| FEARSmag Goes for a High Score as We Interview Writer/Director/Producer William Brent Bell and Write |
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| Wednesday, 22 March 2006 | |
 BY Joseph B. Mauceri 
{FEARSmag} - When
a group of teenagers begin to play an ultra-realistic videogame called
ìStay Aliveî they soon discover a spine-chilling connection ñ they are
each being brutally murdered one-by-one in the same method as the
character they played in the game. As the line between the game world
and the real world disappears, the group must find a way to STAY
ALIVE. After the mysterious, brutal death of an old friend, a group
of teenagers find themselves in possession of STAY ALIVE, an
ultra-realistic 3-D videogame based on the spine-chilling true story of
a 17th century noblewoman known as ìThe Blood Countess.î The gamers
donít know anything about the game other than theyíre not supposed to
have itÖand theyíre dying to play it. Not able to resist temptation,
the group begins to play the grisly game and soon a chilling connection
is made ñ they are each being murdered one-by-one in the same method as
the character they played in the game. As the line between the game
world and the real world disappears, the group must find a way to
defeat the vicious and merciless Blood Countess, all the while trying
toÖSTAY ALIVE.STAY ALIVE is released by Hollywood Pictures and produced by McG, Peter Schlessel, Gary Barber, Roger Birnbaum, James Stern and Matthew Peterman. The film is directed and co-written by William Brent Bell Written and co-written by Matthew Peterman. The film features the acting talents of Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Frankie Muniz, Sophia Bush and Adam Goldberg. New kids on the genre block at Disney, William Brent Bell Written Matthew Peterman, are making their feature film debuts in the big chairs on STAY ALIVE. We recently spoke about their thoughts on movies, computer games, and the realms of all things scary. FEARS: There have already been several genre films that used a computer game angle. STAY ALIVE is the first film to come up with a computer game based on a historical figure, the real-life 16th Century Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory. In terms of the screenplay which came first, the game or the blood countess? William Brent Bell: Probably the game idea came first. We wrote an outline for the basic idea of the movie. We were doing research on another horror idea when we came across the countess. We were like, ìWow, what a perfect character to create a game around for the film!î Sheís so great because she is based on a real person, and the stuff she did, torturing young girls and bathing in their blood, because she didnít want to grow old is a great mythology. It was great because we could create this character without having to make too much stuff up because what she did was real.  FEARS: As this is a Hollywood Pictures release, which comes under the Buena Vista/Disney banner, did you have to tone down the gore and violence in the film to make it a ìPG-13î horror film, which seem to be trendy these days? William Brent Bell: We did. Matt and I made this film independently, and it wasnít until we were deep into postproduction that Hollywood Pictures came onboard as distributors. We originally envisioned STAY ALIVE, and shot it, as an ìRî rate picture. The game in the movie is rate ìM,î for sure. At the same time, we werenít looking to make a typical teen slasher movie. We were looking to make something a bit more sophisticated for a teen audience. We wanted to treat their intelligence with a little more respect. When we were finished with the film, and Disney came onboard as distributors, they wanted to re-launch the Hollywood Pictures division as their potential genre division, kind of like Screen Gems. We thought that was great, and they were enthusiastic about it. Theyíve done some really interesting marketing things and itís been a lot of fun. Still, when they first saw the film they said it had to be ìPG-13.î So we had to go back and reshape the edit to become ìPG-13î and that was difficult. But, at the end of the day, compare to any of the other ìPG-13î horror flicks we feel that we got away with more than we ever could have imagined. FEARS: Being you and Matthew are a writing and producing team, how do you work together? How would you describe and what do you feel makes it so unique? William Brent Bell: We kind of make it up as we go a bit. Still, we kind of go back and forth with ideas, and once we have an idea we go back and forth to flush out the premise. A lot of times when we are actually writing a script, weíre not in the same location. Weíre not the kind of writing team that has one computer and one guy is pacing while the other guy is typing. We stay in separate locations and bounce e-mails back and forth with different versions of scenes. It will start off with a skeleton outline of a scene and then Iíll send it to Matt, who might fill in some more dialogue. Heíll send it back to me and Iíll send him back an outline of the next scene, and weak the dialogue he send over. We keep going back and forth fine tuning and polishing until we have a really long script ñ 180 pages. We than take that and start compressing it down to a 100 pages or so. FEARS: Iíve had the pleasure to the writing/producing team of James Wong and Glen Morgan; I was wondering how you decide who will direct a particular project? Because Brent directed STAY ALIVE does Matt get to direct the next film? Matthew Peterman: No, the way we put our partnership together was that Brent and I decided that, a while ago, that we would be a writing/directing/producing team, and we would both write the scripts and Brent would direct them and I produce them. Thatís what we decided to do. Brent has a huge background in film and we figured that would be what we could offer.  