Being the loyalist I am, upon discovering the website for Live Freaky Die Freaky, the first feature from Rancid frontman Tim Armstrong’s Hellcat Films, I promptly got in touch with its director John Roecker. He seemed genuinely flattered that somebody had taken an interest in his epic puppet flick, and we made plans to meet up in LA.

Live Freaky Die Freaky is an unrated stop-motion animation film about one of the 20th Century’s most notorious characters. A thousand years from now, after humanity has destroyed itself, Charles Manson is resurrected to lead a naïve few. The voices were performed by Billie Joe Armstrong from Green Day, Theo from the Lunachicks, Fat Mike from NOFX, Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go’s, as well as members of Good Charlotte, Rancid, A Perfect Circle, Blink 182 and an assortment of other punk rockers.

I wound up talking with John and his editor and longtime friend Lorin Flemming at his gothic house in Los Feliz (he sarcastically claims to be a good Catholic). We sat in the backyard surrounded by various lawn adornments like Buddha, Frankenstein’s monster, and many wax-scarred candles – while a small crew buzzed away building a set for the film in his garage. His 19-year old cat Baby Doll lounged around too.

Live Freaky Die Freaky is John’s directorial debut, and I learned that he’s employing state of the art digital tools to realize his dream. The live-action scenes were shot in Sony 24p HD, and the stop-motion is being achieved through a series of still digital images which Lorin is animating using Final Cut Pro 4.

Technology aside, he was still dealing with a real-life movie production and all its hassles. Even the Atkins Bar he was munching wasn’t going to change that.



JAMIE STUART: So how’s everything going?

JOHN ROECKER: Good. The movie’s going really well. Working on the voices and everything is pretty much done. We’re trying to get West Coat animation going here, and it’s a difficult process cause of the whole concept of the film. There’s a lot of animators, but the animators are kinda – I think they’re more used to working on like 5-minute shorts. Cute little things. Or even like Chicken Run kinda stuff. And this isn’t Chicken Run .Chicken Run-Over . So we had a company and they bailed out. They finally read the script. But we refuse to compromise. We have these other animators who start Monday. We’re just trying to get this thing done and finished. When he looked at it – the animator in New York, Jim Storace – he was like, Yeah this is fine and everything. But then we added scenes – doing the dialogue we just started adding lines. Oh, can we add this? Can we add this? Out of frustration, the animator started going, No more stuff! I think it started as a 45-minute thing and it’s now going to be longer than 60-minutes probably. Which I think is great. I’m so sick of these short little indies. I’m not sure where there’s a market for them anymore. I like full-length features. That’s what I like. I don’t have ADD – I do, but not when it comes to something that’s good. And this is fuckin’ awesome!

JS: How’d it get started?

JR: It got started with this idea that I had forever. When you’re in LA and you’re a punk rocker, what you did in the ‘70s or early-‘80s was you went to thrift stores. That was kind of like our aesthetic. We went and we found stuff from like the lost period of time. You’d decorate your house and all that stuff…buy vintage clothes. You couldn’t go and get like jeans – they were all bell-bottoms. So you’d go and get stuff from the ‘50s. So when we went to the thrift stores we used to look at all the books and they always had Helter Skelter. You never saw a copy of The Bible. It was kind of a joke. We had all these copies of Helter Skelter. And as a kid I was just thinking, when this is all done, all finished – the bomb blows up or we die of some hideous virus – that book is going to survive. It’ll outlast us all. There’s just so many of them. And I thought, wouldn’t that be ironic if somebody picks it up and thinks he’s Jesus. I also thought it was ironic that the person who wrote the book is like this really right-wing type man. A prosecutor. He flamed the myth of Manson. He kept him alive. The right-wing kept this guy Manson around. Then like Guns n’ Roses recorded his song. They’re going, How dare you do this! And, What about the victims! Why wasn’t there money given to the victims from the proceeds from the book? Where’d that go? I think if anyone made money off Charles Manson it’s these people. Which is an interesting concept. But I think that they do it in a way to instill fear in us. Like this is the Boogey Man. So that’s pretty much where the concept came from. Then when I wrote the script I went, There’s no way that we can use real people! Just no way. Then I thought, Oh we’ll use inflatable sex dolls. Didn’t work. Awful. Do not do that. Bad thing. Then I thought, Well, let’s try stop-motion. I thought, That’ll be so easy. We can learn it... It’s so hard!

JS: I did it when I was 12 years old.

JR: You did? So you know.

LORIN FLEMMING: You think you won’t have to deal with actors. You can do it by yourself in your garage. It just gets so blown-up. It gets so huge. So time consuming.

JR: And you have to have patience, which I have none of. I just want it done. But I’ll wait until it’s done correctly. So we got this animator in New York, who’s really good. It’s looking really good. But we just need to go faster, so we’re hiring more people. Something about animators. They’re very strange people. I thought I was strange. We’re dealing with people that have lived with puppets their whole lives. It’s a little bit of an odd thing. I like it, I like the oddness, but it’s a quirk which I’m not really familiar with. So I’m trying to adapt.

