 |
||||||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
Interview with 'Axed' Director Joshua Long
By Geoff Bough
REV: Can you tell us a
little more about Axed and how the idea came about?
Josh: Axed is a balls to the wall horror epic. Its one guy versus the living, the infected and the dead.
I am a lifelong horror/zombie film fanatic and the idea of Axed came
from wanting to make an ‘Evil Dead’ film with zombies. Lets
get one thing straight… Here in Australia horror films don’t
get made at least that’s what I thought but after seeing films like
‘undead’ and ‘wolf creek’ come out, I got very
excited and wanted to make my ‘Dawn of the dead’, ‘Evil
Dead’ film. I also wanted to top them and the one place I thought
I could was gore.
REV: You mentioned that Axed is a precursor to a more
ambitious feature film, can you tell us a little more about that? Will
Axed be setting up the story for this next film?
Josh: Axed is my version of ‘Within the Woods’
which was the short version of ‘Evil Dead’ which Sam Raimi
made to sell the idea of the longer version AKA ‘The Evil Dead’
I loved this idea. Axed is actually an expanded scene from the major project
but saying that, it certainly is a film in and of itself.
The storyline for the feature film is two friends ‘Bruce and George’
come home to find everyone dead. Maybe I will split the response into
two different sections here.
Axed the short film:
Axed the short film is a mixture of more traditional zombie films like
‘Dawn of the dead’ and ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’ and
combines that with the modern day ‘Dawn of the dead(2004)’
and ’28 days later’ style fast moving infected. Axed also
draws inspiration from films such as ‘Versus,’ ‘The
Crazies’ and of course, ‘The Evil Dead’ as you can tell
by the first trailer.
The story line is very limited and action based as it was meant to be a major climatic scene from the full length version. In the short our hero ‘Bruce’ must hide amongst an immense pile of dead bodies in order to go unnoticed by the military who are trying to capture him. The problem is that an airborne virus has infected everyone and turned them into maniacs. The maniacs turn up in droves and start feeding on the hundreds of dead bodies where Bruce is hiding, that’s where the fun begins.
This film is a zombie film fan playing with the genre. There is this big debate over which zombie is better, the fast one or the slow one? In my flick you get both, you get the fast moving infected maniacs and you get the slow moving decayed zombies… both of which like to eat each other. If you are immune to the virus like Bruce is, I guess it’s the last place you would want to be.
Axed the feature:
I was getting really upset watching zombie films that no one was putting
the drama into. That’s why ‘Dawn of the dead’ is the
greatest film of all time. People love the characters and enjoy rooting
for them. The film has that realistic edge to it. I want to feel like
the film is real. I don’t want to sit there and think ‘oh
come on why would they leave the safety of the shopping center to get
to the stupid boat?’ (I don’t want to get misquoted there
as I loved that film I’m referring to, [Dawn 04’] just not
as much as the original.
What we have with the feature film is a very real story of two guys in
their mid-twenties who have to survive an airborne virus that turns most
people mental. The great thing about the film is that it has that ‘From
Dusk Till Dawn’ surprise. What I mean is that for the first part
of the film you think it’s a road movie until the shit comes down,
I like films like that.
Axed the feature will be the kind of film that isn’t pretty. It
will make you feel uncomfortable and it will make you look away. It’s
not the kind of film that will scare you with things popping up around
corners but it will scare you with its psychology and the emotions that
the characters must go through. I can’t really say anymore just
that when it comes out it won’t just be a rip off, but a fun indie
keeper.
REV: Can you tell us about
the casting for Axed? Has it been mostly friends and associates?
Josh: I guess we got lucky
with our casting. The script doesn’t call for many main characters.
It’s pretty much just ‘Bruce’ and the undead. So we
cast Kazuya Wright who is a local Australian actor who was just perfect.
He can act and do all his own stunts. The best thing about him is that
he wants to do it. Bruce Campbell is as much a hero to him as he is to
me. So it was just a pleasure. He also looked the best with blood all
over him. 
The rest of the cast was a real friends and family affair. I have a background
in acting so a lot of my friends from my acting days appear as ghouls
or zombies in this movie. We ended up with a cast of around 250 after
it was all done. People will come from far and wide to be in a zombie
flick, which is awesome. That is actually a dream of mine and the only
reason I think I make zombie films. I guess I have this dream that if
I make a good enough zombie flick like the boys from ‘Shaun of the
Dead’ did then Mr. Romero may ask me to be a zombie in one of his
films. I have always wanted to be a zombie on film but I’m always
stuck behind the camera. I did get to play a military guy though. I even
got my Hand cut off, it was awesome.
REV: From the stills I have
seen online and from the trailer, it looks like Axed features some amazing
special effects make-up. Can you tell us about the make-up artists that
worked on the film?
Josh: Yeah the makeup is
unreal. We got super lucky with a group called SharpFX www.sharpfx.com.au
who had worked on a whole heap of Hollywood films and wanted to get into
grass roots filmmaking. They are huge fans of the horror genre as well
so they were a pleasure to work with.
They did an awesome job considering the budget they had which was less then the coffee budget on most films. A true test to how good their makeup was is that we shot the film in the middle of the day with the sun directly on it and it still stands up.
I am a huge Tom Savini Fan, so both myself and SharpFX wanted
it to look like a Savini film.
