Kristyn: I am doing just fine, how about yourself?

T: Great, did you survive your holiday weekend?

K: I did, I did, How about yourself? I was going to ask.

T: Good, I am from Boston, that is where my family is from, but I don't venture. I only go for Christmas, too much traveling so close together kind of freaks me out. (laughs) So I spend Thanksgiving here with my girlfriend.

K: Where are you located?

T: I am located in Hollywood, right on the street that goes up to the Hollywood sign.

K: Wow, I am jealous now. (laughs)

T: Where are you located right now?

K: We are in Delaware, all the way on the east coast.

T: Oh, wow.

K: Yeah, you know everyone thinks of us as that little suburb of Philadelphia. (laughs)

T: You know I think I have probably driven through Delaware. My family used to take trips to drive down to Florida. I think we drove through, but I have never stopped in Delaware.

K: Yeah, most likely…that is what I usually get. (laughs)

T: I was checking out your web site. It is pretty cool.

K: Thank you, we really appreciate it!

T: Well, I try to do my research when I know I am going to be talking to somebody to see what you guys have going on.

K: (laughs) We were probably researching each other at the same time!

T: Oh, I am sure mine was the much more boring avenue

K: Well, we definitely appreciate any feedback on the site. I am glad to hear that you like it!

T: You know I hadn't heard of it before, I will be honest, but I bookmarked it so I will definitely check it out in the future.

K: Thanks, that is always good to hear. We are trying our best at it!

T: Well, I am trying to be part of the pop culture, so…

K: So, you new movie Timber Falls is set for release soon, how excited are you about that?

T: I am very excited. I have been doing this for a number of years now. This will be the first film that I have done what will be released theatrically here in the States. Two previous films opened internationally, so I haven't had the luck or the fortune to open up here. You know, for as long as I can remember, back in high school I worked as a movie usher and I , know this is going to sound really stupid, but I always just wanted to go to the theater and put money down and watch a feature film that I did. I know I could probably get in for free if I told them who I am…

K: Right.

T: But I am looking forward to dropping some money and going in to see the film with an audience. You have your screenings, but you have your test screening and you have your cast and crew, and we have done a couple festivals. That is all wonderful and great, but I think there is something different about earning the peoples trust to get them out to the theater. Movies are so expensive and I just feel privileged that people are taking this risk and chance and I am hoping that everyone is entertained when they come out to the theater.

K: Well, it is definitely a great way to judge the reaction of the general public, that are actually choosing to be there.

T: Yeah, you know test audiences are great to register if a jump or a joke is working and all that. It is the craziness, especially in L.A. when you are testing a movie, so many people here want to be writers, directors, and in the business and stuff like that. So, the scariest part is when these people start commenting on your film and they are all attacking it in some way. It is not really a movie going experience, but more like if they were the artist, changes they would make. I actually never thought this was a job I could do for a living, I just went to the movies for entertainment and that was it, but I remember that feeling and I remember going and having that joy, that is what you try and get from these screenings. Festivals I think are well-liked, and cast/crew screenings people have some kind of vested interest in seeing their work on screen and they are going to love it, and their friends and family are there to support. It will hopefully be a good experience. My friends and I are actually planning on theater hopping on the 7th

K: That is pretty cool!

T: Yeah, if anything I will contributing a lot to the box office. (laughs)

K: That's good to hear. I know the feeling, I went to school for film, so I can understand how you kind of want to sneak in and see the general audiences reaction to your work, without listening to all the critiques and reading online information. It is far better to physically be there in the theater with the audience.

T: Yeah, it's crazy. I have a couple friends who are directors, such as Eli Roth, who has done Hostel and he just told me " Do yourself a favor, don't start to read every little blog out there, do yourself a favor and tune it out" You are going to have people call you a genius and you are going to have people call you the worst thing ever, and you can't believe any of it. You just have to muscle through this next portion, so I guess the long answer to your question is yes, I am definitely excited about this movie opening.

K: Great! While I was researching this film, I did discover that there was quite a mixed bag of critiques about the film. Some people on one end of spectrum really loved it, and then other were totally on the other side of the fence. What would you say is the overall message you are trying to convey with the film? Also, how seriously do you take the critiques and criticisms?