JS: So you hadn’t had any prior experience with stop-motion?

JR: Me? No. I can watch a stop-action movie. That’s about it. That’s the whole thing. I watch the making-of and go, Wow! I was watching this documentary on The Nightmare Before Christmas. I was in San Francisco when they were filming that and I saw these animators in huge studios and all that. I was watching the documentary and saw Tim Burton fly to San Francisco and there’s this shot of him just looking at the dolls, then leaving. It’s like, Wow, that’s what I wanna do! I just wanna go fly up to this place and see my dolls and do that and take off. It’s not like that.

JS: How meticulously planned does this have to be?

JR: Pretty much. We were doing this thing where we had to get the dialogue, of course –

JS: Did you film them on video while they were recording it?

JR: Oh, yeah. That’s for the making of. Of course you have to junk up the DVD with all that crap. But we have some good ideas to make it work. For the $2.00 or whatever it’ll cost. But um…I had the script and I was waiting, waiting, waiting. And Tim Armstrong from Rancid said, You’ve been on the sidelines too much – cause I help bands, or used to, still do – he said, You have to do something now. We’ve entertained you enough, now it’s your turn. So here’s the money, you’re gonna make this film. So I kinda felt like the ugly girl being asked to dance. Who me? Really? He’s great. He said yes without even reading the script. And even Epitaph said yes without reading the script. Brett Gurewitz…I go, Wow, this is fantastic – are you sure? They went, Yeah, yeah, yeah… They finally read the script and went, This is amazing! Do not change a thing! So I go, All right… We don’t know what’s going to happen with an unrated puppet movie. It hasn’t been done before.

JS: What’s his face…didn’t Peter Jackson do that with –

JR: Peter Jackson’s thing is gonna look like Rudolph compared to ours. No offense, mister. But no, we come from the school of John Waters. It’s the same thing as like punk rock. It’s still this shock. It’s fun that you can still shock people. There was a time when you couldn’t shock people – like during the ‘90s, the early-‘90s. You couldn’t shock anyone! Now we’ve gone back.

LF: Now we’re so inundated with reality television…

JR: Now it’s like you really have to watch what you say. It’s really funny. You say one bad thing and you’re not…a Communist, but a traitor to the country. I don’t know. It’s good in a way for the arts because it makes it challenging again. But it’s also bad in a way for a lot of people. It’s bad for some kid that’s wearing black that lives in Boise, Idaho that’s getting the crap beat out of him. But there’s Hot Topic. There’s Hot Topics in the malls. I guess it’s doing some good. There’s a lot of people who don’t like Hot Topic – these punk people. But I think it’s cool. When I was a kid…man, to have a store like that in the mall…Jesus Christ! It’s fun discovering stuff yourself, but –

LF: It takes the creativity out of it. I mean, we used to have to peg our own jeans.

JR: It does. But like I said, going to thrift stores and all that stuff – searching… Hopefully people are smart and they’ll go to the next level. I did.

JS: Like when I was in high school, my friends were skaters and stuff, they’d have to go to Big & Tall to get over-sized pants.

JR: Right.

JS: But then by the time we were out of school, there were stores that were selling over-sized pants for skaters.

JR: And back in my day we had to chop down a tree just to make a skateboard. Had to whittle it. Me and Abraham Lincoln.

JS: When you were running from dinosaurs.

JR: That’s right. Damn those dinosaurs! That’s how you learned to skateboard.

JS: So were you always planning to use a cast like this?

JR: Always. Always. First of all, a) they’re friends; b) there’s no point in making the movie without someone that people know. That’s just how it is. That’s the reality of it. No matter how good the script is people just don’t care. In a way, I think it’s interesting to use these people. They’re really good. Everyone is good. It’s such an incredible cast. But there is a thing – like the Good Charlotte fans are very, very, very young. They’re like 5 or something. We’re getting these really angry e-mails: You better take care of these boys! The fans are very odd. I like it – it’s very cult-like. It’s very interesting. Very Manson-like with these people. They’ll do anything. These Good Charlotte fans and Green Day fans will kill for their artists. I like that. There’s this part – I’m bringing back the ‘90s that terrible decade – people just went from band to band to band. Now I think it’s slowing down where people are actually waiting for the next record. When I was a kid and like Blondie came out or anyone – like The Ramones – we stuck by that band. That’s what you did. Back in the ‘90s it was like one record and that was it.

JS: I think it’s also cause back then it was so much more difficult to seek out these people. So it made it more personal. Now you go to any store, any mall, anything – and there’s Green Day. It’s not like when Green Day was on Lookout and –

LF: Now there’s like 50 Green Day websites to your access.

JS: When I was in high school – I graduated in ’93 –

JR: John is flipping them off right now!

JS: This was prior to Dookie and everything – you’d have to go up to this place in Connecticut or down to the city in order to find anything. Right after that I moved out to Seattle in ’94 – this was right after they blew up and everything – and there were all these people that I dubbed “weekend punks”. All these kids who would have shaved hair on the sides, long hair on top that they’d keep in a ponytail during the week. Then as soon as it came to the weekend they’d spray that color stuff in their hair and go to like Green Day shows.

