FRAZER LEE Self Constructive Nature by Tom Mes Part 1, 2 TM: Speaking of Italian directors, did I spot a Lucio Fulci tribute shot in On Edge? The close-up of Doug Bradley's eyes? FL: I'm not aware of that. That's completely sub-conscious. I threw that in there and it's made quite an impact actually, that shot. A lot of people have said "Ooh, that's daring". And I always ask them "Do you think it works?" and they say yes, because it bridges the gap to the doctor's emotions bubbling to the surface. His closing speech is quite angry, whereas before he's being quite comical and amiable. That's the time for him to get nasty. If you give the audience a clue, then they'll be on your side forever. You can't get a much bigger clue than Doug Bradley's eyes in Cinemascope (laughs), so I went for it. I shot coverage just in case it wouldn't cut together terribly well, but we dropped the shot in during the editing and just fell in love with it. It was written into the screenplay and it was in my storyboards. I read a lot of comic books in my spare time. You look at a comic book, a good graphic novel is like a storyboard for a good feature film. You get all sorts of things like that, cutaways, close-ups on something that underlines the theme of the story or things that people are saying. And I think it's the way to go, really. Basically I took Chris Fowler's story, it was all there and I just made it as visual as possible. And, touch wood, we achieved that. TM: Was most of the dialogue lifted from the original story? FL: Yes, although if you read the original story, which is in an anthology called 'Sharper Knives', you'll find that doctor Matthews is a lot more wired early on in the story. He giggles a lot and says nasty things. If you do that in the film, it's much too soon. You have to keep it light, so that people can swallow the horrible ending. So I toned that aspect of it down. One of the most rewarding moments was when Chris Fowler, I invited him to the set - he appears in the film, he's sitting in the waiting room in the opening sequence, which is a bit of a scoop - and he gave me a copy of the shooting script with some notes. A couple of minor dialogue changes. One of which I totally agreed with and wouldn't have noticed if it wasn't for him, it was just a little change, but I knew where he was coming from. But throughout the rest of the script he'd marked sections of my dialogue and next to one piece he wrote: "Great lines". I thought "Wow, this is like being a guitarist and Jimi Hendrix saying 'I really like your guitar playing, man'". You know, just like that. So I felt very confident there, really. You need all the help you can get. TM: You were in quite good hands as far as that's concerned, because you had Doug Bradley playing the lead and then Bob Keen doing the effects. FL: Yeah, Bob Keen's a genius. They did a five week make-up job in two weeks, basically. And they built the drill, the special drill the doctor uses, that I call the 'überdrill'. That was a great time, because we were in pre-production, the shoot wasn't too far away and I popped over to Pinewood a couple of times a week to Bob Keen's place, just to check the progress, make a few suggestions. And I just saw this beautiful thing coming together. Charley's make-up is sitting on a shelf next to all the Cenobites now. And that's a nice feeling. TM: Stylistically you can see it's Bob Keen's visual effects, because if you were to put it in Hellraiser, it would not look misplaced. FL: It wouldn't look out of place, would it? I think there's a direct line in Bob Keen's work. From, even from Jabba The Hutt to Hellraiser, you can see a progression. I hope to work with him again in the future. We've got some wicked stuff to do in Urbane, nasty stuff, fleshy stuff, and Bob's the man to do it, really. Because he gets very into a project and he enthuses about it as much as you do. Bob's a director too, you know, so he knows that you're going in there all fired up and to meet somebody head on, who's as enthusiastic about it as you are and then to get the results. I mean, I never dreamed the make-up would look like... I know it would look good if we went to Bob, but my God, when I saw the make-up applied on set and blood was being splattered all over it, I thought "Oh yeah, we've got a good little film going here". I was very lucky to work with so many brilliant people. Alan Stewart in particular, the director of photography. He was nominated for a BAFTA for some tv work that he did. You look at the lighting in On Edge, and it's just spot-on. I wanted the club to look very blue, 'cause if you've got pale, gothy people with metal in their faces, it just makes sense to light them blue. A lot of people would