Oh, it's show tied. People say, good money to see this movie.
When they go out to a theater, they want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters.
In the Protection Booth, everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring, don it off?
So in what ways do you feel like your life has changed since learning of this new part.
Of your past?
I have a whole lot of questions. I love this and it makes sense to me. I'm gonna be visiting the library that you you stay away.
From all that nonsense.
Your grandmother was sick?
Was she was nothing more stressful going on in her life that would make her lose it. She wasn't looney, and my grandma wasn't a witch.
Well, what'd you think that was scary?
I think you're scared me.
Great names.
Hey folks, Welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth. I'm your host, Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking with Danny Villanueyo, a junior, all about what happened to Dorothy Bell. It is the new film that he wrote and directed. It is making the rounds at festivals right now, including the Fantastic Fest. If you are a fan of horror movies, I would definitely keep an eye out for it.
It is a found footage horror film that I actually really was very effective, kind of scared the but Jesus side of me a few times. Thanks so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed the interview. I want to know a little bit more about you. How did you even get interested in filmmaking.
It started when I would make skateboarding videos with my brother. Those turned into these like short spoof skits with friends and family, and as I got older, I started to learn what goes on behind the scenes and I was just fascinated and started to take it more serious and have been making films since then.
Did you ever go to school for it or are you just all self taught?
Yeah? I did go to the Art Institute of Wisconsin for a short period of time. Most of my education was self taught on YouTube and online courses and stuff and just practicing.
Tell me about some of the shorts that you've done in the past. I'm so curious about them.
Yes.
So one of them is called Don't Cry Papa. It was me and my good friend j Anthony Ramos, we went out to the woods. It originally started as just a camera test. I got a black magic Ersamini, and I just wrote this little monologue for him to recite, and then we just decided, let's turn this into a short. So like I had it a little bit and it was literally like me and him out there alone and
I'm getting like this intimate performance. I was about a father who is basically interrogating the killer of his daughter, and we're in point of view of the killer, so he's speaking directly towards us. And then there's a really fun twist that happened. So it's out there on YouTube. Don't Cry, Papa, Tell me about your last film. I dreamt up a Psychopompa. That was an anthology that I shot over the course of three years. There's four segments.
One of them's a wrap around, but it's about psycho pumps, which are soul guides. They help transition spirits stuck on Earth into the afterlife, and so we see different kinds of them throughout. There's a psychic medium. There's a man who's experienced grief from losing his wife and he's starting to see visions of her, and we even have a
vampire story in there. But yeah, that was another really fun project, and it was my first feature, Like I set out to create it as one piece rather than short films and then deciding later to make a collection.
Tell me about what happened to Dorothy Bell? How was it to move from shorter form into this longer form medium.
I wanted to challenge myself in see can I do a film in such a short period of time? And I set a bit of a buying and yeah, it was I much more prefer this method. There was benefits to shooting different shorts over the course of a few
years in terms of like budget. Obviously it's easier to take the time in between to try to raise more funds and then editing along the way, I'm able to take more time to figure out what is this film that I'm trying to tell, what kind of what is the style I want to convey, and things like that. But Dorothy Bell was just entirely different beasts. We shot it for twenty six k and nine days and it was Yeah, it was pretty intense and I loved every minute of the process.
How did the idea come to you? So shooting a micro.
Budget, you try to find what resources you have available, and there was this library in Kenoshoa, Skotton called the Gilbert Simmons Library, this beautiful old historic building, and they had ghost tours. They have ghost stories of their own and I took a tour and I just fell in love with it, and the staff was so welcoming, And it was then that I wrote a treatment before I
approached them to ask about filming. I've always had a love or an association with libraries and ghost stories because anytime I would go to the library, I'd head right to that paranormal section. I would look at all the urban legends, the hauntings in my town. It was the easy thing to decide on it. Yeah, they were welcoming. We shot overnights, they were open during the days, and yeah, it was great experience.
And tell me about your cast You've got some really strong performances in here.
The most familiar people on our caste is Lisa Wilcox, who was the lead of a Nightmare and Olmstreet four and five. She played Alice Johnson. She plays Ozzie's therapist. Ozzie's the lead character of our film, played by Age of Meadows, wonderful Chicago actor. I'm in that area, so it was great to have somewhere local.
I believe this is.
Their first feature film. Super excited about having them, grateful. And then we have Michael Hargrove, who had recently played Sherman Fields a New candy Man in the Niada Costa and directed Candyman sequel. Yeah, and then a bunch of other local talent that was just so great to have. I'm so proud of everyone's work in the film.
Yeah, everybody is just terrific. And I love that main performance. I think that actor is just phenomenal. And you must have had a real good working relationship because they're in almost every single shot of the Yeah.
I knew going in that I needed to find someone I can trust to really carry the film and someone that fits the character to a t. And Asia brought this vulnerability but also incredible strength and just felt so human and that's what the role required. And I feel they nail every aspect and just yeah, really lucky to have found them.
So much of a horror film for me, anyway, is the suspense, and you've got that going on so much in What Happened to Dorothy Bell. Tell me about the editing process and how you came up with when those beats would come in.
