Waylines - Issue 1, Page 2

  Christopher Kezelos has been making films for more than a decade. With a BVA from Sydney University in film production, he’s worked as a writer/producer/director on ads, online videos and award winning shorts. He even has his own production company - Zealous Creative. Christopher wrote and directed his first animated short in 2010, titled Zero. His latest short, The Maker, has screened at over 60 festivals and won 21 awards. Waylines features The Maker in our Janaury 2013 issue, so head on over to view the full film.

  We caught up with Kezelos during the busy winter season where he gave us some insightful answers about The Maker, filmmaking and the future. Enjoy!

  WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND “THE MAKER,” THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY?

  My friend Paul Halley is a talented music composer. I convinced him that he needed a video clip so his music could reach a larger audience and that he should bank roll it! I had also been aware of an amazing artist from Ohio, Amanda Louise Spayd. I knew her intriguing puppets would compliment Paul’s music perfectly and allow us to create a beautiful haunting world.   Paul’s compositional piece Winter was so uplifting and dramatic and was used as the inspiration for the story. As the project moved forward it became clear the narrative was too compelling to be “just” a music video clip and before we knew it we had made another short film!

   

  WHAT WAS YOUR GOAL WITH THE PIECE?

  Our short film Zero was so well received by audiences around the world but it was the only animation we had ever done. The goal with The Maker was to complete a follow up film to ensure that we had a solid show reel for future work and to prove to ourselves we weren’t a one trick pony!

   

  WHAT SECRETS WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIVULDE ON HOW YOU WERE ABLE TO ACHIEVE SUCH GREAT ANIMATION?

  The Maker took six months from story conception to completion of post production. We shot it with a Canon EOS 550D (Rebel T2i / Kiss X4 Digital) and used Dragonframe Stop Motion software. The preproduction was the longest part of the schedule taking over 2 months to complete the one set and two puppets. As our film was made in Australia and our puppet maker was based in Ohio, we relied heavily on UPS and Australia Post to get us across the line! I won’t divulge the actual budget amount but will say it barely covered material costs. This means you have to be super resourceful and a lot of the R&D was completed on the fly. If you go to our YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/user/zealouscreative you’ll see a great behind the scenes video on how one of our boy genius animators Mark Lagana created a camera dolly out of a recycled scanner and used film stock as the driving mechanism!

  EVEN THOUGH WE ARE FANS OF STOP MOTION ANIMATION, WE WERE CURIOUS WHY “THE MAKER” WAS MADE AS ONE. IN A WORLD OF DIGITAL, WOULDN’T GOING CG BE EASIER?

  I have many skills; director, producer, editor, compositor, designer and chocolate connoisseur... but sadly 3D animator is not one of them! I had actually been making live action shorts for 10 years prior to our first stop motion. For me a stop motion set is exactly the same as a live action set except you have puppets instead of people and everything is much smaller. With my live action and visual arts background I was confident I could produce these amazing worlds with a low budget.   CG unfortunately wasn’t an option, with that said my dream is to one day make a CG feature.

  HOW BIG OF A CREW DID IT TAKE TO ACHIEVE “THE MAKER?” ARE THERE ANY JUICY PRODUCTION TALES YOU’D LIKE TO SHARE?

  There were 28 dedicated and talented people who made up the crew for The Maker, all were volunteers or working for near nothing salaries. What happens on set stays on set! I will say that towards the end of production I had a bit of a meltdown when I couldn’t animate a scene due to technical difficulties, so I rewrote the whole scene to make it easier. It’s when the male finishes making the female and shows her around the workshop, trying to wake her up. Originally I had him waltzing to the music with her limp body.

  WHY DO YOU WANT TO TELL VISUAL STORIES? WHY DID YOU BECOME A FILM MAKER?

