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| Gawk >> Epigoni Films |
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How did the two of you hook up and what was the drive to create films together? Ricky: Cassie and I started dating in November 2004 after we met during this comedy writer's challenge. Cassie: It was this horrible competition where they pulled set-ups out of a hat and you had to write sketches around them. Ricky: It was bad. We got eliminated after two rounds because ours "weren't punchy enough." Cassie: The guy that won wrote a four page running joke about gays in a supermarket. Ricky: I'd never been so proud to lose. Anyways, we hit it off. We both had the same sort of humor and goals and everything. It was a perfect match. Cassie: We're actors as well and what got us going on making our own projects was how tired we were of auditioning for the same 3 films over and over again. Ricky: It felt like every short or independent movie was either about suicide, a drug overdose, or some Guy Ritchie/Quentin Tarantino rip-off. Cassie: Or scenes from "The Graduate." Ricky: It got really old. Cassie: And we had this notebook full of stories and sketches just sitting there. So we got Ricky's old camera and decided to start filming. Who else is involved in the Epigoni Films projects? Cassie: It depends on what we're doing. We'll team up on bigger projects with our friends in Shift Pictures (based in Tucson, AZ) or we'll pull in people to help with music or direct. For "Wood Queeness" we found our director (Horace Kindler) at a screening at The Little Temple. Ricky: At the time we weren't aware we were looking for a director, but he convinced us otherwise. Horace is very persuasive. Cassie: We thought he was kind of nuts at first because he kept trying to give us his demo reel and offered to storyboard the movie. Ricky: Yeah, but his enthusiasm helped us get the project going much quicker. Cassie: Usually it's just me and Ricky and a camera though. Ricky: It makes it a lot easier because we don't have to coordinate schedules or work around anything. We just decide to do something and then go do it. What is the filmmaking process like for you? Do you plan it all out and start, or sort of go with what happens? Cassie: We try to plan out a lot of it, but once we start rolling everything changes. We'll improvise and end up going off on tangents that sometimes change the whole premise. Ricky: On our smaller scale stuff, we just talk out what we want for each shot and then go do it with minimal preparation. I've seen The Wood Queeness of Horror Mountain, do you have other work online? Ricky: Yeah, there's a couple of PSA's that tie-in to this awesome short film Shift is doing called "Preludes of Iron." Cassie: We also made a pair of political ads promoting this representative's solution to America's immigration issue. |
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 From The Wood Queeness of Horror Mountain |
What is the independent film scene like in LA? I can only imagine how saturated it must be! Ricky: Yeah, well what can we say that isn't cliche? There's an incredible amount of stuff being made, everyone's pouring their hearts into all these projects, and they're all hoping to hit it big. So there's an awful lot of energy out here. There's an incredible amount of bullshit too, so you have to take everything with a grain of salt. Cassie: Everyone's got a screenplay that's being looked at by Lionsgate or an uncle that can "get things done" at Paramount. If you can keep a realistic look at what you're doing and take it slow, L.A. doesn't become so overwhelming. How do you go about working within/with a scene like that? Cassie: For the most part, our mode of operation has been to work outside the scene in L.A., unfortunately we are meeting some cool people who are pulling us into it gradually. |
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Ricky: When we have an idea for a piece we have a group of about 5 confidants we get feedback from. They see everything from the initial script to the final edit and we'll tell them to be brutally honest. It helps a lot, considering since there are only 2 of us sometimes our judgement can be impaired. An outside perspective helps see what we may miss. Cassie: We also like to go to some of the screenings around town and see what other people are working on. When we see something really impressive, it makes us work even harder on our projects to make them better. What are you working on right now? Ricky: Right now we're writing, editing, & producing a segment with "The Colbert Report" on Comedy Central. We play this muckraking, neo-Woodward and Bernstein team that probes the really important issues. Cassie: Like prices at a fondue restaurant. Ricky: We get to work with the funniest people in television. We couldn't ask for anything better. Cassie: We're also starting pre-pre-production on a political parable called "Saturnine." Ricky: And we're co-starring in "Preludes of Iron" later this summer. We're keeping busy. What do you hope to achieve with Epigoni Films? Cassie: We don't want to be viewed as just actors or writers. To be good at what you do, in film, you need to understand every aspect of the production process. Epigoni Films takes that one step further because we are the entire production process. Ricky: We want to do work that we believe in, regardless of how ridiculous or terrible it may seem to other people, and we want to make sure that our ideas stay true from start to finish. And I think we're doing that. |
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