T: Well, it is really interesting, because I know exactly the venues that have so far published reviews of the film. There is definitely a clear line. People who have seen it, Fangoria and a few others, who have seen it in the theater, like a Cannes, or have seen it at ScreamFest, those screenings were packed houses. There were about 500 people at Cannes and the ScreamFest had about 400 people. Those reviews were the positive ones, all of the kind of sour reviews have been screener copies of the film that have been watched basically in private. So, that is why I am kind of excited about it coming out in theaters, cause I think the film has a lot of dark humor as well as the requisite jumps and scare moments. I think if you are watching the film alone in a room and you are expecting the Exorcist constant horror, I am not sure it lives up to that expectation. I was really influenced early on from Sam Rami, the early Evil Dead work, Wes Craven, who blended a lot of comedy into their horror.

K: I can see that

T: So the screenings that we have had with audiences, they seem to really get the jokes. It is such a ludicrous plot, I mean I don't know if you have seen the film, but we made a conscious decision, myself and the actors, that if we don't have people laugh with us, than they may laugh at us. Just because it is so ludicrous a plot, I wanted to keep the tension and the scare but also, I mean certainly there are movies like The Exorcist and The Sixth Sense that need to be tense and scary from beginning to end and stuff like that. We felt more in the vein of a fun movie going experience where you could laugh and scream. The screams are meant for release, not genuine uber terror threats. I think the goal of all of us was to just make an entertaining flick and not take ourselves that seriously. I think for the most part we accomplished that. There are the humor moments have really worked and they seem to help with the scares. I mean if you are laughing, then the last you expect is to all of a sudden jump in fright, so I think it helps to heighten those moments. Everybody is entitled to their opinion absolutely, I do think there is a test group out there that shows when this movie is played in public it has a better response than if it is just a closed room with three or four people.

K: Well, sometimes you can get that better response with the audience because people will gage their reactions from people around them, the look of the film on the big screen, the loudness of the theater, etc.

T: Right, I mean I am not saying that just to pump up the draw, literally if were to go through all of the published reviews the most positive ones have all been from the festivals and some of the other public viewings. It showed me that there is a very clear line , I mean I have an interview for a job at Joel Silvers company and I did not want to send them just the DVD, I invited his company, four of his executives over to the ScreamFest screening and everything is going well, they had a really great time because they watched it in the best possible setting. You are right, you see the movie on the big screen, it was shown at the Manns Chinese Theater. It was really great.

K: Well, that is certainly the place to be!

T: You know if you are watching the film on DVD, you will probably be looking at your PDA

K: Or getting up to go to the kitchen. (laughs)

T: You have to basically at some point realize that you have done your best job, if you have, and if you have done your best with what you are given and you have to let it go, let it breathe, and find a life. You have to know that it is not always going to be accepted, and sometimes that is going to be a bummer, but for the most part I am pretty comfortable with how we finished out. Come to think of it, there was actually one really negative review, which I really didn't understand, there was one on Bloodydisgusting.com

K: I think I saw that one actually

T: They seemed to really not like the movie, but yet went out of their way to say how much they like me.

K: Yeah, I think it was somewhere along the lines of you having great creative talent potential, but it went on to say some not so nice things about the film.

T: Yeah, I mean I was like, how do you compliment the director, but tear down his movie (laughs) I was like "Okay…umm…thanks!"

K: I think? (laughs)

T: It is funny cause I sit there and I go I am pretty confident and I know what to do. You never can tell exactly how people are going to respond. People do not have to compliment me directly, I would rather have them like the movie. I was really excited about that Fangoria review, it was the first one, it was off the Cannes screening and we really did well there and I was really nervous about the first blogger and that kind of had a nice setting of a tone and I felt like that was good. I mean the Bloodydisguting.com one had some merit to it, I mean we did not have the uber amounts of gore, but that was more a conscious decision, the reviewer was not really accurate. It was not the producers decision to , I think it is quote on quote " have a vice on my balls" it was more a conscious decision to try to not have needless amount of gore. We were about a two and a half million dollar movie, so I wanted to maximize the dollars and if I am going to have a kill and have these moments in the film, I wanted to maximize it, and rather than having twenty somewhat good looking deaths versus ten really good looking deaths I would rather do that.

K: I understand, I mean you can turn the scare factor up, just with the way a film is shot without the need for tons of blood and gore.

T: Yeah, I mean it is also the trends. The trends that were coming out, I saw the Hostels and The Hills Have Eyes and these films were not very well accepted not just critically, I mean most horror movies aren't, but the fans didn't even turn out for them either. After I got out here I was a production assistant for awhile then I started writing. Everything I had done before Timber Falls I had written myself, so I have always considered myself to be a storyteller first. I have always felt that audiences will forgive you if you don't have the greatest production value, if you don't have the best special effects, but as long as you have a good story on the characters, that is the best special effect you can have in a film. I mean that web site obviously tailors to their audience and their core and if their core wants a lot of uber super gory moments, we have like three really good ones, but we don't have ten or eleven, so I am not going to try to be something we are not. Overall, I think for the most part there is some credibility to it you know.

