IFH 810: The No-Excuses Filmmaking Philosophy of Len Kabasinski

Alex Ferrari 1:49
Enjoy today's episode with guest host Dave Bullis.

Len Kabasinski 1:53
Hey, thanks for having me.

Dave Bullis 1:55
Yeah, and that's that's so awesome again thank you for doing this. I know you're probably got like, a million things to do today.

Len Kabasinski 2:02
You know what mate the hard part, all that stuff is over for me. I just sit back and relax now. So I just, I just show up at the venue at, you know, before the doors open, I look at the movie on screen and make sure it looks pretty or sounds pretty, and that's about all I do today. So I sit back and relax. And it's a it's more about the cast and crew anyways, that then me, my job for everything is has been done for a little while, so I just hope they come out and have fun, and then it premieres for the public in a couple of weeks here,

Dave Bullis 2:30
And that's really cool. Then I'm going to make sure to link to everything in the show notes that we talked about, too. And by the way, you know Len and I are probably about an hour away from each other, because you're in western PA, I'm here in Philadelphia. So usually when I interview everyone land, they're either in New York or LA, that's like, so usually their weather is amazing, and it's like, you know, a humid or it's a rainy day out here in Philadelphia.

Len Kabasinski 2:54
Yeah, you know, I'm a biker guy. I've been a motorcycle guy for most of my life. Um, so you know, when it's 90 degrees, humid and hot, or Vegas and it's 115 and people are bitching and moaning, that's the weather I like. I like it the kind of hot that people complain about. So the hotter the better.

Dave Bullis 3:12
Yeah, right? Because, you know, if you go out when it's when it's too wet out or something, you'd like wipe out, right?

Len Kabasinski 3:19
Yeah, it's not fun, right? Rain hurts when you're riding a motorcycle, trust me, it's, it's, it's not a fun time. So,

Dave Bullis 3:26
So, you know, Len and you and I too, have a lot of things in common, martial arts and filmmaking. And I wanted to get asked you about your filmmaking career first, you know, because you've done a lot of really cool stuff. And I wanted to ask, you know, you've been working since about, like, think, 2005 when you created your first movie, swamp zombies. So wanted to ask Glenn, you know, at what point did you get bit by the filmmaking bug where you said to yourself, hey, I want to go out there and I want to make my own film.

Len Kabasinski 3:51
Yeah, you know, it's, it's something I wanted to do ever since I was little, little, you know, when I was, you know, whatever, six years old or whatever, I started to want to do things, or creatively imagination type things were started to run as my mom would stay up and watch science fiction and horror movies with me. There was like a late, great horror show. It was called on Saturday nights at midnight. It wasn't a school night. So my mom would let me stay up and she'd watch, like man with two brains, or any number, Godzilla versus the smog monster or something like that. So, you know, and staying up and watching these, and they were all PG rated stuff. So, but still, it kind of planted the seed in my brain that, hey, look at all this creative stuff that's in front of me. And they get to do monsters and dinosaurs and scientific experiment dudes with two brains and this kind of stuff. So I thought, Oh, this is so cool. So, but going along and, you know, that that spurned my love, really, for for B movies and stuff like that, and that got me on on track that, you know, I still love that kind of stuff to this day. I still watch that stuff to this day, you know, my days, if it's not watching sports or obviously working, which is, it seems like I work. Five jobs at times Other than that, you know, I'm watching B movies on Amazon Prime, or seeing what the latest trauma flick on prime is, or the latest Godfrey Ho movie on prime is, or whatever. So I watch a lot of Amazon Prime stuff, but, but, yeah, my mom staying up with me, watching those films that got the ball rolling. But as I went into high school and college and, you know, back then it's, it's night, you know, the early 90s and stuff. There is no digital video or mini DV, even at that point, or anything like that. It's like, if, if you wanted to shoot your film, or do a film that was, you had to film on 35 millimeter. Now, yeah, 16 and stuff was around. But, I mean, nobody really got out there shooting on that stuff. I mean, you had to do 35 millimeter really, to be taken seriously even. So. I mean, even in movies to this day that like you see, Rifftrax makes popular movies like Future Force or something like that with David Carradine. You know, that's 1990 that's still shot on film. I mean, it might look like a movie with a $20,000 budget, but, I mean, that's 35 millimeter film. They had six figures right there, just shooting on film. So, so, you know, I didn't have, obviously, the knowledge or anything like that to to, you know, I didn't go to UCLA Film School and those kinds of things. Um, I just kind of always wanted to do it, but didn't have the real knowledge, you know, and still might not take to two, you know, those kinds of things. But as I went along, mini DV came about. I started just kind of hanging out at, like, horror movie conventions and science fiction conventions and stuff like that, where I I had ran into, again, this is a really, really condensed quick version i years later, ran into Bob Zidar and Chris Watson, who directs and writes and does casting. He does a lot of studies. He's an author. He has a few books out there. Chris Watson did a movie called Zombie get and he was working on, again, a very low budget movie populated it all. I mean, in my opinion, he really started the boom, if you will, of the one day on set things for, you know, name actors and actresses in micro indie movies. He would get Tom Savini for a day, or he'd get Bob zedar for a day or two. And he'd get all these zombie gun and is packed with B name, you know, actors in it. And that's what he would do, is go around to these conventions, you know, pay him a few 100 bucks, or whatever it was, and, you know, get him on set for the day, and bam, they're in his movie, zombie getting so I kind of learned some things from him and and right then the mini DV thing was, the ball was, was getting rolling pretty good. And that, this is around 2003 2004 so, so that's pretty much how it all got started there.

Dave Bullis 7:42
You mentioned film school, Len, and that's something that we talk a lot about on this show, because some people have gone to film school. I didn't, I didn't go to film school either. You know, I find that it's kind of there. You know, there's a million million one different ways to enter this business right there. You can do a ton of different ways to get in. And, you know, I think the people that are quote, unquote normal, other people that, you know, maybe sit on the couch, or they're driving or always saying themselves, oh man, I wish I could go out and make my movie. I wish. I want to make a movie. That's why, you know, with guests like yourself there, and the other guests have had have on, it's not really normal, because you actually out there doing it. You know what? I mean, you're actually out there. And, you know, Len, I mean, as we're gonna get into it's so damn hard to make a movie because you have to wear five different hats, at least, you know, you're always juggling 10 different things, you know? And it's like the fact that a movie even comes together is a small miracle in of itself.

Len Kabasinski 8:41
Yeah, and, you know, I've been there 12 times now, or something like that, so it's not that it can't be done, but, yeah, the amount of work and effort I tell you along the way, since 2004 it's I've probably met, I don't know hundreds of filmmakers put it that way, but I've met 1000s of wannabe filmmakers, or wish they would make films I don't want to see. Say wanna be, as in derogatory. I mean, you know, want to be, want to do stuff that kind of I've met 1000s and 1000s of them, but most of them quit along the way somehow, when they find out how really difficult it is. You know, I'm not interested in just being called a filmmaker. I am one. This is what I do. You know what I mean, I don't, I don't have projects and then just not make them. I mean, in my brain and the way I am, I mean, I have to do this stuff for you know, it's like sharks. They swim for it all the time, and if not, they die, sir. So that's kind of how I am. I feel creatively. I always have to keep being creative or keep working towards things, and that's just kind of how life is lived for me.

Dave Bullis 9:49
So, yeah, and I completely understand what you mean. I mean it is. And when you finally go sit down and start to write a script, or, you know, you go over and you're wearing a producer hat, and you're thinking. Yourself, all right, but we got to make sure our schedules are going to coordinate for these shooting days you gotta wear another hat for a marketing you know, from a marketing standpoint, she made the thing, and you're like, Oh, crap. Now I got to get it out there, and how are people going to be able to see it? So, so, so, Len, when you were making swamp zombies, which, which was, which was your first film, you know, at what point did you sit down, you and start writing the script and then say to yourself, oh, man, you know what I'm going to make this. I'm going to, I'm going to direct this. This is gonna be my first feature. You know what you know was there any, was there an impetus that happened where you finally said, You know what this is, the year I'm going to is, the year I'm going to do it.

Len Kabasinski 10:44
Yeah, you know, it was after I had met Chris Watson, when I when I had been on set of zombie get in, and I still talk to Chris Watson to this day. I talked to him a week ago. You know, I knew that his plan and what he was doing, and he was talking to people from either trauma or or or whatever. There's 1000s of, you know, distributors out there that want to sign your movie. So, yeah, I knew, right after zombie get in, I knew that what kind of camera he used, what, what could I do? And I thought, wow, you know, being on set of this, this film, I I could do this. Finally, you know, this camera cost, you know, a couple 1000 bucks or whatever. You know, I'm in college at the time. I'm in medical school at the time. And I said, You know what? That's it, I'll use a charge card, which is what 99% of micro indie people do a lot of times. And, you know, they put all their initial equipment and those kinds of things on it. And to this day, even though I do not use it, I still own the camera that shot swamp zombies, which is a Canon GL two but, but by and it's still a nice camera. It's just not a 24p It's in beautiful 30 frames per second, and just like Uncle Ted's video camera 20 years ago. So, you know, that's what we did and but I knew that, yeah, one's on zombie get in. I came back and I sat there and thought, man, you know, I could do this, but the script I wrote for swamp zombies. And I love writing scripts, but the script I wrote back then, I mean, again, I still don't have any real experience, it was a pretty ambitious script that I needed to have my head examined trying to produce a movie like that is my first film, but in terms of getting it out there and stuff. I did have a plan, though. I mean, even when I didn't know what I was doing, I did have a plan. I knew I wanted to get eyeballs on the movie, and I knew I wanted to pick genres, if you will, or or or entertainment outlets if you will, like WWE or the adult film industry or UFC, which was not in 2004 this big thing that it is today, UFC was just kind of still kind of getting rolling kind of thing so that that's where Dan Severn came in, that's where blue meanie came in. That's where Jasmine, Saint Claire came in. I mean, I strategically, obviously went and wanted to use these people because of their names and kind of a following that, you know, hopefully would come along. So, so, yeah, there was plans like that. I mean, I didn't go in just completely, well, I'm just going to film this, and whatever happens, happens, you know, I didn't go in like that. I kind of thought, you know, this is my plan. I'm going to get it signed with the distributor. They're going to use and market my, my star people here, and we'll see what happens from there. So that's how that came about.

Dave Bullis 13:23
You know, I actually have seen swamp zombies, and I actually watched it on Amazon Prime.

Len Kabasinski 13:28
So you've seen the condensed version of it, you've seen the 90 minute version of it.

Dave Bullis 13:33
Yeah, exactly. I Good deal. I actually went on a Len kabazinski sort of run. I actually saw that fist of the vampire, Curse of the wolf. Skull forest, I think. No, no, I don't think skull forest is on there yet. When I watched it, or maybe it was, yeah, I was gonna say, I don't. I think that's when I was, I was on your Facebook. I knew it was, it was bridal party massacre. That's actually, Oh, yeah. So, yeah. So when I watched swamp zombies, by the way, I was like, Dan Severin looks exactly like you think a police chief would look, he has that look to Him where He looks like a detective, or, you know what, I mean, like, like him and Don fry could be like,

Len Kabasinski 14:09
Oh yeah, yeah. They trained together back in the day too, yeah.

