The Insiders
Episode 29
Blending Comedy and Horror with BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS Director Brian James O’Connell
Filmmaker Brian James O’Connell discusses his new indie horror comedy Bloodsucking Bastards and also shares his experiences with improv comedy and breakinto into Hollywood.
The movie stars Stars Fran Kranz (The Cabin in the Woods) and Pedro Pascal (Game of Thrones), as well as the members of O’Connell’s comedy troupe Dr. God, which originated at the iO West sketch group.
Kranz plays Evan, a dutiful and overworked employee stuck at a dea-end company with his beautiful co-worker and girlfriend Amanda (Emma Fitzpatrick) and his slacker best friend Tim (Joey Kern). His world begins to crumble when Amanda dumps him and his boss Ted (Joel Murray) hands his coveted promotion to his nemesis Max (Pascal).
When the entire office starts going through bizarre and disturbing changes, Evan must find a way to stop the evil brewing and rescue his workplace colleagues before his life and career go from dead-end to just dead.
O’Connell said the inspiration for the film didn’t necessarily come from a bad personal experience from a boss, but he and the writers did draw on some aspects of the cut-throat advertising business.
“There’s a lot of advertising jokes in there. But what we loved when we were writing it is everyone has this, everyone has this. You have your work friends that you go out with – at 5:01 you go across the street at Chili’s, and get the happy hour special and drink girl drinks and talk about what a dick Mr. Petersen is.”
When asked about working in both the comedy and horror genres, he said in his opinion it’s harder to make someone laugh than to scare them. “I think comedy is the most difficult thing in the world. Horror, if you just put the right sound effect and jump cut real quick, you can get some scares,”
“When it comes to horror, I’m more the dread sense of it – I like it dark. When you try to make people laugh, and then try to make it scary, it’s definitely a thin needle you have to thread, which is why there are not a lot of horror comedies that are successful.”
O’ Connell said his first involvement with the entertainment community after moving to Los Angeles was with iO West, and he’s never left since.
He completed two movies prior to Bloodsucking Bastards, the first being Killer View, a low-budget horror flick that was show with basically no money. Since he had no money for proper equipment, O’ Connell said he and his friends hacked some disposable video cameras that were being sold at the time around 2006, and rigged them to be used as regular cameras to shoot the movie.
The premise for that movie was a serial killer who wants to retire, but doesn’t want his legacy to go unknown, so he gets a journalist to follow him around and document his last killing.
His next film project was the comedy Angry White Man, which he describes as “a really offensive comedy where we let no one off the hook.”
Watch the full interview for more tips on getting started in Hollywood and to also hear O’ Connell talk about his involvement with the Slamdance film festival.
Episode Breakdown
00:10 Welcome to The Insiders.
00:25 Trailer for BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS.
02:50 Introducing Brian James O’Connell, Director of BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS.
03:10 The cast of BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS.
05:35 Dr. God and improv cage matches.
08:45 The influence for the boss character from BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS.
10:00 Is it more difficult to scare the audience or make them laugh?
11:30 Do stand-up comics have a dark side to them?
12:20 How O’Connell got his start in Hollywood.
15:00 How O’Connell made his first movie on an ultra-low budget.
20:35 O’Connell’s advice to those trying to break into the industry.
22:00 Why Dr. God doesn’t have a web-series yet.
25:00 The Miles Stroth Workshop, and Stroth as a mentor for O’Connell.
26:45 Slamdance Film Festival 2015.
27:40 Thank you and goodbye.
28:00 Zombeer, video game being released in connection with BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS.
Guest Bio
Brian James O’Connell is a working actor, writer, director, filmmaker and teacher in Los Angeles. Brian is a graduate of the prestigious North Carolina School of the Arts (David Gordon Green, Danny McBride, Jody Hill, Ben Best, Peter Hedges, Mary-Louise Parker, Dane DeHaan, Terrence Mann, Chris Parnell, Jada Pinkett-Smith and Jeff Nichols) and moved to Los Angeles in 2000 to follow his dreams of a career in filmmaking. Dr. God recently completed their first feature film project BLOODSUCKING BASTARDS, starring Fran Kranz, Pedro Pascal, Joey Kern, Joel Murray, and Emma Fitzpatrick, which O’Connell directed as well as co-writing the script with Dr. God. His first feature film as writer/director, KILLER VIEW, was purchased by Fabrication Films/Grindstone Entertainment. KILLER VIEW is the first feature film in history to be shot exclusively on a disposable video camera.
Recently, Brian was the Director of the 35mm feature length comedy, ANGRY WHITE MAN (Scoot McNairy, Matt Berry, Mary Birdsong, Steve Agee) which is being released June 2014 by Indica Films. Brian (or BOC as his friends call him) is now deep in development on his next feature directing gig, MIDDLE SEAT, and beginning work on writing his next feature length script, a Dr. God action comedy vehicle set in 1987 Hollywood. A regular performer, coach and teacher at the iOWest Theater in Los Angeles, Brian derives most of his approach to improv from The Deconstruction, the form created by iO’s legendary team, The Family (Miles Stroth, Neil Flynn, Ian Roberts, Matt Besser, Adam McKay, Ali Faranahkian, and Pete Hulne). Brian has been with the iOWest Theater since March of 2003 and celebrated his 10 year anniversary at the theater with Dr. God on March 2, 2013. Brian currently teaches as part of the Core Faculty at The Miles Stroth Workshop (his mentor), and is the founder of the MSW series of weekly comedy shows. With his internationally touring improv duo Billyhawk and iOWest’s legendary improv group Dr. God, Brian has performed and taught in festivals in Denver, Phoenix, Toronto, Philadelphia, Austin, Salt Lake City, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Chapel Hill, NC. Well-respected as one of Los Angeles’ premier improvisers, Brian is famous for his encyclopedic knowledge of minutiae and his insane recall ability and memory.
BOC also serves as the Director of Camp Outreach and is a board member for the non-profit Camp Improv Utopia, the premiere improv, acting and training retreat in the country.
A member of the Screen Actors Guild, Brian’s on-screen credits include the festival favorites THE GIRLS’ ROOM (with Soleil Moon Frye and Wil Wheaton), RED DIRT RISING, and in the internet television series, Mr. Wrong and MODEL BALL.
Hosts
Comments