As Chokeslam is now playing in select Canadian theatres, we spoke to Robert Cuffley to find out more about this project.

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Can you start by telling us more about you and the film?

I am a Western Canadian Filmmaker, based in Calgary. I began making short films in junior high school and then, later in life, made music videos which gave me an outlet to explore drama. I would infuse as many of them as I could with storylines and this was very fulfilling for me at the time. A great way to get to know musicians as well. After that I travelled, made short films and did some documentary work, then in 2002, jumped into feature filmmaking with Turning Paige, starring Katharine Isabelle and Nicholas Campbell. The process of making this movie solidified the hold that film has over me.

Chokeslam is my fourth feature film. It is a comedy starting Amanda Crew (Silicon Valley), Chris Marquette, Mick Foley (WWE) and Michael Eklund. It has a very different tone from anything else I’ve made and it’s the first movie I’ve done that my kids can see. When most of what you’ve done has been exploring darker themes, it’s a pleasant feeling to do a comedy and make people laugh.

What was the most rewarding part of this filmmaking experience for you?

This was a very tough shoot. My toughest by a long shot. You’re only as good as the team around you and I was fortunate with Chokeslam as the cast and crew pulled together to make it work.

So the most rewarding experience is right about now…where I can finally show the film to people.

What was the biggest challenge that you faced in making the film and how did you overcome it?

Budget limitations would be the toughest aspect of Chokeslam. Having imagery in your head that I wasn’t willing to compromise or cheap out on despite financial restrictions. There’s no small way to do a wrestling sequence. You need a lot of extras, great wrestlers, multiple cameras and the most sought after luxury: time. Trying to juggle all that was trying. Luckily, Amanda Crew (who plays Sheena) had trained before arriving in Regina where we shot. And a variety of real-life wrestlers (Mick Foley, Lance Storm and Chelsea Green) were involved, lending their expertise to the process. In that sense, everyone coalesced otherwise I’d be at the bottom of some lagoon.

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“Be curious about things and other people.”

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What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers?

Get out now. But seriously, endurance is the key. You will experience hurdle after hurdle, but like wrestling, it’s who is standing at the end who succeeds. Filmmaking is an exercise in joy and futility. Your job is to make it slightly more of the former than the latter. Secondly – keep learning. It doesn’t matter if you’ve made ten shorts or twelve feature films, you can always continue to learn, in prep, in production and in post production. Be receptive to it and acknowledge that you can’t be an expert in every field. Learn from others and hopefully they will learn from you as well. Lastly…be curious about things and other people. Ask people about themselves, their family, their jobs, their frustrations. The better you understand people, the better films you will make. This is an ongoing process that should never end.

From your standpoint, how would you describe the current state of the Canadian film industry?

Every festival I go to has panel session after panel session describing the gloom and doom of the Canadian Film Industry. I tend to be more optimistic. More Canadians than ever are making films. And their films are being seen by more and more people. I see far more people starting out than when I started out, a lot of that here in Calgary. The jump between your first and second feature tends to weed out a lot of filmmakers. But once you’ve made three, I figure you’re enough of a masochist to keep punishing yourself by making more.

What film-related books and authors have been influential in your creative journey?

The Film Director’s Intuition by Judith Weston is a good one, Making Movies by Sidney Lumet and In the Blink of an Eye: A Perspective on Film Editing by Walter Murch.

What other projects are you involved with right now?

I am developing a series as well as three other features in varying genres. I am fortunate in that I love every one of them and don’t have to force myself to get excited about working on any of them. You need to juggle a lot in order to be able to duck and weave should something get held up. I could never stick to the same genre as some filmmakers do. I’m sure it’s nice to be known for something, but I like tackling something completely new each time around.

Where can people find out more about you and the film?

Chokeslam opens in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina and Toronto on April 7th. Despite the success of viewing platforms like iTunes and Netflix, any filmmaker would love you to see his/her work in a theatre setting. I’ve been very lucky to have had theatrical releases on all of my films, so go see this in a theatre. A film has its director’s POV written all over it, sometimes subtle, sometimes not. Ferocious (my last film before Chokeslam) displayed elements of the thriller genre that I love, where as Chokeslam comes very close to mirroring my sense of humour. Dry like Canada Dry. But with less ginger.

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Thanks to Robert Cuffley for speaking with us!

You can see Chokeslam in select theatres in Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, and Toronto now.

The post The Biz Interview: Robert Cuffley appeared first on Biz Books.

Can you briefly walk us through your creative process for AFFLICTED from the early stages (initial ideas, writing, etc.) all the way to post production?

About 3 years ago, we decided we were ready to direct our first feature. We had written a script, but it was a huge action movie that was WAY too big for us to do as our first feature film. We knew, even if the script was good, that people would look at us like “who the hell are YOU? And you want HOW MUCH money?” It’s pretty hard to make The Bourne Identity as your first feature. We needed a script that we could shoot for cheap and under the radar. We wanted to keep it to an amount we could conceivably raise ourselves. But we’re also genre movie guys – and we knew we wanted it to be action packed.

When we came up with the concept of a film that was a travel blog that turned into a “supernatural documentary”, we thought this could be really fun and something we could pull off on a low budget. The style of the film meant we could shoot with minimal crew and gear, and put what little money we had on screen.

Specifically regarding the process, we basically do everything together. For writing, it comes down to mapping out a detailed look at the entire screenplay and then having one of us go off and write that draft. We then review, make changes, and repeat until we’re happy.

The same goes for directing except that on this film we were both in it as actors which complicates things a great deal. Most of the time one of us was holding the camera so that at least gave us the ability to have one director guiding the actor in the scene. The scenes where we’re both in the shot were a lot tougher and required us to shoot multiple takes, review as directors, and go again with adjustments. It took time, but there wasn’t really any way around it. What we never wanted was a situation where either actor felt judged by the other actor in a scene. We had to put our director hats to the side, focus on the scene as actors, and leave the judgmental part of being directors to the review process after.