Dave Bullis 14:13
I mean, they look like those hard, grizzled tough guys. And they both are legit tough guys too, which is even, you know, I mean, Dan Severn, I'm a huge UFC fan. Like I was saying, you know, we have, yeah, that's me too, yeah. Like, you know, we have two things in common, martial arts and movies. And, you know, I remember, I remember the early days of the UFC, and it was like they had to have it in, like, Casper Wyoming. And it was just like, there was three rules, you know what? I mean, it's energy,

Len Kabasinski 14:37
I remember. And, yep. But Dan was my favorite even back then. But when I approached him for swamp zombies, yeah, super nice man. Actually, in swamp zombies, he came to Erie for the day because I had this swamp cabin type location that you see in the movie where I'm doing a Kata or something to introduce my character. We had that location and and. A couple cast members, their dad or something, owned it. So I was like, Man, this is a super awesome location. So I was really fortunate to have stuff like that in the movie. Dan Severn came out to that location to film some scenes. And then I thought, man, you know, I just don't have him fighting enough at this point. So I contacted him and said, Dan, you know what, he's in Michigan, but he had all kinds of woods and stuff around his property. And I said, You know what? What if I come to you, you don't have to do anything, just eat breakfast and come outside and fight zombies. So I'll come to you, Dan, because mission, Michigan's only, like, four and a half hours away drive for me. So I just we went up there for the day, and what a hospitable just nice guy. I mean, he was super nice and and we always wanted to work together again. But scheduling wise, you know what? Once my film schedules are set, I can't really change them, because I do vacation from work and leave and those kinds of things. And once I take my dates, my my dates are my dates kind of thing, and it just never could work out. And he's a super busy guy. I mean, even to this day, he does tons and tons of stuff, whether it's law enforcement or UFC promotional things or wrestling, he still that promotes those kinds of things too. And, yeah, nice man. I hope to work with him again. And, yeah, he was awesome.

Dave Bullis 16:13
Yeah, it's, I've seen all the things that he's he's done over the years. I know he went back into MMA, I think last year. I mean, he's got like, a, what is it like? I think he's like 105 or five or 110 and like 19 losses, like unbelievable career. Because, I mean, most guys in MMA, they last for maybe, you know, what, 810, fights. You know, a lot of the guys, and the upper echelon guys keep going. But I mean, you know, I mean, he has over 100 fights, for God's sakes. I mean,

Len Kabasinski 16:37
Yeah, with him too, though he's got a style too, though, if you look at him, I mean, look at the dude. He just has not taken tons of damage throughout his career. He's got a style that lends him to, you know, not get beat up a lot in fights. So I think that's one of the reasons he's lasted as long as, as long as he did.

Dave Bullis 16:55
Oh, I agree, completely. Len, he was definitely one of the forefathers of, you know, he has a more of a wrestling background. He uses that in the gauntlet. I'm sorry, the octagon. I'm jumping ahead. I'm thinking of your movie challenge of the five. That's what I'm thinking of. And so, but yeah, you know, I agree completely. And you know, he's just used his style so well. And when you know, and you also look at somebody like Don fry, kind of similar style, Don fry might strike a little more. I'm sure that all the people listening to this for film, by the way, film, by the way, are probably like, Dave talking about, you about MMA, right? Yeah, so, you know, but, but, yeah, help two awesome guys. And I actually was fortunate to meet Don fry before, but not Dan. And I'm glad to hear these. He's an awesome guy. Oh yeah, because he seems pretty intimidating, by the way, like, you know,

Len Kabasinski 17:41
Oh yeah, after the one after we shot Swan zombies in Meadville, Pennsylvania, there we all went out to Pizza Hut afterwards, and he was like, as nice as, like, a librarian type person. He's eating his pizza with a knife and fork. And he's Yes, sir, yes, ma'am, to the waitresses. And, I mean, he treats everybody super good. So you can tell he's like, I believe he's from Missouri, and he's got that kind of hospitality thing going on for him. So he's extremely nice to everybody and and with that too, he's got the wrestling base, but he acts like a true martial artist, though he has that respect and that that nature about him, that you can tell those kinds of disciplines kind of molded his character, probably personally as well. So, very nice guy,

Dave Bullis 18:25
And that's awesome to hear. You know, a lot of those wrestlers from the Midwest, you know, amazing, amazing stuff they do out there. And so just getting back to swamp zombies. So when you finally, you know, you were putting this together, and you mentioned, you know, you had a few, you know, pieces of the way the cast and crew, you know, helped you get maybe a location here, location there, or maybe a resource here and there. You know, was there ever a point in time where you had, like, a huge problem, like a production problem? My question was, yeah. I'm glad I brought it up. Thanks. I love to hear stories like this about how filmmakers overcame this. You know, you have a, sort of like a resource problem, and you know, so what was your biggest problem on and how did you overcome it?

Len Kabasinski 19:04
Oh, God, biggest problem. I don't know. I can think of one off at the top of my head. I don't know if it was the biggest problem, because we still would have got around it, but we had a local actress. Well, nobody's actors and actresses. We're all just starting, but we'll just say actress who wanted the role. She was the friend of Pamela, such as character in the movie they're going on the beach and stuff like that, and sunbathing and just girls hanging out on the beach kind of thing. Well, the one character did not show up, and I had just talked to them the night before and actually met with them and said, Okay, this is what we're doing. We're going to show up at this beach at X amount of time. I'll have you done within probably four or five hours, and that'll be that. And, you know, and they're like, Oh, great. This is awesome. I'm so excited to do this. Blah, blah, blah, blah, so Pam, such is on set. We're all down there waiting, and this person just doesn't show up, doesn't call me, doesn't do anything. And I thought, oh, man, now what! So and back then my brain wasn't running where it didn't. I'll get into a Hellcats example in a little bit here. But now, if something like this were to happen and somebody would no show, I'm pretty confident in my abilities. I could, I could script right on the fly and fix it, whatever the situation is. I'm pretty I have that confidence now that I'll fix any problem that arises like this, but, um, but, yeah, the actress no showed, and I was stuck without a character there, and I thought, Oh, God, I'm panicking and stuff. And then one of the extras comes up to me and says, Hey, I know this local girl that works as a stripper here, and she might, you know, come out and do this. And I said, Okay, offer 100 bucks to get down here, like, right now, you know, for the day. And he's like, okay, like, oh. And sure enough, he did. And an hour later came this, this red haired, tall, good looking, young girl that comes out, and girl, woman, probably in her early 20s, there, that comes out to set. And sure enough, we made the scene happen and it got done. And, yeah, she's the character that's Pamela, such as friend they go on the beach and she gets killed by zombies. So yeah, the that was, that was a major problem where somebody just didn't show up, who we pretty much fully expected to show up. So yeah, we had to pull that one out. And luckily, we did so but yeah, it's funny, you're watching on Amazon Prime. I had done the RE edit on that movie, and I chopped about a half hour from it and put it on prime. And actually, the movie has been out of print for several, several months now, probably close to, I don't know, almost going on a year anyways, because I got the rights back to that film. It is not available on DVD. It's out of print now, so you're going to pay potentially big bucks to try to find it right this second. But it's coming. It's coming back to DVD in like a month. I'm just sending it out to get authored now the DVD so, and then it'll be out and selling again on DVD, with a couple new commentary tracks. So it'll be a brand new package, new artwork, all that kind of stuff. So it should be just about a month, or maybe even a little less, and Swan zombies will be back on DVD.

Dave Bullis 22:15
Oh, that's really cool. I mean, you know, and by the way, I mentioned that about production problems, how you overcame them? You know, when you were talking about somebody not showing up, that happened to me too, Len, I completely understand where you're coming from. Because when I started doing movies too, that was one of the biggest problems, was people who would say, oh my god, you know, it's, I've always wanted to do this. I'm going to show up. And the day of they no show, no call

Len Kabasinski 22:39
Yeah, yeah. And, you know, but that's a it's a good lesson learned. And going forward in the future, when I when I'm doing extras, and a lot of times, I didn't have to coordinate extras going forward, sometimes I did, but, but then is I got associate producers come on board and things I would have like my associate producer for quite a few films. Now, Ruth Sprague does a lot of coordinating with extras and things like that, but the main thing I do is, if you aren't 1,000,000% sure you're coming, just please. You know I'm marking you down as a no. You know what I mean? I don't maybes are nos to me now in filmmaking, and it's like I try to only do the sure things, and if they show up, great, if it's a maybe and they show up. Great if not. I didn't count on them anyways, kind of thing. And that's kind of how I treat that.

Dave Bullis 23:28
Yeah, I concur if they're not into it 1,000,000% and they even say, Well, you know, hey, Len, I'll try to show up, or, you know, try to be there. I was like, that's that subtext, meaning, no,

Len Kabasinski 23:39
That's, that's right, right, right. I don't try anything. I just do it So, little faster. Pussycat reference there,

Dave Bullis 23:48
Yeah, it's, there is no do it or not. There is no try the Yoda, yeah, from the Yoda and, but so, you know, as you actually got, you know, swamp zombies, you got it done. You know, you're, you were able to sort of market it. So when you start, you know, going into your other projects, like Curse of the wolf and Fist of the vampire, you know what? What are some of the things that you, that you started to do, you know, maybe more of, or less of meaning, did you start hiring more crew members to, like, help you out? Did you maybe say, You know what, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get a person just for marketing, and maybe I'm gonna find some producers that I can actually work with, you know, to that I can keep using for project to project to project, project. Because that's something I found out, is too is like, you know, Kevin Smith has Scott Mosier, Quentin Tarantino has Lawrence Bender. There was always that, that, that tandem. So were you able to start, you know, finding more and more people that you wanted to work with?

Len Kabasinski 24:34
Yeah, you know, the way I tried to do it after swamp zombies, I went into Curse of the wolf. And the first thing I knew I had to improve right off the bat is I looked at other films and looked at my peers and things like that. And as I said, mini TV was still fairly new at that point, but so was 20 4p cameras for consumers. And I knew once I saw 20 4p and one of my other peers projects were looking like I knew right then and there I need to go. 20. 4p and I need to just try to get a hold of a good camera for curse. So I had bought a Panasonic 100 dv x1 100 a off of a guy that was filming biker documentaries for the Discovery Channel, and he was local, making motorcycle engines or something. He said, Hey, I got this camera. I'll sell it to you 500 bucks. And that's the best 500 bucks I ever spent because it went on to shoot, you know, three or four more movies for me on the DVX. It was just a workhorse for me, so I knew I had to improve that. I think we pretty much did that. And I think there's a big jump between Swan, zombies and curse of the wolf. I can see a big divide between those two films in terms of, look, at least, but, yeah, it's shit, you know, dude, it's you try to. I want that when I do my pictures, I want to have a cast that I can run with for a while. And I thought it would happen back on Curse of the wolf we had, we had changed editors, because the editors of curse of the wolf, were actually on set doing effects, so they really lived with curse of the wolf like I did. And he was not begging, but really strongly lobbying. Len, let me edit this movie. Let me edit curse, let me edit curse. And I was going to use the same editor as swamp zombies, but he kind of convinced me and Lisa, who was the producer of that film, to use him. And going forward, he ended up editing Fist of the vampire as well. And at that point, I'm like, Okay, let's do like, a three picture type handshake deal here. You know what I mean? In the micro world, you don't pay somebody 10 grand to edit three pictures. That just doesn't happen. You shake hands and say, hey, I want to use you the next three movies. Let's do it. So that's what we thought would happen. But he edited two pictures, and then I kind of just let them go from there. Just the amount of work and stuff and being a perfectionist myself, it's just like, I'm not happy a lot. I I tend to really try to just push and push people and get the best out of things. And you know that that's kind of a personality quirk of mine that doesn't always work out all the time anyways, you know, it's, it's kind of like a leader of a band that goes through a lot of musicians, you know, they either think he's a dick or they push him to work too hard for too little money and all those kinds of things. But I understand all that stuff. I mean, I know my my limitations when it comes to that. But, yeah, you know, it works out where you end up using the same people for two or three movies or so, but then they move on. Or, you know, something happens where, you know, they go on to their own projects or something like that. But, um, you know, at the end of the day, when, when my people want to go off and do things or do that, that's totally cool. But you know, for killer wolf films, at the end of the day, I'm the one still here. You know what I mean, I'm still here and working no matter what, and everybody else can leave and branch off. But, you know, at the end of the day, I'm still here doing stuff, and that's not going to change.