William Brent Bell: But at the end of the day weíre a total package, and a team. Some of the fine line differences would be like when weíre actually filming a movie. Weíre not big fans of two people giving one-person direction. It just too confusing if you have too many hands in the pot and you have to speak through one person. Thatís probably the biggest time during the filmmaking process where our duties are split. Otherwise weíre hand and hand doing everything. FEARS: You have McG as a producer on the film. Iím curious, at what point did he come on and what did he bring to the film? Matthew Peterman: I think the big thing he did was allowed us to get this movie made. Weíve had a relationship with McG for several years now. We worked with him on TV stuff and we had offices over at his company. We were trying to get something going with him. Brent and I were putting this film together and we raised about a third of the financing ourselves. We decided, as writers that ultimately wanted to be filmmakers. We didnít just want to write this movie and sell it we wanted to make it. We were going to doing independently. So we got this money together and we went to McG and said, ìWe have this script, we have some money, can you help us get some more money?î He was very instrumental in helping us to secure the rest of the financing to make the movie. Without him we would have not been able to get the majority of the budget to make the film. FEARS: Weíre in a time where horror films are in vogue, and the successful Asian horror cinema is influencing a large number of films. There were several horror film that featured games, like ìBrainscan,î and technology, like ìPulseî and ìThe Ringî series. How did you approach weaving the elements of the computer game into STAY ALIVE? Matthew Peterman: The challenge when you are creating a film like this is to almost treat the film and the game as two separate things. When you have a game in a movie and itís vital to the plot and drives the story, it has to exist on its own level. The game aspect has to be as good as any action movie that is out there. Basically, we had to design and develop a game that stood on its own. Thatís especially why we incorporated we incorporate the concept of the Blood Countess as the main villain. We had to come up with entire world and story of a video game because it was vital to the story of this movie. That being said, when youíre talking about incorporating a piece of technology like that there are no limits to the kind of fun you can have interweaving the narrative of the game into the film. In a story like this you have a video game manifesting itself in reality. We were able to blur lines between the game world and the real world is one of the most fun things we did with this movie.  William Brent Bell: There have been movies, like you said ìtechnology based horror films,î but this high technology has only really been around for about a decade or two. And video game moves only started showing themselves in the 80ís. For us, itís something thatís going to remain forever ñ technology will remain a part of the world forever. Even though weíve seen a few films in the 80ís and 90ís that had a video game in them, those games are so much more primitive. Nowadays the games have so much more detail, the characters are layered, and the stories are layered, and it was time take to take the whole video game concept to the next level. Like Matt said, interweave it into the narrative because you can now, because they are so realistic and have so much depth to them. Matthew Peterman: You mentioned, ìBrainscan,î and Brent and I arenít big fans of that movie. What we tried to do with STAY ALIVE was to raise it to another level of sophistication. Even with a film like ìThe Last Starfighter,î you donít take those films, and whatís happening in them, very seriously. Itís kind of unbelievable. What we tried to do with our movie was to make the audience think that this could actually happen. To do that with this kind of premise you really have to take it seriously and treat it with a lot of respect. FEARS: Are both you guys fans of the genre, or is one more of a fan than the other? William Brent Bell: Weíre both big fans of the genre, and huge fans of video games. FEARS: Given the technology and the video game elements, when it came to the deaths in this film where do you guys stand as filmmakers in terms of physical effects verse digital effects?  