Making the First Film: An Interview with Johnny K., Director of The Killer of Grassy Ridge
Johnny K. has just finished his first film, The Killer of Grassy Ridge, which premiers in a few days. Johnny tells us about his experiences, what he learned, and how he made his film. Some of the questions I asked him were similar to the ones I asked Jim in my last interview. The differences in their responses are illuminating.
I also want to thank Johnny for “getting into the weeds” with his answers. Any of you that are interested in making your own film will appreciate the detail that he goes into.
1) To start off, tell us who you are and what we are talking about.
Damn, these questions are getting hard already... My name is Johnny K., and I’ve just finished my first short film, The Killer of Grassy Ridge, which premieres February 10th on YouTube, and is currently on the festival circuit. The film stars Heather Stone and Michael Stumbo, who both did an amazing job putting up with everything I put them through.
2) I have had a chance to see the film. I suppose the closest genre it would fit into is the “slasher” genre. Why did you choose this subject for your first film?
I’ve always loved horror, the classic stuff and especially into the 1980s. Growing up with Michael, Jason, Freddy, and Chucky definitely scarred all of us, and a horror film is a relatively easy way to get your first film under your belt. Horror can be ultra low-budget, which was obviously appealing to me, and you can get some great spooky and atmospheric results without the need for renting huge sets, finding a ton of actors, and expensive effects shots. If you dial-in that spooky atmospheric tone just right, you can pull off some great results using very limited resources.
I’m also into psychological stuff – what happens when two characters with very opposing points of view come together? How does that confrontation change when you throw an axe in between them? Horror tends to lend itself well to things like that.
Plus horror fans are simply the best. They’re so passionate about the things they love, and they’ll defend them to the death! You don’t always get that passion with romantic comedies.
"A bad picture with great audio is so much easier to watch than a great picture with terrible audio..."
3) I can remember, not that many years ago, when films like this would have looked amateurish and low budget. Not so here. It is very professional looking. Great picture quality, sound, editing etc. How much of this is due to artistry and how much is due to the technology?
Well, thanks. It’s definitely both. Just to prove a point, and as a personal challenge to myself, I used very basic, entry-level gear on Killer. I storyboarded the entire film a month before production and knew exactly what gear I’d need to pull off each shot, and it ended up being mostly medium and close-up shots. Other than the big establishing shots of mountains, the lake, etc., there are basically no wide shots in this film, and most of the wides I actually shot on camera never made it out of the cutting room. Everything in Killer is very close-up or medium, so to pull that off I knew from my storyboards that I’d need a Prime 50mm lens, just to get that cinematic look and depth of field on the close-ups, where the subject is very sharp and the background is very blurry. A Prime 50 lens is a great, cheap piece of gear to give you a professional look. The amateurish look that you mentioned is usually a result of using older camcorders with auto-focus, which just won’t get you the same cinematic effect. But if that’s what a filmmaker has, use it! In retrospect I probably overused my lens and all the close-ups, but so much of my film is very up close and personal, right in my actors’ eyeballs, and I needed the right gear for those shots.
The artistry comes in to play with some of the techniques. Going in, I knew I wanted to try some simple camera techniques and tricks in this film, including the “light bath” from the sun, when we first meet Heather’s character, as well as some creepy slider reveals coming out from behind trees, almost like the viewer is spying on the characters. I also had a Steadicam stabilizer on set, which I actually never used because it would take up so much time to set up the weights and counter-balances between shots as I changed out lenses and gear, and we just didn’t have enough daylight for any delays. For me, these were just some practical exercises that I wanted to try out, and for the most part, I think they suited the film.
Knowing your way around some basic editing software can also help give you the professional look, even if your raw footage isn’t absolutely perfect. It took me a month to shoot the film (off and on), and another month purely for editing, color grading, and sound design. A lot of amateur filmmakers focus all their attention on picture quality, and audio then just becomes an afterthought. I didn’t want to commit that same sin, so I spent lots of time on audio and sound design, far more than I did on filming the video. I was lucky that Killer has minimal dialogue, and we rigged Heather up with a hidden lavalier mic clipped onto her jacket to make sure we captured her lines crystal clear. A lot of amateur filmmakers just try to use the onboard mic on their camera, and that won’t give you the best results.