JR: They did that back in our day too.

JS: Yeah?

JR: Yeah. Or like asteroids. Like, wow, one day they’re gonna wash those asteroids out and have like long feathered hair. Look like Loni Anderson during the day. Punk rocker at night. I used to have girl friends who went to punk rock shows, and they used to have a pair of scissors in their purse – cut girls’ hair. You had to have short hair – that’s part of the thing. How dare you? We live this life. We live what we wear. We’d get our asses kicked during the daytime, so you’re not allowed to this thing unless you do the same thing that we do. It’s kind of just gang mentality, but at that time that’s just how it was. I fell for it. I still do. It’s still hard for me to talk to somebody in cowboy boots and a fannypack. A little trust issue going on there.

JS: I met Tim once. I stalked him. I was living in New York City – I was on 57th Street and I found out they were playing Saturday Night Live.

JR: Oh, yeah.

JS: Back in ’94. I’m like, maybe I’ll go down there and wait outside. And as I was getting there I just see the whole band going right inside the studio at NBC.

JR: I love those moments.

JS: I just ran after ‘em. I had drawn a picture of him and handed it to him. He was like, Wow, this is great! I’m like, Any chance you can get me inside? He was like, Nah, sorry I can’t do that.

JR: NBC security. He’d try though, I’m sure he would. He’s a really good guy. He’s really open and friendly to people. He has way more patience than I do. He talks to every single person who approaches him, which is really neat. It’s nice cause it brings back…it’s inspiring for kids to see that. A lot of these people are taught you can do something. You can make a movie. You can make a record. He does that. He’s really very supportive of new bands. Especially the new, new bands out there. Rancid’s supportive. Their philosophy is that Joey Ramone and Joe Strummer were cool to them, so they should be the same way.

JS: Giving back a little.

JR: Yeah, I learned my lessons. I was around older bands from the punk scene and they were a little bitter about it. We did this before and all that stuff. I said, Yeah, what about them? I’d say, how dare Green Day and Rancid and Offspring take all that money! But that’s just how it is. It’s a form of music that’s just gonna keep going on and on. Which is good. There was a time after like ’85 when there was nothing. There was no punk rock at all. And I thought, Jeez, I’m not gonna be able to tell my war stories to anyone. Because it didn’t exist. Then these other bands came and said, Hey, this is a vital music and we’re gonna keep this going. And they did and they made a success out of it. It’s fine. It happens. The people on the frontlines always get shot and killed – and the people in the back get the medals. That’s how it is. And those bands are really good. Green Day is a really great band. Rancid’s a great band. And they have the aesthetic and the look. It’s great. The thing about punk rock is, it’s music for misfits. It’s music about isolation. Now all those people – there’s something wrong with ‘em. There’s depression or a broken home or they’re working class. It brings those people together. Like country music used to do. Or folk music. That’s what it is. Punk rock is folk music. It’s music for folks. There’s always that connection. Like we got Jane Wiedlin, people think she’s this poppy girl from the Go-Go’s. No, no, no, no, no…

JS: They started off totally punk.

JR: And they are very dark creatures of the night.

JS: Most people don’t know they sang backup for The Specials.

JR: They were around way before that. Black Flag and all that stuff. Their early stuff could make Tribe 8 blush. And they’re just a band that grew. They’re a band that didn’t get a recording deal right away so they had time to grow. They’re a great punk-pop band. Same as like Operation Ivy – Tim’s in 2 legendary bands. Operation Ivy and Rancid are pretty incredible. What is he, 19 now? It’s an incredible legacy. It’s incredible working for him. He knows – he’s a genius. Not that I am. With Hellcat Records he is so supportive. With The Distillers and Tiger Army and all these bands that he helps. With AFI too. With Hellcat Films this is really exciting. That’s a genre he wants to move into. That’s what I can do – I can’t sing. But I can yell at people with a megaphone.

JS: How difficult was it to get Viggo to do something like this?

JR: Well, unfortunately this is the deal with Viggo: I’ve known Viggo for years and years and years and I’m godfather to his son – he is part of this film and he’s behind the scenes. I kinda backed down. When we were recording Asia Argento, this amazing, amazing woman – holy cow, completely fearless – she was reading her lines she was supposed to read to Viggo, and I went, I can’t do this. He was the only one. I just couldn’t do it. He’s worked hard. Really hard. I’m censoring myself. He’s the only one I’ve done, saying, I know you want to be part of this, but you can’t. He’s worked too hard to get to where he’s at. There are smart people who can understand this, a lot of people who don’t. I’m not saying that Viggo’s fans aren’t – they’re very Middle Earth-type fans. I don’t wanna get killed by a Hobbit or something. I’m gonna let him go for a while. I’m gonna see how it works out. The thing is, we have such a musical cast, and also casting him was kind of odd.

JS: Most people don’t really know his background too well.