My favorite kind of horror films are the ones that really hold back on the scares. You know, they just build and build until it's just that you pop with that's scarer, just find some kind of release. And I know that Found footage, especially those kind of films were the best for me. Or like I first found footage film experience was the Player which projects in the cinema
when I was ten years old. I believed it was real, and looking back revisiting it, I'm just like paying attention to why it was scary, and it was like what you didn't see, and so much of it was like these restraint techniques that happened. So I really wanted to rely on that and just pull back as much as I can until I couldn't be longer.
And then the other part of it, too is the sound design. Can you tell me a little bit about working with your sound producer.
Because we're so restraint on the visuals and the story. Sound was incredibly important, and I worked with the same sound team as I did on Psycho Pump, so we had this great relationship that we established and we met before we started filming, so they weren't brought on after, and so there was tons of conversations about how can we create this atmosphere when we don't have score to
rely on. So sound was even that more important, and so little things like the room tone, the ambiance of the room were able to create different feelings and personalities in the air, the things as subtle as that. Yeah, just finding how to tell the story in the sound is best as can be with the sound off. I don't know how well the film works, even though so much of it is the silence, but the silence is
sound for this film. Yeah, it was a great experience, and I learned a lot during this process that I'll probably carry on to my traditional films, not my non funne footage films, in the future.
During the editing process, did you show this to other people or was this pretty closed door for you? I usually close the door.
I'm the kind of person who if I'm in a coffee shop, I sit with my back against the wall like I'm just very you know, I don't know what it is. I just don't want people to see the unfinished and miss out on the surprises and experience of watching the film in its entirety. So it wasn't until I had a full cut that I started showing it to close close crew members. Yeah, it was That's how I like to work.
Yeah, have you seen this with an audience yet?
No. I had a screening room of four people, but they all worked on it. It's not I don't know how other people see it. And I'm so close to it. I've been so close to the script the editing that I don't know what it is. It's hard even for me to talk about it at this point, like I need a little bit of space of time to figure out what it was some distance, and I'm hoping that I haven't watched the film a couple months now, so I'm hoping that this Fantastic Fest screening opens my eyes
a little bit. I could hopefully view it as an audience member in a way and then start to hear how others are interpreting it and responding to it.
Are you going to Fantastic Fest to see it with the audience?
Absolutely, I'll be there with a lot of our crew, Our main cast will be there to do It's all of our first time being there, so we're all super excited.
I will tell you flat out, Danny, I am not a big horror guy, but I was on the edge of my seat the entire way through your film. It just got me so well, and I think you're right with those silences that just kept me on my edge. I love that it's good news. What were some of your biggest challenges making this.
I think it had to be the fact that I self produced it, so line producer roles. Everything on the business side I did along with the creative, the writing, the directing. I took out a lot and I didn't want to sit around and wait for more morning to come in to hire those positions. I was ready to make it. And yeah, although it was a challenge, I was up for it. And so much of just the joy of filmmaking just overpowers any of that kind of
stress that happens. And also I think like I had a lot that I learned along the way that I can carry on to future projects. Just communicating with producers and the other positions that I took on myself, I should have an easier turn with.
The elber of the performances too. I'd say that you have a real knack for working with actors. I have no background in acting. I wasn't like a theater kid. But I just really enjoy that relationship with them and somewhat set so they kind of like understand what the film is. And also casting there's I could find a wonderful actor, but you know, if they don't understand like the tone of the performances, it's going to be hard,
you know. So I'm making sure that I'm casting in line with what the film needs to be and then having a lot of conversations beforehand so we're when we're on set, it's much easier. You know, they can be free and just stay within those boundaries and just play in the middle of it. Do you always direct what you write or have you ever directed other people's work?
So I've wrote everything or have been a co writer on other projects, but yeah, I've never had an experience of directing someone else's work. I'm interested in that to see what I can bring to someone else's story and step outside of what I know, So it could be interesting.
Do you tend to work on one project at a time or do you have multiple things that you're working on.
In terms of writing, I'm always writing. I have a couple of projects that I kind of loop around with, but with the actual pre production production, like to keep my focus on one thing at a time.
I don't want to be overwhelmed.
But I do have other creative outlets like between the films, like painting and things like that to just keep me busy in the downtimes.
When did you actually shoot Dorothy Bell?
So we shot it in twenty twenty two, in May of.
Twenty twenty two. Was that pretty close to what we're seeing now? Did you do have to do any reshoots or anything? No, we couldn't afford it.
We had to get everything and there's nothing cut like whatever we shot it had to be in there like it's it was interesting. So yeah, it was like just making sure double checking the monitor that shots nots off or there's nothing wrong about it that we would have to return for. But we did add a day, like the library was welcoming to have us return. But it's not something that months later I discovered in the that that we need to go back is it'd be impossible, like with the budget we had.
I'm excited to see whatever you work on next. Do you already have something in mind?
I do have two screenplays that feel most complete. I have a more full vision and then I have a couple of other projects that I'm writing book. Yeah, I'm gonna start to move forward on them and try and find funding and hopefully get the producer on board to make it happen.
Mister Villa Nueva, I had a great time talking with you, and I really appreciate whatever happened to Dorothy Bell.
You too, is a pleasure, and thank you for those words.
Yeah, you have a great time at Fantastic Fest and I'm so excited for you to see this with an audience.
Well do looking forward to it all. Thanks so much.
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