A bad picture with great audio is so much easier to watch than a great picture with terrible audio, so I spent a lot of time planning our mic setups before production started.
4) I’m not a tech person, but for any aspiring filmmakers reading this, what kind of hardware and software did you use?
Just to prove to myself that I could do it, I shot 99% of the film on my very basic entry-level Nikon D3300 DSLR from 2016, using the kit lens for the few wide shots and a Yongnuo Prime 50mm lens for everything else. The entire film was shot 24 frames per second at 1/50th shutter speed to get the right motion blur and cinematic feel. I didn’t want it to look like a soap opera. I used neutral density filters because (of course) the sun unexpectedly popped out on our big day, and as a result, the entire film was basically shot in direct sunlight. Definitely not ideal for a horror film (or any film), but you have to play the cards you’re dealt.
The shot of Mike Stumbo dumping a shovel full of dirt onto the camera was filmed using a cheap little Kodak video camera which we duct-taped to an 8”x10” pane of glass taken out of a picture frame. We buried the camera in the hole, facing upward, and he just dumped dirt right onto the glass. I think we got it in two takes before the glass just got too dirty. I obviously didn’t want that shot to destroy my primary camera, so we buried the little Kodak instead. That shot is also at the end of the teaser trailer.
I had a few tripods set up, but everything was pretty much shot handheld. I like to be very agile on set, and “run and gun” as they say. I don’t like being tied down to a bunch of equipment and lights. Plus, it’s a horror film, so the jittery handheld camera gives it a little more of a frantic feel.
I was really inspired by cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki’s work on The Revenant (2015) with Leo DiCaprio, which was also filmed almost entirely outdoors in the woods. Like that film, I only used natural light (and firelight) in Killer, with zero artificial light sources. We did use some reflectors to bounce the sunlight around, especially late in the afternoons when we were losing daylight. A few of my shots got pretty dark, but I really didn’t want to use fake lights in the woods. This also allowed me to be very agile while filming without having to move a bunch of lights and tripods around every 20 minutes. I love to run and gun.
For audio, I used a Zoom H1N recorder with a lavalier mic hidden on the actors, and a couple of separate mics for various foley-work and “wild” sounds.
For editing, I used my old faithful version of Sony Movie Studio Platinum 12 (Vegas) from 2014 or so. It’s an antique, but I’m way too stubborn and cheap to learn new software. Gotta use what you have, right?
5) As one would expect , first films tend to be short films. Why is that; necessity, cost, time, other factors?
All of the above. If you’re a brand new author, isn’t it much more realistic to publish a short story or two, rather than a 90,000-word novel right out of the gate? Why not start with realistic goals? I’d love to shoot a feature film one day, but I know that in the time it would take me to write, shoot, and cut a feature, I could probably make four or five short films and not get burned out on one huge project that will take five years of my life to make.
It also comes down to the demands of the story. Some stories need two hours to be told. The Killer of Grassy Ridge needed eight minutes. No less, no more; and I’m good with that.
"... the roads were closed for ice. I don’t think a single frame of Killer was shot above 36 degrees..."
6) How much time went into this, from the moment you decided to do this to the moment the film was finished?
The concept was born on November 3, 2019 when the first storyboard panel was drawn. Post-production completed January 4, 2020, so it ended up being 63 days or so total.
We shot our big day with the actors on-location in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley on November 24, pretty much from dawn until dusk, and it was a race against sunlight to make our day. We shot Heather’s solo scenes over a couple days in mid-December, with snow on the ground. I shot my last inserts of the mountains in East Tennessee right after Christmas, but couldn’t get to my scouted location because (of course) the roads were closed for ice. I don’t think a single frame of Killer was shot above 36 degrees (which also causes technical challenges with equipment, moisture/fogging, batteries dying faster, etc.). I learned some new tricks about cold-weather filming, that’s for sure.