  I have always loved the world of movies and from a young boy used my dad’s VHS camcorder to make my own films. As a teenager my friends and I would make martial art videos inspired by Jean Claude Van Damme. Sadly my roundhouse kicks ain’t what they use to be! After graduating from film school though, I moved into the internet industry which had just boomed but I was always drawn back to filmmaking. I love to entertain, I love to make people laugh and cry and one of the greatest rewards from making my films has been the audience response. As both our films are now online, fans from all over the world contact us daily to let us know how much my films have inspired them.

   

  WHAT HAS INFLUENCED YOU MOST AS A FILM MAKER?

 

  So many influences but particularly the DIY spirit of Robert Rodriguez, the magic of Tim Burton and the grandness of  Spielberg.

   

  WHAT ARE YOUR PLANS FOR THE FUTURE?

   We have so many plans! We want to make a feature stop motion animation, and would also love to make a live action feature one day.

   

  WHAT ARE YOU CURRENTLY WORKING ON?

 

  We just started a web series we called Smooshies which can be found on our YouTube channel, which is NOTHING LIKE our previous shorts… warning it’s not for the faint hearted! The Smooshies are dirty little monsters that get into mischief around the home. It’s a bit of fun in between our bigger projects. I am currently in pre production for a our next short, which is more in the vein of Zero and The Maker and should be online in February/March 2013. People can subscribe to our YouTube channel to watch all our films, behind the scenes videos and catch all our new releases. Otherwise we continue to develop our feature film scripts.

  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/344123031/waylines-magazine-year-two

  Despite the bitter autumn chill, Jonah's kiss warmed Allison's lips and sent unaccustomed heat swirling through her belly. Gravity didn't weigh her steps as she hopped up to the front porch. He had kissed her. He had held her hand and kissed her. Allison squealed and spun in a dizzying circle.

  Feet away, the walls of her house shuddered. Something heavy smacked against the inner window, unseen behind the thick cover of nailed plywood. In that instant, the heat from the kiss evaporated and reality grounded her like an anvil.

  Grandma.

  Allison flung open the screen and fumbled with the key to unlock the doorknob and both deadbolts. She jumped inside. Glass squealed and crunched beneath her flats.

  "Shut the door!" screamed Mom.

  Allison kicked the door shut and slammed the locks in place. Grandma's solid weight impacted against Allison's back, sending a gush of air from her lungs. The doorknob gouged her gut. Grandma's knobby fingers inched up her arms towards her neck. The buzzing sound grew louder; the earthy, indefinable odor more potent.

  Then Mom was there. With a sharp squeal, Grandma released her hold. Allison slipped around just in time to catch Grandma as she slumped to the ground. Mom stood there, panting, her hair electrocution-wild. A syringe gleamed in her hand.

  "She took an extra long nap and was too quiet when she woke up and then I couldn't catch her." Mom blew stray hair from her lips, tears filling her eyes. "Her first Kafka rage."

  "So how long were you chasing her--oh." As Allison heaved Grandma onto the couch, she finally had a good look at the room. Broken glass littered the floor. Two side-tables lay broken, one leg embedded in the wall like a spear. Through the arched doorway to the dining room, she saw more overturned chairs and the light of the gaping refrigerator door. Grandma had broken things before or tried to bust out, run towards lights outside, but nothing like this.

  The rage. The next symptoms... no.

  "Oh, Grandma." Allison stroked Grandma's shorn scalp.

  "Looks like she has some cuts and bruises. I need to take pictures of her and the room and then I can sweep up this glass."

  "You should have called me," Allison said.

  "Like I had a chance," Mom sna
pped. "But no, you had to go on your little date. I hope you enjoyed it, because you aren't having another one for a long time. She always seems to respond best to you." Mom gnawed at her inner cheek as she stared at Grandma.

  "Mom! That's not fair!"

  "Life's not fair. You're sixteen, Allison. You'll have plenty of time for boys and all that nonsense later on. Go grab the digital camera for me."

  Glass crunched underfoot as Allison stalked towards the hall. Like Mom had any place talking to her about boys, seeing how Dad left, seeing how Mom hadn't even attempted a date since Y2K.