JR: They don’t know that he has a very musical background. He’s a poet. A real artist. A photographer. He’s gonna be there, but not there-there as it is right now. I kind of woke up at 4 in the morning in a night sweat going, God, I can’t do it! I can ruin all the other people’s careers, but not his! He worked too hard! See the thing is, as an actor too, they’re taking way more of a chance. Way more of a chance than a musician. A musician –  this is expected. I was talking to Billy and was like going –

LF: To be a badboy.

JR: Be a rebel. But I was talking to Billy going, Are you sure you’re going to do this movie? Are you sure? He goes, I totally wanna do it. I go, But… He goes, John, I’m sick of my wholesome image! I gotta get a little bit on the edge right now and this is good for me. And it is good for everyone. It’s good for Good Charlotte. It’s good for all those people. Because it’s not like we’re being shocking for shock value, that’s just how we are. It’s not like if you write a song and you go: FUCK! It’s cause that fuck was meant to be there. You feel so strongly. You go, I just can’t compromise! This is a FUCK. But as to being shocking just for shock value, there’s that weird kinda line there. You know who the fakes are. John Waters – yeah, eat some dog shit! You know? There weren’t like test marketers going, How is a 300-pound drag queen eating dog shit testing with markets in New Jersey? Pretty good – here are the numbers. They just did it. He’s so inspiring. We were talking about that documentary Divine Trash – just seeing him and how he did it. It’s incredible. He just went for it. Didn’t stop.

LF: He’s a hero.

JR: He is a hero. He’s a person that people should really aspire to be like if they wanna be a filmmaker. Fuck…who’s that…Martin Scorsese. Jesus Christ…

JS: I was blasting the shit out of him on the website for Gangs of New York.

JR: That was the…

LF: Piece of crap.

JR: That was the worst piece of crap ever! Such an awful movie! And also cause he supported that snitch Elia Kazan. I’ll never forgive him for that.

JS: He gave him the honorary Oscar.

JR: He gave him the honorary Oscar and I just thought, No! No, no, no, no, no! And that was it. The people I like as artists I like in real-life. And there’s a reason why I’m attracted to what they’re signing about or the rolls they’re doing. But to do that is such a creepy thing. It’s hard to kind of separate the artist from the human being and all that stuff. I’m trying to think of a good example…Melanie Griffith…no, she’s made some good movies. Some out there…Raquel Welsh…no…never mind. She made some good movies.

JS: I think there was just this point after Goodfellas where all the critics started like jerking Marty off – this is the greatest living American filmmaker… Everything kind of changed after that.

JR: He was way better just doing coke at Studio 54 with Liza Minelli. That’s when he was the artist! But there was that revolution that happened in the ‘60s with Peter Bogdanovich and I’m not gonna say John Casavettes cause Lorin will yell at me…

JS: There was a whole bunch of them. Altman, everybody…

JR: All those people. And they were so inspired by French films. It’s like this revolution like punk rock in a way. Where is that happening?

JS: That’s what I’m trying to get started with my film in New York. It’s easy to do now. I kinda learned this – the last short film I did, I did for $50. And I got Final Cut on my laptop and my roommate is a composer so he has Pro Tools on his computer. We were able for $50 to shoot on mini-DV. We were able to do a semi-professional soundtrack with – we did ADR, folied all the sounds in. We did this all for $50. So it’s like, with a limited budget you can actually take it pretty far.

LF: That might actually be what makes it so hard now. The underground film scene with like Warhol and John Waters and stuff – during that time – that’s what we need now. Maybe because with DV it’s so easy. There’s so much crap out there. Everyone’s making DV films that –

JR: There’s too much product out there.

LF: I’m not sure. I think during that underground film time there wasn’t that much out there. So everyone went to church basements or whatever to see these films. It was harder. It was harder to make ‘em. They were making ‘em with film. That’s not offering any sort of answer. On one hand it is really great that we can all make films.

JR: But it’s really more of a patience thing. Now it’s like watching 5 movies.

LF: We just need a network that will support it or something.

JR: It’s like the same thing as records. Now anyone can record a record. It wasn’t like this unattainable thing. You had to get a record contract. You could just record in your house now. You could do it on your computer. Same sound they can do in studios now, pretty much. So the mystery’s gone. And there’s good things about it, there’s bad things about it. There’s so much crap in the market. It’s insane. There’s so much stuff. Just gets bigger and bigger and bigger. You gotta stand out. That’s the thing. In the ‘80s we saw B-films and Dave Markey movies. That was the stuff I saw. I’d go: Holy cow, you can actually make a movie! Not that those movies are unprofessional, but they looked like you could actually do it. And that was inspiring to me – if they can do it, I can do it. Like I said before, I can’t do any instruments. It’s another thing about the arts that punk rock had – in the LA punk rock scene we had art, music, movies. It encompassed all of the arts and photography – everything. And clothing. It was such a revolution.

JS: The thing I’ve kinda been saying is – I just think the budgets on movies…everything is so bloated at this point that it’s setting itself up to crash down within the next 2 years.

JR: And we’ll be there.

JS: Exactly. We’ll be there to rummage the pieces afterward. Try to build something again.