At one stage we had 150 extras turn up for one day so SharpFX had to get
together a huge crew, it was just wonderful to see them in action. I think
we have made the most gore-filled Aussie film of all time thanks to them
and the film will only run for 30mins.
REV: How has the budget been for Axed and do you feel you have been able to do what you’ve wanted with the budget you have?
Josh: The budget was hard.
How we did it was myself, my parents, and my fellow producers Karli McNamara
and Kieran Nailon all saved up.
We ended up with a film made around $10,000 Australian
which I think ends up being about $50 USA… ha ha ha. So as you can
tell the budget was micro. I have never struggled under those conditions,
I love films made like that.
I think it’s a testament if you are a good filmmaker to make a good
film with no money. Having said that, I would like ten times that amount
for the feature film, which is still a micro budget really.
We decided to bring everything back to basics and shoot on HDV which was
great as we wanted that ‘Versus/28 Days Later’ look. We even
brought back classics used in the original ‘Evil Dead’ like
the shakey cam. We bolted the camera to the middle of a plank and sprinted
through the bushes with a person on either side. It was a lot of fun making
the film. Most of the budget went to makeup fx and fake blood.
REV: What kind of camera are you using for Axed and how
has that been going for you?
Josh: The camera we used
for Axed was an old school Sony HDV Z1. It ended up being pretty cool.
I don’t think ‘Axed,’ even with a huge budget would
have been shot on film. I wanted the camera to be like a character in
the film and I think HD is great for no budget flicks.
REV: Where in Australia are you shooting and how did you decide on locations to shoot?
Josh: We shot on location
in Queensland Australia. In a little country mountain town called ‘Maleny’.
It was an easy choice as I grew up there and always wanted to shoot the
goriest Aussie film ever made there as it is so amazingly charming.
A lot of the cast were local people from Maleny and we had great help
from the local council to get permission to shoot in certain places. I
also read about how when ‘The Evil Dead’ was shot all the
cast and crew bunked up together. I liked the idea and most of my crew
was from the major city of Brisbane so having them all crowd into my parents
home each night covered in fake blood was just brilliant and the cast
and crew formed a great bond.
REV: It’s widely known
that Brisbane is teeming with zombie fans with the Brisbane zombie walk,
one of the largest walks in the world. How has the local zombie community
responded to your film?
Josh: It is so funny you
mentioned that as I was super bummed I missed the first zombie walk but
I was actually shooting axed at the time. I really want to team up with
all those guys and get them for the feature film. Brisbane is a huge zombie
scene, I love it. I have even started up my own zombie film club where
we get together once a month and watch zombie flicks. To tell you the
truth we haven’t shown too many of the homegrown fans the film yet
as its still in post but I would love to have a screening just for them
before the next zombie walk if they would let me.
REV: What are some of your
favorite zombie films and are there any films or figures that inspired
your film?
Josh: Don’t get me
started, how many am I allowed to mention here?
My top three filmmakers that inspire me would be Romero, Raimi and Peter
Jackson.
My favorite zombie films…. Well I will give you my top ten in no
order. I won’t mention Evil Dead as I see it as not a zombie film:
Dawn of the dead, Brain Dead, Dellamorte Dellamore, Zombie Flesh Eaters,
Return of the living Dead, Shaun Of the Dead, Versus, Plaga Zombie Mutant
Zone, Planet Terror, Night Of The Living Dead.
As I mentioned before, Axed is kind of like ‘Evil Dead’ meets
‘Dawn of the Dead’ meets ‘Zombie Flesh Eaters’
meets ’28 days later’ meets ‘The Crazies’ meets
‘Nightmare City’ meets ‘World War Z’ meets ‘I
am Legend’ (the book.)
REV: How do you feel about the current surge in zombie
films both independent and Hollywood?
Josh: Well I like it as
I love watching zombie films. It does makes it harder to have a breakthrough
in the genre though. If I would have released Axed in 2001, it would have
made more of an impact. I made Axed because I felt I had to, otherwise
I would have gone crazy. I needed to exercise those demons. It looks like
it’s about to die down again and vampires are back.
I like how the cheapness of video is letting filmmakers come out with
a whole heap of cool little zombie flicks. I enjoy films like ‘Plaga
Zombie Mutant Zone’, ‘Dead Meat’, ‘Evil (To Kako’,)
‘Zombie Town’ or ‘The Stink of Flesh’. The one
thing I do hate about the surge at the moment is when you see a film like
‘Day of the dead 2: Contagium’ coming out. That makes me mad.
REV: What are your plans
for the film once you have wrapped? Do you plan to take it the festival
route? Maybe source some distribution?
Josh: Well the whole plan
for the film is to show it to people to get them to invest in the feature
project. I will hit the festival circuit with it so the fans can see it.
After that it would be great to get a distributor and stick it on the
disc with the feature film. The feature film is the major goal that we
want from this short film. So maybe like Sam and Bruce did before me,
I need to buy a suit and get an empty brief case and go sell this bad
boy out of the boot of my car. I guess stay tuned on my myspace : www.myspace.com/brisbanezombieor
the films page is www.myspace.com/axed_film
Thank you for interviewing me.
Regards,
Joshua Long (Writer, Director, Producer of Axed)
More stills:
