reH: Tell us a bit about yourself and how Evil Crew Productions got started.
 
Evil Crew: My name is Travis Vengroff. I am a writer, producer, co-director, and occasionally an actor at Evil Crew Productions. As you might guess, my life was greatly influenced by videogames. I also happen to go to anime conventions, which is why I found myself sitting next to a guy named Roy one afternoon. Roy, the representative of one such anime convention, was telling me that I had to make a movie to enter in his fan-film festival. Then he mentioned the deadline; apparently, I had three days to make a movie. To make a long story short, I invited Sean Keller (Co-director, Writer), and Max Lando (Writer, lighting, actor) over to help with the short film, Project Metal Gear. Written in a day, filmed in a day, and edited in a day, PMG was a total success. We got the Best Production award and were so happy with the finished product that we decided to go about making more films.
 
reH: What’s your previous experience with working on movies?

Evil Crew: I’ve worked with cameras most of my life, but in the professional world I’ve always been in front of the camera. I attended the New York Film Academy specifically to become a film actor, but somewhere down the line decided that I liked coming up with ideas and making them happen as much as if not more than acting. I also have a few experienced friends who’ve been giving me advice, people who’ve worked on projects like Jaws, MacGyver, and The Sopranos. They usually tell me if I’ve done something horribly wrong, like trying to get 85 zombies into makeup in 4 hours…
 
reH: What is the synopsis of the movie?

Evil Crew: Squad A of the UBCS Alpha Platoon has been sent into Raccoon City to rescue Dr. Terri Price, who was working with Dr. William Birkin during the time of the “incident”. Really can’t say much more than that without giving anything really cool away. When the second trailer is up (next week or two) there should be a bit more information than that.
 
reH: The plot bears a lot of similarity to Biohazard 4D. Was that the inspiration for the film or was it just a bizarre coincidence?

Evil Crew: To be completely honest we’d never heard of Biohazard 4D until last week, which is a good thing. If we had seen it, we probably would have never shot this film due to the striking similarities in plot that you mentioned.
 
reH: Who are some of the characters in the film? Anyone from the games?

Evil Crew: The film follows the point of view of Trent Anderson (Nick Fazio), one of the survivors of Alpha Platoon, Squad A, U.B.C.S. He tends to keep to himself, and is always being observant of the people around him. Officer Sharp (Ted Mase), is another character who stands out. He can be summarized as a paranoid, out of place, southern policeman in a big city. He attributes his survival to a book called The Zombie Survival Guide (by Mark Brooks), and swears by it. Some will be skeptical when they hear that Brad Vickers and Jill Valentine make ‘guest appearances’ in the film. Let me immediately add that by guest appearance, I mean guest appearance. They are in the film to give a sense of where and when to the viewer, nothing more. Murphy Seeker (Chris Carpenter) of the UBCS however, plays a much larger role in this film than in the videogames. In Resident Evil 3 you find him wounded begging for his life. This movie explains what happened to him.

reH: In what locations does the film take place?

Evil Crew: We shot the film at about 7 different sets including Main Street, a shoe store, and an old train.

reH: Are many of your crew fans of the games? How many have you played and which was your favourite?

Evil Crew:While Sean and I love the games we had to ‘educate’ our cinematographer (Kit Pennebaker) and the other producer (Rebecca Lando). Surprisingly enough, almost the entire cast has played and loved at least half the series. I’ve played every non-handheld Resident Evil except Gun Survivor, which is sitting on my list of things to do once I finish Morrowind Oblivion. My favorite game would be RE3, and favorite mini-game would be Mercenaries: Operation Mad Jackal, of course.
 
reH: Does Resident Evil adapt easily into a movie?

Evil Crew: Not as easily as one might think. The games use movie camera angles, and have the classic elements of any good horror film, but there’s one thing most people forget to look into. It takes a lot of time and effort to review all the dates, events, and locations required to make the movie game-accurate. I found the task to be a project in itself, and we even had five gamers review the script for technical errors and I’m still not entirely sure we got everything.
 
reH: Will you be using music from the games or tracks Evil Crew has composed itself?

