Pulp Features

Trinka Five Films is an independent film company based in Wilmington, Delaware with one foot in New York City.

President, Kathi Lehmer’s goal is to give low-budget filmmaking a better reputation because lack of money is not a deterrent to creativity: the heart of creativity is overcoming obstacles and making your art no matter what… and having a damned good time making it.

Her most recent film is Mama and Damian and she’s kindly agreed to talk to Dale Pierce about the company, its films and the future.

Dale: Where did you come up with the name of Trinka Five Films, as it sounds odd?
Kathi: It’s an ancient Romanian money spell. You say Trinka Five three times and drop three coins in a cup as you’re saying it. The spell is supposed to bring you money. I figured if I named my company Trinka Five eventually I would say it enough that money would come.

Dale: You are located in Delaware, but aren’t you from New York?
Kathi: I lived in New York for years. I consider it my true hometown. I still go as much as I can. I lived down in the Lower East Side across from this infamous gallery, ABC No Rio. They showed a lot of underground films there. It was exiting.
I have found that Delaware is a great place to make films. You’re under the radar here. You don’t need permits and it’s a small enough place that making contacts is easy.

Dale: What brought you into film to begin with?
Kathi: I have always loved movies. When I was a kid I was always acting out scenes. When I was about twelve years old I dug out my dad’s old 8mm camera and took movies of my family and friends doing weird stuff.

As soon as video cameras came out, I got one, after that I always had a camera. I lived in Philadelphia for a while. My ex and I always had movie nights with our friends where we would come up with a theme and a loose script and improvise these little films. I really didn’t start writing anything resembling a real script until about ten years ago.

Dale: You have, dare I say, some odd tastes, if your films are an example of the way you think?
Kathi: Some would say odd. It’s just the way I see things. I have always had a taste for the vaguely macabre and the strangely romantic. I’m attracted to things and people that scare me a bit.

The ordinary just bores me. I look for the complex, the twisted, the damaged. In my work this all comes out. I actually have visions when I start writing. I get flooded with imagery. Sometimes the words come first, then the visions, other times it all hits simultaneously. In other words, I think in film.

Dale: You recently released Mama and Damian. So tell people about the plot for people not familiar with the same?
Kathi: Oh, it’s a coming-of-age story. The plot centres around Damian, who is a half human, half bear boy around twelve or thirteen years old. He’s kind of a human teddy bear. He lives with his family in a distinctive colourful house in an unnamed city. Mama is his mother, a dominatrix/human behaviour researcher. Gunter is Mama’s boyfriend, a gentleman drunk. Wolfgang is Gunter’s nephew, a sort of lovable pansexual freak who throws one of the many curveballs into the plot.

Opa is Damian’s grandfather, a Nazi who is chained up in the basement.

Damian is a good boy, but he gets into a lot of trouble especially when he is hanging around his friend, Preston, a redneck kid from the neighbourhood. All hell breaks loose at one point and Damian finds himself away from home for the first time.

Turns out the kid is pretty resourceful.

Dale: Where did you find the actors for this?
Kathi: When I started writing Mama and Damian, I worked at a Borders book store. I had worked there for several years. Many of the actors were co-workers. A book store attracts a broad spectrum of creative people. I have found that if you are creative in general, acting sort of comes naturally. Some of them had never acted before in anything. The other actors, besides the book store contingent were performers who I either met through past projects or other filmmaker friends.

I think the only really seasoned actors were David Robinson, who plays Opa, the Nazi in the basement, Andre Watson, who plays one of the furries, and the Reverend Thomas Brown who plays, Boss, the owner of Knockers Gentleman’s Club. The Tink, who plays Pappy, the redneck grandfather, is a local celebrity who has his own heavy metal TV show. I had forty-six actors in the film.

Dale: You engaged in multiple functions during the making of this film. How difficult was this?
Kathi: It was challenging. I pretty much saw each function as a stage and each one had its own set of problems. Writing may have been the easiest, looking back. Directing all these smart talented people was a cinch. They worked hard. I rarely even fed anyone! We took each scene and filmed until we got it just right. I am a bit relentless as a director. The hardest part of directing was acting at the same time.

My character is pretty prevalent, so I had to be Mama one second and The Director the next. Watching the footage when I first started editing was hilarious. I literally would switch from my character to my director mode in a second. I looked pretty cracked.

