Darren Lynn Bousman

Confessions of an Addict

Darren Lynn Bousman — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:09:06 +0000

Stop reading this blog… Seriously, stop reading. Surely there are better ways to spend your time than reading words of a has-been hack that really has nothing important to say.

Wait. You’re still here? Um, okay… Fine…

Surely you can think of something better to do than sit in front of your computer…

A nice walk in the park… Conversing with someone you love. Maybe checking out a museum or learning a new language…

BUT, if you are going to read my blog I propose a challenge to you… Do nothing else in the time it takes you to complete this post. Do not check your email, answer the phone, or go make yourself a turkey sandwich. Be PRESENT… Truly present…

I AM AN ADDICT…

I have something I really need to get off my chest… I am an addict…

I have a unhealthy problem that is beginning to control, and dare I say destroy my life… I have done a horrible job at hiding my addiction… It has gotten in front of my work, my relationships, my family, and just about everything else that is important to me…

My addiction is not drugs… or alcohol… or sex… no, most people will not consider my vice an addiction at all. But those who will laugh this off are probably addicts themselves…

My addiction is DISTRACTION.

OUR STORY BEGINS…

A few weeks back, some of the The Devil’s Carnival kiddies and I packed up our car and drove to Pomona to witness the awesomeness that is Emilie Autumn.

For those of you unaware of whom Emilie is, SHAME ON YOU. She is one of the most talented, hard working, truly artistic musicians working today.

I have seen her live a few times, and each time I walk away amazed at her show; the amount that goes into one of her productions is awe-inspiring.

As the lights dimmed, and the music began I scanned the audience and suddenly felt sad. What should have been darkness was replaced by light… LCD lights, Cellphone lights, Digital Camera lights… A sea of fans ready to film and capture Emilie’s show. Ok, I get it… you are excited, you wanna show your friends… But guess what? There are already 10,000,000 other videos of better quality on YOUTUBE… Stop being distracted, and focus on why you are here in the first place… Have an EXPERIENCE with Emilie…

I stood in the back and watched as Emilie and the Bloody Crumpets took the stage. However, as I scanned the crowd, I noticed that the vast majority of the audience were not watching the stage… no dear readers, they were watching their phones watching the stage.

Recently Terrance Zdunich and I completed a 60+ city Road Tour with our new musical collaboration THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL. What amazed us nightly were the fans that would wait hour(s) to meet us. When they finally approached the table where we were sitting, a large percentage, not all, but a large portion would not talk to us, or even look at us… They would quickly hand someone their phone, and just want their picture with us…

Listen, nothing is cooler than knowing you have a ton of adoring fans who WANT their picture with you… But you would think that the experience… the interaction would be more important to them than the picture… But in most cases, it was the picture they wanted… not the actually moment with us…

TIMES HAVE CHANGED…

It seems the older I become, the harder and harder it is to remember what it was like when I was a kid.

I have flashes. Going to school… Playing Football with my brother.

Going and chopping wood with my dad…

Practicing Martial Arts…

Reading books about filmmaking…

When I look back on my life, the moments I remember most are those in which I was doing things… Moments where I was active… When I reflect back on the history of me, I don’t remember that pivotal day that I downloaded my first ‘app’ on my cell phone. Nor do I remember the day I purchased that first Macbook Pro. How is it possible, that technology is so important in my life, yet I can’t recall that life changing moment when I bought my first smartphone?

I find that kind of ironic, as my life has been consumed with distractions. Distractions that have taken over my life, yet left very little in terms of cherished memories.

Last night Laura and I watched the new episode of Downton Abbey. After it was over, I caught up on Dexter, and then finished the night off with The Following.

3 hours of my day gone, consumed with all of these beautiful distractions. I am not going to lie. I love my DirectTV. I have a relationship with it. Hours and hours and hours of drama just for me. I can sit in front of the TV and be transported into a world of fantasy… And it is a beautiful thing. Truly beautiful…

Wait, I just lied to you dear readers. While I was watching Downton Abbey I was playing Words With Friends with my mom…

Also, I was on Facebook and Twitter… Now that I think about it, I am not sure how much Downton I actually watched…

If I actually stopped and counted, I bet you I spend upwards to six hours of my day doing absolutely nothing… literally nothing… I look busy… I sit in front of the computer, and I am in the zone… Huffington Post, Drudge, Bloody Disgusting, Shock, Dread Central, there are dozens and dozens of sites I must frequent. And that takes up a lot of time…

Wait… did you just check your email? Please tell me you are not answering that ringing phone… You made a commitment to me, that you would do nothing but read this blog…

AN AWAKENING…

Last year, my Dad, brother, uncle, and a few others decided to do a white water rafting trip in the Grand Canyon… 7 days, 6 nights on the river.

This was a big deal. On top of a family bonding trip, this was a true test of endurance. Outside of braving the 104 degree daily temperature, mixed with the 50 degree FREEZING canyon water, we would have to survive without the frills of the modern man. No cell phone reception. No power or outlets. No internet, no email, no technology… Just the Colorado River, some beer, and conversation…

7 days is a long time NOT to check email. Not to go on Bloody-Disgusting… NOT to update my Facebook page.

I have an admission to make. Though I was told not to bring my electronic devices on the raft, I did… We live in the 21^st Century… Surely I would get reception… Surely my iPad would work…

Day 1 of the raft trip I kept my cellphone in my pocket. I would pull it out every few hours searching for a signal… I got lucky once… 20 emails came through, and I was even able to check my Twitter feed.

By the end of the first night, I was literally a basket case. I kept leaving the group and trying to find reception. I kept making excuses… Going for a hike… Using the Oscar (Outdoor Sanitary Culinary Alleviation Receptacle) . But the reality was, I couldn’t function without this little device in my pocket.

The world could not function without me interacting with it… I NEEDED to be on Facebook… I HAD to check my email… I MUST listen to my voicemail.

On Day 2 during lunch, I snuck off and tried to get a signal again. It was like we had entered a vortex. No cellphone reception anywhere!!!! Dear Baby Lord Jesus, here come the shakes… What the hell was I going to do? What were my friends doing? What new horror story broke??? What did James Gunn have for lunch?!?!

WHAT HAPPENED ON AMERICAN HORROR STORY?????

Jesus, I am pathetic…

I am in the middle of the GRAND CANYON with my father and brother. I am experiencing something that most will never have the opportunity to. I am having an adventure with wild animals, and camping, and survival, and all I can think about is Words With Friends…

I had an awakening that day… I was never PRESENT in anything in my life… If I was at the SAW 3 premiere I was also live blogging what was happening…

If I was at the gym, I was also checking Facebook… I didn’t know how to just… be… To quote Jay Z… I’m onto the Next One.

It’s actually a disgusting thing. Realizing that no matter where I was, I was really somewhere else, doing something else.

I put my phone down that day, and didn’t pick it back up until we were out of the Grand Canyon… Guess what… Life continued on… The world didn’t end…

It took 6 days of not having a phone to realize I really didn’t need one in the first place.

Man existed for thousands and thousands of years without Words With Friends and Instagram, but I had a panic attack if I was without them for hours.

What has happened to me that an electronic device dictates my actions?

THE CYCLE CONTINUES…

I wish I could tell you dear readers that I grew as a person while rafting down the Colorado River… The truth is, I went right back to my distractions almost immediately upon entering civilization…

Maybe that is human… maybe it’s nothing to feel remorse for. Maybe the smart phone and the laptop were an important evolution in our culture, a transition bridging man and computer.

However the other part of me thinks that they are just shiny toys keeping me distracted from the important things in my life.

Two months back, Laura and I went to Paris…

Since I was a kid I had heard stories about the City of Lights, and finally I was going to set foot in France. Laura, while she won’t admit it, has been planning this trip since she was a teenager and had our adventures arranged months in advance.

What surprised me about Paris was NOT the amount of tourists, and there were a plenty… It was the amount of tourists who were glued to their phones AND CAMERAS…

There we stood in the Louvre, starring at the Mona Lisa, a work of Art that had been talked about since elementary school… I was inches away from this legendary painting, surrounded by hundreds, no, thousands of tourists, a sea of bodies from all over the world, and the vast majority of them were not present… Their noses were buried in their iPhones, or Cameras, busily snapping pictures…

I spun around and noticed that only a handful of people were actually looking at the painting; everyone else had their hands full setting their apertures, or applying cool filters to their Instagram.

Mother Fuckers, I thought, you are in the Louvre, standing next to the Mona Lisa, have some respect. Be present… be here NOW… Put your shitty phones away and have an experience… Download a better picture off the net later, trust me, you can find better pictures than you will take on your shitty iPhone. Enjoy THIS moment now, the moment in which you were there, with it…

(side rant about technology… I own 5 computers. I have a more blackberries than I care to count… and numerous versions of the iPhone. I am proof that the marketing machine works. The truth is all these fucking phones do the EXACT SAME THING. The iPhone 4, and 4S, and 5 are all the exact same phone… Yes one might be thinner, or have a better camera… But is it really worth the money we shell out?! NO! We do it… I DO IT, so I can be ‘in’. That macbook pro is sooooo last year… Again, I am a douche… I shutter to think about the countless dollars I have thrown at crap I don’t need, and really doesn’t make a difference in my life outside of building a blockade of REAL HUMAN INTERACTION…)

I found my frustrations building as we went from site to site, and we were greeted with the same disconnection.

Now, it’s only fair to point out, I too had my camera. I too took pictures of the Eiffel Tower… The Arc De Triomphe… But I tried to limit my picture taking to the bare minimum. I consciously tried to BE PRESENT.

AND I’VE LEARNED NOTHING…

It has taken me a week to finish this blog. I started it some five days ago, but every time I sit down to conclude my thoughts, something distracts my attention away. Some gossip column… some TV show… Some iPhone game…

Last night Laura and I went to the LACMA Museum, and saw the Stanley Kubrick Exhibit.

Kubrick hands down is my favorite director. Dr. Strangelove, The Shining, Full Metal Jacket, Eyes Wide Shut – all masterpieces.

(Side note to the readers. Laura’s Grandfather was in Spartacus directed by Kubrick… In fact, Laura’s grandfather was in a TON of movies and iconic television shows. The great Harold J. Stone.)

I have studied Kubrick since I was a kid. And here I was walking through a literal shrine to him.

As we exited the museum, Laura turned to me and made the comment… This has been a great date with your phone.

I realized at that moment that I had been carrying on text conversations with 4 different people. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that these conversations were transpiring while we were walking through the Exhibit. It didn’t register with me that I was being rude.

After we left LACMA we went to dinner, and as we ordered, Laura pointed out that everyone in the establishment was on their phone. I glanced around and she was right. Of the 15 or so people in the restaurant, EVERYONE was on his or her phone. There was nary a conversation transpiring at any of the tables.

What is happening in our society that people have stopped communicating? Stopped talking… Stopped interacting. Stopped being present?

When did I become dependent of an iPad? Or a phone that I talk to… When was the moment I decided watching 5 hours of TV nightly was okay? I feel like I am getting dumber. I rarely have face to face interactions. I have text messages… I have word games… I have entire relationships based entirely around Facebook.

Instead of finishing a blog, I watch HOUSE OF CARDS… Instead of going to the gym and getting my fat ass in shape, I play PS3. Instead of going on a date with my wife, I text message my friends… Part of me feels like slowly I am becoming a mindless drone. I buy the products they tell me to buy, and with each day, I communicate less and less…

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

I would write more, but my mom is winning at Words with Friends and I CAN NOT let that happen…

Alright, go do something else now, check your email… Watch a TV show, update your facebook status. But a challenge… I dare you… I DOUBLE DARE you to be present in whatever it is you decide to do today…

dlb

A SAW by any other name…

Darren Lynn Bousman — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 21:54:40 +0000

I like to pride myself on being proactive… Both in my career and my life… however I have been anything but proactive when it comes to my blog.

I guess I get overwhelmed with how many thoughts I have in a day and instead of just focusing on ONE thought and blogging about it, I shut down.

My News Year’s resolution is to blog more… Not that any really cares what I have to say, but it’s cathartic… I have grown tired of telling Ninja and Chance all of my innermost thoughts…

Truth be told, I am sure they have grown tired of hearing them.

So I turn to the Internet, where everyone has a voice, and anyone can babble on endlessly about everything and nothing at all. It’s insane when you think how the Internet has changed our lives, as well as society as a whole.

If it were not for the Internet, both “Repo!” and “The Devil’s Carnival” would have died horrible, horrible deaths. Luckily for the aforementioned films, the Internet existed, and it allowed fans to talk, speak their mind, and spread our little musical plague to others.

Information is so freely accessible… What used to be secret, is now easily revealed… What used to be mysterious is now quickly exposed…

I remember a couple of years back when I was buying a TV for the house, I did research… Actual research… I went to various stores, looked at the different models, read “Consumer Reports”… Now, I just look at the Amazon rating on something. If I am looking for a restaurant, I YELP it… Gotta check those reviews… What are my peers saying?

The truth is I am LAZY. Gone are the days where I actually investigate anything – I let others dictate what I buy, and what I don’t. What I watch, and what I skip… I am a sheep, regardless if I want to admit it or not. Maybe sheep is the wrong word; I am a Lemming…

A few days ago, I was out and about when I passed a movie theater showing “Texas Chainsaw 3D.”

(Full Disclosure – the producer of Texas Chainsaw is a friend of mine: Carl Mazzocone produced some of the “Saw” films, but more importantly, he was the main producer behind “REPO! The Genetic Opera”. I have been a fan of Carl for some time, as he was one of the few people who made “REPO!” a reality, and never stopped believing in or fighting for our little musical.)

Ironically, I had read nothing about it, and I also realized I hadn’t read a single review on the movie. I had fallen out of touch with Carl, and had no insight on how filming went, or what stories he could share from the set. All I had was the poster…

As I stood there in front of the theater, I pulled my cell phone out. I started to pull up Rotten Tomatoes, and then stopped myself. Fuck it, who cares what anyone else thinks of this? I am going in and supporting Carl.

I gotta admit, I liked it. I actually really dug the film. Was it perfect? No… Did parts of the timeline confuse me? Yes? But who fucking cares? In the 90+ minutes I was in the theater, I found it entertaining and exciting, it had some good kills… (come on, the girl in the freezer! That was epic)

Not only was I excited for Carl Mazzocone, and Mark Burg, I was happy to see LGF was still releasing R rated horror films.

The critic in me, can look at Texas Chainsaw and pick apart things I didn’t like… But the reality was, while I was in the movie, I went on the journey and had a good time with it. Texas Chainsaw was not a movie I would allow myself to pick apart.

The minute it ended I jumped on Rotten Tomatoes, curious of what others thought of the movie. As one would expect, it wasn’t getting the love Carl, and others who worked on the movie probably had hoped for.

One need not be a rocket scientist to understand how EVERY horror movie that is released effects me, and directors like me… It effects all the horror films coming out… It is important that horror stays atop the box office… It’s important it’s supported, and fans see these films, as you VOTE by your dollar… I am nothing more than a poser if I am not out there as well, voting with my dollars… I WANT TO SEE MORE HORROR, I want to see R rated horror – this is the genre I love, and so every time a movie like this comes out, it’s important, as it’s another chance to make a statement. When I came home that night, I was curious what some of the bloggers I followed thought of the film, so I sat down and spent a good hour reading other people’s thoughts and reviews on “Chainsaw”.

About an hour into my curiosity, a realization hit me, if I had read a fraction of this prior to going to the theater, I would not have seen the movie. I would have prejudged it, and written it off based on what the others thought. The Others.

I have never personally made a movie that The Others have endorsed. In fact, pretty much every film I have made has been destroyed by the critics from Rotten Tomatoes.

I wonder what other movies I would have seen, or restaurants I would have visited or TV’s I might have bought if I didn’t so easily accept the advice of others…

I would like to tell my followers to support my friend Carl and LGF, and horror in general by going out and seeing Texas Chainsaw 3D, if for no other reason than the great Bill Moseley, that man is a God Damn National Treasure.

But who am I? Just another voice in a sea of voices, so don’t listen to a word I say… But be your own judge… Do your own thing.

I challenge you to an experiment. Do one thing this week that you know NOTHING about… Go on Netflix and watch a movie you have never heard of (no reading reviews). Go to a restaurant and don’t YELP it, or do any research… Go buy a CD based SOLELY on the cover art and nothing else… Pick up a comic book because you like the title even though you have no clue of its content.

While a great deal of you will probably strike out, and be met with severe disappointment, some of you will discover diamonds in the rough… I want to hear about it all — the successes and the failures (though no promise I will listen to any of you – I will be out discovering my own stuff)!!!

dlb

A Family Affair

Darren Lynn Bousman — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 01:50:23 +0000

A Family Affair

My life has been relegated to boxes… thousands, and thousands, and thousands of boxes. Boxes and labels, don’t get me started on the fucking labels.

This week THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL was released to the world. DVD/ NETFLIX/ iTUNES/ HOT TOPIC/ the list goes on and on.

For those of you just joining us, THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL is a new musical collaboration from Terrance Zdunich and myself.

It seems surreal. Just 10 months ago, we embarked on a journey without a safety net. We threw caution to the wind, and said ‘FUCK IT’ lets go make something we want to make, and do it completely independently.

Independently. I guess I never understood what that word meant until recently.

Before I made The Devil’s Carnival I would’ve considered myself an INDIE FILMMAKER. While I have had the extreme fortune to work on a fair number of successful movies, the truth is not one of them was within the major studio system.

Saying you’re an INDIE FILMAKER is kinda cool. Brings you cred, makes you hip… You’re doing your own things, and playing by your own rules. The reality is that it’s kind of bullshit. Each and every film I have made which was indie, I was protected… I had producers, and office managers, and legal teams. I had someone above me who had as much to lose as I did, if not more.

If I failed I could point to any number of countless individuals.

“It’s the marketing team’s fault! They don’t understand my genius.”

“It’s the producers’ fault, they didn’t fight hard enough.”

“It’s the studio head’s fault, he doesn’t like horror movies.”

While I have never been a director for hire per say, I have never had the power to sink the ship solo. My past failures have come with a long line of cooks in the kitchen.

That being said, I have been responsible for countless fuck ups that have sank my movies. 11-11-11 was rushed and not a great script. The Barrens was… well, fuck it, I actually really like that movie.

My point is, each and every film I have done I have had a team of people, companies, corporations who had a vested interest in seeing it succeed…

And then there is THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL.

I am not sure what in the hell we were thinking.

We are indie filmmakers… We can do this!

ICE SWIMMING. You’ve all seen it. It’s when a group of insane people jump into FREEZING lakes/oceans/ponds.

People who have done it equate it to shocking the system. The water is so cold, your entire body seizes up.

I am at the point where I can step outside of the experience and view it somewhat objectively.

We jumped into a freezing cold lake with The Carnival, not fully aware what the fuck we were doing.

We, too, seized up.

HOLY SHIT, it’s cold!!!

For the purpose of this blog, I am only going to address the DISTRIBUTION of the film.

Wait… Distribution? We didn’t have a distributor.

Remember how I talked about my countless fuck ups? Let’s add this one to the mix. I shot an expensive short film, with big name talent and never secured a distributor.

Insanity!!!!

Well, not really, that was the entire point of this experiment. I was tired of the run around, I was tired of the excuses, I was tired of being told NO. I was tired of that embarrassing phone call where I was forced to call the actor and tell them their amazing performance was not worthy enough of a proper release.

Wanna hear a secret? The Barrens was not distributed in ONE theater. Nope, not a one. (It was four walled by one of the investors who believed in the project.)

The people in charge felt it was a lost cause, and to their defense, all signs pointed that it was. It would cost more to put it in theaters than it would ever make. I was devastated as I truly felt and still feel The Barrens is a solid film, and one worth seeing.

When I heard Barrens wouldn’t get even ONE theater, I literally went into a self induced rage.

What do you mean it wouldn’t make any money? What do you mean no would pay to see it?

At this point we had just completed a SELF FUNDED 60+ city tour with The Devil’s Carnival, and sold out over 80% of the stops.

Big theaters too…

This wasn’t a one time thing, or a two time occurrence. This was a nightly routine. We were able to sell out theaters NIGHT after NIGHT, with no publicity outside our social media reach.

Now, let’s look at what this means.

WE, The Devil’s Carnival, a group of artists with no real business sense personally booked, and sold out a 60+ city tour, relying SOLELY on FACEBOOK/TWITTER/ and friends within the genre community to get the word out, and we were OVERWHELMINGLY successful. But an actually mainstream movie, featuring a mainstream cast WAS NOT worthy enough of an opportunity to actually put forth the old college try?

The Devil’s Carnival WAS NOT mainstream, AND it was a SHORT and people SANG in it – that’s like three strikes against it right there!!!

So when I hear that The Barrens, a movie starring Stephen Moyer, arguably on one of the more popular cable TV shows was not worthy enough for ONE screen, as it was a losing financial venture, I scratched my head, then got drunk…

It was this moment, when I heard the fate of The Barrens, that we decided to once again and say FUCK IT, let’s not turn our work, our passion, our art over to someone who can trivialize it, then convince themselves they made the right decision.

We will put together a team, and turn our living quarters into HOME BASE.

We self financed this movie, we self distributed it theatrically, we will now SELF DISTRIBUTE the DVD.

Future filmmakers – let me break it down for you how the DVD game works.

A distributor will take roughly 20% to 25% off the top to ‘release’ your movie. Then, you sell your movie to the retailer at a wholesale price, meaning a number MUCH less than they will sell it to the public for… So let’s say you get a good number from the retailer, they STILL hold that money in an account for returns, broken discs, damaged items. It could take months and months, before you ever see a cent from your sale. Just because you are in retail however does not get you placement, or exposure… No, that costs you extra.

Then, once you have made your sale, then comes the laundry lists of fees… Oh, yes, there will be fees owed! SAG, DGA, WGA, Mechanical license fees, accounting, legal, this list is so long it’s mind-boggling.

Four years ago, my head space was only concerned about what format I was going to shoot my movie in… 16mm, or 35mm now I am forced to spend my day on the phone with SAG brokering all sorts of nonsense.

I have gotten nowhere in the industry by playing it safe… Why start now? We will sell DVD’S personally… We will create the art, we will package them, we will box them, take them to the post office and mail them… We will do everything! We will keep the 25% and not down sell them at wholesale prices. We will keep every aspect of this film within the family. From the creative to the accounting to the overwhelming paperwork brought about by the unions.

Remember taking that ice cold dive we talked about?

Well the water is fucking freezing and I’m not sure if I can tread much longer.

I now have turned my back on the safe route to get this movie out there. I have made the asinine proclamation that we as the artists will handle all distribution.

Laura will handle customer service, and keeping track of the orders.

Courtney will handle organization.

Kimmie and SeanE will handle manufacturing. Spooky Dan fan outreach.

Terrance and I will number all the DVD’s and box them.

I mean, realistically how many can we really sell by ourselves, right?

We don’t have money to advertise, so it can’t be that many, right?

WRONG… wanna see what 1000’s and 1000’s of DVD’s look like?

For the last two months, we have not stopped. Printing shipping labels, numbering DVD’s, driving to and from the manufacturing houses… Our lives were paused. We woke up, went through our days, and then went to bed just working on these orders. I even conducted outside business meetings from the trenches, forcing those who needed to meet with me to pick up boxes, and starting stuffing DVD’s inside of them! (thanks Chris Monfette)

Wanna know what hell is? Hell is peeling thousands of mailing labels and placing them on boxes. Hell is cutting thousands and thousands of labels by hand.

Hell is my backyard, and the never-ending, always expanding mess of boxes, and boxes, and boxes that seem to multiple faster than gremlins when they get wet…

It is not an exaggeration that 10 hours of our day is spent doing NOTHING but organization DVD shipments, and distribution. I literally have no life.

It’s easy to become disillusioned… Want to throw your hands up in the air, and say fuck it, this ain’t worth it! This is NOT what I signed up for…

Nor however was The Barrens, or 11 11 11, or Mother’s Day, or… I didn’t sign up to make a movie, and one I was passionate about, to be dumped, or ignored, or relegated to the bargain bin at my local grocery stores. I would fight, WE would fight to prove 7 people could make a difference. Could get exposure, could do, and accomplish what so many people continually tell me I CAN NOT DO!!! Even if that meant doing EVERY aspect by hand, myself. We were INDEPENDENT.

My last few films had been dumped… Released on DVD, and then vanished like farts in the wind minutes later. And I was powerless… All my bitching, and crying over its release, I couldn’t change its fate. Yet here, with this, I was not powerless… I was only confined by my own laziness…

We could do whatever we wanted as we were our own bosses… There was no one pulling our strings, there was no man behind the curtain.

Suddenly, I found myself embracing that cold water… I actually found it comforting! Fuck trying to tread water, I’m gonna do the backstroke! If I drown, so be it, at least I am doing it on MY terms.

In the beginning of August, TZ, myself and the rest of our team starting kicking in every single door we could find. We refused to take no as an answer. We wanted to see if we could get our strange, weird, short film EVERYWHERE without the safety net we had all grown so accustomed to.

You hear no, it can’t be done, so many times as a filmmaker, you begin to believe it. Why would you question it, these people must know what they are talking about, right?

Suddenly, this adventure, this quest to prove our worthiness yields results… There is a euphoric feeling as you realize nightly YOU are accomplishing something. Something that just the day before seemed like an impossibility.

Within a month’s time we had secured deals with HOT TOPIC, NETFLIX, iTUNES, HULU, XBOX, AMAZON, and many many more.

Not only did we land these avenues, we landed them with PRIME placement.

My life became solely about this DVD, this release, this statement: that my fate was not determined by the stigma of ‘no studio attachment’.

This collective of artists, and family members would be my studio, the fans would act as my publicity team.

My wife would act as the fulfillment house, the overlord, the woman with the iron fist!

Her mother, my mother in law, would be in the trenches making sure our voice would not go unheard.

Every person in my life would have some responsibility that would aid in changing the odds in our favor. It became all-consuming. Literally every waking hour for months would be solely devoted to assuring that this project would not vanish like so many projects before it had.

Well my dear readers, the DVD has been out less than a week, but I can tell you we have won. We have succeeded… We have exposure. And we did it without having to sell our souls, or part with a percentage of our hard work, and art. We believed in what we were doing, and we were victorious!

Moments after the DVD’s hit the post office, FAN’S responded!

We formed our own studio. And found that we could rely on like-minded artists who, like us, weren’t scared to fail, but were scared of NOT trying, or just accepting.

I pray that in time I will once again be in the position of doing films where there is a safety net. Where the studio is the studio, and I am just a director…

As much as I complain about the decisions to ‘dump’ my films. I get it… It’s a business, and all businesses need to make smart financial decisions to their shareholders. But I as an artist and creator should not be beholden to a formula that I see is changing.

Even with the sleepless nights, and blinding migraines, the severe depression, I am still a director.

I am a director of fulfilling orders, thousands and thousands of orders from all around the world.

I am a director of shipping labels and customs forms. I am a courier to the post office!

I am a director of brokering deals with retailers like HOT TOPIC.

I am a director… and for the first time in my career I can honestly say, of INDIE FILMS, cause it doesn’t get any more indie than this!

Thank you to all those who helped make The Devil’s Carnival a reality, who spent the last two months boxing DVD’s and printing labels. Thank you to my wife and her mother who spent more hours than I care to calculate Hailing Satan with us.
Thanks to Courtney, Kimmie, Ben and Spooky, who jumped in the water with us and embraced its icy greeting.

Thanks to Thomas and Steve and all of Film Funding Alliance who trusted us to do something outside of the box, and who put their money where their mouth is! Film Funding Alliance stepped up to the plate when no one else would!

Thank you to Joe and Tim at Virgil Films, who renewed our faith in digital distribution and stayed true to your promises. That in and of itself is a rarity.

A special thank you to SeanE the films producer, who was the first guy who came in and actually started making shit happen. We play in an industry where talk is cheap, and everyone loves to talk. This guy followed up his talk with real action.

But most importantly, thank you to the fans, who have once again amazed us with their passion, dedication, and love for what we do! You have proven yet again that filmmakers and artists do not need the fancy bells and whistles to reach you! You have taken a short film, an experiment, and made it stand for something…

The Devil’s Carnival will continue. Our number of Sinners will grow, the episodes will multiply.

I have learned more in the last few months than I have in the last few years… The landscape for independent filmmakers is changing. While I am blessed to have had movies distributed by Lionsgate, and Anchor Bay, a lot of times my work will falls through the cracks. It is my responsibility as an artist to not let that happen; to exposure the work no matter the cost!

We as artists and filmmakers are done playing by their rules… it’s time to make a few of our own.

BUY THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL HERE

dlb

Perception is KING

Darren Lynn Bousman — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 18:35:25 +0000

On September 28th, The Barrens opened in theaters, and on October 9th, the film expands to VOD/DVD and Streaming.

LIFE LESSONS:

It is this writer’s humble opinion that one of the most difficult aspects of being a filmmaker is taking criticism.

There are those out there who will argue YOU CHOSE THIS, so stop being a whiny little bitch, and take it like a man…

You are right. I did choose this. I chose to create art, and then put it out there in the world to be judged.

I didn’t say I disagree with it, I said it was hard…

I have written numerous blogs in the past about dealing with criticism, so I will spare you repetition.

Today, we will talk about PERCEPTION, and its effect on the already fragile filmmaking process…

I woke up last Friday morning, my stomach in knots, nervous, embarrassed, anxious, and a little depressed.

See, Barrens was opening, and though I say “opening”, that is kind of a false statement. It was appearing in a few theaters… Well… a few theaters is also kind of a stretch… It was placed in TWO cinemas.

When a movie like Barrens is released, it’s key that it opens on SOME screens. It’s a perception thing. If it opens in on the big screen you can call it ‘theatrical’. And calling something ‘theatrical’ allows us filmmakers to hold our head up high…

Barrens was a passion project of mine. It was a script I had wanted to make since SAW 2. In fact, the late Gregg Hoffman and I had planned on making it as my follow up to SAW 2. However upon Gregg’s death, all movement on the Barrens stopped.

Some six years would pass before I would finally get the chance to see The Barrens become a reality.

Nothing ever goes the way you plan. When we set off into the woods, we all assumed, as I think all filmmakers do, that this would be a WIDE THEATRICAL release… I mean, how can it not? It’s a cool script (I know, I am biased). It’s a got a cool monster (The Jersey Devil – the stuff of Legends), and it’s got Stephen Moyer (The Star of one of the most popular cable TV shows out there).

During production we were met with the normal hardships: not enough time, not enough money, blah blah blah.

However, at the end of the day, when we wrapped the movie, I was happy, and I was proud.

I got to make the movie I had set out to make, even if we had less than 20 days to shoot it…

For those of you unaware, The Barrens tells the story of the Jersey Devil.

Well, not really, it’s more of a character piece, a man’s descent into madness, set against the idea that there MAY be a monster following him and his family on their camping trip.

I wanted to make a film where the monster was the B story, and the characters and their own drama was the A story.

I always try to ask myself, IF I remove the gimmick, will the movie still work…

Example. In Repo, if I remove the element of the music and singing, do the film and story still hold up?

In the case of The Barrens, the question became, IF I remove the monster, will the movie still work?

My goal was to create a film about a dysfunctional husband, that happens to have a monster in it. Not a monster movie that happens to have a dysfunctional husband in it.

The movie was edited and finished, and I found myself once again left with a movie I loved, but maybe not the most commercial of films…
A mish mash of genres… More a drama than horror… But too horrific to be a drama… But one thing I did have… Amazing performances…

I can’t say enough good things about my cast: Mia Kirshner, Allie McDonald, Peter DaCunha all amazing. But I had an ace up my sleeve, I had Moyer. Stephen FUCKING Moyer turns out a fucking chill-inducing performance… In a lot of respects the entire movie rests on his shoulders… And he kills it; he makes this movie his bitch.

I remember getting the phone call that the movie would only be released on a handful of screens and then it was doing VOD/DVD/ STREAMING.

This was a punch in the gut. But a feeling I was getting all too used to. Dear Baby Jesus, what do I tell my cast? What do I tell Moyer?

Ten years ago, I would have been happy to just be in the game…

Now, that I am in the game, my views have changed… Now, my happiness is relegated by the size of a release?

In ten years from now, how will I judge success? Happiness?

I had success. SAW 2, 3, 4. All box office hits… Thousands of screens, tons of press…

But Repo, Mother’s Day and 11-11-11 were all released with next to no support. And no marketing dollars…

When a movie is ‘dumped,’ the PERCEPTION begins.

A ‘dumped movie’ equals a BAD MOVIE… If a studio dumps a film – the belief is, the studio doesn’t believe in it.

I used to believe this, too… At least with Repo, I did…

But one needs to look behind the curtain to really grasp the bigger picture.

P and A (‘Prints and Advertising’) is expensive… To put a movie in theaters, you must advertise the movie is in the theater… There must be awareness… What good is putting a movie out if NO ONE knows it’s out?