have lit the surgery very cold as well, 'cause bear in mind that you're in a room with totally sterile white surfaces. But I made Alan a reference tape on VHS, clips from some movies. One of the references was Dead Ringers, because they always involved natural light in the surgery scenes. So the surgery looks very warm and cosy, then if something nasty happens in there, it hurts you even more. That's the effect I wanted to get and that's what he did. He made the surgery look very warm, not too much, but just enough. And I'd written that into the script, you know, the shafts of light on the ceiling from the blinds. When we got the location, we just knew it was going to work. There was even a window for doctor Matthews to climb out of without breaking his neck, (mimicking the doctor falling) "Don't forget to flooooooooossss" That wouldn't have worked now, would it? So yeah, it was a pleasure to work with Alan. Again, talking about first choices, I think if we're lucky enough to get Urbane off the ground this year, there's every possibility that Alan will be lighting it. If he hasn't had enough of me already. TM: Are you that difficult a director? FL: No. I keep a low profile. He who says the least has the most to say. I really enjoyed directing. It is very addictive. You get a chance to do other things, you know, intros to your film at film festivals and question & answer sessions, interviews like this one. It's great to talk about your work, but the real joy is getting on set, seeing the first lights aligned, checking the framing through the lens. It just makes your hair stand on end. TM: Especially if its your passion. I was an extra on a Jackie Chan film about a year and a half ago. And when I was on set it just felt right, I thought "This is where I want to be". FL: I used to do extra work, I was in a couple of things. If you experience a big budget film set, it gives you something to aim for. It also tells you how not to do things. I was an extra on Judge Dredd for two nights. They spent two nights shooting a sequence that didn't quite work on film and they had to speed the film up as well, which I thought was ridiculous. Because you can smell the money when you get onto that set. You've got forty guys, all of whom have got a mobile, a headset with microphone, the whole bit. There is no excuse to get it wrong. You can quote me on that later if I manage to get anything big budget (laughs), you can say: "Yeah, but a few years ago you said there was no excuse to get it wrong", "Yeah but, on the day..." (laughs). TM: Then you will have an excuse. FL: Then I'll make my excuses. And leave (laughs). TM: That's one major example of a movie gone wrong, Judge Dredd. FL: Yeah. It was a nice action movie, but it wasn't a nice Judge Dredd movie. They kind of... TM: Stallone with his helmet off for an hour. FL: They missed the point, man. I'm sure somebody'll come along and pick up the pieces and do it properly. It's only a matter of time, isn't it? TM: I think Robocop did that. In part. FL: I think Robocop had a bit of everything. It really worked. That was a very groundbreaking movie. TM: I think it was a better adaptation of Judge Dredd than Judge Dredd. FL: Yeah (laughs). Judge Dredd wasn't in it, but it was the definitive Judge Dredd movie. TM: Now, On Edge, I'm not sure if it's intentional or anything, but it made me think of two Brian Yuzna movies. One was The Dentist, the other was Return Of The Living Dead Part 3. FL: It's completely unconscious. I haven't seen The Dentist, the movie, I kind of stayed away from it. Somebody asked me this question in one of the Q&A sessions. They said "Have you seen The Dentist by Yuzna?" I said "No, but I might check it out now that I've finished my film". But there was a funny thing. An actress that I know visited my producer Joseph Alberti one day at the office and said: "You guys work so fast, I've seen your film in the videoshop, in Forbidden Planet." Joseph said: "That's odd, we haven't shot it yet. What are you on about?" She said: "The Dentist. I've seen it in the video shop", "No, ours is called On Edge, we haven't shot it yet". And that's actually the first time I'd heard of the film. And then just as we wrapped shooting, I picked up the new issue of Fangoria and the sequel to The Dentist was given a five-page spread. And my initial reaction was: "Oh my God, we're ruined. How can we make an impact with this short if there's been two dentist movies already?" Then I calmed down and thought "Well, On Edge is a Chris Fowler story, it has a particular look and a particular tone, it's a separate film in its own right". And it's a short. My suspicion is that it accomplishes what The Dentist accomplished, but in a tiny