Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is not a walk in the park. If you just set up a page and leave it there for a month, you can't expect people to show up and contribute out of nowhere. So you have to work constantly on your campaign, sharpen your communication skills... and unless you have a whole team working with you, you will probably get behind schedule. I wanted to keep posting on this blog throughout the campaign, sharing thoughts and updates, talking about Sherlock Holmes and Frankenstein films in general, etc. But here we are, 4 days to the end, and this is the first article I write!

Let's share the Indiegogo link right here, because we don't want to forget that piece of information: http://igg.me/at/holmes-vs-frank

The campaign has been very rewarding so far: the goal has been met with time to spare, and now we've raised the bar to €40,000. A lot of people have shown support, sometimes unexpectedly. Many people from the French Sherlock Holmes Society (SSHF) have contributed, and Belgian Sherlockian artist Jean-Claude Mornard has been extremely enthusiastic and generous. Other supports have included famed Sherlock Holmes specialists Roger Johnson, Leslie Klinger, Howard Ostrom and the Baker Street Babes (sounds like a band), Charles Prepolec, David Whitehead - some of them are also Frankenstein or Hammer fans. My first feature film House of VHS has been screened for the first time three days ago, and several people contributed to the campaign after watching it – sometimes with a big sum, which can be considered a good sign!

People have different reasons for contributing – some of them want to see Shane Briant's return as Simon Helder, others want Ben Syder in a Holmes movie again, and others just like what they've seen of the project so far. Once the campaign is over, it will be my responsibility to make everyone happy, and deliver a movie that is entertaining, respectful and unique. And hopefully it will be able to please even the ones who have been snarling at the mere sight of the title.

In four days the campaign will be over, and the amount raised at that date will determine the leverage we will have to raise additional funds and make the film. So the higher it is, the easier it will be to get a big budget and an exciting movie. And it's important to have a list of names to show when financiers ask: “WHO WANTS TO SEE SHERLOCK HOLMES VS FRANKENSTEIN?” Well, do you?

The other side of Cannes: film markets

While most people see Cannes or Berlin as posh festivals where a bunch of stars drink champagne and rub their feet on a prestigious red carpet, there is also a whole other side that is mostly known to industry professionals: film markets.

Getting a film made and seen is not only a creative process involving preparation, shooting and post-production. It's also a business, as is evident when you walk the corridors of one of the major film markets. There are only a fistful of them: Berlin EFM (European Film Market) in February, Cannes in May, the Los Angeles AFM (American Film Market) in November, and a few others in Hong Kong, Dubai, and now in Montreal and Bruxelles for horror and fantasy movies.

The innocent passersby will have a hard time sorting out which film is already completed (and sometimes available in some territories), and which film is still only a title and a poster, waiting for filming or still looking for funding. A quick look at the projects reveals that even today, 40 years after the release of Jaws, there is still an incredible amount of love for shark movies: Sharknado comes to mind, of course, but the market also bears titles such as Sky Sharks, Sharktopus, Atomic Shark, 2-Headed Shark Attack, 3-Headed Shark Attack or even the incredible Raiders of the Lost Shark. If you don't have sharks in the film, you probably should attach a strategic actor to your cast: Steven Seagal and Dolph Lundgren are still incredibly popular on an international level, as are Gary Daniels, Eric Robert, Danny Trejo and Michael Madsen. Of course, having a film with both Dolph Lundgren and a shark is a double win, as the producers of Shark Lake obviously know.

In a market overflooded with very low budget movies and prefinanced action flicks, it is really hard to secure funding for an ambitious movie like Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. Until there's a strategic name on the poster, or an indisputable wave of interest for the project, our film remains one of the many posters waiting in line for money. In order to speed things up, we will be running a big crowdfunding campaign starting next Monday, to raise 25,000€ and begin filming a few scenes. If we can pull off this stunt, the rest of the budget will be much easier to assemble – and you will finally get to see Shane Briant, Clement von Franckenstein and a few other familiar faces in an exciting gothic mystery.

Join the effort on Indiegogo next week if you want to watch Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein in the near future and see your name in the credits!

May 2d: St. Boris's Day

Today, we celebrate people with the name Boris. But isn't it ironic that the most famous Boris of all is actually called... William?! Boris Karloff, whom we all know for his portrayal of Frankenstein's monster in the first three Universal movies, was born William Henry Pratt in 1887, and there was nothing russian about him. A bit indian on his paternal grandmother's side, but no reason for him to choose Boris Karloff as his stage name.

Before he became an icon of horror, he was an intimidating supporting actor in stage plays and a truckload of silent films. He was already 32 when he first appeared on screen. Finding these early performances can be a bit tricky, but you should be able to find a copy of Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1927) somewhere.