JR: Yeah. It’s hard. When we freak out about our budget, you see Once Upon a Time in Mexico or 28 Days Later and there you go. All you need is some kind of imagination. That’s the fun thing about it too. John Carpenter – the one movie he did that was great, Halloween – it was because he didn’t have money. He had to find a way to be able to be creative to make this motion picture. Which is good. If I had more money, I would waste it too. We have a limited budget. We make it the best we can. You work hard. If they want catering I’ll make ‘em a cheese sandwich. Or I’ll have Lorin do it.

LF: It’s like cooking. I find that you tend to make better things when you open the refrigerator and you’re stuck with what’s in there – then you create something. Rather than if you have all this money and go to the store and you’re like, What am I going to make? But it always ends up so much more interesting when it’s like, Okay, what do I have?

JR: What can I do?

LF: What can I do with what I have?

JR: Believe me, we’re stretching this thing. Everyone is actually working for free. The only people being paid are the animators. Pretty much. That’s where the budget is. If we can find animators that are willing to do this. We’re looking for like this cool goth kid that just got out of high school that’s willing to do it. We haven’t found him yet. I mean, when I was a kid I’d have loved to be able to do this. To work on something like this. It’d be exciting. There just wasn’t an opportunity there at the time. Damn it! But now there’s opportunities to work on so many films. Anyone can be a star. Anyone can be a director. Oh, well. See what happens.

JS: I kinda think things are going in the right direction. Hopefully. You get consolidation, then things ease up and break apart again. The thing I say is – and I’m not a particularly huge fan of Pulp Fiction – but who would’ve thought that the year after Jurassic Park became the biggest film of all-time that the whole indie thing would’ve started?

JR: Yeah. The only thing he really did that pissed me off was he revived John Travolta’s career. Why couldn’t he have picked Horshack? Someone cooler than John Travolta. He’s so hideous. I liked it. I like his movies a lot. Also, he finds obscure movies and has his own company put them out.

JS: Right.

JR: I mean, come on, Switchblade Sisters? I love that stuff! Same thing with like Hot Topic. I’m not gonna fault this guy who has good taste in movies and brings it to the masses. I’d rather have more people on our side than against us. Yeah, there’s this weird thing like, Okay, everything’s not cool anymore cause the Beastie Boys took it. That was our thing. We went to Monster Truck Extravaganzas. We did this and that and now it’s all cool. I don’t know. Sorry… (The buzzing from his garage gets particularly loud.) Boy the sets are gonna be huge that we’re building! My God!

JS: It’s gonna be like the set for Gangs of New York.

JR: Yeah, this is very Lost in La Mancha. We don’t even know if we’re gonna use that set. I’ll burn it down later. Cause that’s what we do in Hollywood.

JS: Well, at least you won’t have a firing range nearby or floods coming down.

JR: We’ve done worse than that. We did a desert scene. Ugh, it was a fuckin’ nightmare! I got stung by a bee. That’s filmmaking!

JS: That’s suffering for your art!

JR: Of course, I was wearing a flower outfit. I don’t know why I got stung! I still have sun tan burns on my kneecaps.

JS: You shot in the desert?

JR: We shot in the desert.

LF: We have a live-action portion of the film that bookmarks – it’s at the beginning and the end. So we went and filmed that out in the desert. It was hot!

JR: On the date of Sharon Tate’s death! Ironically. And in the ranch area where Manson was.

LF: We shot it on HD.

JS: One of the big HD’s or one of those new small things they’ve got? They’ve got consumer model HD’s now.

JR: It was a big one.

LF: It was a big Sony.

JS: 24p?

LF: Yeah.

JR: Lorin and the cameraman were whispering. I go, What’s going on? They’re like, No, don’t tell him! I guess the camera was so hot that the tape got stuck in it – and they weren’t gonna tell me. Like, don’t freak out!

LF: It took us 2 days to get the tape out of the camera.

JR: All of the hours of filming that day. It’s just so funny. Something like that could just set you back. I probably would kill myself. But it came out really good! The whole film looks really good. I thought those Rankin and Bass were – they’re so cheery, but dark in some way. Scary movies when you’re a kid. Like all that stuff that’s supposed to make you feel good, clowns and all that kind of stuff. It’d just terrorize you as a child. I like that. I like hidden evil. Here you go. Here’s this Wizard of Oz movie…

JS: Even if you watch The Shining or any of Kubrick’s stuff it’s always pretty brightly lit. It wasn’t like, let’s make everything all shadowy or underexposed like David Fincher.

JR: Oh, Fight Club. He has some really good-looking stuff. My God, he did Madonna videos!

JS: Honestly – I’m probably the only person who was ever paying attention – at 14, I would like spend my afternoons at home trying to watch his videos on MTV.

JR: What other stuff did he do?

JS: Um, he did Janie’s Got a Gun for Aerosmith…

JR: Oh, he did…that’s a good-looking video.

JS: But he was working with top people at the time. He was working with Jordan Cronenweth as his DP – he shot Blade Runner.

