My Big Fat Independent Movie is a funny film that spoofs the best of independent film such as The Good Girl, Pulp Fiction, Amelie, Swingers, Memento, El Mariachi, Pi and many more. Independent film guru and Film Threat founder Chris Gore co-wrote and produced the film which has just been released on DVD.
Buy My Big Fat Independent Movie
Daniel Robert Epstein: My Big Fat Independent Movie turned out great.
Chris Gore: Its fun. I didnt try to make War and Peace.
DRE: My wife didnt understand it a whole lot but she hasnt seen as many movies as me.
CG: Theres definitely a lot of stuff in just for the geeks and Im one too.
DRE: If I watched this movie and didnt see that you wrote it, I probably could have guessed that the guy who founded Film Threat wrote this movie.
CG: A lot of it was comments I wanted to make about the independent film world. Normally Id just write an essay but I wanted to make a film. I think thats a better way to express a lot of my ideas, mainly that independent film has become clich.
DRE: Who wrote the song thats over the opening credits?
CG: That was actually written by a guy named Joe Kramer. I gave him a bunch of key words and said look, try to work these words into the song where they make sense. Strangely he had put my name in there and I told him to take it out but he told there was nothing else that rhymed. I knew I would get skewered for it but whatever. That song was written and a demo version of it was done even before the screenplay was finished because I used that as a way to raise money for the film.
DRE: Was it difficult to raise the money for this film?
CG: Yeah. I had an investor even before the script was completed just based on a pitch, but he dropped out at the last minute and I had to find some other investors. It took one investor meeting but Im not going to say it wasnt difficult. The money aspect of this was not the difficult part mainly because we werent trying to make some lesbian documentary. We were just trying to make a dumb comedy that would be commercial enough to make its money back and appeal to that audience of movie geeks and indie film lovers.
DRE: Of course youve seen thousands of movies so when you are writing this and you come to a point where you need a joke, do you rack your brain or is it just there logically?
CG: Its different depending on what it is but a lot was just trying to make it funny. Theres a lot of things that got cut from the script that I felt were pretty racy but they didnt make any sense. So stopping was more difficult than coming up with material. You can come up with those jokes all day and youll have a three hour movie but the subject matter doesnt really warrant that.
DRE: Obviously you had a few core elements in the movie like Pulp Fiction, The Good Girl and a few other things. How did you decide on those?
CG: The first place we started was, what are the movies were going to spoof? We had a rule that was independent films that made over 100 million dollars and independent films that were in some way a cultural phenomenon and visually interesting. Then we tried to pick one film from each major foreign language like El Mariachi for Spanish, Amelie for French and Run Lola Run for German.
DRE: I bet you know a lot of these filmmakers you were spoofing.
CG: Ive interviewed Chris Nolan before, hes had such great success with the film Batman Begins and Quentin [Tarantino] I knew back in the day before he got big. A lot of these guys read Film Threat so I hope they take it as it was intended, which it is intended as a love letter to independent film. Its not intended to put these individuals down. I think theres been misperception by morons on the internet about what this movie is. Its a dumb comedy that makes light of the genre. If you dont understand that you probably cant pronounce genre correctly. Im not going to sit there and spend years of my life spoofing movies that I dont like. Thats wasteful.
DRE: Why didnt you direct the movie?
CG: Its not the kind of film Id ever want to direct because this isnt a fun movie to direct. Theres a lot of details to take care of but also it needed a specific type of tone, comedy with some high drama. I felt my strengths were better for other behind the scenes positions. But [director] Phil [Zlotorynski] did a great job. His short film Walkentalk is on the double disc of My Big fat Independent Movie which you can only get at Best Buy. Its like a parody of double edition special DVDs because its got every behind the scene and then behind the scene of the behind the scenes. Then Phil and I did a director-producer commentary, then we had the actors do an actor commentary and during those we all indulged in what I like to call commentary juice. Commentary juice has a high alcohol content. A lot of cast just completely cut loose. They went nuts with telling stories about each other and getting mad and yelling.
DRE: Were any of the actors worried that they will work with the people they made fun of?
CG: Nah, no one whos spoofed in Scary Movie, Blazing Saddles or Airplane is upset. Spoofs are tributes. If I wanted to do something insulting I will do an investigative piece on a website or something.
DRE: How was casting these guys? Did you have dozens of guys showing up looking like Samuel L. Jackson?
CG: No. The casting process was hard because we had 60 speaking parts and for an independent film, thats extremely high. The Memento guy, Brian Krow, arrived at his audition dressed like the guy from Memento and he drew tattoos in permanent ink on his chest. He did a perfect read and was cast instantly. The guy who was originally supposed to play the Pi guy bailed at the last minute so we called up Rob Schrab. He came in and just nailed it.
DRE: How did you get Bob Odenkirk to play the bleeding guy in the trunk? .