I was lucky to have lots of people around who were watching out for things, especially my D.P. Jessica J Johnston. My assistant, Helen Rei was also instrumental. I had other filmmakers acting as well, so they always had helpful suggestions.

Sometimes I told them to shut up and let me direct, but it all worked out. It took a year to film the project. We had some setbacks. W.G. was hit by a car and had a concussion. I was rear-ended by a tractor trailer then I had a concussion. These accidents were a couple of months apart. I hated scheduling. I was having a nervous breakdown weekly. I was sure people weren’t going to show up or locations were going to fall through. Surprisingly not much of that happened.

There were a few times when actors had to bow out for various reasons. I always rewrote, took them out of the scene or replaced them entirely. It seemed that the rule was that if something didn’t work out, the alternative always ended up better.

Editing was yet another challenge because I had to learn Final Cut Pro. I had never used it. Once I got it down, editing was really fun. It was also a needed rest from the mega-energy I was putting out to get a weekly shoot arranged and executed. So I sat in a basement studio in the ghetto for five months and edited.

Dale: Was the end result what you hoped for?
Kathi: Yes. Almost exactly the film I had seen in my head when I wrote the script. My measure of a good film is when a separate reality is created and the viewer gets drawn in and stays there for the length of the film. I think I accomplished this.

Dale: This is a film I think people will watch and love or hate, but not be indifferent toward?
Kathi: Well, I guess what happened at the premiere and at the screening the following week tells the tale. I had tons of people come up to me and tell me how much they loved it. Some seemed downright overwhelmed. However, at both showings a couple of people walked out in a huff.

I suppose if you don’t know what the underlying sentiment is, some things could
be deemed offensive, or maybe the huffers just thought it was too weird.

Dale: It reminds me of something John Waters would have cranked out. Do you agree?
Kathi: I really never thought that, though I am a fan. I think he has a unique delivery that can’t be imitated easily, but I don’t mind the comparison.

The other director people mention is David Lynch. I just gotta say, my life has been a David Lynch film.

Waters, Lynch; good company.

Dale: For people who just don’t get it, what would you say the message of the film is, to them?
Kathi: The message is in the tagline, “Being a freak is not curse, it’s a gift.”

I have lived many places and been exposed to a lot of different kinds of people. People fear things that are unfamiliar. In the film everyone seems to view everyone else as some kind of freak, when the truth is they are all freaks.

All the characters are exaggerated archetypes. I wanted to put all these villains and heroes in one big pot and see how they interacted. When it comes down to it, not to get too lofty, but it is a picture of the United States.

Intolerance and tolerance ride side by side. People are still free to judge and free to change their minds. There’s more to it, but I’ll save that for another time.

All in all it’s a funny story.

Dale: Have you thought of a sequel?
Kathi: Yes, the problem would be getting some of the actors back. Chuck Fusca, who plays Preston, moved to Florida before we were done with this one. Some others just might not be available. I would have to create some new characters.

W.G. and I are on board, oh, and Ashley Cleaver (the scene-stealer) who plays Wolfgang. We have all talked about a sequel.

I think you could drop the core characters into any situation and it would work.

Dale: Where did you come up with the bear-boy idea anyway?
Kathi: When W.G. and I worked at the book store we retrieved a bear-baby doll from the lost-and found. We pranked each other with it for months. Eventually (after W.G. had left the head of the doll on my desk) he and I started making up stories about the bear boy and his family and friends during our lunch breaks. I wrote down these ideas on scraps of paper and threw them in a bag when I got home.

After a while there were so many scraps I decided to write a script based on these ideas. W.G. became the bear boy in my eyes pretty quickly. People have said they can’t imagine anyone else in the role. That’s literally true where I’m concerned.

Dale: And that suit. Jesus, that suit! Where did you have that made?
Kathi: I bought the fabric and the pattern on a trip with a friend to the mountains of Elmira, New York. The fur looked exactly like the original bear-baby doll.

Actually in the film, W.G. looks precisely like a human-sized version of the doll. In Elmira I also found the coonskin cap that Preston wears. That trip was a great inspiration for the family of rednecks.

Oh yeah, somebody at the book store eventually volunteered to stitch the bear suit together. I was so sick of making costumes at that point. It was a life saver.

Dale: How did your star feel about playing a bear boy?
Kathi: He had no choice. As far as I was concerned he was the bear boy and there was no turning back.

I told him at one point that I was going to light him on fire in one scene. He shrugged and said, “Okay.”

