Exclusive Set Report and Image Gallery from Buddy Giovinazzo’s Ginger
Steve Barton
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The first thought that came to mind upon arriving to director Buddy Giovinazzo’s then-shooting supernatural horror flick Ginger on Sunday, December 18 of 2011 was, “This looks like some place Charles Manson would have frequented back in the Sixties.” As I was to find, I was correct in that assumption, and as it turned out, Giovinazzo himself, too, was working hard to add yet another creepy chapter to the location’s storied past alongside Ginger stars Marc Senter and Elissa Dowling.
Arriving to set, the sprawling property along Big Tujunga Road for the most part was scattered haphazardly with ramshackle buildings roofed in sheet-metal, a rather stagnant pool, and abandoned machinery and horse stables, although as the wind whispered through the mature eucalyptus trees, so did an almost tangible feeling of rock ‘n roll history. Those who’ve ever spent any time in the homes which dot Laurel Canyon know the feeling, and the same outlaw creative vibe of the 60’s and 70’s which manifests in that hilly Hollywood enclave seemed to linger also at the Tjunga location selected for Ginger.
With the production shooting day ten of twelve, I took a stroll with Ginger co-star Marc Senter, who led me into the main house in which they were filming, it’s eclectic interior adorned with myriad taxidermies, funky furniture, and rock ‘n roll artifacts (little of it courtesy of the production’s art department, as the décor was for the most part entirely organic).
“The owner of the property told us that Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young recorded one of their albums here,” said Senter, whose dramatically intense turns in the films Red, White & Blue and The Lost have been critically impacting and who in Ginger plays a music blogger named ‘Mark Lighthouse’ who heads into the mountains to interview an up-and-coming singer (Dowling).
“They apparently used to jam out in the dirt yard here and just hang out all night long,” he continued, “and I guess Stevie Nicks also used to jam here. The owners also have this amazing recording studio in the back of property. You walk in, and it’s like leopard print walls and fucking guitars and a sound booth, and that’s kind of the cool thing about the place in that it does have a music history.”
It also apparently has a history of mass murder (or at least the presence of those who’d commit it), as co-producer Nancy Leopardi chimed in that the Manson Family, too, had spent time within the structure’s walls during its 1960’s heyday as a hippie retreat. This plays to the narrative of Ginger for, as scripted, the previous owners of the house Senter’s character visits were mass murderers, and the abode is now in narrative subsequently haunted by their malevolent spirits.
Other interesting tidbits of information thrown my way as Senter and I posed for a rather Rockwellian photo with a stuffed mount included the following: The property owner has a penchant for patrolling the grounds at night with a loaded 12-gauge while wearing NVGs, which meant the crew had little worry of having their equipment stolen. The property owner also favors classical music at high volume in his recording studio while reclining naked on a velvet couch in a cowboy hat while covered by a pack of hound dogs. Bathing in the swampy waters of the neglected pool is also a potential past-time, as the crew had witnessed the evening previous when the owner, late for a show at The Key Club in West Hollywood and experiencing plumbing issues, jumped into the brackish soup for a quick bath before speeding off in his Porsche.
Unfortunately, during our visit such interesting behavior wasn’t on display, nor was there much scripted Ginger carnage as Giovinazzo was busy shooting vehicle interiors with his principal cast. This did allow Senter and me some time to chat about what drew him to the project however.
“Buddy’s early film No Way Home, which I think came out in 1996 and stars Tim Roth, was fucking amazing,” mused Senter, who won ‘Best Actor’ at Screamfest 2006 for his role of ‘Ray Pye’ in Chris Sivertson’s gritty thriller The Lost. “It reminded me of films like The Indian Runner or The Crossing Guard, just straight drama with really clean, simple camera and not a lot of intrusive stuff, and I watched Buddy’s feature Life is Hot in Cracktown and saw some pieces of that that I really liked, too, so when I heard about this project, I was interested to read it.”
Querying Senter on his thoughts regarding his second foray into a genre that is universally considered as ‘horror’ (following Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever), he replied, “You’re right. Red, White & Blue wasn’t straight horror, it was more psychological, and I think The Lost was like that, too. So with Ginger, Mitch Davis from Fantasia had emailed me and told me I should check this dude Buddy out and the script he and Greg Chandler had penned. I have tons of love for Mitch, and Deborah Kara Unger, who had worked with Buddy on No Way Home, also said he was amazing so when I originally read Ginger, I thought there was something about it. It’s much more like Rosemary’s Baby versus like arms and heads flying off and shit like that so I was more intrigued by the story and the characters and the trip that they go on. And then after seeing his work and his segment of The Theatre Bizarre, it was obvious to me that Buddy was excellent at directing drama. He has almost a European sensibility. His films are clean and told well and are captivating.”
