Karina on SpoutBlog

Make out with Make-out with Violence

It’s rare that you Google the title of a film making its SXSW premiere in the Emerging Visions program, and discover a two year-old making of short, complete with impressively-looking underwater photography and 70s style voiceover, but the Deagol Brothers, the young minds behind Make-Out With Violence, seem hellbent on defying expectations. For one thing, unlike the Wilson, Duplass and Zellner Brothers who preceded them at SXSW, the Deagols aren’t real brothers; as their bio puts it, they’re “a collective of multimedia artists that strive for excellence in art and entertainment” who, “attracted by the communal aspect of film production, choose to not be credited as individuals.” We assume, then, that the above short outing the trio’s real names (we think?) will soon either be edited or made to disappear, so watch it while you can. Until then, the Brothers celebrate the communal aspect of film promoting by answering The 5 Questions We Ask Everyone in one voice, below the jump.

Tell us about your movie. Who did you work with, why did you make it? Give us the reductive, 25-word or less, “It’s like [pop culture reference a] meets [pop culture reference b]!” pitch, then explain what the quick and dirty sell leaves out.

MAKE-OUT with VIOLENCE is a semi-autobiographical magical realist romance made over five years by a team of high school friends. [Like] if John Hughes directed Tarkovsky’s Solaris, meets Weekend at Bernie’s as an atmospheric musical (inspired by Brian Eno’s four pop records), but no one sings.

The core group of filmmakers are the Deagol Bros, Eric & Jordan Lehning, Kevin Doyle, Cody De Vos, Leah High, and Shellie Shartzer.  We were all high school friends from Hendersonville, TN and returned home from art school to make our own film.  We were inspired by Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre to make a low budget horror picture and felt that a “high school” movie was also something we could wrap our minds around - so we came up with this story of supernatural unrequited love.  The “quick and dirty pitch” leaves out the long and dirty production of the film: the trials we put our friendships through, the personal mistakes along the way and the creative process that ultimately held us together.

Do you have a day job/a non-filmmaking occupation that raises money for your filmmaking efforts? Tell us about it.

We all work odd jobs to get by, sometimes involving creative things, mostly not.  Grading standardized test papers for the department of education, hocking old comic books and laserdiscs, working part time at the Frist, illustrating children’s books, managing a shoe store, freelance graphic design, painting murals, serving at Sir Pizza and working at Tower Records before the downfall are all ways we’ve spent our 9 to 5.  Eric & Jordan formed the rock band The Non-Commissioned Officers to play the soundtrack around Nashville and raise money/awareness for the picture.  We have put a lot of our own money into the film over the years, but the majority was paid for by friends and family.

Have you been to SXSW before? If so, tell us about your funniest story from the experience. If not, what are you looking forward to re: the festival and/or the city of Austin?

We have never been to SXSW.  We’ve been fortunate enough to take part in some great festivals recently and SXSW feels like further vindication for the five years that we spent pouring our hearts and lives into the film.  We’re hoping for a good time and a great opportunity to expose our film to a larger audience.

Let’s get hypothetical: You’re on death row. The night of your execution, you’re allowed to watch any two films of your choice. What would you pick for your last-night-on-Earth double feature?

LOTR Trilogy, Lawrence of Arabia, Crank and 2001: A Space Odyssey. In that order.  2001 would be last so that we could go beyond the infinite - go out in a beautiful dream after getting injected with the Chinese shit (”Beijing cocktail”).  We picked six movies because there’s three Deagols.

There’s been some criticism that the only way to get into SXSW is by being a part of an “incestuous scene where everybody knows everybody.” So who did *you* have to sleep with to get in? (Metaphorically or literally: are there any SXSW filmmaker(s) past or present that you’re close with personally and/or professionally, and how have those relationships helped or hurt the process of producing your film and getting it seen?)

We don’t kiss and tell.  That would be ungallant.