For something like Barrens, if a full theatrical release was planned, it would cost upwards of 10 even 20 million dollars to make an impact…

In the scheme of movie making, 10 million dollars does not seem like a lot. But you have to add that 10 to 15 million to the budget. It increases everyone’s risk… The Investors, the Producers, the Studio… Suddenly this little movie has to make back 15 to 20 million dollars JUST to break even…

Whereas if it goes straight to VOD/DVD it doesn’t have to sit behind the P and A spend. So the movie begins making money for everyone almost instantly…
I fucking hate it, but I get it… It’s a business… These movies aren’t made to make art, they are made to make MONEY. The greats, however, can accomplish both.

I rebelled against this formula with THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL, and with much success… With a handful of friends, and a whole lot of passion, we got The Devils Carnival in over 60 cities, sold out crowds nightly… and we did this without having to take out huge ad buys… We resorted to creativity and desire… Our not having money did not fuck with our ability to get it to its audience.

But this is a different movie, and a different situation…

When releasing something like The Barrens on 2 screens, PERCEPTION IS KING.

The worst thing in the world is, it’s released, people hate it, and then no one buys the DVD, no one downloads it, and it goes gently into that sweet goodnight, as so many films do… At this point, The Barrens is all about one thing… Moving DVDs. (pre-order DVD here)

So, back to where I was… It’s Friday morning and I wake up, roll over and flip on the computer. My first stop is IMDB. Has anyone posted a review?

And then I see it… At first I wanted to throw up, then I wanted to start drinking, then I wanted to punch something….

IMDB user score 1.2.

1.2? Are you fucking kidding me?

30 votes, and I had a combined average of 1.2?

How was this even possible? This movie is not everyone’s cup of tea…. I get that, but for 90% of the votes to be 1 means that I failed harder than when I tried to pick up Jesse Biel at a Super Bowl party.

I am a masochist… I have stated this over and over… I read everyone’s blogs. I read every message board… I am obsessed.

Almost immediately twitter conversations started. Barrens has a 1.2! Oh snap – Barrens must suck…

By noon, 75 users had rated it, and it was sitting at a 1.5 rating.

First off, the movie was only playing in two cities, and there was NO P and A. I am pretty confident in saying 75 in total had not seen the movie.

Then the email I feared the most came to my inbox.

THE BARRENS ON PIRATE BAY.

Ahhh, my pirate friends… You…. YOU!!!!!

By Saturday morning, The Barrens had a 2.4 rating on imdb.

I was contemplating disappearing for a few weeks…

The embarrassment you feel when you have such a beautiful disaster can not be explained.

I looked over at my phone and saw Moyer was calling me.. What the hell do I say to him? Hey, brother, awesome job in the movie… Oh, by the way, people hate it and think you suck. Don’t quit your day job, Vampire Bill.

Here is a movie I am fucking proud of, worked for years on, and it’s been squashed by those very movie goers I am trying to win over…

Saturday night I stayed in… More like hid… I didn’t leave my computer. I just stared at the imdb rating agonizing in my head, where did I go wrong? The rating had gone up to a 4.8 but still, that is pathetic…

Then I clicked something that made my night a little better.

For whatever reason, imdb was using something called WEIGHTED AVERAGES. Basically it’s a formula they use that determines which votes count, and which votes do not count. While I had a 4.8 rating, the actual user rating was 7.6. 80 of the voters gave me a 7 or higher – yet somehow I have a 4… Perception is killer.

For some unknown reason imdb refuses to count certain votes, as it tries to protect against ‘vote stacking’.

At this point now, I have already received concerned phone calls from my mother, my friends, and even the cast.

Why was this movie, one we were all proud of being ‘dumped’ into the void of nothingness? Why did the imdb users give us such a low score…

I did a little research and found a few of my friends were having the same fate befall their independent movies. Scorpion, himself, Marc Senter’s new movie BRAWLER has a 2.7 raiting on imdb,

BUT, if you actually click inside, its user ratings are actually 7.7.

So, whats the big deal you ask? It’s just some website…

It’s about PERCEPTION! So many people use Rotten Tomatoes and imdb to sift through the good and the bad… I know I do… and here my movie was being rated one step above TERRIBLE… But… But… it’s really a 7.7 not a 4…

So many people take this for granted, but Perception is everything… At least in the eye of the typical movie going public.

A movie is held for THREE YEARS, it must be a stinker…

A movie that has a 1.1 rating on IMDB must be terrible…

The movie isn’t being released theatrically; it must be shit.

How do you fight against the exact same things you yourself are judgmental towards?

I am like everyone else. If I see a movie has a 1.2 rating on imdb, I skip it. If I notice a movie has been held for years, I bypass it… If I realize a movie I have been looking forward to goes straight to video I frown upon it. It’s the way the world works…

Perception, my dear readers…

However, by far the worst part for me is not the ratings, or the Rotten Tomatoes, or the phone calls from Mom and Dad checking on my mental state…

The internet has given everyone a voice… Everyone a pulpit… Yours truly included…

I can send a tweet out, and instantly 20,000 people can read it… I post a message on facebook, and it gets in front of 100,000 eyes! This is a blessing, and a curse.

Daily I check the twitter stream, and my searches are filled with ‘WATCH BARRENS FREE’ – ‘DOWNLOAD BARRENS NOW FOR FREE!!’

For almost a decade I have fought, and gone to war to make this movie… I have burned bridges and lost friends to get it made… And finally after jumping through countless hoops, and running a marathon straight out of a SAW movie – I get it out there, and with a click of a button, it can be shared for all to see for FREE… and promoted through twitter and facebook no less… You click it, and you watch it for free, and you convince yourself somehow this is all okay, you are not doing anything wrong… I won’t argue this point, but it does effect people… It effects me, the filmmaker who has EVERYTHING riding on it’s opening. You call it harmless… I call it detrimental…

This is not an attack on Torrent users. Hell, my sister is the fucking wench of Pirate Bay, but the Perception to those in middle America – The Barrens is a disaster – STAY AWAY.

It’s a hard pill to swallow…

One can’t help but feel defeated… What’s this all for? Why spend the years trying to make anything if this is its fate??? Why jump through the hoops, why subject yourself to the sleepless nights and all the bullshit if THIS is what is to come… Why try to make a living as an independent filmmaker when in the end, some twitter user can freely share the art I just spent years making HOPING to prove my worthiness by selling it?

I ask myself this every time a movie is released… What the fuck, Bousman? What the fuck are you doing?

It’s easy to be come disheartened, want to give up, want to walk away… want to run… But after all the bullshit, the sleepless nights, the bad reviews, the lack of promotion, I have been allowed to tell my stories… People will review them, some will love what I do… Others will hate it… People will torrent it, others will buy it, so is the cycle of life…

When it is all said and done, all I can do is stand behind my art… I am proud of my accomplishments, and damn proud of my films…

The Barrens is a new chapter in my life. A film I am insanely excited for you all to see.

I failed at attracting Jesse Biel, but at that very same party I met my future wife…

Perception… it’s all how you look at it.

Part of being a filmmaker is dealing with that Perception, and then saying fuck it… Let the art speak for itself…

I stand behind my art – I stand behind this film…

What say you?

Check out the Barrens on DVD/VOD on October 9th and judge for yourself…

LIFE ON THE ROAD

Darren Lynn Bousman — Wed, 08 Aug 2012 22:57:04 +0000

Ask anyone who knows me, and they will tell you that I am a bit of a recluse. I am not a big partier, nor do I bask in the Hollywood scene… In fact, I am not sure I thrive in any scene… I am a hermit. I love my house and my creature comforts… I love waking up in my own bed, and making coffee in own kitchen… I love sitting out by the pool, or watching a movie in my man cave. I prefer spending time with my dog and my wife over most people.

For the last few years, I have literally built my Utopia so I never have to leave. I even get panic attacks going to STARBUCKS so I have purchased every type of coffee maker imaginable.

I am socially awkward… I have never really grasped how to do the whole social thing. I have a small group of friends, and I enjoy their company, but I enjoy my privacy more…

Don’t get me wrong. One of the biggest highs for me is standing in a theater, talking to a packed house. As I have mentioned in previous blogs, my fans are my drug They fuel the fire for me to continue to work, make movies… hell, even wake up in the morning…

If I had my druthers, however, I would hide in my compound and only break away to fuel my addiction.

Sadly, I have chosen a path recently that has pitted my wants and desires against my art.

If you are reading this blog, odds are you aware of, and have been following my exploits on the road with my latest project, THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL.

The Devil’s Carnival is Terrance Zdunich’s and my new musical endeavor. We opted out of a traditional distribution model and instead decided to distribute the film ourselves.

