SCREAMING STONER VIDEO

Interview with Benjamin Cooper

(April 12, 2004)

Screaming Stoner Video: What can you tell us about The Brink? What type of budget was this feature shot on?

Benjamin Cooper: THE BRINK is about a group of engineering students that discover the lost blueprints for Thomas Edison's ghost machine. They make contact with the other side and discover that ghosts aren't very friendly. We shot during a very cold winter late 2002, early 2003 in Pismo Beach. We did two miserable weeks of night shoots in the Meherin house, which was built by the founder of the town. There was no heat, no glass in the windows to keep the draft out and no running water, but it was a terrific looking haunted house. When all is said and done the budget will be a shade over $____________, all out of pocket, but it looks a lot more expensive. We got a lot of bang for the buck.

SSV: Please tell us your favorite memory of working on The Omega Diary, what's the coolest feedback you've received from this film so far?

Benjamin Cooper: THE OMEGA DIARY was our first feature released in 1999 on tape. I'd have to say my favorite memory of the film came after production. We four-walled a theater for our premiere and packed the house. I could literally feel the audience response to the film as the tension built in the third act. It was a kind of communal experience. You know what I'm talking about because we experience that as moviegoers when a picture is really good or really bad, the crowd is moved on an emotional level together. To be the author of that experience is a whole other thing and was totally new to me. The applause and recognition after actually made me very uncomfortable because I'm kind of a shy introvert by nature, but during the last third of the picture, it was like having an intimate conversation with a hundred people and that was incredible.

I guess the coolest feedback I got was from a potential distributor who said Omega was the best shot on video movie he'd ever seen, but he wouldn't distribute it because he didn't know how to sell a drama. Personally I consider it a psychological thriller inspired by Romero's zombie films which were essentially closed space character dramas, except instead of zombies, nuclear fallout is the oppressive force keeping them bottled up.

SSV: If our readers are interested in ordering these films, where do you recommend they purchase them?

Benjamin Cooper: The Brink is nearing the end of post and I hope to have it in video stores by Halloween. The Omega Diary is kind of rare nowadays. They pop up on Ebay from time to time for a buck or two. It's on DVD in Japan where it's called Cube IQ: Hazard, whatever the hell that means. I've been saying for a long time I should remaster it and release it on DVD here. Now that The Brink is almost out the door, I think I'll do that.

SSV: How did you first get involved in the independent film industry?

Benjamin Cooper: I made a movie, found a distributor and got ripped off.

SSV: What are the biggest obstacles for you in making motion pictures?

Benjamin Cooper: I always say getting distribution is easy if you have a halfway decent picture, it's getting paid that's hard. Many distributors consider filmmakers a disposable commodity. A producer uses credit cards, family loans and his own hard earned cash to make a micro-budget movie. To be ripped off can set a producer back years. It took me five to get together a second movie. Some producers never make a second. Forget about raising money from investors when your only track record is a picture that never made it's money back. This is an industry that eats its young, and they don't realize it, but these crooked distributors are hurting themselves in the long run. I'm happy to say my distributor went out of business, but I'm still alive and kicking.

SSV: What advice do you have for other directors, especially aspiring filmmakers?

Benjamin Cooper: If you plan to make a feature, do some shorts first where you do all the jobs yourself. If you're qualified to be your own DP or fx artist or editor, you can always do it yourself should someone flake out on you. It also gives you an appreciation for what everybody is contributing once you do surround yourself with a proper crew. You develop realistic expectations of them and what they can achieve with a given budget in a given timeframe. You can communicate more intelligently with them and help in troubleshooting. Having well-rounded experience before you direct makes you a better, more efficient filmmaker.

My second piece of advice is to strive to do it right. Low budget filmmaking is full of compromise by nature. It's inevitable. That's why you strive for a kind of perfection. It will never be perfect, but aim high. You see a scene might work with one or two flaws, but three or four can make it unwatchable, and it only takes one bad scene to lose your audience. If you have to take a second or two to tweak a light or clean your lens or do a take without the boom in the shot, take the time. I've worked in different capacities on around eleven low-budget features, some good, some shitty, and I've learned it takes as much blood, sweat and tears to make a bad movie as it does to make a good one. The difference is in attitude.

SSV: Do you feel that the horror film genre is progressing or regressing?

Benjamin Cooper: Nothing's changed in a hundred years of horror films. Some are good, most are bad. Every once in awhile a good one comes out and it's worth waiting for, then everyone will rip it off until we're sick of them again. Well, some knockoffs have their own charm, I guess.

SSV: What is the coolest film you've seen in the last three months and why?

Benjamin Cooper: I took another look at John Carpenter's The Thing again. That picture never gets dated, it's amazing.

SSV: What are your views on the legalization of marijuana?

Benjamin Cooper: I'm for it, but I never touch the stuff myself.