Matthew Peterman: Aside form the fact that the game is a big part of the story, itís digital, and thatís just by design. As far as how we like to create real deaths on the screen, weíre more into practical stuff. Digital blood squirting out of someoneís head doesnít work for us at all. We like the real thing. Any visual effects we talked about going into this film, we said that anything that is in the live-actionportion of the film we wanted to be invisible. We wanted to use them in the best way possible because effects are tools of filmmaking. Thatís like composting stuff, having someone hit by a carriage on screen, run over and spit out all in one shot. You canít do that without overlaying ten shots on top of each other. That to us is different than creating digital gore. FEARS: This is your first big theatrical feature, your calling card to Hollywood. As fans of the genre and video games, where do you go after STAY ALIVE? Do you have another project waiting for you? William Brent Bell: Weíre developing a few things with different studios that weíve written over the last few years. We also have a couple of projects weíre developing. For us, itís kind of like weíre going to go in one of two directions depending on how the chips fall. Thatís hopefully either we do, instead of another horror film, a film that has something to do with a video game. We think thatís an untapped story engine. Itís a way into films in all genres. Or, what we mostly have lined up are horror projects of one type or another. Thatís what we hope to do directly after this. The film we hope to do next is a bit of a departure from STAY ALIVE, and itís a little bit more mature and weíre excited about creating it. FEARS: As you both work a lot in television, due to the hectic nature of television production is their something about you work there that helped prepare you to take on a feature? William Brent Bell: We arenít TV writers, per say. We created a couple of shows that never got off the ground. Matthew Peterman: Weíre certainly feature guys first and TV secondÖ William Brent Bell: What TV does is that it teaches you about hardcore development. In the feature world, when you get a note from a studio itís like ìmake it funnierî or ìmake it scarier.î Itís very vague and itís like trying to hit a moving target. You go and try to do what they mean, and you turn it in and they may not understand it. With television, the note system is such that by the time they green light a pilot that is exactly what you are going to shoot. Itís really intense in that respect. When we were doing STAY ALIVE, in pre-production and production, we had so many people giving us notes and so many producers on this project. Working on television projects taught us how to handle all that. FEARS: If the box office numbers are there, what are your thoughts on a sequel and would you be involved in the same capacity?  William Brent Bell: We would think we would be attached in the same capacity. We can say for sure because weíd have to see what everyoneís schedule is like. Weíre really excited about the potential for this film to be a franchise. The character, the game in the movie, and the concept of blending those two worlds, we only scratched the surface of all that in this first film. Youíll see when you watch the film that you get a really good sense of Countess Elizabeth Bathory, what she did, and all the different torture techniques, but you couldnít fit a third of her history into just one movie. Likewise, blending the world of the game and reality to where the game is manifesting itself into reality a little bit, and those kinds of things, we introduce in this film. Where as in a sequel we could really run with all that stuff. Matthew Peterman: Another thing is that we shot this film in 25 days and we didnít have a whole lot of money. So there were certain constraints to making this movie. Hopefully if this movie does great, and there is a sequel, weíll have a little bit more time and a bit more money to make a film that can reach its full potential. If this film blows-up at the box office and we get to do another one we know weíre going to have more time and make it a cinematic extravaganza. Weíll get to do all the things that maybe we werenít able to do in this one. William Brent Bell: Not to mention Iím sure weíll know going into it what our rating is because when you have 25 days to shoot a movie, and itís an ìRî rated film, forget content because youíre not wasting time shooting stuff thatís not going to be in the movie. Thereís not time for that. In terms of the video game, there were a lot of people making this movie who are older and their knowledge of video games is limited or based on what their kids play. They didnít buy that the game in the film was going to work. Now looking at the movie they are totally on board. So the film itself was kind of proof of the concept that this game in the movie can be compelling enough to watch. We thought, ìWho would want to watch people in a movie playing video games?î We donít do it much, but what we do works and we could have done more. FEARS: I havenít seen the entire film, just the trailer. The feel I get, from the character of the Countess, and how you setup the game and players, it feels like the first step in a franchise as original as ìHellraiser.î Matthew Peterman: We hope so, and we think that it has a lot of potential as a franchise. If people see that than theyíll realize that weíve hardly opened the door to the places this can go. The subsequent films would not just be a repeat of the first. They would build and become even more complex and exciting. Official Websit: stayalive.movies.go.com LINK THIS ARTICLE             |
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