Dave Bullis 27:51
Yeah, you know. And I think you always have this sort of being the master of your own fate. You know what I mean, you always have to be, not only, I mean, you're like me, Len, you want to write your own scripts and honestly, because it's your story, it's your own special sauce, so to speak. And you want to say, You know what, I actually want to see this done. So I'm going to lead the charge to get this produced. Obviously, I'll direct it. And then, you know, and you want to make sure that, that the last part of that left is the production phase, you know. And you want to make sure a do, I have some kind of, you know, money to, you know, you know, cash is king, right? And then, you know, resources, the locations and stuff like that. And then we go into the whole cast and crew stuff of, you know, what's my list? And like you said, Len, you, as you keep doing this, your list grows more and more. So if somebody does drop out, you know, hey, well, I have a couple other people now, and I'm not sure, I'm not you know where. You know, when you first start out your list is very small. And then as you start going out more, you network, you and you start meeting new people.

Len Kabasinski 28:44
Yeah, when I a big turning point for me with the less is more kind of thing is between a movie I did called ninja prophecy of death, which was one of my higher last like, higher budgeted movies for what I do. I went in and did a movie called skull forest, where Skull forest, I tried to, like, not dumb it down, but I tried to do a less is more thing where, you know what? I'm not trying to get 27 different locations. I think skull forest might have four or five locations total in it, and something like that. But I knew that I'll condense the story. I'll make it you know, we're not going to be running around on a film like a day planner, you know, day one, we're in the woods, that's it. We're there all day. Day two, we're in a dance hall or something all day. And I knew I got really, I got better at day planning for, you know, what shooting on what day that, that thing I and the last several films have went really smooth for me to shoot. So day planning and constructing, uh, usually if I have extras, I put them all on one day, for example, like Hellcat, because extras are always the hardest thing for me, anyways, is to round up a bunch of people, get them all on the same day, on the same schedules, and all that stuff. That's hard. So if it's one group of people that I want to really have fun on my movie sets. It's not even so much my lead actors. It's my extras, because those are the people that populate scenes and make them look good, you know? I think so. So the number one group of people, if you will, on set that I want to come out and have fun is the extras. Because when I do my next film, I want them back to do something else if I need them. So, yeah, I want Hellcats revenge. That's coming out here, and it's already it's signed a worldwide multimedia so it's out of my hands now, but I do think the DVD is probably coming by, like Thanksgiving. Ish time here for Hellcats revenge, but we did a clubhouse, if you will, a female Hellcats like motorcycle clubhouse, and we shot all those scenes on the same day. We did an eight hour day or whatever. And all we did for that eight hour shift was film all the scenes where it's really, really populated in the clubhouse. And it worked out really, really well. So and we did the same thing where we were at a strip club. We shot all the strip club scenes on one day. Got a bunch of people who doesn't want to come out and be an extra in a strip club. So it's like we got a bunch of people on that day. So that's one thing I've gotten better at as we go along. But, yeah, it's the it's those elements that you've got to it's not about cutting or trimming. It's about, really, what I think I've gotten better at is writing scripts that I know I can accomplish kind of thing and and I get a lot of emails actually saying, Well, Len, how did you go about doing this or that, or how did you get this or that, and your films and stuff? And I said, You know what? If you want to accomplish your film and you're just getting rolling, or it's your first movie or second movie or whatever. Write one. Write your script to what you know you can get. If you have a script that calls for a double decker bus in France and sharks coming at you from the sky, but you can't get those things. Don't do it. Yeah, don't. Don't write it. So, and I'm not trying to limit your imagination, but what I'm trying to do is get you to have a film that's realistic for you to shoot kind of thing, and it's all for us. Being example, it's woods, it's guns, it's fight scenes, and that's about it. So I knew I could get that done, but so I tell them that, and then I said, you know, limit your cast and crew. Everybody wants to do a movie. Every Joe Blow off the street wants to do a movie, but when it comes time for them to show up on your set, and they don't, you know, don't be surprised kind of thing. So, you know, don't, don't make your cast real expansive and stuff. Just to start off, I would say, start, start small here. And speaking, I know we've talked a lot about swamp zombies and, yeah, I mean coordinating, God bless everybody that helped me out for that film. But yeah, sometimes it was just hell trying to coordinate 20 zombies on set or whatever. I mean, and I was doing it all back then. I didn't have an associate producer or anything. I mean, I was on the phone and doing, oh man, it was, I ain't going back there again. Put it that way, but, but everybody that helped out was super great. I mean, I've been really blessed that out of whatever a dozen movies or whatever it is now, very, very, very, I can't, I can't remember many dickheads or jerks really, so I've been really fortunate there. And yeah, even back in the day, to kind of prevent that stuff, I had met Jasmine St Clair and blue meanie and talked to Dan Severin and well, before shooting, because I knew I didn't want to bring these people on that were getting paid for their roles, and everybody else is covered in swamp crap and zombie makeup and stuff, and they're not getting paid. The last thing I'm going to do is bring Jasmine St Clair on set and paid role and have her treat my people like jerks or whatever. So I made sure everybody I used had a cool personality and stuff and and I still kind of work that way to this day. If there's a more name person that maybe once involved, I would talk to him and just kind of make sure that it's going to be a personality fit. I'm a real blue collar guy, so it's divas and those kinds of people, they're just going to hate me. I'm going to probably hate them, and it's just not gonna work. So, you know,

