered on a post-apocalyptic underground society where its citizens mine to sustain their dark existence. Speaking with Teddy, I realized immediately that he is a filmmaker who not only knows the craft but is genuinely in love with it. His background in art is evident in his work but the true test of a filmmaker isn't what they know, it's what they show. So when you look at the Helio trailer and watch the film when it comes online, you'll see just what I mean. Because the film is set underground in a massive subterranean world, Teddy and his crew had to make quite a few adjustments on how they filmed, when they filmed, and always kept on the move by situations revolving around the need to stay out from under the sky, like rai

Dan Eberle joins me on today's episode to talk about his feature film Sole Proprietor. The film is about a former CIA contractor who, after faking his own death, develops a relationship with a foreign prostitute while waiting for his new identity to arrive. From my first glance at the film, it really looks like it is a cross between a Jason Bourne and James Bond's more seedier side of things. What really interests me about Sole Proprietor is the deep story and character development, rather than just the same old car flipping, building exploding, helicopter crashing action films that you would expect in the genre. Listening to Dan talk about his projects and the way he develops the stories he tells is extremely enlightening. He goes about telling the same story tropes that we've all seen a hundred-thousand times and gives it a new (albeit familiar) twist  in Sole Proprietor by dealing with short bursts of backstory interwoven with a nuts and bolts crime thriller. The deliberate juxtaposition of different

SoundStripe is an awesome new platform that offers unlimited, open licensed music to filmmakers to score our productions and publish them with all the proper paperwork in place. These songs and tracks generate their own individual license and give you free reign to use the downloads in just about any niche you can think of. They have some terms and conditions, based on the types of work being used, but it is a general disclaimer and not a problem for most indie filmmakers. They have a wide variety of music themes available, from orchestral rock to big epic sounds, down to the minimalist background "ambient" style music that a lot of indie filmmakers forget to put into their work. Everything is top notch, recorded by professional composers and mastered for the highest possible quality. I reached out to Soundstripe on their twitter account to touch base and talk about their product. Within a few minutes, I had an interview scheduled with the co-founders Travis Terrell and Micah Sannan and we were off to the rac

This episode of Film Fervor is a throwback to mid 2015. We had a server issue that caused us to lose a few episodes and Phil was one of them. So, Phil Abatecola and I talk about his web series Milkshake and an upcoming film that he's working on called Irreplaceable. He wrote a novel about the story and wants to turn it into a feature noir film, which I am extremely excited about. Milkshake is about two friends who one night had a milkshake they can't remember. It was a life changing concoction that inspired a weekly quest to find this amazing milkshake.

Cloudy With a Chance of Sunshine is the first feature length film by Kevin Rosnick and Rebecca Norris. It's a feel-good romantic comedy with a solid message and a pretty cool concept. If you follow along with Film Fervor, you'll know that I don't really care for romantic comedies and every time I see one come across my desk I kind of groan. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and everyone is free to like and dislike whatever they want, that being said, Cloudy With a Chance of Sunshine actually looks like a great film with a good message. The team of Rosnick and Norris is a powerhouse of creative ability, with a history in comedy, standup, and web series, they've got what it takes to really tell a compelling story. So, the film is about a stressed out single father has his life turned upside down when a new-age yogi mysteriously shows up in his kitchen and leads him on a journey of self-discovery. Check out the website here: http://www.cloudywithachanceofsunshinemovie.com/

Today, I had the honor of speaking with Kelly Nyks of PF Pictures about his latest film Disobedience that deals with the truth of climate change and how our governing entities are failing us, as a race, due to political agendas and profits. This is a longer form that I've been doing because Kelly is so passionate and so well informed about the subject that he just imparts so much wisdom that you can't help but listen to it all. The episode runs about 45 minutes or so, give or take, and is just filled with absolutely awesome information about the film, the company and people behind it, and the message they are getting out there to the world. It's only fitting that for our 100th episode we go back to our roots and cover a documentary. There's something to be said about being able to make a difference in the way the world works by using the film medium as a method of delivery for a message of social activism. If you know me, you know that I'm a huge advocate of social justice and an advocate for responsibility,