CG: I met Bob Odenkirk on the festival circuit. His movie, Melvin Goes to Dinner, just did not get a fair shake in terms of its release. I would recommend it to other festivals because I thought it was a hot movie they would want to see. Then I asked him to come play the part as a favor. We thought it would be a half hour but it turned into two hours mainly because of the make-up. On the double disc DVD you can see the outtakes. Theyre hilarious. At one point off-camera Phil is gingerly pushing the trunk down. Bob would tell him to slam it.
DRE: Were you on set everyday?
CG: If I wasnt driving actors to the set, yeah. I think I had to out of town once for some kind of meeting but I was there. Its a lot more fun to be on the set when youre producer. Everybody else has a specific job that theyre doing and Im just running interference. Everyday thered be some new little problem and being an anal retentive geek like I am, I felt that my best usefulness on the set was paying attention to things like hair and bangs to make sure they were absolutely perfect.
DRE: Your co-writer, Adam Schwartz, has written also a lot of low budget spoofs. I guess thats how you found him.
CG: I saw a Star Wars spoof he made in college called American Jedi. Then he made another one called Project Red Light which was a parody of Project Greenlight. I think that comedy is best written by like seven writers in a room throwing stuff at each other and getting drunk.
DRE: Whats going on with Ultimate Film Fanatic?
CG: Ultimate Film Fanatic is dead. I think along with IFC too. I dont know whats going on at IFC now. Theyre certainly not showing as many independent films of late.
DRE: I think their block of original programming died on the vine.
CG: They tried some stuff and it just didnt work but Im happy not being a part of that network anymore. The new people in charge really havent a clue.
DRE: Was Ultimate Film Fanatic successful when it was on?
CG: Yeah, it was one of the top shows. It got them more publicity than their new crop of original shows. All the talented people at IFC who were the heart and soul, the meat of what made IFC independent, left when the new regime came in.
DRE: Can Ultimate go to another station?
CG: Nope because IFC owns the rights to it and they wont allow it to go anywhere else. They still have it listed on their website as one of the projects that they still have going but they have no plans to start it up. Certainly if they start it up I wont be involved.
DRE: What else you got coming up?
CG: Im working on another film that I do intend to direct that is completely different from My Big Fat. Its not a spoof. Its something that is more personal. Im having less of an involvement with Film Threat. I own it but its really run by this group of passionate writers and Im really walking away and letting them run it and turn it into what they want it to be. I have a new book coming out called The Complete DVD Book which is about how the independently produce, market, author, and release your movie on DVD.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Buy My Big Fat Independent Movie
Daniel Robert Epstein: My Big Fat Independent Movie turned out great.
Chris Gore: Its fun. I didnt try to make War and Peace.
DRE: My wife didnt understand it a whole lot but she hasnt seen as many movies as me.
CG: Theres definitely a lot of stuff in just for the geeks and Im one too.
DRE: If I watched this movie and didnt see that you wrote it, I probably could have guessed that the guy who founded Film Threat wrote this movie.
CG: A lot of it was comments I wanted to make about the independent film world. Normally Id just write an essay but I wanted to make a film. I think thats a better way to express a lot of my ideas, mainly that independent film has become clich.
DRE: Who wrote the song thats over the opening credits?
CG: That was actually written by a guy named Joe Kramer. I gave him a bunch of key words and said look, try to work these words into the song where they make sense. Strangely he had put my name in there and I told him to take it out but he told there was nothing else that rhymed. I knew I would get skewered for it but whatever. That song was written and a demo version of it was done even before the screenplay was finished because I used that as a way to raise money for the film.
DRE: Was it difficult to raise the money for this film?
CG: Yeah. I had an investor even before the script was completed just based on a pitch, but he dropped out at the last minute and I had to find some other investors. It took one investor meeting but Im not going to say it wasnt difficult. The money aspect of this was not the difficult part mainly because we werent trying to make some lesbian documentary. We were just trying to make a dumb comedy that would be commercial enough to make its money back and appeal to that audience of movie geeks and indie film lovers.
DRE: Of course youve seen thousands of movies so when you are writing this and you come to a point where you need a joke, do you rack your brain or is it just there logically?
CG: Its different depending on what it is but a lot was just trying to make it funny. Theres a lot of things that got cut from the script that I felt were pretty racy but they didnt make any sense. So stopping was more difficult than coming up with material. You can come up with those jokes all day and youll have a three hour movie but the subject matter doesnt really warrant that.
DRE: Obviously you had a few core elements in the movie like Pulp Fiction, The Good Girl and a few other things. How did you decide on those?
CG: The first place we started was, what are the movies were going to spoof? We had a rule that was independent films that made over 100 million dollars and independent films that were in some way a cultural phenomenon and visually interesting. Then we tried to pick one film from each major foreign language like El Mariachi for Spanish, Amelie for French and Run Lola Run for German.
DRE: I bet you know a lot of these filmmakers you were spoofing.