I have no idea how many hundreds of hours went into editing, but that’s basically all I did in December. I took time off for the holidays, just to get away from it, and then locked myself in the editing room for the final push in early January before the first festival deadlines. As a personal challenge, I had given myself two months to make this film, and from start to finish, so I’m very happy with 63 days yielding eight-minutes of film I’m proud of.
"...no matter how much you plan, everything will always take exactly twice as long as you expect."
7) Other than tricks for cold-weather filming, what other lessons did you learn from making this film?
Show some love for your cast and crew and don’t make a film that’s 99% exterior shots in late November and December… They were all troopers, and put up with a lot.
I learned that simpler is always better, and that no matter how much you plan, everything will always take exactly twice as long as you expect. Most importantly, I learned that I could actually write, shoot, and edit a film that I’m very proud of, in only a couple months. One year ago, I wouldn’t have thought that was possible.
8) I think I can say without spoiling anything that it is a very small cast, and you’re not in the film. Was there any temptation to put yourself in front of the camera?
Absolutely not. I’ve done some on-camera work as an actor, but there was never a chance I would be in this film. The story, just as you saw it, is exactly as written, and it’s a very small, intimate story between a tiny number of characters. Honestly, I have no idea how Clint Eastwood and many television directors can act in the same production they’re directing. That would drive me nuts. I have to see what the camera is seeing, to keep it framed just as I want it. I want to see the actors’ expressions in real-time, not on playback. I’d have a very hard time handing the camera off to someone else while I jumped in front of camera as an actor in my own picture. Plus, directing is lots of work and stress, especially on micro-productions where you’re wearing many hats. I’m busy worrying about lights, and staying on schedule, and capturing still photos for promotional material to be used two months later, and script revisions, and shot lists, all as the sun is going down behind me… can you imagine trying to remember your lines on top of that? I, personally, couldn’t do it, and it would be disrespectful to the other actors I’m working with, because being in the scene would not have my full attention and energy. I’d be worried about shadows, or making sure someone gets lunch there on time so we don’t fall behind schedule.
9) Speaking of wearing many hats, I think I only counted about 10 different names or so in the credits, so a lot of folks were pulling double duty, including you. What skills did you have to learn just to make the film?
More like quadruple duty. I really can’t thank the cast and crew enough. I planned our big shooting day with the absolute minimum crew necessary. I don’t like to have a bunch of people standing around waiting to be given a task. It screws with the creative energy on set. So everyone did everything. I dug the burial hole and distressed all the props and wardrobe in advance. Heather not only kept me on schedule and kept up with the shot-list, but handled hair and makeup, and of course co-starred in the film. Andrew Bowers was on audio, monitoring the mics and recorders, as well as shooting behind-the-scenes footage and running for lunches. Raynstoyk Czar was everywhere at once, changing out frozen batteries, set photography, handling props, carrying gear to and from locations, and applying some blood and gore when that time came. Huge thanks to them. They did everything I asked, and so much more.
Most of the skills I learned on this project were all related to planning and logistics. I needed to walk in the door with a solid schedule and a plan, showing exactly who would be where, doing what, and when. It really comes down to basic project management; using the best resources you have available on-hand to get the job done as efficiently as possible before your light disappears. I learned a lot in that respect.
On the technical side, I had enough background in filming small, non-narrative projects and editing to feel comfortable, but I had significantly less experience color-grading a narrative project like this, so that was a new experience I had to learn. Horror can be a very forgiving genre when it comes to color-grading. Typically everything in the genre is very blue, cold, and de-saturated… or it’s on fire. In post, I de-saturated the footage quite a bit, since the November leaves were really vibrant during our shoot, and, while the reds and oranges were beautiful, it wasn’t appropriate for the film. But a few colorful leaves still snuck their way in there.