In 1931, James Whale directed a lavish screen version of Frankenstein, which was not adapted from the book but from a successful stage play. The scientist was played by Colin Clive, but the creature was embodied by an mysterious uncredited actor, whose name was only revealed in the closing credits. Boris Karloff became a star overnight, and returned of course in The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Son of Frankenstein with Basil Rathbone and Bela Lugosi (1939), House of Frankenstein (1944, where Karloff didn't play the monster but a Dr Gustav Niemann), but also played Fu Manchu, Mr Wong (a Fu Manchu ripoff), the Mummy Imhotep, various mad scientists and a bunch of villains who antagonize Dick Tracy and Charlie Chan.

In 1953, the golden age of black & white horror was almost over, and Karloff only played Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde for laughs, opposite Abbott & Costello. In 1958, at a time where Hammer Films was taking over gothic horror, he played Baron Frankenstein himself in a weak movie called Frankenstein 1970, where he used body parts from a film crew to create his monster.

In the 60s, he became mostly a guest star in TV shows like I Spy and The Wild Wild West, but he also returned to Frankenstein in a weird little movie called Mad Monster Party, where he provided the voice of Baron Boris von Frankenstein (!)

Boris Karloff died in 1971, but he's very fondly remembered by classic horror fans, along with Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney Jr. However, it seems that these three never shared the same bond as their successors Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and Vincent Price.

Boris is the name of the dog in Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, and I admit to it being a not-so-subtle wink to Karloff!

2013-2014: House of VHS

Trying to produce and direct a film like Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, when you don't have the money, the experience or the reputation, is a bit hot-headed. The first step, I had been told by financiers, was to go microbudget for a first feature directorial effort. I couldn't really make Sherlock Holmes on a microbudget, so I concentrated on a script that would use as few resources as possible. House of VHS: a haunted house movie, with six characters and a supernatural element. Writing it was a blast, and we decided to film in a house owned by Jean-Noël and his family, located in the Center of France. We set filming dates in August 2013, and started working on pre-production and financing simultaneously... in March. Fast-tracking the project was a good way to make it happen, but also a gamble: what would happen if we couldn't pull it off? Five months before filming, we had zero cast and crew, very little money, and a script that was still a bit deliberately loose (it was designed to be adapted to the actors in due time).

In April, we travelled to the house and took a lot of pictures. I had never seen it before, and being there allowed me to make a few changes in the script, in order to take advantage of what the location had to offer. Then we started casting: in June, we had our first casting call, where we met thirty actors and actresses (out of 270 applications, which was way more than we had expected!). Four actors stood out: Isabel McCann, Delphine Lanniel, Morgan Lamorté and Nafees Hamid. However, we still had a few people to meet, and we needed to cast the last two characters. Two weeks later, we had this second round of casting for House of VHS, with the four actors above and a few new faces, among which Florie Vialens (now called Florie Auclerc-Vialens) and Ruy (who calls himself Ewen Blumenstein). We had found six talented actors who worked really well with each other, and were all very excited to be a part of this project.

Then we gathered the crew. A small one, to be honest: the budget and the house only allowed us to have a full crew of six people, including Jean-Noël and me. We shoehorned in the planning the presence of an SFX makeup artist for two days, but the rest of the gang was only comprised of:

• director of photography
• his assistant
• sound recordist
• unit manager

To be fair, we would have needed twice as many people and twice as much time, but complaining would have led us nowhere. We were lucky enough to enlist François Reumont as director of photography – an experienced TV professional, he had shot a few short films like Zombinladen and Paris by Night of the Living Dead, as well as feature film The Black Door.

Less than two weeks before filming began, Nafees had to drop out due to visa issues (he was a US student living in France), and we had to figure out how to replace him. You would think that the replacement would have been found among the actors we auditioned in June... but in fact, we chose an Icelandic actor called Pétur Sigurðsson, who was recommended by Ewen Blumenstein. He turned out to be great, showing up at the last minute and taking immediately the mantle of his character.

So there we were, twelve people in a house for two weeks, trying to follow a crazy schedule that involved action, special effects... until we realized that the SFX makeup artist had no intention of showing up. After having said that she had prepared and tested everything, she simply stopped returning phone calls. We suddenly had to handle the fact that there was not going to be any on-set special effects in our supernatural/horror film! A heavy rewrite was made on the spot, and I left space for a few SFX shots to be added afterwards. When we got back, we ran a small crowdfunding campaign, and managed to craft a cool gory shot with the people who had made the monster eye for the 'Frankenstein' teaser. After having drawn a few FX scenes and concept sketches that never made it to the screen, Lucie finally storyboarded a new one that we were able to put in the can.


