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 Silva Synn : Gosh, Bill , I just finished watching the general release DVD of the Nightveil movie , and for a low budget film it has a rather large scope. Beyond the initial core material , how much production assistance did you have in this expanded feature version ?  Bill Black : As you know and as Mr. Gorby explained elsewhere, the initial core materials were the scenes involving Mary Capps. All this was shot in one weekend mostly on the Galaxy International sound stages where I had aid from Mark Heike, Rebekah Black, Brad Gorby, Chuck Capps, Chris Allen and John Beatty. Essentially everyone who was not on camera at the time was helping behind the camera. That was the part of the film shot on analog video. All the digital video I pretty much did by my lonesome. I built the Alizarin Crimson dungeon sets by myself and was still tacking it together when Maria showed up for the shoot. With her came Dan Savarese and Cliff Weikal. Dan had his own camcorder and filmed all the behind the scenes stuff some of which was used in the GAG REEL section. Cliff helped with the lighting in these scenes. Reb was script girl here as well as thruout the entire production. We had a technical problem with Maria's thong always riding up her derierre and Dan was always on hand to adjust the costume. The additional crew for the swamp scenes included Candace Rondenelli and Mindy Seaman. Mindy shot "behind the scenes" video... which I've never seen and Candy used a bull horn to count down each scene with "camera, action" commands. John Beatty was on hand, too, helping and taking digital still shots. The end scenes with the cat fight and down town DeLand scenes I did myself. I work pretty fast. Each of the sequences thruout the movie... Alizarin's dungeon and the poachers had about 42-46 camera set ups which I would execute under 3 hours.  Silva Synn :The sets constructed for " Nightveil's Nightmare Theatre " comprise maybe half the feature , how did you expand on these to create " Witch War " from that initial version ? Bill Black : The earlier interior set for Nightveil's sanctum became Crimson's dungeon after a paint job and creating and or moving some walls. Zargamuu's niche was built in the only section of the warehouse that hadn't been used for the previous sets. I built all these myself as well as Zargamuu himself. Keen observers may spot Zargy's head in the original Azagoth's stronghold set. It was constructed by Brad Gorby. I built an abstract body for him and stuck the head on top. That became the major prop in that sequence. The corridors in Crimson's dungeon were often the same walls redressed. I built two stone columns that were moved about as needed to create new areas. The different "locations" in Crimson's dungeon consisted of (1) The entrance door (which was the door to the film room in the earlier sets), (2) the stone table area with the box that contained the Prima Gem, (3) the area where Reb picks up the bone (4) the area where Crimson consults her orb and (5) Zargy's niche. All these were built in an area approximately 20' by 20'... maybe less.  Silva Synn : Some of my favorite scenes from the Nightveil movie are those where Laura's Sanctum in the Everglades is featured . Now , I've actually been there , and I know that you've been to John Carl Buechler's version at Super Cosmos , is that where you shot those sequences ? Bill Black : Super Cosmos was not a viable venue as it has all those damn tourists swarming around it constantly. I had to build Nightveil's sanctum and, because of time constraints mentioned above, it took about 6 months to complete it. Gorby could have done a far better job but he was not available. Initially, I was going to use art... maybe a matte painting... but decided against that approach. I needed to view the house from many angles and it needed to move, revolve thru space. So I constructed an actual scale model house. It could have been a 3-D CGI construct, I suppose, but I have not gotten into that. At the tail end of this production, Mark Glidden came onboard. He had done some really cool CGI stuff and let me use his graveyard sequences in the front titles. And he did the ground fog. My God what a BIG help that was. Once I got hold of Mark's fog animation, I stuck it everywhere. It really added to the production. Then, too, Paul Monsky and Victoria Nemmers built three fantastic poser scenes of Mary training on Dhagor. This footage just astounded me. They only lasted a few seconds but added a great deal to the quality of the production. I sent them background frames and they directed the poser figure in these scenes. I then added in the fireball and explosion and the scene of a Blue Bulleteer figure growing giant size then dissolving.Their poser figure was very dynamic and I wish our live action scenes looked as good. Of course it took them months to do this.  Silva Synn : There are sound stage sequences in the film as well as location shoots, what 's involved in each and how do they differ from the standpoint of filmmaking? Bill Black : The advantage to shooting on a sound stage is that you have complete control of the environment. Since I did not have a real sound stage and the working area was cramped, there were a lot of disadvantages, too. Like on the Zargy niche set... I never had the time to test it out to see if it would work before the shooting started. I needed to get further back from the set but as it was I had my back to the warehouse wall as I shot it and could not move back, even as much as a foot which would have helped. So I built a "longshot" in Photoshop and inserted the warehouse set to make the space appear larger than it is. Locations are always a problem, especially in guerilla filmmaking where you do not have permission to be where you are filming. There is certainly the atmosphere of "I gotta get this shot fast before the cops come and arrest me" in all location shooting. On