Dave Bullis 34:02
Yeah, you know that that's the thing, Lynn, you have to get those bad attitudes out of there. And that's so true, because those bad attitudes spread. It's almost like, like a disease, you know? It's almost like it was like a zombie curse, you know? It's like it affects one person, that it affects two. And that's why it's so good to, sort of like, hire, slow, fire, fast, as you're saying, out of business. And that's something I've learned over the years too, is, you know, I've been there. We were just mentioning about swamp zombies, where you're on the phone and you're trying to coordinate all these people, you know, I've been there too, where you're you're like, Okay, you're on the phone trying to give somebody directions, people coming up to at the same time asking you for stuff. And you're like, my god, you know, it's a lot, right? So that's when you need to have, you know, the crew to sort of, you know, to sort of delegate the, you know, all these assignments. And you want to have everyone have that upbeat attitude. Hey, look, you know, we're making art. We're actually out here doing something, and we're getting treated well for it. The director is not talking down to us. You know, we all feel like we're a part of the team. And I and, you know, I that. Is so key, because, you know, I've been on those sets here in Philadelphia where, you know, you show up and the director acts like, you know, who the hell is, you know, what are you doing here? Don't talk to me, whatever. And you're like, Come on, dude, yeah, we're all in the same boat here,

Len Kabasinski 35:13
Yeah, with stuff like that, I'm kind of the opposite. I wish I could hang out and talk to the extras more. Just talk to people in general. I mean, there's people that had starring roles in my films who I probably spoke three sentences to, you know, just because I don't, I don't have time on set and with a wonderful internet here. I mean, a lot of my directing, if you will, to the actors. It's done months beforehand. You know, we're communicating online, or you know, they'll message me questions about their characters, that I do a lot of the directing remotely. So when, by the time they show up on set, they know what's expected of them, you know, character wise and things like that. So it does make my job easier come actual, you know, film time when the cameras rolling, that they know what what I'm expecting of them. And that doesn't mean I still have to kind of direct them and reel them in from here or there, but it's, it's a good process that I get to nail a lot of direction really, ahead of time, a lot, many times.

Dave Bullis 36:13
And that's good. That's really efficient too, because that way, when they get there, you're, you know, everyone knows what's expected of them, and you can just rock and roll through this, and not a lot of you know, waiting around between takes and stuff like that.

Len Kabasinski 36:24
Oh yeah, Hellcats revenge. I rewrote the script at the last minute, literally last minute. We had a cast member drop out, and I thought, well, I'm still filming this. I'm just gonna change a couple things. And I'm, you know, I had people in from Vegas. I had people in from LA already on set, and I had to change the script and but I did it. The movie premieres tonight. It's like, it's out there. It's going to come to DVD later this year. And, I mean, wow, that was one of the craziest experience in film ever to have, like a lead, you know, not be there, and then me have to just kind of rework everything at the last minute, and it definitely worked out for the better. So it's one of those moments you just got to nut up and figure out, you know, what are you going to do this? Are you not going to do it? Pick a direction and go. And mine was, go make a movie. So

Dave Bullis 37:14
Yeah, and usually Len, that is the best option to go with is, you know what? You got to put your head down and just keep going forward. Because, you know, a lot of the time it is the right decision, you know, because it's better to make it than not make it right. So and So, as we talk about Hellcats revenge, could you just give me a, you know, give everyone a log line about the film?

Len Kabasinski 37:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, Hellcats revenge is your kind of biker revenge movie. I mean, you're not going to get some kind of complex, you know, seven ish story out of it, or something like that. I mean, it's pretty straightforward. Well, biker leader of a female gang is killed, and so her her Hellcats, if you were her gang riding club, or whatever you want to call them, kind of go out and try to find out who killed her, and they end up coming up against a criminal gang called the Vipers, and they kind of go at it, kind of thing. So it's a female gang versus a male biker gang in the film. And then there's kind of some like fence sitting shady characters that kind of kind of play both, both sides there. But yeah, it's not an all out martial art film. There is some fight scenes, obviously, in it and stuff like that. It moves along at a pretty good pace. It's like an hour and 20 minutes, I think. So I was pretty pleased with the runtime and all that kind of stuff. So I think it moves along good. We had an Osmo camera for this one, so we have some really cool, steady tracking shots and those kinds of things. The Osmo camera was wonderful. So I think, I think, I think what people will see is increased production values, just even stepping up from like Angel of reckoning. So I think they'll see those kind of productions, like lighting and all those kinds of things sound, we ADR, a lot of stuff in it. So we wanted to make sure, because that's a common problem, especially micro indie stuff, is lighting and sound are the two big things that you know, usually need the most work or end up sucking. So we try to really, and we did that with Angel of reckoning too, but even hell cats revenge even more so that we wanted to, you know, if we had ADR stuff, that is what it is. Let's just make it the best you know, that we can. And so, yeah, it's just a crazy little action picture. There's a lot of guns, few fight scenes, some hot chicks, that kind of thing. So I hope people enjoy it. It continues my trend of, like, action movies without being martial art movies. But um, that being said, you kind of mentioned this briefly, and I'll touch on it now real quick. Is um, I got I actually will backtrack to Hellcats one second here. I've had a lot of especially like Red Letter Media fans and stuff like that, message me that Len, when are you going back to doing like a lead type role? Because we they for whatever reason, like, when I'm I'm acting and doing that kind of stuff, and for the last couple pictures, I really haven't been but for those that want to see me in a lead type role, Hellcats or revenge will be your movie. I play the character snake in the movie, who is like the lead villain type character. So for those that want to see me in a lead role, Hellcats Revenge will be your movie. It's Lisa Neal. Playboy cover model. Lisa Neal plays the cat, the leader of the Hellcats, and I play Snake, the leader of the Vipers. So for those that want to see me in a lead role, that's the Hellcats is your movie. But that's a question I got, was land when you do an elite role again? So there's the answer to that. And then the other question I get a lot is, Len, your last couple movies, like Angel of reckoning, for example, aren't really martial art movies. When are you going to do your martial art movie? Well, that's coming next year. I'm writing now a movie called challenge of five gauntlets, which is a all out martial art picture. It is done in the vein of stuff I really love in the 70s, like Shaw Brothers studio martial art pictures or kung fu movies, those kinds of things. Got challenge of five gauntlets will be in that style. So it will be my first all out, you know, martial art picture. There is no vampire, zombies, you know, whatever. Then none of that is in it. It's all it's an all out kung fu picture. So, and that starts filming next, next spring.