As for his character, “He’s a rock blogger whose dad was like this hardcore badass heavyweight music dude so he’s rebelling against his dad by being into more underground bands like The Brian Jonestown Massacre and acts like that,” expounded the actor, whose as-of-yet unreleased turn in his produced fight-film Brawler is generating a lot of buzz. “So basically he’s a journalist and kind of a shy dude who just wants to do his work and to do it well, and then he finds this girl Ginger (played by Dowling) and falls in love with her music and takes a risk to see if he can get a meeting with her.”
“When he sits down to interview her, he more or less starts falling for this chick,” Senter continued, “but tries to be an utmost gentleman because he is one and he’s also shy and nerdy and he just wants to make a good impression and to get a good interview. With that being said, he’s also terrified of animals, which I think is totally hilarious. He’s a total pussy next to this chick. She’s ballsy, sexy, and tough; and he’s like kind of a little wimp, which is why I think he’s totally awesome.”
Long known as a method actor, Senter stated of the nuances with which he imbued his character, “There are scenes that I play with my voice a little higher, and also, I stole a piece my outfit from the director,” he laughed, gesturing to Giovinazzo’s ensemble. “Look how I buttoned my shirt. Only two times, so I took that from him, but we both have pieces of this character in us, and it was a combination of them. Buddy’s a total artiste and very dedicated to his work and very nice, sweet, and genuine; and so the second I met him, I knew that elements of him were to an extent part of the character of ‘Mark’ and that I’d use some of that to inform my character. With all the other stuff, I was just really reminiscent of those Johnny Depp films like Sleepy Hollow, where it’s like he’s scared of everything, and that’s interesting to me, so I just kind of played it like he was very shy and nervous and sweet so that at the very end, where I turn into…”
Senter ended it there, teasing the scripted third act as well as another project he’s attached to.
“I’m working with Darren Lynn Bousman in kind of a ‘goth-opera’ project that he’s planned, which will be challenging ‘cause I’d have to sing,” said Senter. (Writer’s note: The producers of that project are being a bit cagey regarding casting announcements regardless that many have already hit the web courtesy of tweets from the cast so you’ll have to wait for the full skinny on Senter’s outrageous character in that project. Savvy readers and Repo! The Genetic Opera fans will, however, undoubtedly connect the dots: the project is The Devil’s Carnival, and it additionally stars Bill Moseley and Briana Evigan and, as we reported earlier this week, Alexa Vega, Skinny Puppy’s Ogre, Emilie Autumn, and Sean Patrick Flanery).
With Senter hailed away for a take, lead actress Elissa Dowling (who portrays the flick’s titular ‘Ginger’) chatted with me in her trailer regarding her involvement in the project, and while true I’ve known her for some time, her continued knack for self-deprecating humility coupled with her geek-girl enthusiasm (she’s a self-professed Mothra fan after all) proved as enjoyable as it has historically.
On what attracted Dowling to the role (the burgeoning scream queen’s previously appeared in dozens of indie horror films, including Giovinazzo’s The Theatre Bizarre), “Everything, but mostly it was the music,” replied the actress. “She’s a musician in the script, and because of that I get to sing, and I’ve been (personally) doing that on the side. I’m in a band called The Blues now, and we’ve been playing The Key Club pretty much every month and The Whiskey, and my heart’s in music so that was great. Plus Buddy himself is great so I was really stoked to be able to work with him. With this role I get to showcase some things I don’t normally get to.”
Case in point?
“My guitar player actually came in the other night and played a song (in the film) because I can’t play guitar,” offered Dowling, “and I kind of finished it on camera so hopefully it looks real! I mean, I know how to hold a guitar because I took six years of lessons, but I’m not as skilled as he is.” (Writer’s note: An original musical composition written and recorded by the actress and songstress entitled “Night of Nightmares” is set to appear in Ginger, with a possibility for another).
Of the challenges inherent to the location shoot, “It’s been the long nights,” said Dowling, “and my sleeping schedule has been crazy. You get to the point where it’s hard to process things. Buddy is very specific about what he wants and wants to get it before we move on to the next thing, and I don’t want to hold anyone back so it’s about maintaining that focus even when tired.”
The physicality, too, according to the actress proved happily challenging.
