Pulp Features

UpStart Productions is an organization of independent filmmakers in the Southern Ohio/Northern Kentucky area that seeks to facilitate its member’s film & video projects and promote independent filmmaking in general. They have a string of short films behind them as well as a full feature, Grimm Reality - an unvarnished look at the folk tales of Central Europe.

Producer, Eric Chatterjee talks to Dale Pierce about European fairy tales, independent films and goatnapping.

Dale: Your company, Upstart films, has been fairly active in the indie film world. Where are you located and when were you started?
Eric: UpStart Films grew out of UpStart Productions, a media company started in 1995 by a director, a lawyer, a musician, a screenwriter, an accountant and an administrative assistant.

Dale: How did you select the company name?
Eric: The name was a running battle in the beginning. On the one hand there were the creative types who wanted some crazy memorable name like Purple Chinchilla, or something to emphasize the company’s offbeat-ness. On the other side were the business heads that wanted something like Premiere Productions, to represent the company as a serious business.

Ultimately “UpStart” was a compromise both sides could accept. It came about because we were very influenced by the independent action film directors like Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez who were making a splash in the early 90s. Their companies were called “A Band Apart”, “Los Hooligans” and things like that. The names seemed to say “We are rebels, we are not Hollywood”, that resonated with us.

But, I’ve got to tell you; I’ve never been satisfied with the name. Since we started there have been lots of “upstart” companies. Unfortunately, it’s too late for us to change names now. There are literally thousands of materials out there with our name on it, and we’re still building our fan base.

Another trend that has become much more common since we started is the use of intercaps, which we used in our name UpStart that was my idea, and I still like it even if it has become cliché. Intercaps used to be used just by tech companies like WorldCom, now it’s everywhere – SnackWell cookies for example.

Dale: What is your URL?
Eric: Someone has been squatting on our domain name for years. We hope to eventually get it, and then roll out a full service website, but for the time being you can find us at upstartfilms.tripod.com

We don’t update very often though, since we are too busy out making movies. grimreality.com is the website of our most popular movie.

Dale: Perhaps you could talk about some of your films?
Eric: Sure.

We have a number of short films on the festival circuit, the latest being Toast & T. a spoof on the buddy cop film genre. Basically it is about a black police officer, Thomas AKA “T.” who is unfortunate enough to be partnered with an Italian screw-up named Toastello AKA “Toast”. The short was made as part of the 48 Hour Film Project – an international contest where you have 2 days to write, direct, shoot & edit a short film. The competition starts the minute you draw a genre, prop, character name & line of dialogue out of a hat. Another short we did was called Square Knot about the difficulty of “just being friends” with an ex.

We have produced one feature film, Grimm Reality, a movie based on the Grimm’s Fairy Tales the way they were originally told. Some of the fairy tales that we are so familiar with were originally quite graphic, and we decided that a movie should be made to set the record straight. These tales are not what cartoons would have you believe they are. They’re filled with sex and violence. We took 3 of them and anthologized them with a wraparound story, kind of like Disney meets Tales from the Crypt.
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We sold out of the initial print run of Grimm Reality, and are going to sign with a bigger distributor to get a wide release this summer.

Dale: What are your upcoming projects?
Eric: Well, we have been contracting our services out to other producers recently. We’ve worked on a ton of projects from music videos to feature films, and a whole lot of shorts. The most recent being The Bokor Mask, a zombie short, that’s part of the FANGORIA Blood Drive II.

That hasn’t left much time to mount our own projects, but we do have a biopic in development. It’s the story of a young girl who has a severe mental illness who still manages to have incredible misadventures. It’s dramatic and funny at the same time, kind of like a Gen X version of All About Eve. We still need investors though, so the project is far from green lighted at this stage.

Dale: Where do you find the actors and actresses you use? Do you run actual casting or just use people you know as some indie companies do as a budget-cutter?
Eric: Most of our talent comes from a local agency. If there are any roles they can’t fill, we put out casting calls through the local papers, the local film commission, and trade publications. Do we use people we know? If you mean actors we’ve worked with before, yes, if you mean friends, very rarely.

Dale: Are you considering making the circuits at indie conventions, horror fests or whatever at any time soon?
Eric: In the past we’ve done Dark Arts Expo, DragonCon, GenCon, Fantasm, Origins, Twisted Nightmare Weekend and others. Our busy production schedule sometimes limits the number of events we can attend.

This year we hope to make it back to one of those events, or maybe Chiller. Usually we only go if we’ve received an invitation from the organizers. Even then, we never know for sure until right beforehand. We’ve rented booth space before, and couldn’t show because other business needed our attention. We’re a real small company. Sometimes we’ve hired other companies to rep us at these things.

Dale: Among the people you have used, whom do you feel is really worth a big push and worth keeping an eye on?
Eric: That’s a tough question. We’ve worked with so many great people both in front of and behind the camera. I’m really bad at predicting who’s going to be “the next big thing”. I can say there are two actresses who I cast any chance I get, and they are Sara Elizabeth Timmins and Anastasia Heonis. One is the perfect “good girl” and the other the perfect “bad girl”. I also like “Drive-in Academy Award winner” Sean Nielsen for character roles. We got some music by Enduser of Sonic Terror Records, and he is definitely another one to keep your eye (or ear as the case may be) on.

Dale: Are there any interesting stories you can tell about your film experiences?
Eric: (laughs) Millions of them!

Here’s one: Last year we did a movie with a goat in it. Someone screwed up, and the goat was only booked for one day; I told the goat wrangler that he’d better have the goat back on set the next day. He ended up sneaking onto a farm and kidnapping (which we learned is the proper term for goat theft) the animal. On the way to the set he was carjacked and didn’t want to call 911 since he was illegally transporting stolen livestock across state lines to begin with!

Dale: Did you study film in school or just learn as you went along?
Eric: Both.

Dale: Any closing comments?
Eric: I’m really grateful to all the people who bought copies of Grimm Reality based on word of mouth, or without knowing anything about it at all.

In this day and age of entertainment giants and retail superstores, I think it’s important for people to seek out independent films. I’m not talking about multimillion dollar studio backed Sundance “indies” with mega stars like Sean Penn and Hilary Swank – I’m talking about movies made by guys who finance films on credit cards and sell copies out of the back of their ’82 Dodge. The next time you’re thinking about buying a DVD at WalMart, or even renting a movie, go home, log on the Internet, and take a chance on a grassroots B-movie instead.

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