Dave Bullis 41:18
And I know you mentioned that there's a certain somebody from Red Letter Media who's going to play the wise old kung fu master.

Len Kabasinski 41:26
I'm hoping that happens. If it doesn't, you know, it's not like I'm not doing the film or whatever, but I thought it would be funny. You know, if that happens, it's not a comedy film, obviously. But if it happens, I think it'll be really funny for the fans, if not, and they they're still interested in checking it out. They're going to get what they want out of me. They're going to get that that all out martial art, you know, picture. So even now I'm currently as I'm writing it, I'm studying a lot of fight scenes from that area, really, studying the choreography and things, not so much to like rip off things, because that's really not my deal. It's more to, like, understand, like, in a Shaw Brothers fight scene and challenge a fight or challenge in five element ninjas. You know, here's this big fight scene. How many moves do they go with before cutting and switching an angle or doing stuff like that? So really trying to, like, see how the fight scenes are in those films. And really, I'm going to try to mold my fight scenes in a similar fashion,

Dave Bullis 42:24
And that's awesome. Again, you're a big martial arts fan. You're a martial artist yourself, you know? I I've read about your background, I know you've done a lot of Taekwondo, a lot of Fang sudo, you know. And that's awesome. And you can bring that to to the to the films, you know, you do fight choreography. And I actually can't wait to see challenge the five gauntlets and see what you do with it.

Len Kabasinski 42:45
Yeah, yeah, it's I'm excited to do an all out martial art picture. I really am, because now, when it comes time for distribution, you know, back in the is, as we mentioned, mini DV booming, and the early micro horror type stuff coming about. Now I don't need to play to anything. I can just do a film. And, you know, I realized a couple films ago, and I try to be a humble guy about things, but, um, so I never see myself as somebody like this popular star type person that's just not myself, but, but now people seem to want to watch my films for me and not for, you know, certain actor I put in him, or whatever, you know what I mean. So that kind of allowed me the freedom to go, kind of go out and make, you know, gauntlets here, and say, You know what, I don't have to worry about trying to get a gimmicky name or do something like that. And I can go out and be myself now, and people will watch it for me, and I don't have to worry about trying to draw them in with something else. So,

Dave Bullis 43:40
Yeah, and, you know, I found that too Len, because when I was showing, I think, swamp zombies to a few people, they actually were like, Hey, where's Len at? They actually, and I'm not just saying next, I'm all, you know, doing this interview with you, but I'm dead serious. They were like, you know, they, they, they always felt that the movie, really, you know, quote, unquote, came alive, you know, when you were on screen. So, you know, honestly, and that that works well, honestly, Len, because the just like you said, you can actually focus on, hey, look, you know, I'm in the movie. It's just me. You know, people want to watch for you, and you don't have to, you know, you know, do anything. You know, you know what I mean. And that that's a great advantage to have.

Len Kabasinski 44:12
Yeah, and come to challenge of five gauntlets there, I will not disappoint them. I am the lead character in it. I don't know how many lead roles I got in me anymore. I mean, I would like to stay behind the camera more, much like I did for Angel of reckoning, which I got a lot of love for, that film. I think it turned out pretty well for for, you know, that kind of thing. But you know, even going back as I've had to close caption my films from the Amazon Prime, I've really been living a lot with the movies like Swan zombies and curse of the wolf and Fist of the vampire lately. And I'll say this, though, for Fist of the vampire, I was, you know, I would put that movie up against a lot of micro, windy stuff being made today. And Fist of the vampire is 10 years old now, so there's, I still think there's some good stuff in there, you know, swamp zombies, Curse of the wolf. There's a lot of growing pains, but, but fist, I think, has some, some decent stuff in it. Still that that can translate to today's micro filmmaking world. So,

Dave Bullis 45:06
Oh yeah, yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, you know, just as we as we all grow, and we all do our different films, we see different things happening. And we in this world that we're in, land is constantly changing. You know, there's constantly new technology coming out. There's constantly new distribution realms. I mean, I mean hell in in 2006 for first of the vampires and seven, Amazon Prime was even a thing, right? You know? I mean, it's, it's like, now all of a sudden, you know, you there's, there's an article a friend of mine wrote. He goes, if you were an indie filmmaker today, what's better YouTube or or Amazon Prime? You know, which one is going to help the filmmakers more? And at the end of the article. You know, spoiler alert, he picks Amazon Prime and and he feels that that's much better because YouTube has a lot of different selections of like, Hey, watch me play video games. Hey, watch me. You know, practice guitar. Well, if you're on Amazon Prime, it's there to watch movies, exactly, right? You're just there to watch movies.

Len Kabasinski 45:58
Yeah, that's smart. Yeah, yeah, there is no, you know, music, whatever that. I mean, YouTube can be anything. It'd be some I'm not playing with his dog in the backyard or whatever. But, I mean, when you're in Amazon, right? You're there to watch movies. So, yeah, I think that's a good way to go. And I think I'm gonna go that route when I've got a movie called Blood prism coming out that's gonna wrap in probably two months here. And that is another one, though, where, again, fans might see it and be like, oh, man, where's Len because I am not in the movie. I just, I wrote, I co wrote and direct it. It is a dark comedy. There is no action, fight scene type stuff in it. It's a dark comedy film. But I also, with that, want to show people, I mean, if they check it out, it's a, you know, I'm not a one trick type thing. I mean, yeah, I love martial art films and stuff like that. I love micro horror movies and stuff. But I also want to show that I'm not old school or new school. I'm I want to be all school So, and that's what I'm trying to kind of prove to people in blood prisms. So, uh, hopefully they'll check it out. But it's a very, very, very different, different movie.