2014

Post-production on House of VHS has been forever, it seems. We are now in the second half of 2014, and it's not yet 100% completed. But we're almost there, thanks to all the people who joined and supported the project. It was not an easy one, but if we can survive this kind of hardcore filmmaking and turn over a satisfying movie, it should be no problem to handle Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein with a decent budget.

2010-2011: The script!

Once I had my mind set on writing Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein, I went through documentation again. I looked up more Holmes books, comic books and movies, re-read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein of course, and also went through countless Frankenstein films (although I can't say I learned a lot from watching Blackenstein).

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

One of the things that came out of my research was the existence of a real Franckenstein family. That's right, with a “c”. Their name is not a coincidence: Mary Shelley was visiting Europe with her husband and Lord Byron when she wrote the book, and they had been near Castle Franckenstein not long before. In the book, they're a Swiss family, whereas the real family is German.

The current Baron is Clement von und zu Franckenstein, who happens to be... an actor! Starting as a bit player in Mel Brooks' Young Frankenstein (of course), he went on to play bigger parts, with Jean-Claude Van Damme in Full Contact, Bruce Willis in Death Becomes Her or Michael Douglas in The American President (where Clement plays the French president, despite being a German raised in the UK!). He was also in another Mel Brooks film: Robin Hood, Men in Tights. My script features characters based on his father Georg, his uncle Clemens and his grandfather Karl. More on this matter later!

The script came together easily enough: I had a map of the characters, their relationships, the main plot and the subplots, and defining the sequence of events was a natural process. Oddly enough, several elements from Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes ended up in this story: two antagonist brothers (something that derived from The Sign of Four, my favorite Holmes adventure)

I had a first draft in June 2010 (the same month my first child was born, would you call it a coincidence?), and I handed it to my wife and to Jean-Noël. With their notes and a few new ideas I had come up with, I made corrections and invited ten friends to a group reading in September. We had a good talk afterwards, especially about the ending – it was almost unchanged since the time I was working on Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes, and it didn't feel quite right. The rest of the script everyone liked, but the ending was putting most people off. I came up with a new version within two weeks, and had another reading in October, with a group made of both people who knew the story, and people who hadn't read any version yet. This time around, the reactions were very positive, and it felt like the script was in the right place.

2011

Time had come to think of how it could be brought to the screen. I had written the script in French (the exact title then was Sherlock Holmes contre Frankenstein!), but when I was scanning casting ideas in my head, a lot of them were English-speaking actors – which of course made sense, Holmes and Watson being British characters. So I decided I should translate the script into English. I was familiar with the language, but writing 19th century dialogue is different from writing an e-mail or even a term paper. So I took my time, enlisted the help of a fat English dictionary and Conan Doyle's full Canon, and came up with a version that sounded English enough to me. A friend of mine introduced me to a charming British lady called Stephanie Campion, who made a lot of corrections and set up a public reading of the scripts with professional English-speaking actors. The reading took place in February 2011, in the parisian pub Carr's: it was a regular informal event where the small audience would discuss a play or a script with the author. The feedback was good there too, and it was great to have real actors read the script out loud. I felt the relationship between Holmes and Watson worked quite well, which was important to me – Dario Costa and Damian Corcoran played the detective and the doctor.

Damian Corcoran & Dario Costa

The next step was to reach out to actors, production companies, and put the project on tracks. Or so I thought. Remember, at that time I had no real idea of how the filmmaking industry worked, and I knew absolutely no one there. So I sent out letters, e-mails, to a few agents and French production companies. It took me some time to realize that no French producer would touch in a thousand years a project called 'Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein'. There are barely any genre movies made in France, and the few that are produced have a contemporary setting, or at least take place in France. A film with British characters investigating a supernatural matter in 19^th century Germany is not something that the French financing system will support. But I was more lucky with my messages to agents: the first actor to express interest in the script was Shane Briant. I was leaping with joy when I heard back from him, and he said he would meet me (he lives in Australia, but was headed to London and we saw each other in Paris). Hammer fans remember him of course as Peter Cushing's assistant in Terence Fisher's Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell, and I had named the Burgermeister in my script after his character: Simon Helder. When we had this meeting in August 2011, we discussed the script, Hammer films, etc., and he said he would be happy to play the part and support the project. Not long later, Clement von Franckenstein also said he really liked the script, and wanted to be in the movie. It turned out nobody had ever asked him to play Baron Frankenstein before me – I guess I'm more candid than most!

At that point, I thought the best way to move things forward was to create the means to produce the film myself. But flying solo is a scary thing. So I contacted Jean-Noël, and asked him whether he would create a production company with me. He said yes, and in a way, this is where the story really begins!

2009: Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes

While filming the last William Boquet, two major things happened: I moved in with the woman whom I would eventually marry, and I decided to write a new ambitious script about two iconic characters. Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein? Nope, I wasn't there yet. The initial project was Zorro vs Sherlock Holmes.