JR: Wow. Like, I like your work and I want you to work on this video… That’s pretty amazing that he can do that. I don’t even have a key grip. I want a best boy. I want one of those. It’s a family affair. All these people are a community of artists. I know it sounds corny but it’s true. We live in a colony. The Stepford Colony.

JS: How long have you been working on it now?

JR: Uh, the real production-production…5 months. I put the website up just to get that thing out of the way. Actually, it was just a thing where: I want the website cause someone’s gonna take the name! I was just so paranoid. My friend Jason Schmitt who’s doing the title sequences – Okay, well we’ll do this. We’ll just put this thing that says Live Freaky Die Freaky on it. Oh, we’ll do this. Just kept adding things. Then it became a life on its own. We got so many hits. We got these e-mails and some are really annoying going, Is this real? Is this a joke? And I go, Why is it so far-fetched that we can’t make an X-rated puppet film? With all these people in the movie? Do people actually do elaborate fake movie websites?

JS: I haven’t seen one.

JR: Wow, I should be in the business of doing that!

LF: But you started trying to get this movie made like10 years ago.

JR: Oh, yeah. The script. The script was real thin. Like half an inch and I just kept adding it on.

JS: I looked on the Internet Movie Database and dated for ’99 and Ann Magnusen was down as Squeaky.

JR: Yeah, and Henry Rollins was working on it. I’m glad that it stopped. It stopped cause I started doing different things. We had a completely different cast and all that. I’m lucky. I’m really glad I waited. The movie with these people in it is pretty timeless. Ann Magnusen is fantastic, she’s incredible. I think we just had some SAG problems. Didn’t really work out. She’s doing really well. She has a TV show now. There’s some people who I’m cool with taking a chance, and others I don’t wanna deal with the backlash. A lot of these people can take care of themselves, but I don’t wanna put them in a situation.

JS: Like Viggo.

JR: Yeah…Viggo can take care of himself. He’s a fearless man. That was my call. But the other people…fuck ‘em! They’re able to deal with it. They’re able to say, This is what I believe in. There’s a message in this film. It’s not this pro-Manson film. It’s a film about people and how they pick gods to control. That’s it. How you can misinterpret anything. The Bible that you read in not The Bible that was out there. Where’s Mary Magdelene’s writings? Where’s the other apostles? There’s only 4? I was born and raised a Catholic. You’re just fed that stuff and never question anything. At one time I thought, Gosh, I’m lucky to be born a Catholic! What if I was born something else – I’d go to hell. We used to have these Catholic books. You’d open up the book and it had a chart of like what were the leading religions. Catholicism was #1. Then you’d read a USA Today thing back in the ‘70s – and they had like Mormons and Jews going all the way down and like, We’re #1! Do the same thing with maps. Little roll away map…you see America – there’s America and we’re huge! Are we? Are we that big? Size matters. The masses – that’s all they care about. I still look at charts. I hate doing that. You never knew about how much a movie grossed or what a record did. Now we’re obsessed by it. You look in Entertainment Weekly and go, This movie only made this much. It’s a flop! It probably is because of how much it cost. That shouldn’t be the concern. This band sold 17-million records, then the second only sold 6-million. Oh, they’re on their way down! 6-million records! That’s a lot! It’s a hell of a lot. We’re just caught in this web of numbers and grosses and all that stuff. That’s what success is. I’ve seen too many amazing artists, too many amazing bands record some incredible music – such heartfelt stuff – and it just doesn’t go anywhere. I get offended by that. What do they need?

LF: It’s a battle between art as art and art as a business. Which in this town those lines are very blurred.

JS: Is there a line in this town?

LF: Well, this town is so much more concerned with it as a business. Everything’s focused that way. I think in New York it’s maybe more art-oriented. But I think there’s some pretty heavy-duty business going on there too. Here, producers are trying to make money with distribution and foreign sales before film even goes through the cameras. When they make a deal they sell all these distribution rights – and if they can’t get the right equation going to where they make all their money before a single bit of film goes through the camera, they won’t do it.

JR: Which we didn’t do. Obviously. Tim just opened up his wallet and goes, Just make it. It’s not the same concern. Doesn’t even think that way.

LF: Yeah, he’s amazing.

JR: Just, Okay I like the script, this is what I wanna do, get these people on board and let’s do it. Here you go. Here’s an account. We’ll start Hellcat Films. And that thing is really exciting too. It’s exciting for filmmaking too. I’d never done a stop-motion picture before. We’re learning as we go along. It kinda reminds of like the ‘20s, when they’d go, Hey, let’s do this. Or who’s that amazing German director who just died who did Triumph of the Will?

JS: Leni Riefenstahl.