10) One of the characters has a very Otis Driftwood thing going on. I have to know, was that his natural look, or was that hair and make-up?
That’s just Mike Stumbo’s natural look. Of course, we covered him in dirt, grime, and makeup, put hair over his face, shredded his wardrobe with razor blades and burned holes through his clothes, but the parts that really matter are all his. Actually the role was written specifically for Stumbo. He has a great look that I knew would translate perfectly on the screen. He was exactly what I needed for Killer, and fortunately he was available. There was no second choice for casting, and even my chicken-scratch storyboards were drawn on day-1 with Stumbo in mind.
I’ll make the bold prediction now: I wouldn’t be surprised if we saw more of Stumbo in future film projects. He just has a great look, and through the beard, hair, and makeup, he’s got those great eyes that can be very intense on camera. And of course, he’s one of the sweetest and nicest guys to work with on set, and a great guy in general. This film would not have been made without Mike Stumbo.
Regarding Otis Driftwood, this makes me a terrible horror fan, but I have to admit that I’ve never seen any of those Rob Zombie movies, so I had no idea who Otis was until people kept mentioning him to me after seeing set photos from Killer. Needless to say, you’re not the first person to bring up that comparison, but that’s just Mike Stumbo’s natural look, and it’s what led me to cast him to begin with.
11) As far as finishing the film, how did you know when you were done?
I was really inspired after learning about the 48 Hour Film Project, where you only have 48 hours to write, shoot, and cut your movie. That’s extreme, and I loved the idea of a project I couldn’t procrastinate, so I gave myself two months to start and finish the film, just as a personal challenge. Otherwise, it would become just another project languishing on my hard-drive that I would put off forever, or continuously tweak and try to perfect for the rest of my life. I knew I was done on January 4, 2020 when I watched the final cut one last time, and my notes of major fixes had dwindled down to nothing. Plus, my first festival deadlines were Jan. 6th, so it had to be done. As creators, we can tweak things to death, and we’ll never be 100% happy. Even a couple of the final shots in Killer still irk me a little, but part of filmmaking is knowing when to stop screwing with it. Otherwise, you’ll never get anything done.
" I’ve spent the last month promoting the film every single day..."
12) You’re finished with the film making, now comes the hard part: getting the word out. What do you have planned?
I’ve spent the last month promoting the film every single day, sending review requests and advance screeners to magazines, submitting to festivals, doing podcasts and interviews like this one, and planning a premiere party!
Festivals weren’t the goal from the beginning. My goal was to make a good movie that I was very proud of, and only after feeling that I’d done that, I took a closer look at the festival circuit. So far, Killer has been submitted to more than 20 festivals, from India, France, and Belgium, to Canada and many here in the U.S., and that list will grow as the year goes on. We just got our first selection notification last week, so I’m happy to announce that Killer is one of only 10 short films selected to screen at the 2020 Bloody Flicks Awards in the U.K.! That is such a huge honor, and what a great way to kick off the festival phase of this journey.
13) If you know, what is the typical length of time someone has to promote a film before the word starts to get out?
I don’t think there is an answer to that. I think it’s just a matter of persistence; sending out a handful of requests and promo material every day. Eventually, something big will hit. I’d love to get a small mention by Fangoria or one of the major horror outlets. That would just be a great personal success for me as a lifelong horror fan.
"...if you’re rejected, it’s not like it’s personal. There’s probably a good reason for it. Find that reason, learn from it, and move on."
14) Everyone has to deal with rejection, but especially artists. How do you deal with it?
I’m also a writer and a recovering musician, so I’ve got pretty thick skin when it comes to rejection. It’s all part of the game. Read up on how many times J.K. Rowling got rejected before she introduced the world to Harry Potter. Rejection is inevitable, but I like to also cast a wide net. I think a lot of creators set their hopes so high on one or two HUGE milestones, and when they get rejected by those, it shatters their whole world. Cast a wide net – your project probably just hasn’t found its audience yet. In fairness, if you’re rejected, it’s not like it’s personal. There’s probably a good reason for it. Find that reason, learn from it, and move on. Don’t sit around and mope.