For the last 60 days we have been on the road traveling across North America bringing the movie to the masses in true carnie fashion. We have become gypsies… wanderers. Traveling from one city to the next. Each morning we wake up in a different hotel, each night we play a different theater.

Since April I have been living out a suitcase… Never in one place more than a few days, I have forgotten what my bed looks like… a home cooked meal is nothing more than a wet dream… and worse yet, I don’t remember what it feels like to be… comfortable.

I AM A GYPSY:

I teeter on the edge at all times of being enraged by the distribution model and embracing the challenge to destroy it.

I am a tadpole in Lake Eerie. I am well aware that while I may possess delusions of grandeur, the majority of the world marvels at my stupidity.

I remember the moment when I professed that I wanted to do a traveling Road Tour for The Devil’s Carnival. Those closest to me scoffed, laughed and ridiculed. In retrospect, I understand it…

Here I was, a filmmaker with a short film, and I really thought it warranted taking it out on a the road in some TOUR, and people would actually show up…

Being a tadpole doesn’t detour the dreams of being a frog…

As an independent filmmaker and artist, it is up to me to adapt to the landscape. In the case of The Devil’s Carnival, I needed to create a new model for people to view this art project.

The problem I possessed was that the solution Terrance and I came up with completely contradicts my comfort level. For the road tour to work, I must leave my compound and live on the ROAD…

THE ROAD IS NOT FOR EVERYBODY:

I have directed 8 sizable projects in the last 7 years. Each and every one I shot on location. That meant leaving my house and setting up home base somewhere else (in most cases, a different country).

There is something exciting about living abroad. One can’t help but feel cultured while shooting a movie on a different continent. As stressful as the move initially is, you adapt.

When Terrance and I decided to embark on The Devil’s Carnival road show I convinced myself it would be like being on location… There would be a period of adaptation, then it would become routine…

Today is day 58 on the road tour, and let me tell you, my dear readers, it has yet to become routine.

I guess I didn’t realize how dramatic and tiring living on the road would be. It has become comical, the effect this tour has had on my life, both personally and mentally.

For starters, there is no home base. There is not one SAFE location where you can get away and have a private moment or thought… the closest thing we have to a home base is our VAN, a van that reeks of tears, sadness, disgusting half-eaten food and stale Starbucks.

This Van is the home to five people. The Devil’s Carnival carnies. If you have ever wondered how much trash one person accumulates in a day, take a peek in our van; that’s if you can see past the piles and piles of suitcases, merchandise, and fast food wrappers that decorate the floor.

I joke about the smell of the van, but it’s anything but humorous… It really smells awful. But, that is partly our doing. When you spend as much time on the road as we do, you look for ways to relieve the monotony… The boredom… The insanity… and for us, that comes in little glass vial… A little glass vial? A – LITTLE – GLASS – VIAL…

Don’t ask me how this started… and don’t ask me to predict when it will end… But no less than 30 stink bombs have been detonated in our van in the last week alone. It began as an inside joke between Terrance and me, but it has now carried over to the GIRLS, as well. Nothing and no one is off-limits in the van… It’s every man for himself.

Our sense of humor has degenerated to that of a middle school boy.

I could deal with the smell of stink bombs and “liquid ass.” I could even say I have become accustomed to it. But something that is unbearable that never seems to get any better is the SPACE itself (or lack thereof). Unless you are driving the van you are crammed in the backseats like sardines (remind me later to tell you all the sardine fiasco which is an equally as disgusting story as the stink bombs). We are literally right on top of each other. Keep in mind this is a SIX person van. But we have luggage, a PA system, tons of merch, lights, etc… So all of that luggage has spilled forward into the seating area… So at any given time you are driving 15 hours with a suitcase on your lap, and a gasmask on your face.

The drives themselves are long and cumbersome. Most days we are RUSHING to get to the next venue and have no time to spare… This results in LIMITED pit stops and limited choices for food.
That being said, we did find time to break away for one day and hit an amusement park!!!

WE EAT LIKE KINGS:

And by Kings, I mean pigs.

This is my least favorite part of the tour process… Dining out… Oh how I long for the days Laura used to cook me dinner… 92% of our intake on the road is of the indefinable meat variety. Truck stop food has become our staple…

I have become a connoisseur of fried chicken, 3-day-old pizza, and Waffle Houses. Don’t get me wrong… I love fried batter as much as the next guy — maybe more — but not for weeks in a row, breakfast after breakfast…

I would say, however, the most depressing part of being on the road is the actual hotels themselves.

WE SLEEP IN OTHERS’ DNA:

Being on a budget, we have to book on a budget. This roadblock has left us in more than a few questionable establishments… Last night we stayed in a hotel room with GREEN SHAG CARPET, rotary dial phones, and enough stains on the bed sheets and couches to make a porn theater owner blush…

We have had the pleasure of finding many interesting things in our hotel rooms… This varies from BLOOD STAINS – to crusted socks left over previous occupants…

I have forgone my expensive coffee makers, and instead rely now on HOTEL coffee…

My single biggest issue however with my new life on the road has nothing to do with the DNA evidence in each and every hotel room we stay, or the shitty food, or even the horrendous smells… My single biggest issue which brings me down is that those closest to me lack understanding of the amount of work that goes into pulling off what we are doing…

WE ARE ROCK STARS:

For THREE HOURS a night we are kings! Fans line up around the block, they chant and they scream — they make us feel like ROCKSTARS.

For the other TWENTY-TWO HOURS, we are working harder and doing more than most movies or productions I have been involved with. We are literally calling theaters, dealing with insurance permits, booking opening acts, dealing with ticketing, packing up MERCH, setting up PA systems, and driving across the country.

I have mad respect for musicians… I feel privileged to know a lot of rock and roll stars. I look at their lives, however, and I pity them. How the hell do they do it? Look at a tour schedule of your favorite band, and it’s insanity. Every single night for MONTHS on the road…

I feel like I have learned a lot doing this tour… Actually, I feel like it’s been a crash course in distribution…

I have gained a few pounds and lost a little more hair, but when it’s all said and done, I have had an experience few in my position will ever have. I have seen the effect of our art on other artists. I have met the people who have kept me working… I have made relationships with venues all across the country that will allow me to continue on my journey of working around the typical distribution system…

Filmmakers and other artists take note. The only one standing in the way of you and your art being seen is you!!!

I look forward to returning home, and getting back into my compound… I miss my wife, my dogs, and my man cave… But one thing has become absolutely clear on this insane adventure…

People might laugh at you, scoff at you, and refuse to understand the sacrifices you make as an artist… These are the same people who have never been passionate about anything… never created anything… and never felt the utter satisfaction of seeing a dream realized.

Every day I am on the road I grow… As a person, as an artist, as a filmmaker…

I would write more, but I think I see a Waffle House on the horizon…

Hail,

dlb

COMIC CON 2012…Contest Winners

Darren Lynn Bousman — Wed, 25 Jul 2012 07:11:41 +0000

Fans make the world go round…

For those of you who have been to Comic-Con, I need not tell you how exhausting and overwhelming the entire experience is.

It is a celebration of all things… well… cool. Comic books, horror movies, big summer blockbusters, toys, and let us not forget scantily clad Princess Leias.

I have been attending the Con for almost 6 years. Each time I leave, I tell myself, that’s it, I am done, I am not coming back. But a year rolls around, and the geeky little boy that lives inside me comes to the surface and pulls me back to San Diego, to once again brave the crowded convention floor, rubbing elbows with Storm Troopers and Zombies.

This year, I traveled to San Diego to promote THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL.

For those of you, that have not been following my exploits. The Devil’s Carnival is a new musical film that Terrance Zdunich and myself have created then embarked on a 60 city road tour to promote. For lack of a better explanation, it is another passion project film, that has been financed and distributed in a less than conventional manner.

For the last few years, Terrance and I have done MIDNIGHT screenings of REPO! THE GENETIC OPERA with much success, so it was only fitting to bring our new venture to the costumed freaks of the Con.

While I was excited to be back, I found myself not wanting to leave the hotel room, or worse yet, hit the Comic Con floor.

I could jokingly tell you that my reasons dealt with the overwhelming smell that permeates the convention. There are moments at the Con that smell like everyone in San Diego farted at the exact same time… Or, I could blame the INSANE lines that wrap around Hall H, or the overpriced toys…

But, I would lying. The real reason is much more narcissistic and self-important.

