The benefits of making a movie independently are plenteous, says 3: An Eye for an Eye writer/director/producer Lou Simon.
Was there ever a time when the film wasn't going to be done independently, with fresh faces? Can you imagine that version?
Imagine it? I dream about it every night. [Laughs]
But no, there was never any talk about not doing it independently. I never tried to shop the script around to producers or entered it into any contests hoping for it to get exposure. I specifically was looking for ideas on something we could do cheaply and efficiently on an indie level.
Are there other benefits to doing a film independently, without studio involvement, other than getting to captain the ship?
Having complete creative control is the primary benefit. Of course, a studio brings a lot to the table - besides the money to make the films (which is the hardest part of making one), it gives you a lot of power in terms of casting. I'm not opposed to working on a studio film, and hope to be able to do so soon.
What films or filmmakers inspired 3?
I was looking for a story idea that would involve as few characters as possible and one location. The film Bound by the Wachowski Brothers (at that time, now sisters) gave me the idea for the basic premise for 3. Everything else was strictly from my mind.
Did you frame or shoot certain scenes as a homage to those films or filmmakers?
Not in this one. I've done it before in others. There are quite a few nods to Halloween in HazMat, for example. We had quite a few timely setbacks on the set of 3 (like a storm that flooded the basement where we were filming) and we had to forego a lot of the flair we would have liked just to get the basic film shot and finished in time.
Now, do you know why the film's title was changed?
It's a matter of marketability. When you googled 3, you would get all types of false hits. Uncork'd wanted the film to be easy to find.
Did your leads have trouble with anything in the movie?
Not on set, but I was told that it was a hard film for which to prepare. For one thing, it is very dialogue heavy since you have three characters in one house 98% of the time. Memorising all that dialogue must have been tough, especially for Todd Bruno, who is in every scene.
Is this a 'message movie' in your opinion?
I definitely intended it to be that way. I started thinking about it in 2015 when nobody was talking about rape. In fact, there had been a couple of cases where judges gave convicted rapists nothing more than a slap in the hand. Little did I know that a couple of years later that is all we would be talking about, and we would finally start believing victims.
What's next for you, Lou?
I'm filming my segment of an all-female horror anthology in September. Then, start pre-production on a sci-fi, horror film about a man who wakes up after World War III to find that he's the only man alive in a colony of women.
3: An Eye for an Eye is out next week through Uncork'd Entertainment.