K: What are some of the major ways you feel that Timber Falls stands out from typical slasher horror flicks that are out in theaters now and in the past?

T: Well, one of the points I touched on just a bit ago, one of the things that was really starting to drive me crazy was, and I have been a horror movie fan for a very long time, and most of the time, most horror movies for the first act introduce the characters and you know who your lead is going to be and then systematically throughout the film these people are killed. But nothing that is learned in the first act in the movie ever comes back again, they just use the first act to warm you up and intro. the characters and stuff like that. Myself, the screenwriter, and the actors, our goal was to say "Hey, let's introduce something in the first act, that actually comes back and plays in the last act". I think within the story there are definitely areas where you have to pay attention. We tried to do a couple of things that are a little different as far as mixing up a little of the characters and changing up the genres. To me it was the story, it was trying to give presence to everything, and if there is going to be a violent slasher moment, if there is going to be a gore moment, make it integral to the story and not just frivolous.

K: So it is not just there for show.

T: I mean we didn't have the money for it, but you don't want to be dictated by your budget. Audiences don't care if the budget was over two million or twenty or two hundred, they want to make sure they are having a good time. So, all the moments in the film have story value to them, whether they be a kill , whether they be multi-character defining moments, I think the characters are introduced to a problem and rather than just having them survive, they have to make those same emotional commitments that you find in dramas and other genres of films. It is not just I have to stay alive, which I feel is worthy on some levels, but not what I wanted to do, I wanted to really have a character piece. This is probably as close to a character piece as I have ever done and I think the actors all did a really good job of making you care about them, seeing their plight, and then actually growing to have a character. I think that everyone who wants a little story with their horror movie will be happy.

K: That is good. That is something that seems to lack, especially if you look at some of the classic horror movies such as the Freddy or Jason movies, you already know that the characters you are introduced are going to die and that is just that and we will forget about them and move on to the next character/victim.

T: You know, people go to horror movies for different reasons and I get it and all that kind off stuff. I have never tried to look at it from the genre perspective, but at the movie as a whole. Is it a good movie? Does it work on the same level that you would judge other films on? I mean people specifically say " Oh, it's only a horror movie, and we give these movies passes and stuff like that, and oh, it is a special effect movie and we give it a pass, I have to say at the end of the day the script is the easiest and cheapest thing to work on when you are making a film and you could spend a lot of time making sure it is right and it works especially when you are working on a low budget film, where you don't have the choices and the opportunities. You can not go out on three months of reshoots if something doesn't work or fix a huge sequence with massive amounts of visual effects. So a lot of time was spent on the script and making sure that worked. I had seen this one horror movie called "Wolf Creek" which got a lot of buzz. It was a one million dollar movie shot in Australia and it based on a true event. There were some really nice moments of it, but you spend forty five minutes meeting these three characters that are kidnapped, tortured, and then they are all executed. So, I was okay, what did I learn from this? I didn't learn anything from this! Actually, you can't even say that was based on a true event because you don't know if that really happened or not. I felt that the character development was forty five minutes of wasted time, they just tortured the kids. If that is what you are going for than that is great, but it not what we try to do.

K: So, tell me where the principle shooting for Timber Falls took place?

T: The film is set in the mountains of West Virginia, so we obviously wanted to be as authentic as possible so we flew to Romania. Basically the production company had hired a local Romanian producer, an American guy who has company over there, and he pitched this idea. The original script was supposed to take place in Seattle, Washington in the mountains up there, that was not a possibility with our budget, so this guy came in a kind of pitched a, two and half million dollars in Romania is like five eighths with the amount of stuff you can buy and the crew and all that stuff. When I saw the lay of the land and the areas we had targeted for shooting, they had shot all of the Nicole Kidman movie "Cold Mountain" there which was set in the same kind of area of the West Virginia. So we changed the script to West Virginia, and if you are from that area and know, you are not going to know any different. I mean the mountains and the trees all look exactly the same. We shot all of the exteriors, of these beautiful mountains in Translyvania of all place. We found some truly amazing places.

One of the benefits of having a lower budget is that we didn't have a huge crew, so I kind a got dropped off one day by the location scout and was told that he thinks there is a mountain trails up there, so they sent me as the director out in the middle of the Translyvanian mountains hiking and I tried to find a spots I have never seen on film before. The majority of the movie is spent inside a basement, prison type thing where are leads are kept. I wanted to show these vast beautiful nature shots, and shoot it as wide as I possible could and then as the movie progresses it gets more and more claustrophobic and small. Some of these landscapes that we found were just spectacular and being in Romania we could build just about anything. The majority of the movie is inside a cabin, so we were able to build the exterior of the cabin, the interior, all the different rooms and have the ability to remove walls and floors and really have our cameras do more than the normal low budget movie because one of the restrictions you usually have on a lower budget film is that you have to find practical locations.

