The movie business is a bitch, especially if you're a fresh-faced film school grad on that quest for your first feature. The traditional path is to slave through the studio system on the chance that a movie executive gives you the green light. The other route lies in the indie world, but the struggle is no less great.
Digital video and affordable software give the indie filmmaker everything he needs to tell a story. To make a movie, a filmmaker also needs talent, drive and guts: to make a feature, a filmmaker needs balls.
Recent UNLV film grads Nick Groff and Mike Martinez have balls. They've shed their blood, sweat, tears and wallets to make that feature.
Their film, Malevolence, is an ambitious crime picture, a complex and twisting yarn filled with a sea of not-so-nice people doing not-so-nice things. It's also the only locally produced feature to play at this year's CineVegas Film Festival at the Palms.
So, in one line, what's the picture about?
Mike Martinez: One line? It would be about choices. And when you make the wrong choices, what's the worst that can happen. A dark side of nature kind of thing.
How much did it cost? How much did you spend?
Nick Groff: Can't say.
Can't say or won't say?
NG: It was low budget. Basically me and Mike produced it, wrote it, directed it, did the camera, edited it ourselves. We're trying to get distribution, so you know how that goes.
OK, so how did you secure financing?
NG: Came out of our own pocket.
MM: (laughs) Ours and borrowing from friends and stuff.
What problems and challenges do you find being an indie filmmaker here?
NG: The heat.
MM: Some of the days we'd shoot, it'd be so hot outside. We'd have to wake up early to shoot when it's cold in the morning.
NG: The cool thing is we never had to cancel; we never had to cancel one thing. We had a cast of 80 people; 70 were speaking lines. We never had to cancel because of rain, because it never rained (laughs). But the cast was pretty cool about filming and stuff.
Do you think there's anything unique to filmmaking here?
NG: There's a lot of locations that you can go to. We shot basically every thing you see in Nevada, just away from the Strip. We didn't want anything to do with the Strip. We wanted to show more of the area and what's around other than just the Strip. We did some stuff with Matt (Sjafiroeddin, one of the cast) at Mount Charleston. We went to Beatty to blow up the car because we couldn't pull permits in Las Vegas. You need something like a $10 million insurance bond or something. We went through hell for two months trying to get with my pyrotechnics guy. To do Gordon Mitchell's scene, we went to LA.
MM: Yeah, LA. Santa Monica. The same f--king gym where they shot Pumping Iron. The same place where Arnold Schwarzenegger (simulates smoking a joint) ... you know.
What plans do you have for the movie after the festival?
NG: Finding distribution.
MM: DVD distribution.
NG: That's our first thing, DVD distribution. Then, basically I have a ton of other scripts I wrote. My biggest goal is, I'm starting my own production company, Film Harvest Productions. I want to be able to make independent movies here in Las Vegas. Cast here, you know, make them here. Do everything that every filmmaker wants to do that is here. Basically the other goal is to build a relationship with a distribution company where we'd be able to back stuff. Find money that I need to make my movies.
And you guys are done with school?
NG: Yeah, UNLV. We graduated.
MM: UNLV helped a little bit. But they didn't make it, like they kind of tell everybody they did. Basically, they helped by giving us rooms and a little bit of equipment.
NG: Sometimes people will mistake it for, "UNLV made it ..."
MM: Yeah, like they gave us their money.
NG: (Francisco) Menendez, he saw it, and Marc May (both professors from the UNLV film program), they liked it. They were the ones who kind of pushed into CineVegas for us.
So they did give you a little help then?
NG: Yeah, that was pretty cool.
MM: Yeah, you know, CineVegas is their thing.