I noticed already it has been getting a lot of interest
Unbelievable! First off Scout Taylor-Compton absolutely amazing! She is a firecracker and this young woman is amazing as they come, I had no idea how good she was going to be, she is unbelievable. Billy [Wirth] had a great performance in Betrayed but he is even more amazing in Abeyance and Richard Tyson gets to play a real mean villain here, he just takes your breath away. We also have a new cinematographer. My cinematographer from before Michael [Kettenbeil] is super talented, but he is a silent camera who is very traditional in the way he shoots. I always like a camera that dances with the subject and we were a little held back from that as he was more stationary with traditional dolly pulls and things like that. Jackson [Swan] who has been my DP on Abeyance, he is absolutely incredible. This film has more action than any film I have done in the past, so to have a camera that can actually dance with that level of action, just watching the screens is just wow, it’s unbelievable. Because the camera is able to move with the subject it really has just enhance everything. I can’t wait to see how it’s going to be edited and put together now, because we also have the best editor we have ever had with Fred Mossman in Florida whose amazing.
Talking about all these projects coming out you do seem to be gaining momentum and you do seem to be getting better and more enthusiastic every time. Even the casting seems to be getting bigger where you seem to be attracting people to your films.
That’s one thing I have been blessed with is word of mouth. When people come in and act in our films they go back and tell their friends, “This is someone you want to work with, they are up and coming, but they are doing great things. It’s in Michigan but trust me”. Nobody is uninspired, they are all coming here and giving it 100% so I feel incredibly bless with that. Another thing is I have the mindset of a student, it’s how I always approach my martial arts, I always train, try to learn to grow. Right now, me and my wife are going through Sanford Meisner’s 13 ½ hour TV series. I am a guy who will sit down and watch 12-15 videos at night before I am shooting to look at different ways I can shoot a Mexican standoff, just because I want to make sure it’s alive, makes sense on screen and feels good. I try to nit-pick at everything to make it better, I think by having that mindset my cast and crew breathe that mindset because that’s how I lead.
Talking about your acting you have played several different characters in your films, but are there any particular roles you would like to take on going forward?
I love playing all different types of roles, because there is a little piece inside of me that wants to get out and I learn a lot about myself when I play roles. A lot of people think about reading and learning the lines, absolutely that’s important, but the fundamental learning is becoming the character. If you are going to be a character but you don’t know what their favourite colour is, or you can’t tell me what they had for breakfast I think we are missing the boat. That’s where acting happens, when you fully understand who you are and how you feel about the people you interact with. Truth happens and you can take the audience for a ride.
Going on from that are there any directors who you would like to work with?
There are so many, I will just say how blessed I am because in Michigan as we have a few directors who are making shorts. I have a list of five people and I have worked with all of them but one, that how I operate. I would love to work with Scorsese, Michael Mann, Christopher Nolan, the list goes on. I like noir, crime dramas, defined characters and I love Game of Thrones (2011-Present). I read that the main characters are based on a strong emotion with a character flaw or enhancement, so when you look at that it makes perfect sense why it gravitates and pulls you so strongly. There are so many great directors I would love to work with the list goes on and on.
Do you have any other projects which you are working on at the moment?
Right now, we are trying to take A Dark Mind through quality control and they are almost through. We have Agramon’s Gate and Abeyance in editing. In pre-production right now, we have Bennett’s Song Holiday, I know it’s a little cheesy but for a family movie you have to do it and that’s next. After that we have two scripts that I think could really hit the mark. Nancy is in the process of writing a script called Accidental Gods and that sounds incredibly intriguing. I wrote The Peculiar mind of Peter Strauss, which is a really wild ride. Its Alice in Wonderland for grown-ups. That one is going to require a little bit more of a budget, but I would love to make that one next. We try to make our films with a system of Plan-Film-Review. Right now, we are in the reviewing stage and we realise that Bennet’s Song has had an incredible amount of success before it has even come out, so it would be wise to do a sequel. A sequel with a holiday theme I think would do incredibly well and in Michigan with all the snow would probably be perfect, so that was the logical next step. After that it depends, I am in talks with the studios about getting a little more funding and assets which will determine what’s next after Bennet’s Song.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to get into acting themselves?
First things first, if you are a Facebook used find your local Facebook groups for acting, that way you can network and find out what’s going on. Even if you are in the middle of nowhere and you have no community around, you can learn a lot on YouTube. I took two film schools online, so I didn’t need to sit in a classroom and go at the pace of others, I can move at my pace. The beautiful thing about YouTube and anything else which is out there, you can learn really fast if you have the capacity to turn it over quickly. There is a lot of things you can do with acting to get you started just by looking up the greats, if you look at Stanislavski, Strasberg and the great acting cultures that brought the systems over. Meisner is someone who I am really enjoying right now.
Look for casting calls for short films, there are lots of short films being made all over the place, it’s a great place to start and you can work your way up. Don’t get so picky until you have done it for a while, in the beginning just do as much as you can because you don’t know if that’s all you are going to get. Be happy that you get to do it at all. A lot of people work in a factory every day they come home, they are tired and they don’t do anything else, that is their life which they live all the time. When you find something, especially an artistic outlet it makes life a lot more enjoyable, even if you still have to do your regular day job and do this as a fun thing on the side. It will energise you, it will motivate you, it will make you feel different. The cool thing too, when you are doing anything in the arts community you can run into a lot of people who are incredibly different from you and they all rally around the art. Its how we used to be before social media started dividing us everywhere, we are way more alike than we are different. I think art does that to you, it puts you in a room with a bunch of people of different ages, races, sexes and somehow you just get along. It’s a good place to be.
You can keep up to date with Harley Wallen and his Pained Creek Productions by following them on social media:
Harley Wallen
Twitter: @HarleyTheSwede
Instagram: harleywallen
Painted Creek Productions
Twitter: @paintedcreekpro
Facebook: PaintedCreekProductions
Instagram: paintedcreekproductions
Bennet’s Song
Into A Dark Mind
Taken Over
Published in various websites, Philip is a reviewer who is best known for his interviews and media coverage of independent projects including; films, books, theatre and live events. Always on the lookout for something different to cover!