K: Of course, because you need to limit changes to your set

T: Over here, the opening scene of the film probably couldn't have been done on a regular two million dollar budget film, basically we brought in this super techna crane that we brought in from Germany, which the only one close to eastern Europe at that point. It was only because we were able to remove walls, ceilings, and floors of the set to get that dynamic camera move. That was probably the main benefit.

K: I was going to ask if you had any set difficulties of any type.

T: Well. Romania is as probably as American as you are going to get over there, most of country speaks English so that was not a problem. The problem we had was simply just, oh how do I say it, when people come to Hollywood they want to be filmmakers, in Romania they are there and the film industry has kind of came to them. They want to give you what you want, but they are not passionate about film making. So, the challenges for the cast, all the cast was brought in from the states, so there was just kind like we were all thinking this is our lives, this is our passion and our art and there was a very nine to five mentality there that eventually you keep it light and keep it moving and be respectful. They came around, but there was a big growing theory that when you are on a short shooting schedule that is difficult. The challenges of getting some of the locations, the whole opening scene of the film after the girl escapes her prison type cellar runs off to a cliff. I mean, this cliff was almost impossible to get a crew up to simply because we were in such uncharted territory in Romania. They just do not have the equipment like we do in the States to scale up, literally it was me climbing up one by one with the cast and each of us putting boxes on our backs. It was a very film school type of thing to do. And sometimes the language, even though they all spoke English, it was still hard to understand at times.

The casting director for example, the original plan was to bring the five leads out Brianna Brown, Josh Randall, Beth Broderick, and Nick Searcy and then the actor who plays Deacon his name is Sascha Rosemann. We were hoping to cast Americans, for some of the other smaller roles that were maybe living in Eastern Europe or stuff because there is a lot of film production that goes on over there. Well, when I got over there, my first day with the casting director, I sit, he seems like a very nice man, he has casted a bunch of films, so one by one these actors come in and they are all speaking English, but in heavy thick Romanian accents. So at first, I thought maybe it was somewhat of a little joke, I mean they are supposed to be people from West Virginia and they sound like Igor. (laughs) I turn the casting director and go " Is this serious?" and five or six actors come in, in a row like this and he says " Why? Do you not like them?" I said it is not a question of whether I like them or not, they are Romanian, and speaking English with the accent, I finally learned that they can not hear the difference between the way I was speaking English and the way they were speaking English. They were not able to pick up on what a West Virginia accent was supposed to sound. Those were some of the real challenges, nothing we couldn't overcome, but it was like " Hey, we are in a third world country and I have to figure this out quickly"

K: Definitely, I am glad to hear things worked out. How would you say the chemistry on the set was overall between the actors and the crew?

T: All of the actors really bonded with myself. I think we all felt like we in a situation together. With the Romanian people you can kind of see fifty years of Communist oppression still on them, They have a fear of authority figures and I think it is just inherent, they have only been a free society for ten years, so it took them awhile to warm up. They never wanted to say anything that would get you upset and they wanted to do what you wanted them do, it is just that it took awhile for them to relax a little bit. I do not like to have a set that is crazy or tense of anything like that, so in the States when you are making a movie for example you would say this what I want, get me this, and if they weren't able to get it, they would come back to you and say " That was out of the budget range, or we weren't able to find this" or something, but some of the first real problems with the chemistry was that they were nervous about me cause I am the director and they would never tell me that they couldn't do something because they were afraid of that. That led to some issues, my opinion was just tell me and I can deal with the situation. Does that make any sense?

K: Yeah it does

T: So, once we kind of got past that we went on from there. We were located in Bucharest, the capital, we shot in Translyvania which was about a four hour ride, and sometimes being on location really helps everyone bond together. You get to hang out and go to dinner and relax. When we got back to Bucharest, I think it was a lot easier because we all knew each other and got each others sense of humor. Plus with Americans working over there, food was another issue. They eat very heavy thick meat and potatoes, it was a huge dietary change from what we were used to, but I think once we got past that it was fine and we had a great chemistry. It came easy for the actors, all the actors bonded rather quickly.

K: That is good.