JR: I saw a documentary on her and she couldn’t get a pole-vaulter shot right in Olympiad – so she dug a trench and got on her back. That’s how you do it! That’s how you figure it out. That’s what we’re doing all the time. It’s like, how can we figure out how to make this film look good? And Lorin’ll go, We should do this and this and this. Let’s try it. It’s an experiment. It takes a while, but it looks good. We don’t have a budget like Tim Burton. We don’t. Or Chicken Run. Those movies are really fuckin’ expensive. It’s time-consuming. Doing it on such a small budget we have to be as creative as we can. Our animator Jim Storace has gone beyond – What about this, what about this? What can make it look good? I said before, stop-motion pictures have been made. Concentrate on the lighting, check on the camera angles, make it into a piece of art. And Nightmare – they had some good shots, but they had a crane and everything. These giant things. We’ll make a movie that looks good without the money. That’s it. A record that sounds good is the same thing as a million-dollar record. It’s a fact. You have to be creative. And you have to eat cheese sandwiches . We’re on an Atkins, only cheese. We can’t eat the bread anymore. But the recording stuff has been really fun too. Going to people’s houses. That’s always kinda fun. In other people’s studios. Sometimes it dawns on me, it’s kind of a surreal experience – Wow, those are my words coming out of that guy’s mouth! It hit me. We filmed Billy Joe recording stuff at the Green Day studios in Oakland. We were in our cups at that time. We started at 6, got the merlot going to kind of loosen the thing up. And like at 5:00 in the morning we’re going on and filming it. It turned out really amazing. And I watched the film and I’m going, My God, that’s Billy Joe Armstrong doing my lines! It was so crazy. So surreal. I’m just blindly walking through this thing sometimes. It’s so automatic, so instinctive.

JS: How much music is going to be in it?

JR: Five songs. Roddy Bottom wrote the music – from Faith No More. He’s incredible. I burned him a CD of stuff going, I want you to write these songs and I wanna know what you think. And the stuff I had was like Rankin and Bass. Kind of pop cheesy ‘60s stuff. He called me up and goes, Thank God! I go, What? He’s like, I thought it was gonna be punk rock music. I go, No! It’s gonna be like Bob Fosse Broadway punk rock music. He was really relieved. He’s so good. He’s such an amazing pop writer. With the lyrics and stuff it connected. It put the film on a different level. Because I don’t think when this thing comes out that people can easily dismiss this as some kind of – trying to think of some kind of crass ‘fuck you’-type movie. Just for shock value. I don’t wanna mention any names. But you know who you are. So I think it went to a different level. They have to kind of look at this film as what it is. Instead of saying well, This is anti-religion, pro-Manson. What about the victims? It’s beyond that. I hope it is. I hope people get the point. I asked everyone who read the script, Do you get the point? Do you understand the point of the film? Cause I’m not gonna sit there and sugar-coat it or take someone’s hand through the whole film and explain why we did this. Either they get it or they don’t get it. But it’s so sad that you have to explain everything that you do now. Like people are these morons. And they’re not. They’re very smart people. And they probably have more information now than they ever had before. With the internet and all that kinda stuff. They can e-mail. Which I couldn’t do when I was that age. In the ‘70s I couldn’t e-mail.

JS: I read on the site that you’re aiming for February.

JR: Yeah, hopefully. Like I said, we’ve had some setbacks with the animation out here. We have to try and get this thing moving. So I used the guest house as a studio. Which will work with the right person. I think we got someone on Monday who’s gonna start. He’s an incredible animator. We worked with this company, but they said no. We were that close. This company, I’m not gonna mention their name, were gonna do the film – there’s this age demographic that we’re gonna hit. Whole marketing kind of scam. I was like this close to selling-out.

LF: We’re trying to get second unit going out here. Our main animator is in New York. We’re trying to set up a second unit to get the film finished faster. So this company agreed to help us do the LA portion.

JR: I said, The content’s pretty heavy. Nah, don’t worry about it, we’re totally into this. This is exactly what the kids want. I said, Did you read the script. They said, Nah it’s fine. I said, Read the script! He goes, Don’t be so paranoid. Then he called me up on Monday and goes, There’s no way we can do this film. He said it was the most repelling, most offensive, most violent script he’s ever read in his life.

JS: Wow.

JR: And I said, Those are compliments! You’re not hurting my feelings or anything. It was kind of a sleazy thing to do. It’s puppets! For God’s sake! But “repelling”… Wow! And “offensive” – I don’t know if it’s offensive, but…

LF: He was super-square. So we were kind of surprised at this guy’s interest to begin with. Just kept pushing it and pushing it. And we’re like, Read it! Don’t worry. So finally he does and says it’s like… That’s what we were trying to tell you. He was square.

JR: It’s funny, I think.

LF: It’s very funny.

JR: We’ve been shooting this blue screen scene and I swear to God, once it’s finished I never wanna see it ever again. I will burn that blue screen! That block of blue screen. After a while, it’s just like, let’s get on with the scene! It’s a patience kind of thing. It is working out. It looks good. Just as long as Tim doesn’t know what’s going on!

JS: Yeah, he’s in Europe!

JR: Just don’t say anything! We’re spending millions of his money! But yeah, the animation in New York just looks so amazing! Wow! It’s actually coming alive.

JS: Are you going straight to DVD or are you going to do a theatrical?

JR: We’re gonna do like special places in New York and LA and in Chicago. Hopefully. It just depends on the time. Then it’s easier to just put it out on DVD. Cause there’s really not an interest in unrated puppet movies in cineplexes.