“I’ve choked on blood a couple times and had bite marks on my thighs, but it’s been nothing major,” Dowling stated, “but we did a lot of action when Jason London (Dazed and Confused) was on set. I haven’t done action like that before so I was a little intimidated because Jason and Marc are like pros. They did the majority of it, though, and we were making zombie porn jokes about it because there was a lot of grunting and groaning going on during, and Jason was in full-on bloody makeup.”
Regarding the status of writer and director Andrew Jones’ feature Manson Rising, another project in which Dowling is cast, “I hope it’s happening soon,” she said of principal photography. “I was really upset that we lost (actor) David Hess.” (Note: The Last House on the Left actor passed away on October 7, 2011, and was originally attached to the film).
“He and I used to talk a lot on the phone, and we were so excited that we finally had a movie that we were going to do together,” continued Dowling of Hess, “and now he’s not going to be there. I hope it happens, though, and my character in it is really cool. She’s the only one that actually witnesses Manson doing something physically harmful to someone else because the rest of it is all manipulation, but she’s part of him in a way, and he protects her. It’s not that he manipulates her as much as the other girls because she’s sort of a dark character already.”
As for Dowling’s next flick, she’ll be soon acting alongside a bevy of genre vets in Joe Hollow’s supernatural flick The Disciples (more about that here) with Laid to Rest actor Nick Principe, whom she’s also set to potentially star with in the film Dark Are the Woods, which is slated to shoot this summer in Australia.
Catching up with Ginger director Giovinazzo between takes, we sat down to discuss his approach to the feature as well as the challenges inherent in directing a low-budget film, his cinematic influences, and more.
“I’ve never shot a feature film in twelve days before, and it’s insane,” riffed the entirely personable 51-year-old New Yorker, and sure enough, I’d find that he’d only buttoned two of the buttons on his collared shirt. “We are averaging between twenty and twenty-five setups a day,” Giovinazzo continued. “For an indie feature that’s not extreme. I know some guys would be shooting forty to forty-five, but what we are doing is, we are shooting less shots and more takes and I’m just really working with the actors. Anyone who knows my films knows that the acting is always really good, and I really put my time into that, and I’ve got a great cast with Marc and Elissa. Marc is really on another level, and it’s a real brotherhood working with him, too, because we seem to have the same tastes, and that makes life so much easier. He’ll come up with something and I’ll think that it’s a great idea, or I’ll come up with something and he’ll go with it so that’s been a real pleasure.”
Shooting Ginger digitally on the Sony FS100, “It’s great because it’s smaller than the RED and we need to be able to move because we are shooting a lot of hand-held,” offered the director. “I’m not going for a shaky cam effect, but I want the shots to breathe and to have a certain creepiness and to not be sterile on sticks. If you can imagine a dirty version of what John Carpenter did in Halloween with that creepy drift, it’s like that except because it’s hand-held it’s more of a humanistic drift. This film is really about creepiness and atmospherics and character, but it does have its shock moments.”
We asked Giovinazzo what type of cinematic viscera viewers may expect (Ginger’s special effects were provided by Marcus Koch with assist by makeup artist Margaux Lancaster), to which he replied, “The gore’s been great! We had a demon-possessed dead body (played by actor London) that jumped out of a refrigerator and attacked Marc and tried to rape Elissa, and that was a great day! Jason was really good (in that part) and really creepy. We shot him three times because of course in my films everyone has to puke blood, which is required, so we had to reset each time to clean. He was really terrific. I would have loved to have worked with him more.”
Looking toward the future, “I’d just like to stay working in horror,” said Giovinazzo. “All of my work has just been on the edge of horror where they are too strong for the mainstream audience but aren’t actually horror so the true horror fans don’t like them. They’ve been basically social dramas that explode in violence. In some ways Ginger owes something to (filmmaker) Ti West because he’s a genre filmmaker who does humanistic dramas that have horror, and he works with his actors in a brilliant way. The thing is that I grew up on horror films. I saw Mark of the Devil in the theatre with a puke-bag and all of the double-features theatrically on 42nd Street when they still showed grindhouse cinema. But as I got older, I realized that the acting is really bad in a lot of those films, but then I saw guys like Carpenter and Romero and now West where the acting is really great. I was always attracted to character first, even when I very young and was watching films like The Wolf Man and Frankenstein. They were tragic and sad characters. So when I see the younger guys working on character, I think that’s just great because that’s what I love.”
Our thanks to Marc, Elissa, and Buddy for taking time out of their schedules to speak with us. Look for more soon!
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