Dale: Any other projects in the planning stage?
Kathi: Yes, my next project is a vampire saga. A bit of an about-face. This one will be more serious. Its theme is betrayal.

I’m scouting for distinctive-looking actors. Anyone interested can contact me at kathi@trinkafivefilms.com

Dale: Anything else you would like to touch on that we may have missed surrounding this film?
Kathi: Mama and Damian was produced on a micro-budget with all volunteer help. Locations, equipment, and big props like cars were borrowed. I am grateful to all those people who helped the film get made. It took three years to complete it. I love making films and I loved every minute of making this one. We all had a wonderful time. I hope many people will see it and love it or hate it. As long as they aren’t indifferent, I’m happy.

Dale: Anything else you would like to bring up in general?
Kathi: Filmmaking comprises all of the arts, but it is the one that is so much like life itself. That’s why we’re a world of film junkies. Keep ‘em coming.

Welcome to the best multiple-choice questionnaire you never got at school! You know in an age where newspapers, magazines and online surveys offer to tell you whether you’re ambitious, the marrying type, an entrepreneur or some other such useless qualities, no one offers to answer you the question you really would like answered. Are you actually a Pervert?

Join us for a quest to discover whether your brain is a lusty sewer of debauched thoughts through answering simple questions by watching clips from the fabulously funny and trouser-raisingly exciting Pervert! Coming to DVD from Arrow Films on 30th April. Starring the infamous Mary Carey this is a must-see for fans of Russ Meyer type fun exploits.

Be warned this quiz is only for those who like a lotta jiggly with a good thrust of pokery so adults only as we launch into the quest to discover whether you’re a true pervert or not! If you are you’ll automatically be entered into a competition to win a copy of this wholesome home spankers friend. No looking at your neighbour’s answers now and ready yourself for the most enjoyable quiz you’ll ever have done!

THE QUIZ!

Ok then. Let’s take a look at the fruity trailer for Pervert. Pay close attention to the bearded mechanic. If your attention wanders due to the bountiful Mary Carey it’s ok - just watch the trailer again and again. It really is worth going blind for!

Watch the clip and answer the question:

Q1: What does the bearded mechanic ask for?

a) An honest job
b) A hand with his job
c) A rim job?

Gosh isn’t Mary a honey? In fact so keen is she to sweeten herself for you, the lucky viewer, she’ll smear her body in honey. But you’ll need to pay attention to the clip so you can answer the question about which course she’s serving:

Q2: What dining course does Mary Carey offer herself up as?

a) The Appetiser?
b) The Main Course?
c) Dessert?

Phew it looks hot in that clip or is it just hot in here? Only trouble with smearing yourself in honey is the mess so let’s slip Mary into the shower and join old man Hezekiah and James for breakfast. We realise that Mary does stay in soapy view during this scene but while watching the clip do try and take a moment to listen to Hezekiah’s plans for the future:

Q3: What does Hezekiah think he can do when he gets a corral?

a) Raise animals?
b) Raise booty?
c) Raise the dead?

Well darn it all that bathing has taken a toll on us so why not join Hezekiah for a nice nap. Only problem for the old dude is the non-stop humpathon going around him. Try to ignore the copious bangfest that Mary delights in and concentrate instead on what Hezekiah drinks:

Q4: What dies Hezekiah find in his cup of water?

a) A bug?
b) A condom?
c) A mermaid?

Hasn’t it been a long day? A lot of fun but all that perving would tire anyone out so let’s relax with the last clip where we join the ravishing Juliette Clarke for a lovely long soak. Only thing is she’s got company!

Q5: Who or what joins Juliette for a splash in the tub?

a) A claymation banana?
b) A claymation one-eyed milkman?
c) A claymation bull?

If you answered all the questions correctly then you are officially a Pervert!

As such you heartily qualify for a chance to win a copy of Pervert! If you don’t win console yourself with a peek at some of the extended lesbian scenes from the DVD. If you want more why not make the best investment of your new-found career in perversion and buy a copy of Pervert, out 30th April on DVD!

Email your answers to winstuff@pulpmovies.com any may the perviest pervert win!

By day Kim Sky, director, writer and producer of Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy, works in the hotel business. Her children’s love for acting allows her to be involved with films through their acting jobs and this is where she is happiest.

When she attends a pro wrestling match, the fans and the entertainers all spew energy, excitement, so much loyalty in the arena. This is what inspired her to write a story combining all the elements of romance, comedy and pro wrestling.