" I suddenly had this fantastic dark tension to work with that no storyboard could have predicted."
15) As far as this film goes, what are you most proud of?
Easy answer. I’m proud that I gave myself realistic goals, met them one by one, and actually finished a project that I started within the timeframe. That’s huge for me, whether anyone sees the movie or not. I get distracted before I can finish eating a bowl of cereal, so for me to actually create and distribute something I’m really proud of, that’s a huge accomplishment for me, regardless of whether the film is “successful” or not.
I’m also incredibly proud of the actors. Once the camera started rolling, I saw a different side of them, and they knocked it out of the park and exceeded all my expectations. Their scenes together actually influenced the tone of the film in the editing room. Because of their performances, I suddenly had this fantastic dark tension to work with that no storyboard could have predicted. Their strong performances turned the second act of the movie into much more of a performance piece than I expected, versus a straight-up slasher flick, and it really blew me away. They say there’s the movie you write, the movie you shoot, and the movie you edit, and I had no idea what that meant until I finished Killer.
"Stop making excuses and go shoot that scene this weekend... I wish someone had told me that stuff 10 years ago."
16) What advice would you give to someone else that wanted to make their first film?
Get off your butt and go shoot one scene this weekend. Shoot it on your phone if you have to, and then learn how to cut a couple shots together with music and see how that affects your pacing. Start easy. Put down the script for your six-hour sci-fi space battle, or your historical epic with 200 characters that you’ve been working on for 10 years. Go this weekend and shoot two people in a room arguing about something. Put them by a window so you get sunlight on half their faces. They don’t even need to be actors. Grab your friends, and seriously, go shoot this on Saturday.
I spent many, many years complaining that my gear wasn’t good enough to make a film... and guess what... I spent many, many years never making a film. You don’t need $10,000 of gear to learn composition, blocking, lighting, and depth of field. We live in an era where you can figure that stuff out with the phone that’s in your pocket right now. It’s never been this easy. It doesn’t matter if your footage is pure garbage, because that’s how we learn. Stop making excuses and go shoot that scene this weekend. Shoot it on your lunch break at work. I wish someone had told me that stuff 10 years ago.
Also, go subscribe to filmmaker Darrius Britt on YouTube right this second (D4Darious). He was a huge inspiration to get me off my butt to go make a movie, and he’ll inspire you too.
17) OK, now for some fun questions. Who are your favorite film makers and why?
No surprise, but I’m a huge John Carpenter fan. Halloween, The Thing, Escape from New York, Big Trouble…, They Live, on and on. I know it’s cliché, but Carpenter knew how to make so much by using a little, especially his earliest work, and all those films still stand the test of time. Some are even better today than when they premiered.
As I mentioned before, the cinematography of Emmanuel Lubezki makes The Revenant one of the best-shot films I’ve ever seen. Of course, 1917 is amazingly-shot as well, but during production of Killer, I was inspired by Lubezki’s work on Revenant almost on a daily basis.
18) What movie have you seen more than any other, and why?
Good question. Probably Jaws or Raiders of the Lost Ark, my two favorite films (thanks Spielberg). The original Star Wars trilogy would be up there as well. I also have an unnatural affection for The ‘Burbs with Tom Hanks, which is probably my favorite comedy of all time, and I love director Joe Dante.
19) What movie line do you find yourself quoting more than any other?
Lately, it’s been “our situation has not improved,” in my terrible Sean Connery accent (after they set the room on fire in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade). “I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” also seems to come up a lot in my life.
20) If folks want to check out the film or find out more about it, where can they look?
The Killer of Grassy Ridge premieres on YouTube on February 10.
Follow Kaotica Studios on Facebook and Twitter, and catch me on Twitter @ThatJohnnyKGuy. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film, and thanks so much for the interview!