location, you cannot control the environment. When I shot ASTRON back in 1976, I had a full professional crew which I paid. Certainly 40% of the time was wasted waiting for airplanes to fly overhead. Jon Smith found this remote location to film the poacher scenes. It was way the hell in the middle of nowhere. We had to use 4 wheel drive trucks to get there cause a regular car couldn't make it. What was good here was that it was far, far away from people and unwanted background noises. What was bad was once you were on location you couldn't run next door for masking tape or anything. You have to prepare everything you need in advance and make sure you have it with you. Jon took Reb and I out there before the shoot and I gained a general idea of how I could shoot the location. It wasn't swampy enuff for what I wanted but I made it work. The actual Everglades is very different... actually unworldly... but it would have been too difficult to get a crew down there. Then, too, the actual Everglades, being a true swamp, is all water, no ground to stand on.The script called for the poachers to arrive in a boat. Jon had arranged for a boat to be placed on this dinky little pond at the location site. I took it on faith that the boat would be there.... and, viola!... there it was. It was there... and it was full of water. Jon found a hole in the bottom, plugged it (I have forgotten with what) and bailed out the water. That took about 20 minutes out of our 3 hour shooting schedule. The next challenge: none of us had ever started an outboard motor nor driven a boat. So more time was lost doing this. Then I had to shoot the boys in the boat in such a manner that it seemed they were on a much bigger body of water. I knew I wanted to intercut the boat with long shots of the St. Johns river that I filmed on the way to the location. I mounted the camera on a long pole and stuck it out over the water and directed Jon to drive the boat under it to effect an "overhead" shot. Since I couldn't "see" thru the camera, this was done several times thru trial and error until I got a good take. On a set, you can control the lighting which is difficult to do on location. The poacher scenes were shot on such an overcast day you could not tell where the sun was. Also, outside, the LCD view screen on a digital camcorder is almost useless. I ended up shooting two scenes pointing the camera directly into the sun. I didn't know this because no sun was visible. The camera knew it tho, so Jon and Dave came out almost in silhouette. I saved these scenes by adjusting them in the computer. Amazing. Otherwise I'd have had to scrap them or schedule another location shoot. Another serious problem with location shooting was that it was too arduous for Reb and she passed out. She needed something to eat, to pump up her body sugar, and fortunately one of the gals had a fruit bar. We stopped, then and had some lunch. Again this cut into my 3 hour shooting schedule. Even tho I'm not athletic, I get an incredible adrenaline surge when I'm filming. I muster the energy to finish what must be shot. Then I collapse.  Silva Synn : It seems to me , if you're working with a small budget , you'd want to take an easier route than what was apparent in your film . As an example I'll use " The Astounding She-Monster " , where most of the action takes place in either the geologist's cabin or the woods . Why did you choose to include such a rich tapestry of locations ? Bill Black : Since we are dealing with "motion" pictures, the movie must move. I am always aware I must install motion into each production. The initial footage was "set bound" and working in such small areas limited any sort of camera movement. I hated that as I like to really move the camera. In NIGHTVEIL I didn't have time or budget to get much motion into it. I loved shooting the Blue Bulleteer chase scenes but that was very limited because of time restraints. I had to shoot a scripted scene then move on to the next. There was no time to try out different camera movements. The scenes shot at the hotel were more visually interesting even tho it was a mundane subject because I had room to move the camera about.  I added the poacher scenes to open the film up. Most of those exteriors were shot hand held wearing a camera brace. Yes, it was foolish to have so many locations on my first video effort, but I needed them to tell the story and to keep the camera moving. NIGHTVEIL had a lot going on in the script which is good to keep the viewer's interest and to keep things from getting dull.  Silva Synn : The Bonus features on the DVD were really marvelous , and a real treat for those of us who love these aspects of DVD's . They looked as though as much effort was put into them as in the actual feature , would you say that's a fair assumption ?  Bill Black : The CHEESEORAMA featurette was the most extensive undertaking of these. It required 5 shooting sessions and 4 locations. But, no, neither it nor the others were any where nearly as complicated as the main movie. I thought these would be simple to edit... just link scenes together and I'm done. But, no, I ended up adding so many inserts and whatnots that these sequences became fairly complicated, too. Since CHEESORAMA was supposed to be a documentary, I purposely eliminated camera movement and pretty much just had the camera running while sitting on a tripod. The first version of this was about 4 minutes longer and had footage of William Castle and cuts from many early Roger Corman films. I also was going to insert scenes of actor Ed Nelson talking about producing (and starring in) THE BRAIN EATERS for Corman. He has endless great stories of working on the fly with Corman on ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS, NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST, TEENAGE CAVEMAN and others, both in front of and behind the camera. But I decided I was getting too far off track comparing these films to NIGHTVEIL. The problem was there was no film like NIGHTVEIL to compare it with. The GENESIS OF NIGHTVEL sequence was written by Rebekah. She insisted that I put a definition of what a "psychotronic" film is. I did that but believe that it was unnessessary. Only psychotronic film fans will buy NIGHTVEIL and they know what they are. This was Reb's attempt to educate the "normal" people of which she is one.So I felt foolish mouthing those lines. Even a little thing like GENESIS was reworked twice, filming me on three different days. That's why the sound level changes from shot to shot. I had fun with the FEMFORCE sequence, building mock animation into the frames. Had I the time, I could have fully animated this with After Effects. I was impressed how cool the Gorby-Heike art work looked in digital color.  