  But maybe Mom was right, too. Maybe Grandma had missed Allison. Maybe that was why she flipped out. Maybe this wasn't "the rage" doctors talked about. Maybe it was something... weird. A tantrum. That's all.

  She made a slight detour to shut the fridge and reset the childproof latch. The office door was open, which meant Mom must have been working when Grandma's rampage started. No surprise there. Mom tried to squeeze in freelancing whenever she could. The monitor was darkened in screensaver mode, the green light beneath blinking like a heartbeat. Allison grabbed the camera from its dock.

  She took pictures as she walked through the house. A new hole in the wall. She stopped in the doorway to the living room and took in an empty spot on a high bookshelf. That broken glass used to be her great-great grandmother's vase. The one that used to be Grandma's favorite.

  It was just a vase.

  There were no curtains over the board-covered windows. A Plexiglas shield covered the TV, and that was frosted and scratched. Any shelves were bolted to the walls, cupboards secured with childproofing snaps and locks. Mom leaned against an open cabinet beside the TV, set something inside, and shut the door. A shot of whiskey, probably. As if Allison didn't know. Mom would probably finish off the bottle when Allison was in bed and bury the evidence at the bottom of the recycling bin, as usual.

  Grandma sat up on the couch. Her eyelids blinked as she stared dully into space. Her crudely-shorn hair lay flat against her skull, dull metal grey against pasty skin. Her shadow cast against the front door revealed the truth. Long antennae curved from her head and arced a foot in height. Two mandibles protruded from her face and worked at the air. From her shoulders, diaphanous wings clung to her back and stretched the length of her body and through the couch itself. None of that was visible to the human eye, of course. Not yet. Light revealed the strengthening curse, that Grandma's body had become the husk of a soul-stealing bug.

  That was the proof that Grandma suffered from Kafka Syndrome.

  Grandma used to be Loretta Christiansen. Retired letter carrier for the United States Postal Service. Sunday school teacher for thirty-five years. Widow of Johann Christiansen. Mother of one. Grandmother of one. Game show junkie.

  Really, when Allison thought of her grandma and who she truly was, her game shows were the first thing that came to mind.

  "Come on, you banana brain," Grandma would yell at the TV. "The answer's the Mississippi River! The Amazon isn't even on this continent." Grandma had declared that Alex Trebek was dead to her after he shaved off his mustache.

  Funny and old game shows were the best of all. Checkered bell bottom pants and big hair were standard issue, along with cheesy orange studio sets. Allison was crestfallen at age ten when she realized no other kids knew about Match Game 75 and Charles Nelson Reilly or the hilarity of the Whammies on Press Your Luck.

  Oh, how Grandma would laugh as she watched, light and feminine and free, and descend into giggles and wheezes.

  One day as Grandma and Allison walked the two blocks from school, Allison saw Grandma's shadow. The horns were mere nubs then, the wings like little fists from her shoulders.

  Allison wasn't scared. She reached for Grandma's hand and squeezed, and stood close enough so that the shadow couldn't be seen.

  The curse had been on Grandma and others for decades and the victims never even knew. Back in the early '70s, some group of animal rights radicals laid a sleeper curse on laboratory workers in five states. Their goal: make the workers become their own test subjects. By the time the illness manifested in shadows decades later, there was nothing magic or medical science could do.

  Grandma had delivered mail to all the labs within the complex. For some reason, the Asian cockroach room's curse was the one that clung to her soul. Ate it away.

  But Allison swore that sometimes a flash of clarity returned to Grandma's eyes. Sure, she might not be able to talk anymore, or laugh. She ate with her fingers gathered like pincers. Sometimes she hissed when surprised. And at dusk, she fixated on the lights outside, especially the ones reflecting on the lake behind the house--so they boarded up the windows. That attraction made the Asian cockroach different from other kinds. They hungered for light.

  They were also supposed to be really strong flyers.

  Allison refused to think about that final stage. It was a long ways off. But there were only some five thousand people under the curse, a few hundred with the Kafka variant. No one knew the exact timeline. Doctors said that most would die during that final physical transition, anyway.

  Until then, Allison had Grandma to love and care for, and that was all that mattered.

  The next morning, the house looked normal again. Spartan. The sharp stink of fresh paint made Allison's nose run.

  With the phone to her ear, Mom paced along the bay window in the dining room. "I know you're still building the Kafka wing, but this was her first big incident of the rage. Yes, I read the report--no, we aren't sending her to that lab. The whole point of that curse was to force her to be some lab animal, damn it!" She took in a deep breath. "Sorry. Sorry. She signed a living will before--uh huh. I'm sorry. Last night was just really rough and..."

  Oh. Mom was talking with the people at that special home for National Lab curse patients. It was down near the University of Washington. A really nice place. They were building it for compatibility with a dozen different curses-in-progress.

  Mom's voice slurred. Maybe the person on the phone wouldn't notice. Allison's stomach clenched in a knot. She hated mornings now.

  Mom trailed a hand down her face. "Yes. Yes. Thank you." She pressed a button on her phone and set it down on the table, staring at it between her fingers.

  "No progress?" Allison asked.

  Mom's lips worked for a second and she shook her head. "They can't build it any faster. Other than that, they said we can sedate her more if necessary. I just..." She looked away, blinking, her head bobbing slightly. "Hey, don't you have that biology test today?"

  "That was last week. But all of my homework is done. I had everything taken care of before my date, remember?"

  "Oh yes. Your date. That's right, it's Monday morning." Mom stared at where the calendar used to hang. Now only a few gouges from tacks marked the spot. "I'm losing my mind."

  "You could drink less." Allison tried to keep her voice light.

  "That's none of your business." Mom made no such attempt at levity.

  "It is if I hear you slurring like this first thing in the morning."

  Mom sucked in a sharp breath, the sound so like Grandma's cockroach hiss that it sent a rush of cold along Allison's spine. "How dare you. I'm an adult. I'm in complete control of how much I drink. It helps me sleep. Last night I needed all the help I could get, after that."

  Allison grabbed an apple from the fridge and made a quick retreat towards the front door. She couldn't bear to even look at Mom.

  Grandma was still asleep on the couch, her jaw gaped open. Asleep, she looked so normal.

  "Hey Grandma," Allison whispered, her throat hot with tension. "I've gotta go to school. I'll miss you. Maybe this afternoon we can hang out?" Without waiting for an answer, she planted a kiss on Grandma's forehead. It was a shame the game show channel had changed their whole line-up a few months before. All their old shows were shuffled around.

  "Allison. She's gone. This is just a shell--"

  "Don't say it. I'm sick of you saying that."


  "Reality's going to crash down hard on you when it comes, Allison. You can't be in denial forever."

  "Denial? I know Grandma's sick--"

  "She's not sick, damn it, she's gone! Dead! That's not her on the couch, get it?"

  It was the whiskey, it was that stupid whiskey that made Mom all awful every morning. Allison backed up to the front door, her nails digging into flesh of the apple in her palm. She swung her backpack onto one shoulder and fled. She hit the sidewalk running fast enough that the tears tipped from her eyes and flew away without touching her cheeks.

  "Come on, Grandma. It's time to get ready for bed."

  With her hand curled beneath Grandma's armpit, Allison walked her down the hall. They staggered together, Grandma's steps small and shuffling. She fitted Grandma in fresh disposable underwear and a pink paisley nightgown that snapped up the sides. Then she guided Grandma to her room. Mattresses sat on a bare concrete floor. Scratches gouged the walls. Allison tried not to see it, tried not to compare the room to how it used to be with its dense '70s wood furniture and Currier & Ives prints on the walls.

  She tucked in the old woman, taking care to layer the blankets and cover her wrinkled feet.