Currently she is in pre-production with A Broken Child, a tear-jerker of a drama, and is looking for like-minded people that want to get involved on the production side of filmmaking. And, amid all this, she has kindly agreed to take some time to talk to Dale Pierce.

Dale: Recently, you filmed Just Another Wrestling Comedy. Tell people about the plot.
Kim: It’s a “little guys win too” fairy tale about a Jewish boy falling in love with the daughter of legendary pro-wrestlers and not holding anything back till he wins her heart.

I live this “reaching the goal” every day, I think we all do. Everyone has a goal in life, or just a daily goal, we’ll do anything to reach it. We live once, as far as we all know, we need to make the most of it.

Dale: Did you use any real wrestlers in this or just actors?
Kim: Joanie “Chyna Doll” Laurer, April Hunter, Don “The Predator” Frye, Vic D. Vine, Gino Caruso, Red Hot Russ, Slyck Wagner Brown, Josh Daniels, Jay Santana, Crappy The Clown, The Flamingo Kid Pinky, Ken Yasuda are all in the movie. They were all awesome to work with.

Dale: Wrestling comedies and wrestling films have been done to death in the mainstream, it seems. Do you think there is room for yet another film of this type?
Kim: This is the FIRST Narrative feature film to combine: Romance, comedy and pro-wrestling. It has the Hollywood look, sound and vibe along with an amazing cast, they are all stars. It’s different to all the others.

Dale: What might differentiate this film from the others out there?
Kim: I love the entertainers in the ring and the ones out of it. Of course with comedy you always pick on someone, but I tried my best to show that pro-wrestlers are people that have a life outside the ring and potentially how it would be like in real life.

It’s a family movie, a date chick flick, a romantic wrestling comedy - it’s so different. You have to see it.

Dale: Aside from this, do you have any other films on the market now?
Kim: Our second project is in the pre-production stage - A Broken Child - it won the Golden Palm Award at the 2006 Beverly Hills Film Festival. Best Script over all the very talented writers, we were shocked and so proud. I guess when you do anything with all your heart, it’s bound to show.

Dale: What interested you in the wrestling world?
Kim: Growing up in the Dominican Republic, pro-wrestling, baseball and basketball were the outlets of entertainment.

Pro-wrestling combines everything I love: drama, fight, comedy and romance. The pro-wrestlers love what they do, they create all this drama, some of them are incredibly funny with their characters and they fight for what they love. I love that. I’m a pro-wrestler at heart.

Dale: So you’re excited about the response you think Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy will have in the long run?
Kim: It’s being helmed as the “Cult classic film of this time”- absolutely excited!!

People from all over the world are asking about it - I always thought there were a lot of pro-wrestling fans and that the stars in the film were famous, but this is crazy.

Dale: Do you see a sequel coming?
Kim: Absolutely. The script is in development. Love action, romance and comedy-the best genres to combine. I’m going to have all the stars I want in this one….at least I hope LOL.

Dale: Outside of film, what are your other interests?
Kim: Watching my kids do films (they are actors). I surround myself as much as possible with all of what is related to film/writing/acting.

Dale: Any interesting behind the scenes stories to tell concerning this film and its making?
Kim: We had two Praying Mantis on our door step during the filming, it never rained and when we needed a cloudy day- there it was. It was God Sent.

While shooting at the ECPW arena in Lake Hiawatha by Gino Caruso, we didn’t have enough extras, so Joanie “Chyna Doll” Laurer, Melissa Cunningham (wife of Jeremy London), Vic D. Vine, Ken Yasuda took on the streets in their costumes and stopped everyone on sight to come to the arena. It was amazing to watch the love- people poured in and the scene was set. Unfortunately having so many beautiful sexy people in skimpy clothing walking the streets made someone call the cops, when they showed up, we explained what was going on and they wished us the best.

Dale: Any closing comments?
Kim: “We hope to inspire everyone to follow their hearts, when you have that urge stuck at the bottom of your heart to do something, and you feel you can do it - then go for it.”

Check out Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy today and be a part of making film history.

And finally: Just Another Romantic Wrestling Comedy is released on 17th April and will be available from the official website as well as Amazon, Highspots, RF Video and video stores everywhere.

You can find out more at justanotherromanticwrestlingcomedy.com,
myspace.com/romanticwrestlingcomedy or uczkowski.com