I AM SPARTA:

In 2005, I was 26 years old. I had a full head of hair, and my gut didn’t extend inches past my belt line. I was still a kid… Wet behind the ears, optimistic, and… and I just directed SAW 2.

SAW 2… A massive sequel, being massively promoted by Lions Gate. I remember the morning of the Con, a black town car arrived at my shitty apartment to pick me up to drive me to San Diego.

I month earlier I could barely afford gas for my shitty ride, and now I suddenly had a car picking ME up, and carting my ass hundreds of miles away to take me to an event, where I had a movie I had just directed was being promoted.

Nothing can prepare you for walking on the convention floor and seeing a MASSIVE BANNER draping from the ceiling. SAW 2 – Oh yes, there will be blood…

The tagline should have been OH YES, there will be tears, because I almost broke down like a little baby. This was mine… or, at least partially mine. I had co-written something, and created something that was on display for all of Comic Con to see. There are no words…

A year later, I would return to Comic Con, and once again, I would be picked up by a car, and whisked away to promote SAW 3. This year the banner was bigger, and the fans were more rabid. This year I was actually going to do a panel… Me… some douche-bag from Kansas City, was going to be on a panel at COMIC CON!

I couldn’t walk the convention floor without being stopped every few minutes by fans asking for pictures or autographs.

It was awesome.

I continued to attend the Con every year. Each year promoting my upcoming films… each year peddling my wares…

It was a strange thing for me… I would consider myself a FAN BOY much more than a filmmaker… All I wanted to do was walk the floor, and take pictures of Storm Troopers, and CosPlayers. I wanted to buy new comics, and see what new toy line Neca or Mcfarlane were releasing.

In 2008, I would once again attend Comic Con. However this year, no car would pick me up, no… this year, the car was upgraded to a private plane… Yup, ‘twas a scene out of ENTOURAGE.

Paris Hilton, Alexa Vega, Terrance Zdunich and the gang joined me for what was probably one of the coolest nights of my life. The world was my oyster… and Comic Con was my bitch…

AND HOW THE MIGHTY FALL:

In 2009 I returned. Though I didn’t really have a movie to promote, TZ and I decided to bring REPO! back. We four-walled a theater and held a midnight screening. While it was a sellout, there was something lacking…

Possibly the private jet, or maybe the lack of banners hanging from the ceilings of the convention floor. Regardless, I was in pre-production for MOTHER’S DAY.

In 2010 – I would once again take the Con by storm… or, so I thought.

2010 came and went, and there was nothing to promote. Instead, I walked the convention floor making excuses for MOTHER’S DAY, and the lack of exposure it was getting.

Next year… Next year…

I am not sure the moment that Comic Con stopped being fun, and started instead to bring about a horrific sense of anxiety…

2011 was worse than 2010. I could barely even get a badge…

The CON itself was awesome, as always… the smell of body sweat, and flatulence a sweet perfume…

But I was a ghost… Walking through the convention unnoticed… Nobody cared…I also noticed I stopped caring… Four years ago, I was a gitty fan boy, hyped on Comic book heroin, now I found myself becoming increasingly bitter… Comic Con was a reminder how far I had fallen.

Just three years prior, lines stretched blocks to get into our panels… Now, I couldn’t bribe my way into a party.

But… But… But… I took a private jet here once…

So here we are, 2012… The Con is in full swing, and I sit in my hotel room, inches from an anxiety attack.

It was a pathetic moment. Sitting in my hotel room, not wanting to leave…

Why?

It had nothing to do with not being noticed… It had everything to do with when I was noticed it was for a movie I directed 6 years ago…

I was embarrassed… ashamed…

Ahh… there you are… that debilitating depression I know all too well… my old friend… let us sit awhile and comfort each other.

I AM A FUCKING TOOL:

What if I fell into obscurity? What if I DID became a ghost? What if all that I had created was forgotten, and none of it really mattered…

What if…

And then a moment a realization…

I was so concerned about my lack of presence at Comic Con, that I wasn’t seeing the big picture. Every single night on tour with THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL was our own personal COMIC CON.

What I had loved so much in those early years at the Con was the sense of community. For one weekend a year, it was cool to geek out, dress up, and not give a fuck… It was okay to like girls who looked like anime characters. It was completely acceptable to be able to recount every episode of Star Trek… Being strange was not only embraced, it was ENCOURAGED!

Somehow I was blaming Comic Con because I was no longer relevant.

And then it happened… I had a cliched awakening in that same hotel room I was confining myself in…

I have spent the last three years going around the system, fighting the distribution model, and yet here I sat ass-hurt that I was no longer apart of it.

While there was no banner proudly proclaiming “Hey, look at this! This is cool! It has my name on it!” I had something much more important: the dedication of a die hard fan base, that allowed me to live within COMIC CON every single night…

I was apart of something that at its very essence was the heart of what made Comic Con cool. A community of like minded weirdos. A meeting place for them meet, and thrive!

Returning to Comic Con 2012 made me forget my plan for world domination… I found myself caught up in the hype… Looking at all the promotion for all the movies… How amazing it must be to not have to get in a van and travel the world for your movie to be seen…

How great a feeling it must be, to not have to make your own merch, and fold it, and box it…

A REALIZATION:

Comic Con was not about being seen, it was about making an impact on your fans that will last long AFTER they leave the convention floor.

Comic Con exits for the fans… it exists for people like me…

Here I was being a baby because once again I felt like a failure… Yet a mere three blocks away, fans… My fans… THE DEVIL’S CARNIVAL fans were forming a line that would wrap around three city blocks…
These fans who spend countless hours perfecting their costumes, from a movie most of them had never seen.

They were standing in a line, on a Friday night in a town where there was no shortage of things to do…

Comic Con 2012 was not a failure… It was a victory… It was a wake up call, a moment of disillusionment transformed into a moment of clarity…

I had no banners, no booths, no displays this year at Comic Con… I couldn’t bribe my way into parties as I once had…

What I did have however was an ARMY of supporters… Supporters who came to Comic Con not to dress up like Princess Leia, but instead THE PAINTED DOLL… A group of fans who opted out of putting on their Storm Trooper costumes, and instead, painted their faces white, and transformed into THE SCORPION…

It’s easy to get sucked back into believing that if you are NOT mainstream, you are NOT cool…

I walked the Comic Con floor feeling the antithesis of cool… I passed the Lionsgate booth, and hung my head in shame… I passed the Anchor Bay booth, where nary a BARRENS (my latest film staring the great Stephen Moyer) poster hung, and wanted to cry…

Someday I hope to return to San Diego and once again see my movies being promoted at the Con… Maybe even return to Hall H where I will premiere an exclusive scene…

But until that happens, I will embrace what I do have. And that is a community of liked minded freaks who like me, live Comic Con every day of their lives.

No Hall H to drop this exclusive, so let us use this website. Here are the winners for the IN ALL MY DREAMS I DROWN contest.

For those unaware, we asked fans to do their best Lucifer, or Tamara… Film it… and Upload it…

A huge thank you to all the Devil’s Carnival fans who submitted themselves, reminding Terrance and I that we do not need a convention floor, or a 70 ft poster to reach them.

Hail!

dlb

And the time has come…

Darren Lynn Bousman — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:25:54 +0000

Time does not change us… It just unfolds us.
Max Frish

TIME MAKES THINGS CLEARER

On Friday May 4th, my film Mother’s Day is released in Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago.

A few days later, the movie is released on DVD. (preorder it here)

It seems like a lifetime ago that I shot Mother’s Day.

In reality it was just 3 years ago…

Time…

Something I think we all wish we had more of.

In my life I think time has become my biggest enemy. 24 hours is nowhere near enough time for me to do what needs to be done.

While on The Devil’s Carnival Road Tour, our lives have become slaves to the clock. We have a preset schedule, and one that we can’t deviate from. Five minutes late to something throws off our entire day…

I find myself constantly running to catch up… Answer emails… finish scripts… spend time with the family.

Time moves forward regardless of how much I protest…

In some cases however, the passage of time is a blessing… Time heals all wounds, makes us forget, or, allows us a chance to reflect.

3 years is an abundance of time. A lot can happen in 36 months: wars have been fought and lost… relationships have blossomed and then been destroyed… children have been conceived, born, and taken their first steps…

In the case of Mother’s Day, 3 years was the amount of time it took me to become disillusioned with the filmmaking process.

LET’S REWIND

We wrapped production in 2009. At the time, we had all hoped to have the film done and completed for a Mother’s Day 2009 release. However midway through production it became clear that that would never happen. We all decided to take a breath, and do what was right by the film, and make the movie perfect and release it in 2010.