Evil Crew: To make things as simple as possible for Capcom, we decided to only use their music. We thought about paying money to use a famous song or two, but that got too complicated.
 
reH: Your previous film, which was based on Metal Gear Solid, was more of a parody. Will Operation Mad Jackal be in a similar vein or will it be more serious?
 
Evil Crew: That was the first question the crew asked me when I told them my idea for the next movie. “Picture a helicopter full of soldiers being deployed on to Main Street, which is packed with zombies. Picture all the carnage as these men are being torn apart, eaten, and consumed.” Tempting as it was to make another spoof, Operation Mad Jackal is a serious movie. We have so much blooper footage though that we’ve considered making a ‘blooper mode’ of the film.
 
reH: Where will the film be shown and what is the estimated release date?

Evil Crew: The current plans are to premiere the film at Metrocon: Amano’s World http://www.animemetro.com/metroconventions/amano/control.cfm on October 14th and 15th. Pending Capcom’s approval we’d like to show the film at various other locations, festivals, and conventions as well.
 
reH: What was Capcom’s response when you told them about the movie?

Evil Crew: When we told them we were working on a movie they asked ‘how far towards completion are you?’ When I mentioned that we’d completed filming it they were a bit shocked. They asked for a copy of the script and a few production photos as we’re still editing the finished product. They were very professional to deal with.
 
reH: Are you hopeful that they will take you up on your offer to add the film to the DVD of Resident Evil: Extinction?

Evil Crew: I’ve worked with a few other videogame companies in the past regarding other projects and ideas, and I believe Capcom will give us a fair chance to get this film RE: Extinction.
 
reH: What sort of budget do you have for the film? Can we expect to see squibs or the odd explosion?

Evil Crew: We had a large budget by fan-film scales, but nothing in comparison to Hollywood. So while you can expect a lot of CGI special effects like muzzle flashes, explosions, and the like you will only see a few well-placed squibs.
 
reH: What BOWs can we expect to see in the movie?
 
Evil Crew: If it has two or more functioning eyes, you won’t see it (zombie variants not included).
 
reH: Your trailer showed off your depiction of Nemesis. Is it a suit? Animatronic? Will some of his appearances be CGI?

Evil Crew: We have a life-sized Nemesis suit that Henry Hall, our ‘monster guy,’ had to re-modify (a few times) to fit our actor, Sean Francis, who is 6’8. Having a life-sized Nemesis for the other actors to work with saved us a lot of time in post, and turned out really great on camera.
 
reH: How did you go about making your Nemesis suit?

Evil Crew: That is a technical question I am really not qualified to answer. I know it’s composed at least partly of rubber, but Henry Hall, our ‘monster guy’ did all the work. At one point he explained how he did it, but I must have zoned out.
 
reH: What’s your opinion of the official Resident Evil movies? What did you like/hate about them? What would you have done differently?

Evil Crew: To be completely honest, it depends. You really have to love the movies as a stand alone product, because they basically created an original plot using the elements of the Resident Evil series. The references to Alice and Wonderland, the new plot involving The Hive, and the great visuals combined to make a really great movie. It was also nice because it’s much easier to convince your friends/family to see a movie than to get them to play a videogame. However, when you start to get into the more technical aspects of the movie or try to interweave them with the videogames, things start to get ugly. The first line of the movie is a great place to start; “At the beginning of the 21st Century, the Umbrella Corporation had become the largest commercial entity in the United States.” Keep in mind that Raccoon City was wiped off the map in 1998, and Umbrella is supposed to be out of business as of Resident Evil 4 (the beginning of the 21st century). Another thing that bothered me was the cool licker-vision that was in the second movie, because lickers are supposed to be completely blind. In short, my gripes are technical.
What I would have done differently? That’s a fun question that can be answered in one simple sentence. I would have made the movies game accurate.

This interview is ©2006+ by Resident Evil Horror. Resident Evil Horror is © by DaMa. All rights reserved. Info for other webmasters: Don't use this interview on your site without asking for my permission.