JS: I’m sure there’s a few theaters in Manhattan that would be cool.

JR: Yeah, yeah. I’m not really sure about the film festivals. There’s really no point since we already have a distributor.

JS: It’s a way to build word of mouth.

JR: It’s so exciting.

JS: How’s it been working on this?

LF: Excellent. John and I have known each other for like 20 years. When he was finally able to get this rolling and the animation started, it just so happened that I was in the middle of film school. And was learning editing. So it was kind of perfect timing. And I have a Final Cut system at home. I have Avid Express on a PC too. I jump back and forth between Avid and Final Cut. It’s great. I’m not just editing, I’m helping with everything. It’s a great project.

JS: Is it difficult editing the animation?

LF: I hadn’t done that before. But it’s great because I work really closely with the animator in New York. He sends me out stuff. So when there’s something I need, I just call him up and say, You still got that set? I need an insert shot of this. Fill in this hole. And that’s how we work. We just call each other back and forth. That’s great, I just need a little of this… It’s totally different than editing a film. It’s interesting. There should be very little editing, cause you don’t wanna shoot stuff you’re not gonna use. So that’s the really interesting part. You’re actually kinda trying to just fill in a timeline. See what pieces are missing and add them. On a film you have all this footage that you’re drawing from. It’s a learning process. I’m really enjoying it.

JR: There’s not that many deleted scenes. There’s a reason why.

LF: Too expensive. And time-consuming.

JS: Is the whole thing being done on HD or is the animation being shot on film?

LF: The animation is being shot on digital still. We’re going to have an HD master. We’re shooting on a still at a really high HD resolution. Digital still pictures. It’ll be a full 16:9 widescreen affair.

JS: That’s interesting that you’re doing it with stills. Is that a normal procedure?

LF: It’s kind of like the new way people are doing things digitally. Because a digital still camera is a much better quality picture than a digital video camera, which a lot of people are capturing frames off of. So you just treat your digital stills as if they were film. Your stills that are in your camera on the memory card are your film. Then you use a frame-capturing program, a pencil test, to see what it’s looking like. Then you import your stills off your camera into uncompressed Quicktime files. Then that’s your film. It’s like 1600 by 1200 resolution.

JS: During the capturing it does the correct number of frames?

LF: You capture at whatever you need – 24 or 30.

JS: That’s interesting.

JR: It’s a fun process.

LF: You import it into the Quicktime that you select. Okay, I want this at 24 frames or I want it at 30 and it creates a little movie for you. It just takes a whole file of stills and turns them into a Quicktime.

JS: You’re using Final Cut 4?

LF: Uh-huh. 4 has that film thing that helps you with the telecine.

JS: It’s a bunch of programs rolled into one. A package of 4 programs.

LF: Yeah. The new 4 has a thing that helps you do a reverse telecine – going back and forth between the 24 and 30.

JS: I have 3 on my computer. I went to the store cause the G5s are out. They had it set up to a 23” HD monitor with Final Cut 4 – so I got to play around with it. I assume the whole thing’s been storyboarded ahead of time? What was that process like?

JR: A lot of bottles of wine.

LF: John’s a really good artist. He has beautiful paintings as the storyboards.

JR: I did the drawings for the website. I was just trying to find an easy way to not get rights for 8-10 glossies. I thought, Ha-ha!

JS: Came out better this way. With the bios and everything.

JR: Yeah, the bios too. Well, I’m not gonna say, Tim Armstrong da-da-da-da-da… So that was another confusing thing for the kids. That’s not right! It’s called satire. A joke. Some people get it, some people don’t. If they’re not gonna get that type of humor, then they’re not gonna get this movie at all! So what can you do? When I wrote the script I was writing it for myself. Or for people like me. I don’t know how commercial people do what they do. God love ‘em! To be able to say, This is what people want right now. Or, This is the kind of song people wanna listen to right now. This is the beat. This is the lyric. This is the kind of sound. Wow! That’s incredible! I have complete respect for those people. But you’re a horse’s ass if you do that and it flops on you.

JS: Very few people can consistently do that. Consistently figure out where the pulse is. Know what people wanna see.

JR: Boy, David Bowie used to be able to do it. God damn! That guy he just knew. Then all of a sudden…I think he stopped drinking or something. He doesn’t do it anymore. But that guy was so inspiring. Here’s this glitter scene going on – Ziggy Stardust. It must be so hard to become a commercial artist. I can’t. If I make fun of it, it’s just cause I’m jealous that I can’t do it. I don’t think there’s anything we can do to cut it to make it for the masses.

JS: It’s like when Darren Aronofsky was doing Requiem for a Dream. Totally unrated. Totally low-budget type thing. But there came a point after he finished cutting it, he was dealing with Artisan, it was like, Well, do we cut it to get an R-rating? The studio was like, Well, we understand that in order for you to cut this into an R-rating it’s going to completely miss the point of the movie. To take that stuff out would make it lose the effect.

(Visit the official site at www.livefreakydiefreaky.com)

-Copyright 2003 by Jamie Stuart
 

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