CG: Ive interviewed Chris Nolan before, hes had such great success with the film Batman Begins and Quentin [Tarantino] I knew back in the day before he got big. A lot of these guys read Film Threat so I hope they take it as it was intended, which it is intended as a love letter to independent film. Its not intended to put these individuals down. I think theres been misperception by morons on the internet about what this movie is. Its a dumb comedy that makes light of the genre. If you dont understand that you probably cant pronounce genre correctly. Im not going to sit there and spend years of my life spoofing movies that I dont like. Thats wasteful.
DRE: Why didnt you direct the movie?
CG: Its not the kind of film Id ever want to direct because this isnt a fun movie to direct. Theres a lot of details to take care of but also it needed a specific type of tone, comedy with some high drama. I felt my strengths were better for other behind the scenes positions. But [director] Phil [Zlotorynski] did a great job. His short film Walkentalk is on the double disc of My Big fat Independent Movie which you can only get at Best Buy. Its like a parody of double edition special DVDs because its got every behind the scene and then behind the scene of the behind the scenes. Then Phil and I did a director-producer commentary, then we had the actors do an actor commentary and during those we all indulged in what I like to call commentary juice. Commentary juice has a high alcohol content. A lot of cast just completely cut loose. They went nuts with telling stories about each other and getting mad and yelling.
DRE: Were any of the actors worried that they will work with the people they made fun of?
CG: Nah, no one whos spoofed in Scary Movie, Blazing Saddles or Airplane is upset. Spoofs are tributes. If I wanted to do something insulting I will do an investigative piece on a website or something.
DRE: How was casting these guys? Did you have dozens of guys showing up looking like Samuel L. Jackson?
CG: No. The casting process was hard because we had 60 speaking parts and for an independent film, thats extremely high. The Memento guy, Brian Krow, arrived at his audition dressed like the guy from Memento and he drew tattoos in permanent ink on his chest. He did a perfect read and was cast instantly. The guy who was originally supposed to play the Pi guy bailed at the last minute so we called up Rob Schrab. He came in and just nailed it.
DRE: How did you get Bob Odenkirk to play the bleeding guy in the trunk? .
CG: I met Bob Odenkirk on the festival circuit. His movie, Melvin Goes to Dinner, just did not get a fair shake in terms of its release. I would recommend it to other festivals because I thought it was a hot movie they would want to see. Then I asked him to come play the part as a favor. We thought it would be a half hour but it turned into two hours mainly because of the make-up. On the double disc DVD you can see the outtakes. Theyre hilarious. At one point off-camera Phil is gingerly pushing the trunk down. Bob would tell him to slam it.
DRE: Were you on set everyday?
CG: If I wasnt driving actors to the set, yeah. I think I had to out of town once for some kind of meeting but I was there. Its a lot more fun to be on the set when youre producer. Everybody else has a specific job that theyre doing and Im just running interference. Everyday thered be some new little problem and being an anal retentive geek like I am, I felt that my best usefulness on the set was paying attention to things like hair and bangs to make sure they were absolutely perfect.
DRE: Your co-writer, Adam Schwartz, has written also a lot of low budget spoofs. I guess thats how you found him.
CG: I saw a Star Wars spoof he made in college called American Jedi. Then he made another one called Project Red Light which was a parody of Project Greenlight. I think that comedy is best written by like seven writers in a room throwing stuff at each other and getting drunk.
DRE: Whats going on with Ultimate Film Fanatic?
CG: Ultimate Film Fanatic is dead. I think along with IFC too. I dont know whats going on at IFC now. Theyre certainly not showing as many independent films of late.
DRE: I think their block of original programming died on the vine.
CG: They tried some stuff and it just didnt work but Im happy not being a part of that network anymore. The new people in charge really havent a clue.
DRE: Was Ultimate Film Fanatic successful when it was on?
CG: Yeah, it was one of the top shows. It got them more publicity than their new crop of original shows. All the talented people at IFC who were the heart and soul, the meat of what made IFC independent, left when the new regime came in.
DRE: Can Ultimate go to another station?
CG: Nope because IFC owns the rights to it and they wont allow it to go anywhere else. They still have it listed on their website as one of the projects that they still have going but they have no plans to start it up. Certainly if they start it up I wont be involved.
DRE: What else you got coming up?
CG: Im working on another film that I do intend to direct that is completely different from My Big Fat. Its not a spoof. Its something that is more personal. Im having less of an involvement with Film Threat. I own it but its really run by this group of passionate writers and Im really walking away and letting them run it and turn it into what they want it to be. I have a new book coming out called The Complete DVD Book which is about how the independently produce, market, author, and release your movie on DVD.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
Norbu said:
The Good Girl, Pulp Fiction, Amelie, Swingers, Memento, El Mariachi, Pi:
Pi was an awful film. But the other ones are good to great. So any satire on them will fall flat. It takes more to deflate awesomeness than just being a smartass.
1)if you think El Mariachi or Swingers or The Good Girl (!?) were much better than Pi, you're nuts.
2)if you think satire is just "being a smartass" or that anything great can't be satirized, you're double nuts.
[Edited on Feb 25, 2006 by PointBlank]