I've always been fond of time-defying characters: Robin Hood, Dracula, the Three Musketeers... And Zorro of course. Before I even thought of being a writer-director, I wanted to be an actor. To play Zorro. And before that, I wanted to be Zorro himself. So the concept of having him and Holmes meet and fight seemed exciting. Both swordsmen, one of them cultivating mysteries, the other solving them. Of course the timeframe wouldn't allow Sherlock Holmes to meet Don Diego de la Vega in his prime, but he could easily meet his grandson – which was the setup for this script.

Holmes and Watson, in their early years (not long after A Study a Scarlet), travel to California in order to unmask a dangerous criminal who calls himself Zorro. Of course, they eventually find out that he's fighting the good fight, against a corrupt local government. Together, they retrieve a treasure that had been unfairly confiscated from the Indian people, and they bring down the evil military in an epic final swordfight. Or something like that. I was really excited about this project. I had re-read the whole Sherlock Holmes Canon, as well as Johnston McCulley's original Zorro novel. I had spent hours watching films about both characters, in order to sort out what made them interesting.

But despite having a beginning and an end, the story was hard to put together. Why would the evil military call Sherlock Holmes to help them? Why would Zorro need him to overpower the bad guys? How could the viewer be excited by Holmes unmasking Zorro, when his identity would already be known to him? And if we hide it from him, by having several “potential Zorros”, then how will the viewer care for this character? And most of all: how is there going to be a foe charismatic enough to stand in front of two legends? 

John Neville as Holmes

A lot of those questions derived from the fact that Holmes and Zorro are both positive characters, who can't really be opposed unless one of them loses the audience's sympathy. It's like having a movie called Batman vs Superman (oh wait!), you know that they will eventually join forces. So unless you have a great villain, someone that the viewer already knows, it kind of falls flat because your heroes won't be fighting a big threat. I didn't want to bring Moriarty into the plot, it was against my rules – which rules, you might ask? Watching and reading non-canonical Holmes stories, I have observed that most of them (if not all!) featured one or more of the following characters: Irene Adler, Mycroft Holmes and/or Professor Moriarty. I ended up finding it very annoying, since these characters are only featured once or twice over the course of 60 stories written by Conan Doyle. Hell, Moriarty is often believed to be Sherlock's recurring nemesis, when he's only the main antagonist in one short story (and one that seems to have been hastily written by Conan Doyle in order to kill off his detective). Watson doesn't even get to meet him in person! As for Irene Adler, a lot of versions want us to believe that Holmes and her have been romantically involved, to the point where they're sometimes supposed to have a child together. But in A Scandal in Bohemia, Watson clearly states: “It was not that he felt any emotion akin to love for Irene Adler. All emotions, and that one particularly, were abhorrent to his cold, precise, but admirably balanced mind.” In fact, several stories have Holmes fall in love, with Adler or someone else, when that goes against all 60 canonical adventures! Bottom line is: I decided that if I was to write a Sherlock Holmes story, I wouldn't use Irene Adler, Mycroft or Moriarty.

While I was struggling with the plot, looking for a way to make it worthwhile (without letting Holmes or Zorro become the other's supporting character), I stumbled upon the information that Zorro wasn't public domain property. It belonged to the Zorro Estate, who probably wouldn't allow the character to be used in a crossover with another hero. In the 60s, Zorro had been confronted to Maciste, the Three Musketeers, and even naked women in a few soft-porn movies, but the copyright-holders had straightened the line in the 90s with “mainstream” productions such as the Antonio Banderas movies, the book by Isabel Allende or the recent musical show. So here I was, stuck with a story that didn't quite work and a character that possibly could be an obstacle to making the film even if I sorted out the plot. So I started toying around with the idea of replacing him with another mysterious avenger, probably the Scarlet Pimpernel – which would have moved the plot to France.

But one day, lightning struck. It was the end of February, 2010. I was sitting in a movie theater, in front of a French comedy that didn't have my full attention. Suddenly, I thought of Sherlock Holmes vs Frankenstein. It didn't have anything to do with what I was watching. It was just a title that popped up. During the last 30 minutes of the screening, the main elements of the script came together in my head. When the credits hit the screen, I left the theater (which I usually don't do, I like to stay until the very end – even for movies I don't like!) and rushed home, where my 6-month pregnant wife saw me go straight to my desk, take a pen and paper, and write down the outline for this new script. It all felt so obvious, that I couldn't understand why it hadn't occurred to me earlier: Sherlock Holmes and Watson would travel to Germany, not California or France. And they would have to unmask a mad scientist, one who would have created a giant monster. It made perfect sense: Holmes was the hero, the monster was a menace and the identity of the mad scientist was the mystery to solve. Now I knew the direction I was headed. I just didn't realize how long the journey would be.