amount of time, fifteen minutes. But I'll watch the movies and then make my mind up. I saw Return Of The Living Dead 3, which made an impression. I thought it was great, especially the fabulous Mindy Clarke. I'd like to work with her in the future (laughs). I did my thesis years ago at university on Cronenberg and Tsukamoto, 'body horror' as a genre and in its own right. And I pulled in a lot of other references, obviously the Clive Barker stuff, but also Return Of The Living Dead 3 made an appearance because I thought it took the surgical... you know, it's like surgical/military horror. I found that really refreshing, that you could turn this whole thing into a conspiracy as well. It's a very black film, a very bold film. I know they were right in the back of the success of the series, but in some ways I think the film stands alone and it would have been excellent for it to have another title instead of it being part 3 of another series. I view it as completely separate. TM: It is, it's such a completely fresh and new direction compared to the first two. FL: It's a well-rounded movie with a good script and its very visual and doesn't hold back, at least the version I saw. TM: You started Robber Baron productions, especially for On Edge. Are you developing your first feature for Robber Baron productions as well? FL: Yes, because so often people start film production companies, do a short, liquidize the company and write off their debts. It's not good enough for us. I don't want to sound pompous, but we want to do stuff as big as we can. I mean why not? Don't make good tv for the cinema, make something big and cinematic for the cinema. That's the purpose of cinema. You go into the auditorium, the screen is huge, the sound is loud, you get lost for a couple of hours. We started Robber Baron in March of last year. Myself and Joseph Alberti set up the company and then Karl Harrison came in as an executive producer and helped us raise funds, because post-production is hugely expensive. You know, On Edge was like a pipe dream at first and it just got bigger and bigger and bigger. We always wanted to shoot 35 millimeter, but I envisaged a 1:1.85 ratio. Then through Alan Stewart and Panavision, who loved the project and loved Alan's previous work, we got the opportunity to shoot scope. I spoke to Alan over the phone, dropped the phone, fell to the floor, pulled myself together and said "Yeah, let's do it in Cinemascope". So I just redrew all my storyboards, taking into account the beautiful frame that we had to play with. Urbane is another Scope project. I just love the format and so many percent of the world population have got widescreen tv now, digital tv is coming. Letterboxing isn't a problem, it was never a problem for me anyway. Anyone who has a problem with it, get the pan and scan version and suffer. Urbane is the first feature and then we've got two more lined up. We hope to make a movie a year. I think that's a pretty good goal. If it turns out we make a movie every eighteen months, we can kind of accept that (laughs). But our company motto is 'We stoop to conquer', we'll do almost anything to get these films made and seen by as many people as possible. Like I say, hopefully we'll get lucky, people will be interested in our projects and we can go do them. Joseph and I formed the company basically out of frustration. We were working in the low-budget industry and we weren't seeing other people making the films that we wanted to see. There are some films being made, but usually overseas. That was the basis for starting the company really, and it's the driving force between the three of us. It's what we keep in the back of our heads and we'll soldier on and try and make our mark. (Doug Bradley enters the room) Hello mister B. TM: And you're attached as a writer/director to all of these projects? FL: In an ideal world, yeah. Although if we ever start dealing with American financing, I'll be attached as a writer/director, but there'll be a rewriter that I'm not aware of and I'll just have to deal with that when the time comes. Doug Bradley: Not if your script's good enough. FL: Yeah, well that's it. If the script's good enough, then get on and do it. If not, rewrite it. TM: If you start working with American producers then it's more of a question of "is your script commercial enough?", rather than good enough. FL: Well, there's a lot of odd stuff coming out. There's a huge market out there and people can make movies like Lost Highway on a pretty good budget. Half the audience might not understand what the hell is going on, but these films make their money back and go into profit. So I'm optimistic. Now (laughs). Check me later (laughs even more). ?? Go to part 1