How did you meet Jonathan Demme?
BARBARA STEELE: That was just an amazing, bizarre moment in time. I was walking down Sunset Boulevard. It was around Christmas time. Nobody walks in LA anyway, so it was kind of a feat to be walking anywhere.
This vast blue car with fins from another era pulled up and out jumps this guy with this really radiant smile and says, ''Barbara Steele! Barbara Steele!'
And I say, 'Hello? Yes?' And he says, 'I'm about to make a movie, I've been looking for you everywhere, would you consider doing it? We start shooting in three days! Please say yes, please say yes!' And that was Caged Heat.
Is there a difference between low-budget filmmaking in Europe and low-budget filmmaking in the U.S.?
BARBARA STEELE: It was slightly different doing low-budget movies in Italy as opposed to doing them here, because in Italy there is an attendant melodrama to everything. So the crew and everybody actually adores low-budget movies, on one level -- not in terms of their salaries but in terms of the drama of it all.
The downside is that you're having close-ups after 18 hours of work, and the lighting suffers because the lighting cameraman is doing a huge amount of set-ups in a very short amount of time.
Do you like working that way?
BARBARA STEELE: I actually like the condensed, slightly frantic energy that goes into a low-budget film, rather than something that is more elongated and slower.
Everybody is in it together, in a Dog Day Afternoon kind of way. And I like that. You feel like a family in this rush, and you’ve got to get it done, and it's like you're all pushing at it together. You don't have time to worry about your make-up, you're just in there, and I like that. I think it's really great; I must sound demented, but I actually like it.
But, of course, it depends on the material. If you're making a film where the subject matter is extremely intimate and private, you need much more time. But the low-budget films that I have done were basically melodramas.
What was it like working with Demme?
BARBARA STEELE: I think that he was very smart and very hip and very attuned to that moment in time. He always wore these fantastic, fabulous shirts.
Demme was a very unthreatening, very charming, very upbeat person. I'm sure all actors have loved working with him.
I think the most important thing is that the actors feel really safe and comfortable. You can only be as good as you dare to be bad. And if the actor is spooked or apprehensive, they'll just freeze.
So the whole thing is for the actor to feel loved, really, and appreciated. Because it's a very vulnerable thing, to get into inside of somebody's face when it's blown up to the size of a vast fireplace or something.
You're pretty evil in the film. Do you enjoy playing evil characters?
BARBARA STEELE: I'm always invariably cast to play these villainesses. Unfortunately, I never got to play the great iconic villains, like Lady Macbeth or Medea. I would have loved to get my teeth into something really grand and deep.
I think certain actors have marquee value in certain films. With me, I got stuck in the whole horror genre, and so everyone needed to see me in that light, until I did these other little off-beat movies, which of course nobody ever sees. Like Young Torless, a Volker Schlöndorff film, where I was not a villainess, and is actually one of my preferred movies.
I don't know, I appear to be an archetypal villainess.
Dying to make a feature? Learn from the pros!
"We never put out an actual textbook for the Corman School of Filmmaking, but if we did, it would be Fast, Cheap and Under Control."
Roger Corman, Producer
★★★★★
It’s like taking a Master Class in moviemaking…all in one book!
Jonathan Demme: The value of cameos
John Sayles: Writing to your resources
Peter Bogdanovich: Long, continuous takes
John Cassavetes: Re-Shoots
Steven Soderbergh: Rehearsals
George Romero: Casting
Kevin Smith: Skipping film school
Jon Favreau: Creating an emotional connection
Richard Linklater: Poverty breeds creativity
David Lynch: Kill your darlings
Ron Howard: Pre-production planning
John Carpenter: Going low-tech
Robert Rodriguez: Sound thinking
And more!
Write Your Screenplay with the Help of Top Screenwriters!
It’s like taking a Master Class in screenwriting … all in one book!
Discover the pitfalls of writing to fit a budget from screenwriters who have successfully navigated these waters already. Learn from their mistakes and improve your script with their expert advice.
"I wish I'd read this book before I made Re-Animator."
Stuart Gordon, Director, Re-Animator, Castle Freak, From Beyond
John Gaspard has directed half a dozen low-budget features, as well as written for TV, movies, novels and the stage.
The book covers (among other topics):
Academy-Award Winner Dan Futterman (“Capote”) on writing real stories
Tom DiCillio (“Living In Oblivion”) on turning a short into a feature
Kasi Lemmons (“Eve’s Bayou”) on writing for a different time period
George Romero (“Martin”) on writing horror on a budget
Rebecca Miller (“Personal Velocity”) on adapting short stories
Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) on adaptations
Academy-Award Nominee Whit Stillman (“Metropolitan”) on cheap ways to make it look expensive
Miranda July (“Me and You and Everyone We Know”) on making your writing spontaneous
Alex Cox (“Repo Man”) on scaling the script to meet a budget
Joan Micklin Silver (“Hester Street”) on writing history on a budget
Bob Clark (“Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things”) on mixing humor and horror
Amy Holden Jones (“Love Letters”) on writing romance on a budget
Henry Jaglom (“Venice/Venice”) on mixing improvisation with scripting
L.M. Kit Carson (“Paris, Texas”) on re-writing while shooting
Academy-Award Winner Kenneth Lonergan (“You Can Count on Me”) on script editing
Roger Nygard (“Suckers”) on mixing genres
This is the book for anyone who’s serious about writing a screenplay that can get produced!