T: I think they felt like "Well, we're here guys, we have to make it work" and they really came around. I think with some of the other movies that have shot in Romania, like the Van Damme and Steven Segal straight to video release, the producers and the directors don't seem to care a lot at all about the crews, they bark and scream and yell, and think that is what the crew was accustomed to, so they we expecting us to be that jerk, but we weren't and they were cautious of us. It took a little time, but I still trade emails with bunch of them. Our crew was not all Romanian, we had a very talented cinematographer for the UK, his name was Toby Moore. Toby had never shot a movie before, he had done a bunch of commercials and stuff like that, so when you have guys like that, and most of actors have really been leads, I think even some of our supporting actors had roles bigger than they had ever had before, I think three of our actors who played hillbillies and a park ranger they had never had even a single film role. They came to the table with a great attitude, they would do anything for us, they worked so hard. Everyone thought this was a great opportunity and there were no egos on the set. I mean how egotistical can you really be when you are in the middle of Translyvanian forest.

K: Well, I am sure some would try, so it is good that you did not run into that type of problem.

T: None of us are making a lot of money, it was that we all truly believed in the script. Everyone knew the deal before we left, so there was none of that. I think that overall, I think all of the cast here in LA have gotten together on several occasions and had a really great time. At the ScreamFest we had nice little afterparty, so it has been really good.

K: Well, it is great that you can maintain that closeness, even after everything is finished and wrapped up.

T: It was a very trying experience, but if it was easy everyone would do it and I think we are all very proud of the finished product. Knowing what we had and knowing the situations and stuff like that, it really couldn't have turned out better so we are definitely happy.

K: That is good. I see that the film does have it's own MySpace page, how do you feel about MySpace as a way to promote and interact with film fans?

T: Well, I think it has done really well. I just recently opened up my own profile about a year and half ago, right around the time I got back from Romania last October or November. Everyone I know seems to have a MySpace profile and every week a new movie seems to take over MySpace and put a bunch of ad on, so I have to think if people are doing this then it must be effective. We had a sold out show at our screening, so I have to think there is some credibility to it, I have even found several college friends on MySpace that I haven't talked to in ten years

K: (laughs) That is way it works, you can find just about anyone.

T: Of course you get the occasional girl that wants to add you as a friend and then send you a video link to her chat, that is out there if you want it apparently (laughs) I do not think my girlfriend likes it when those come, but they are there.

K: (laughs) Yeah, I get kind of angry at my fiancée for the same thing, I say "Who is that?"

T: They find me, what are you going to do? (laughs) Is it my fault? I finally turned the approvals on, so people can not just post anything they want now, that is how I solved my problem. I am hoping the coverage of Timber Falls on MySpace works, and the TV ads just started running here in LA so hopefully people will get out there and see the film. I think they will have a good time, I am hoping they do.

K: I do have a just for fun question for you, can you name three things for our readers that frighten you the most?

T: Driving in Los Angeles, an empty church, I was raised Catholic so I used to get to Mass early, and the empty church used to always have this Exorcist or Omen to me, and hmm..let's see spiders scare me as well.

K: Well, that is common one!

T: No, let's put spiders, empty church, and then driving in L.A as the last one (laughs)

K: Okay, will do! (laughs)

K: Finally, can you please tell our readers if they have a little extra spending cash, why they should go see this film?

T: A lot of work, effort, energy, and passion was put into this movie. I know that Hollywood tends to turn out these horror flicks with not a lot of thought or respect to them. I can honestly say if they are a fan of the movie going experience, like I said earlier, I know how expensive movies are and myself, my hourly wage on this movie was probably about a dollar thirty an hour, I work about twenty hours a day, seven days a week. Josh Randall the lead actor literally came back from Romania, he did all the stunts in the movie himself, he couldn't walk, he had to have acupuncture to his back. He could not move out of his bed for two weeks and Brianna Brown, the lead girl in the film has a scene where she has to get into a large volcanic lake and it was negative two degrees in the water and she is naked getting into it, and she did it over and over again. She would come out of the water and her lips would be blue. There is a whole rain climax scene where three of our actors are involved, the rain towers that make the rain, it was so cold, it was the coldest night in Romanian history for October, the rain was freezing before it came down, it was literally ice falling, none of the people ever complained. The passion and energy, all of the people who worked on it love this movie, they love movies in general, and I can honestly say it was made with all the best intentions, it was made with the audience in mind at all times and this movie will not insult the audience and we totally respect the audience for coming out and if they are looking for a good time, I seriously think they will have a blast at this movie.

K: That was very well put, thank you! And thanks so much for talking with us today.

T: Thank you, I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me about the film.

K: We can't wait to check out the film!

Check out the trailer for Timber Falls!