Scene from IIIIII by Eric Xton Film.
Written by Will Harrison
This is a kind of part two of the previous interview with Christophe, Since Eric Xton is one of the directors as well as an actor in the film “Son of the Saw”! So enjoy!
Will: How did you prepare for the role and direct at the same time?
Eric: Well I was never meant to be in the film itself, i’ve never thought of myself as an actor and I had cast a local professional to be in the role of “John" the "father" figure of the household, an older gentleman that would have really taken the role to new levels, I believe that He ended up canceling just before filming started and since I wrote the script and knew the lines already I was the only real option to fill those shoes on such a short notice, I would have liked the character to have had an older feel and look to him but it worked out in the end lol, as for directing at the same time, being on set and directing usually isn’t to complicated I wouldn’t say, especially if your lucky enough to work with good people around you. your other actors and you can run through a few times per scene and make sure everyone knows lines and how to act, position, move etc then give it a shot and if it doesn’t go well you do it 47 more time, lol!
Will: How long did it take for you get ready to film?
Eric: Well not too long, Christophe Murdock (the villain) posted an image on Facebook of his halloween costume of him as leather face, a very impressive costume I might add. I made a joke about "we should make a fan film", he said "okay" , I said okay? lol, and a couple of months later we were in the woods with 60 people cast and crew huddled around a camp fire trying not to freeze to death while people did there scenes lol, basically i wrote the script out in a few days, a production crew got slammed together with some of the local college students, I was able to secure a house/location, thanks to David Timmons, everyone’s schedules got figured out and BAM! We all almost froze lol
Will: How did you find people to be involved in the film?
Eric: Now thats an odd story, this whole started more as a side joke comment, well from there the crew was found due to a mutual connection through another guy who I did some work for at a convention ... that guy I asked if he wanted to come on as a camera man basically and he said sure i’ll call you back .... a couple of days later when he finally did he informed me we would have 2 camera crews, 3 audio crews, full support for lights and grips, gaffers, and all sorts of other fancy technical terms for filming stuff, lol and I said, oh crap okay then I guess we are going to make something legit here, lets see what happens
The cast, a lot of them I knew from other things i’ve done or helped on, but one guy named Darren Gray, this guy just started talking to me one day about being in a roll, and i told him sure why not. See I thought he was a good friend of Christophe’s and I was taking a leap of faith trusting that this Darren guy would be okay thinking that he was in this because of Christophe, and honestly I for the life of me can’t remember how I got that idea in my head to begin with lol so this "random" guy shows up on film day and no one has any clue who he is, so people start asking me "hey who’s that dude over there?", and i’m like "yea that Darren, Christophe’s friend ....right? ..." and ended up being no one knew him and he was a complete wild card of an actor and he did a great job, and he is a great guy too so i’m REALLY glad we took that chance PLUS he ended up bringing in some props that were used on the actual Texas Chainsaw Massacre films from the past!
Will: Give us a spoiler for your new film if you can?
Erik: Oh yeah I love to ruin movies for people before they see it lol, "son of the saw" had its moments, it had a lot of ups and downs as do all films, after I learned so much from that experience i REALLY wanted to push some envelops, so I decided to create something a little different but keep it horror (i cant help it). The film is called IIIIII and its going to be dark, I do love my horror comedies BUT i’m not ready to make those yet i would like to terrify people a little first, so its going to be based around halloween time (how cliche' I know right lol) and it will have to do with some family struggles, fighting personal demons ...and maybe some more physical ones even lets say LOL .... but filming will start this October and I will begin editing it down over the following months,i’m teasing a few updates here and there, over the filming and editing time
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