Finally, in post production, there’s a constant conversation between us and our editor, Greg Ng. As co-directors we’re never in a position to make unilateral decisions about the film as there’s always at least one person (the other director) that you need to convince. No matter how good we think an idea might be individually it’s not going to fly unless we can communicate that idea to the team and convince them it’s going to be best for the project. While it can be frustrating when words start to fail us and we’re exhausted, it almost always leads to a newer and better idea that was borne out of brutal scrutiny from the whole team.

At that point, it’s time to show it to our producers, distributors, and audiences and make adjustments based on some fresh outside perspectives.

What themes and ideas do you want the audience to think about from watching the film?

Friendship, death, and accepting your fate.

At its core, Afflicted is a film about two friends who are beset upon by the most insane and deadly of circumstances. It’s the friendship that makes them stronger and brings the audience into the movie, but they are battling elements of mortality that push them past the breaking point. For Derek in particular, the journey of Afflicted is about understanding and truly accepting your fate before it’s too late. He isn’t able to do this until the very end of the film and it costs him almost everything.

Also, we really just wanted to reinvent the creature in our film and make it scary again. Too often in the current landscape of horror, the creature in our movie is portrayed as an emotionally troubled super-being that lives forever with almost no consequence. It very much ceases to be scary in any way. So for us, we really wanted to make being afflicted with this disease a curse. You can’t escape it. You will be party to terrible violence. And you had better come to terms with your predicament before you destroy everything and everyone you love.

You worked with a relatively small budget to create a very impressive debut feature. What steps did you take to maximize your budget?

First and foremost we had a very small and very mobile crew of extremely dedicated and multi-talented people who could all wear many hats. On average, our crew size was around 7 people including the directors which meant that, as an example, our editor, Greg Ng, was also our sound mixer/boom op, props master, and occasional stunts assistant. Everyone on the team loved the project and believed in team enough to work obscene hours in often difficult conditions to help us realize our dream. Were there some touch-and-go moments when we were scrambling from train to train while hauling four suitcases behind us each? Sure! But that’s part of the fun, right?

Shooting in small town Italy for the majority of the European shoot was also key as they were actually excited to have us there. The help we got from the locals in Vernazza, Corniglia, and La Spezia was other-worldly and truly instrumental in getting the film finished. It helped us keep the permit costs low and meant that people went out of their way to get the film shot no matter the obstacle.

Who and what were your major inspirations for becoming filmmakers?

We both grew up pretending to be Transformers, Jedi Knights, or Indiana Jones. Loving movies was part of our DNA from the start. The spark that got us on the path of making movies was Desperado by Robert Rodriguez. That film was so jam packed with action, music, drama, and style we went back and saw it four more times in theaters. And learning about Rodriguez’ history with that film and El Mariachi, well, he made everything seem possible. So we grabbed our parents’ handicams, put on some ridiculous costumes, and set about making our first short films as Deperado-tribute pieces. Some of those old movies made it into Afflicted to help set the stage of our friendship in the movie so that our embarrassing pubescent teenage forays into film-making could be immortalized forever.

While there are too many filmmakers that we love to list here, we really want to follow in the footsteps of some of the greats who have done or are doing amazing work across a wider field of films. Ridley Scott and Danny Boyle are two of our very favorites and we’d love the opportunity to make such amazing and diverse films as they have.

Are there any authors or specific books that have been influential in your development as a filmmaker?

Rebel Without a Crew by Robert Rodriguez for obvious reasons! Again, that book is so inspirational because it empowers the young film-maker to just go out and make a movie! After reading it, we went out and shot our first “real” short film on 16mm back in 2002.

Directing Actors by Judith Weston and Save the Cat by Blake Snyder were also hugely important to us in terms of creating a solid technical base from which to work. Cracking open Save the Cat even helped us solve some pacing issues in post-production on Afflicted because it helped us identify some redundant beats in our narrative.

On a creative level, Philip K. Dick stories were big for us in terms of genre and tone. And Guy Gavriel Kay is a master of the fantasy and historical fantasy genre.

What is the biggest obstacle facing independent filmmakers today and what advice would you offer to aspiring directors who are looking to get started in the industry?

With technology taking huge leaps in the last couple of decades, indie filmmakers today are able to realize their ideas to a more and more elevated level of quality and polish. We think there’s a really bright future for us and other aspiring film-makers to go out there and make almost anything you want. With social media and the internet, getting your vision out to the public is also getting easier and easier which is really exciting.

Having said all that, one of the major obstacles to think about it is making sure your concept is something you can execute really well for the resources available to you. As in, don’t write your first feature screenplay as a twenty million dollar film (like we did). The worst thing you can do at that point is then go and try to make that film for half a million instead and fail to hit your own expectations. Getting frustrated and discouraged can be a dream killer. Instead, we’d suggest coming up with an idea that you can execute without the caveat of “Oh, well done … Considering your budget, that looks great!” The piece should be able to stand on it’s own without the qualifiers and that will hopefully show the audiences and the studios that you’re ready to take the next step.

Are there any upcoming projects that you’re working on that you’d like to mention?

We’re actually in the writing phase of our next project right now! It’s an action movie set in a darker horror movie setting and we’re really looking forward to getting back to our cinematic roots. While the documentary style was absolutely the right call for Afflicted, we want our next film to showcase our love of highly stylized cinema.

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Afflicted opens in theatres across North America on April 4th, 2014. For more information on the film, please visit Afflicted-Movie.com.

The post The Biz Interview – Derek Lee and Clif Prowse of Afflicted appeared first on Biz Books.