Silva Synn : One thing that sets this film apart from other Psychotronic films is the amount of visual effects involved , it has effects sequences that equal in number most mega budget pictures . Were many visual effects artists involved in the production ?Bill Black : Sheesh! I wish there had been. Gorb built some miniatures as earlier described. I built the rest and because I had no time to devote to this, it took months... nearly a year... to construct them. My usual work load as publisher has me working 13 hours a day, 7 days a week so finding time to devote to the video was next to impossible. All the visual effects, and almost every scene had some kind of visual effect added (adding contrast, tinting color, layering in fog, etc.), I did myself on Adobe Premiere Pro and Adobe After Effects. As I learned how to do effects I would go back and add more to previously edited footage so the process was never ending. I have not even scratched the surface on using the effects in After Effects. At first I was thrilled that I could even create an effect like Azy firing a heat beam or making Mary fly. Just doing it was, to me, a major accomplishment. Later, after I became more sophisticated with the effects, I'd go back and rework everything to make the effects blend more into the film instead of just being on a layer on top of the background. I'm really excited by working in this software. I can now accomplish with comparative ease, all the effects I've been unable to do over the past 40 years. Digital rules! Big movies like SKY CAPTAIN literally had 100 visual effects techs working 14 hour days for two years. I just had me. Of couse, SKY CAPTAIN looks fabulous and mine looks like crap in comparison, which is as it should be.  Silva Synn : I especially liked the Photo Album section , do you have any plans on making any of these available for diehard Femfans that might want to start or add to their movie memorabilia collections ? Bill Black : No, let's move on to the next project. Tho I have thought of printing a set of lobby cards sized to fit into the DVD case and sold with the disc. That would be cool.  Silva Synn : After watching some of the outtakes in the " Gag Reel " section of the DVD , I gotta ask you this ; When Laura Wright receives the Cloak of Darkness , why didn't you shoot that sequence in reverse - pulling the Cloak off Mary and up and then just roll the film backwards so that it looked as though the cloak was lowering itself on her ? Bill Black : I can't believe you would even mention this. It's such a simple and over-used technique. Wish I had thought of it at the time.  Silva Synn : All said and done , I have to admit that I was a lot more impressed with this film than what I was expecting , regardless of the budget . In a very real way it had a lot more to it than some of the " blockbusters " that are offered to us via the Hollywood machine . I suppose I could attribute that to you , since the DVD has a very tangible soul to it . Would you care to add anymore to that , for the benefit of your fans ? Bill Black : When I was a little boy, I went to the movies and was surprised when a chapter of BATMAN AND ROBIN appeared upon the screen. There was no forewarning just suddenly... BATMAN coming to life! I was thrilled. That was the first time I had seen a comic book character done in live action. Later in life, when I created my own comic book characters, I had wanted to put them into live action movies. I did so with SYNN, THE SHADE and ASTRON but I was never able to complete those projects for release. Now, thru digital video, I can. This is very exciting to me and very much different from just drawing comics. It's far more difficult than drawing because instead of doing 3 or 4 tasks, you must do hundreds of tasks. That's the challenge... making something out of absolutely nothing. That is the process of doing art, be it a painting or a comic book page or making a film. You create something out of nothing. And it is, to me, the act of creating that is wonderful. The end process may not seem so hot to people who have never tried to do this, but I don't care. Creating is fun. I'm having fun with this and will continue to do so. Is there a tangible soul to what I've created? I don't know. I don't care. It's nice that you, Synn, see a soul in it because you are a sweet, caring person. You I care about pleasing and am thankful that you see something of value in it. As to the world at large, I couldn't care less. Accepted or not, I will continue to create. It's what I do. And I'll do it my way, to quote the late, great philosopher, Francis Albert Sinatra. That's da name of that tune.  Visit Femforce Headquarters and the AC Webstore! | Synn's Silva Screen2 | The Master Speaks | | Matinee at the Bijou | It Came From Holly( LONG )wood! | The Boob Tube | Galaxy International | Synn's Silva Screen | UltraViolet | King Kong | Hollywood Is Foo | | Return Home | Updates | The Archive | Gorby Site Map | Geeb-O-Rama's Model Workshop | Geeb's Toy Box | Geeb-O-Rama Goodies | Movie Madness | World Of The Bizarre | Cool Beans | |
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