Dave Bullis 47:00
Yeah, and I'm going to make sure to link to all your stuff in the show notes. Len, you know, I know we've been talking for about 45 minutes now. I know you know we're running out of time, because I know you have, you know you want to, you have a couple things to do before the premiere tonight. So Len, just in closing, just to sort of wrap up everything. Is there anything that we can get a chance to talk about that maybe you want to talk about right now, or anything you want to sort of say, just to put a period then this whole conversation

Len Kabasinski 47:21
Just to check out, like we just started a Patreon page. It's only a $2 we just have a $2 level. It's a patreon.com/killerwolffilms. If you want to check it out, I film new content every month, so it's not like you're giving me $2 and it just sits there, whatever. I really just only kept it at that level. It's not really more than that. It's, uh, you know, it's not a cash grab type, type thing for me. It's like, hey, you know, help me get lights or a camera or get a stunt man or something like that, in by by, you know, joining our Patreon. So, so we did start the Patreon campaign there. I'm on Twitter, twitter.com/terrible, films. Or you can hit me up at Facebook. I'm out of like friends things now, so you can't friend me because it won't let me. I guess I'm at a limit or something like that. But, you know, whatever, that's stupid. But yeah, there's they put a limit on your friends so, so that's very whatever. That seems like, communistic, almost. But yeah, you have a cap on the number of friends you can have, but check me out at facebook.com it's slash len.kabasinski or killer wolf films is on there too. But yeah, there's those new things I'm doing now. There's so many new things coming out, swamp zombies, Curse of the wolf. This the vampire. They're all coming back to DVD. They're out of print now. I'm working hard on them now to get them back out there. Like I said, Swan zombies will probably be first up, and it should be out by October 1, I would imagine so. So there's those things. Hellcats revenge should be on DVD by the end of the year, coming from worldwide multimedia. Blood prism, again, is another brand new movie that I just got done shooting a few months ago. That should be out by the end of the year on DVD, and then challenge the five gauntlets I'm writing. But also something that kind of fell into my lap within the last week or two. Here was a sequel to swamp zombies, which I know we didn't get to talk about much, but that might start, that could start shooting as soon as a month away. And that's filming in the Philadelphia area there. So swamp zombies, two would happen. It's kind of a Running Man mixed with survivor mixed with a zombie movie type story. So Newt Whalen, who owns a theater in Philly there, he actually wrote the script, and I was kind of just kind of changing and picking at things with them there. It's a really cool story. So I hope the ball gets rolling on that, and it'll, it'll continue my stuff, like, like I said, swamp zombies too, with it, with a name like Swan, zombies are not expecting to get Gone With the Wind type stuff there. But, you know, it's I told him that, you know, much like I told Red Letter Media when we were kind of talking about a bite of the mummy picture is, you know, I'm still Len. I'll still be Len, but at the same time, the swamp zombie production kind of Len is long gone. You know what I mean? I'm not interested in not getting better with lighting and sound and those kinds of things. So if you want that more shittier level of production, I'm not interested in going backwards. I just want to, you know, I want to continue my trend to getting better at those things. So as long as they were cool with that, I was cool with that. I still love trauma movies, Swan, zombies, two will still be that campy Troma ish kind of movie, but yet still have really good lighting and good sound and those kinds of things. So So I hope everybody can check it out, drop by my Patreon, or hit me up on Twitter or whatever. So I try to be super interactive with the fans. You know, I get dinged every time somebody sends me a message, so it takes me, you know, they're like, Len, you must not have anything to do if you're responding to all these fans. And I'm like, No, it's not that. It's just it takes me 10 seconds, if let not less, to just drop by and say, Hey, thanks for watching my stuff or whatever. So I appreciate everybody that's that's kind of supported killer wool films through the years here. And like you said, it started in 2004 when I started writing swamp zombies. And we're in the 2017 now. And I, you know, much like I said before, I'm still here, so I'm not going anywhere. So jump on board

Dave Bullis 51:26
And everybody. I will link to everything that Len talked about. Len and I talked about in the show notes. Len Kabasinski, I want to say, man, it's been an absolute blast talking with you.

Len Kabasinski 51:39
Thanks for having me on any time as we get closer to other, you know, newer releases I have towards the end of the year, or whatever. Let's do it again, brother.

Dave Bullis 51:46
You know what Len, I love to have you back on anytime. Man, I you know you and I could talk all day about this stuff. Oh, you talk about old movies too.

Len Kabasinski 51:53
Oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah. I'm a wealth of stuff. And speaking of that, just quickly on the Patreon page, I have a lens forgotten movie den, where I talk a lot about direct to video, maybe films you haven't heard of. Usually it's a lot of like 80s films or early 90s films. But I talked about movies like overkill with Aaron Norris, or I talk about George Rivera's fist fight, or a movie I adore from the 80s. So yeah, just just on a tangent there, about talking about movies all day. I try to do that. I pick a film each month to try to bring to your attention. I don't critique them or anything, but I just kind of say, Hey, there's this movie I really love. You should check it out, kind of thing. So again, thanks for having me, man. And enjoy your Sunday.

Dave Bullis 52:31
You too, Len, and I wish you the best of luck with Hell's cat revenge and now all the other things you got going on. So I wish you, but I know the Premier is tonight, so I wanted to focus on that. So best of luck with that, my friend,

Len Kabasinski 53:18
Thanks a lot man, take care.