After the festival circuit we sold the movie to a company, who will remain unnamed… Said company gave us a sweet heart deal and promised us the world. 1,000 screens. A sizeable P and A buy… Things were looking good…

Things began to look better in 2010 when we tested the movie in Chatsworth and we exceeded what the company was expecting. For those out there unaware on how the testing process works, take a seat… Allow me to shed some light onto the filmmaking process…

Once you finish a movie and sell it… The company who buys it usually requests the film be ‘tested’. What this means is they want to gauge how a film plays to ‘middle America’. As a filmmaker it’s one of the most nerve wracking – vomit inducing – wanna blow your brain out experiences.

Literally they recruit an audience, and play your film, and then ask them to rate it, and give mini reviews on it.

EVERYONE’S A CRITIC

But in the case of testing, this score that is produced from the test screening holds so much weight it makes me physically ill…

What is worse, as the director, I have to silently sit in the back of the audience and blend in, and listen, as this audience picks apart every aspect of the film…

I have learned to cope with the testing process with the help of my good friend Jack Daniels. He has gotten me through many an awkward screening…

After the misfire testing of Repo! The Genetic Opera – I was considering bypassing the Jack Daniels and going straight to the Heroin.

When we tested Repo! We scored a jaw dropping 13… To put this in perspective, of the audience that came out to see the test screening of REPO only 13 percent of the audience approved of what they saw…

YOU CAN’T HELP BUT FALL

This was the first time since being kicked in the balls with REPO that I had to journey back to Chatsworth and put my soul out to be judged with 300 theater-goers who would basically determine the fate of Mother’s Day…

The next two hours were the single worst two hours of my filmmaking career… So much was riding on this one screening… So much would be determined based on what this one audience thought… I didn’t have the courage to even sit in the theater… I found a bar in the parking lot, and nursed drink after drink trying to work up enough courage to hear what the audience thought of my new endeavor… My head was POUNDING… Nerves were shot..

I have seemed to thrive in the cult film world… Repo propelled me forward with my rabid fan base of cult musical lovers…

I owe them everything… But nothing would make me happier than having one mainstream hit… just one film that propelled me forward that was not SAW.

When I arrived back at the test screening, the movie was ending and the questionnaires were being filled out. Mr. Daniels, please don’t let your courage juice run out…

The next 15 minutes were unbearable… The waiting… Did I have another REPO score on my hand? I had so many feelings raging through my body… But the reality was my fate was already determined… I was powerless to stop what was coming.

I am a fan of Mother’s Day… I really am proud of this movie… I was proud of it going into the test screening, but I became infinitely more proud of it when the scores were revealed and we had almost double the expectations given to us from the studio who purchased the film… Our score was considerably above norm… And my highest tested film.

I remember looking back at the studio’s reaction when the score was read… It was a mixture of bewilderment and excitement… Part of me wanted to high five the film’s producer Richard Saperstein… But instead, I sat there cool and collected…

Of course it tested well…

When the audience left the theater, and the business men were all that were left, a feeling of jubilation overtook the empty auditorium.

“We’ve got something here…” The main guy said… He winked at me… I remember that moment like it was yesterday… For the first time in years, I really felt confident in the future, and in my career.

The next morning I received an email informing me that the company had decided to expand its theatrical commitment from 1,000 screens to 2,000 screens… They also were upping their P and A budget!

Finally, something positive…

For the next few months I was on cloud 9…

At that point in my career I was just a director; my job is to direct a film, and edit the film, and finally turn in a film. Once the movie leaves my hands I have little to no control left.

I moved on to other projects… I moved to Spain and starting filming my new movie…

I didn’t realize until almost 10 months later something was rotten in Denmark.

My emails were not being answered, I was seeing a lack of promotion for Mother’s Day 2010…

Panic set in….

I will spare you the ugly dramatics… But to shorten a very long story, the company who had picked up my baby… had… internal issues…

“Issues” is as far as I will go in explanation, but their issues crippled the release of a Mother’s Day 2010 release…

It was a knife to the gut… Like being stabbed by a friend… For over a year we had worked with this company who sold us all a bill of false goods…

Rage would not be a strong enough word for what I was feeling inside… I had been promoting the hell out of this movie… I had been to festivals… I had done countless interviews promoting a date that had come and gone.

What is that smell???? Is that the smell of a tainted film?

Once a film misses its date, a stigma is attached to it… Something MUST be wrong with it…

But for me, what was much worse than looking like a douche promoting a film that had missed its date, was letting down the actors who all had turned in AMAZING performances.

I had become close with the entire cast, and in my opinion there was not a weak link in the entire ensemble…

We had all been anxiously counting down the days for our premiere… we were all proud… We had surpassed just working together… we were friends..

The cast came to my wedding… They were my friends…

It was the first time in my career where I actually felt ashamed… Utterly embarrassed. Mortified even.

I had been hyping this film for over a year now… I had been teasing the cast with this amazing release we were going to have…

In one moment, everything shattered.

What do I tell Rebecca DeMornay… Rebecca had just turned in this tour de force that was nothing short of riveting… What do I tell Deborah Ann Wohl, or Shawn Ashmore…

What about Jaime King? This girl gives one of her VERY best performances… and she was counting on this!

What the hell do I tell Frank Grillio? Or worst yet… What will Brett Ratner think of me? This guy trusted me. He trusted that I would delivery him a hit.

What was worse than missing our date, was not knowing WHY we missed our 2010 release… And what did that mean to the fate of our film?

Months passed, and then more months… No new dates were scheduled. I found myself becoming more and more of a recluse, as I dreaded showing my face anywhere and inevitably getting –

“Yo bro, when’s Mother’s Day coming out?”

Every single I interview I did always would start with – so Darren, can you talk about what is happening with Mother’s Day?

I dreaded doing press… I dreaded seeing my friends. I dreaded seeing the cast.

A REALITY CHECK

You are only as good as your last film… Repo! was considered a commercial failure… and now my next film was on its way to being a paper weight on some shelf…

My career is over…

Offers stopped coming in…

Movies fired me… Literally fired me. Why? My foreign sales number dropped…

As a director you are only as important as your foreign numbers…. Repo tanked overseas, and now my latest film was missing its release in America – thus affecting its foreign overseas value. Thus hurting my business… My business is my name…

All I had worked for was crumbling… I bleeding out.

All WE had worked for was lost.

I was watching the world change around me… doors were not only closing… they were locking.

How did this happen?

Mother’s Day is good film…

MY OWN WORST ENEMY

I have a reputation in Hollywood of being difficult… There, I said it…

I get it… I am difficult… Very difficult… I send TONS of emails and cause a raucous when films I have worked on for YEARS get dismissed… thrown out, and discarded…

I fight back… I get in a van… I drive across the country… I create an Army… I make noise…

But isn’t that my job as a director? Not to accept… Not to be complacent… Fight as hard as I can to get the ART seen? I will never be the guy who sits back and accepts… Not any more… Not ever again…

When I believe in something, I fight for it…

People were counting on me. Investors, actors, producers.

Lloyd Kaufman was counting on me… Troma was counting on me…

My failure was Epic…

In 2011, after I had all but given up on anyone in America seeing the film, Anchor Bay stepped up to the plate…

By this time we had left Studio 1, realizing we had already been burned numerous times…

Two years had passed, and there was such a complicated and dramatic stigma attached to the flick, I was not only surprised, but amazed by their balls taking on a project that had basically been homeless for years.

Here we are now, Mother’s Day 2012, and the film is FINALLY seeing the light of day…

Granted it’s only in 3 theaters, but that is three more theaters than I was expecting given the hardships the film had faced…

I applaud Anchor Bay for breathing back life into a film that I truly think deserves to be seen…

They are my Knight in BLACK GOTHIC ARMOUR…

Thank you for allowing Rebecca DeMornay’s performance to see the light of day…

Thank you for putting out a film, in which I truly stand behind every single performance…

I will be first to say, this is not going to be everyone’s favorite… In fact, there are numerous critics out there who proclaim this is “BOUSMAN’S WORST!” (read blog here) – - but let them call me names, and attack my “amateur directing” all they want… I don’t give a fuck… I am proud of Mother’s Day…

Some things are worth fighting for…

Mother’s Day was worth fighting for…

dlb

May 4th theatrical release in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago
o   New York – Village East Cinemas
o   Los Angeles – Chinese Complex 6
o   Chicago – River East