Alan Butterworth (interview)

If I told you I was making a black and white film that included the murder of old men, a lead like Russell Brand, and a Bible verse about a prophet summoning bears to devour youths for making fun of his bald head (all recorded in glorious HD), you may question my sanity, but the gamble has paid off for director Alan Butterworth, whose debut film, The Drummond Will, is burning up the festival circuit with its unforgettable characters and witty dialogue. With the upcoming release of The Drummond Will on video, I asked Alan a few probing questions about the film and filmmaking in general.

 

Rhoda Jordan (interview)

 

Coming up quickly in the ranks of the cinema, Rhoda Jordan is more than a pretty face from music videos and horror B movies. With credits including: actress, writer, producer, teacher, singer, and ghostwriter, Rhoda Jordan has covered a lot of ground in a relatively short amount of time. I recently had the opportunity to ask Jordan a few questions about her career as well as her collaboration with husband, writer/director Eric Shapiro, that resulted in the indie thriller, Rule of Three.

 

Doug Claybourne (interview)

 

Doug Claybourne may not be a name you recognize immediately, but he has a list of films to his credit that should make him a household name. In addition to producing many well-known films, including The Fast and the Furious, The Mask of Zoro and Ernest Saves Christmas (I’ll get to that later), his name can be found scattered across the credits of director Francis Ford Coppola’s Vietnam war epic, Apocalypse Now. Not only has Doug endured trials and tribulations—and come out the other side a successful film producer—but he’s also a heck of a nice guy.

 

Helen Cox (interview)

 

Hailing from the UK, veteran writer, Helen Cox, has several achievements under her belt, she’s written reviews and columns for Guardian Film, Loaded, Flickfeast, Rough Cut Reviews, and Lost in the Multiplex (she also informed me that she’s watched Grease 2 117 times, but we won’t hold that against her). Helen’s latest venture in the world of cinema will be in the form of a quarterly produced magazine by the name of, New Empress. Yes, that’s right, while the internet is full of cries of the impending death of print media, Helen is taking a different, and inspiring, viewpoint, “People do say print is dead, they also say that about Elvis but people keep seeing him, having worked in the media on and off for the past seven years I can’t say I really believe it. When I was carrying out market research for the mag most people agreed that the online experience just doesn’t compare to having a new, crisp magazine in your hands, especially if it’s a good quality. People still buy newspapers even though they can read all the news online. It comes down to what that publication offers you as an experience. If you like what you get from it how you get it is pretty irrelevant.”

 

Aaron Aites & Audrey Ewell (interview)

 

With the recent UK release of Until the Light Takes Us on DVD & Blu-ray, I was given the opportunity to interview Aaron Aites and Audrey Ewell, the minds behind the Norwegian black metal documentary that not only sets out to get the facts straight about the scene, and the events surrounding it, but also provides a closer look at the key players in it. Aaron and Audrey were both generous with their time and answers as they provide explanations and insight into their film and film-making.

Justin Smith: How did you get involved in the project and what drew you to the material?

Aaron Aites: We’re huge music fans, and after being introduced to Norwegian black metal by a friend (Andee Connors, owner of Aquarius Records in San Francisco) we quickly became obsessed with it. We basically bought every Norwegian black metal release we could get our hands on, and started to look around for a documentary on the subject that did it justice. We couldn’t find anything that fit the bill. Eventually, the idea of the two of us tackling the subject came up (at the time we were preparing a different film for production) and eventually we just decided to do it. There were many aspects that drew us to the subject, one of the biggest was the fact that the Norwegian black metal scene, at the time, was the most vibrant and heartfelt scene (and I don’t mean “music” scene, but all around art-scene) on the planet. It also gave us a chance to take some ideas that we have about postmodern theory that have intrigued us for a long time and explore them on film.