James Cullen Bressack, Filmmaker: Right now we're being dictated stylistically by like the John
Wick films and like The Raid movies I think that's kind of where like at least where I'm
like that's what I think of when I think of like this generation's action stuff
Film Courage: James tell us about your decision as a director and a producer
to move from horror into action films?
James: I really started like deciding I wanted to do action movies because I just started noticing
like there's not really like a lot of like super low budget action movies and I'd hit
this wall in horror where like I kind of had to like reinvent myself because oh I was making like
150-200,000-300,000 horror movies and what would happen is producers would be like oh how much did
you make this for and I'd tell them and they'd be like wow like I used to think people would be like
oh he made it for two hundred thousand dollars imagine what he could do with three million
but they'd be like oh he made it for two hundred thousand dollars this guy's good at two hundred
thousand dollars let's give him two hundred thousand dollars so I was like oh crap I need to
like go up higher and I wanted to work with more name talent like more recognizable name talent
and so I was like okay well action my friend was making action at the time and he was
getting like big names and so I was like okay that's the way to do it go into action and so
I went over towards action and immediately like budgets go up and you're able to get
more name talent because you're making an action movie and I guess they know that you
have to have a certain amount of things to do an action movie so the budgets are are higher
typically horror you can make much more contained in a house and that's not to say there aren't more
contained action but typically you're going to be able to attract bigger talent and and more money
so with or how you have to have a scare within a certain amount of time and then scares
in between or kills yeah pretty much have to have something going on every 10 minutes in
a horror movie okay to engage the audience and you want to open up with like a stinger of like
some scary thing happening in the first like few minutes well with action what are those sort of
tried and true rules that you have to have like so an explosion so as as crazy as it sounds you got
to have some type of action moment in the first like five minutes of the movie and then you've
got to have stuff every 10 minutes so it's almost literally the exact same same same thing you're
just swapping out action for horror it's I would assume it's the same for comedy you got to have
something really funny happen in the beginning and then you have jokes every like every a good
amount of like set-piece jokes happening every 10 minutes I think that's more so not about the genre
but about like audiences in general need that type of structure and that type of content coming
in you need to have you'll lose the attention of the audience if you don't have certain set
pieces happening every 10 minutes a lot of the slow burn stuff that people like I know a lot
of times when I'm talking with other filmmakers they're like oh I love the movies like the witch
and this and that and I love those movies too but those are like the exception not the rule
if that makes sense those are the ones that like went to Sundance and and got like a big following
and did well typically audiences want stuff that hits the certain beats so that they it keeps
their attention especially when we're in this AVOD [Advertising-Based Video on Demand] world now with
stuff like Tubi where your filmmakers are getting paid by how long somebody watches the movie not by
if they rent it so you want stuff happening that keeps their attention and keeps them watching the
full amount of the movie have you ever sort of broken down the psychology of the horror
audience member the horror enthusiast versus the action film enthusiast like who are those people
can they ever cross over no I haven't but I feel like it kind of has some crossover for
sure because I mean like a lot of the a lot of the action movies I loved from the the 80s and
90s had a lot of similarities to the horror movies I loved they had like non-stop gore and craziness
I mean you look at like any of like the Paul Verhoeven films like you look at like Robocop
I mean that's kind of like an action and a horror movie in its own right you look at stuff like
demolition man like that has like this sci-fi element so there's a lot of crossover I think
and I do think that genre fans in general have some some crossover though I do feel like
horror audiences are more used to watching horror movies that don't necessarily have name talent
it's more about the situation and the and the special effects whereas like action audiences
like seeing like the person that they like seeing kick ass kick ass right and you said that you love
the 90s even though you're a child of the 90s but there's something very you you're very drawn to it
I feel like a lot of people could tell because my casts I usually cast people from the 90s like I go
after like 90s names I go after people that like were super cool when I was like watching tv and
I'm like oh that's cool like or like when I was watching like movies like I go after the stuff
that I grew up on I think like 80s and 90s is like really like where I'm i'm really most keyed in
as as as a filmmaker and so what little telltale signs could we see from your films that have an
80s 90s influence aside from the names that a current day film would be different like what
are you using a perfect example is like survive the game the the the first Bruce Willis movie
I directed I really wanted to make that kind of feel like the old school Joel Silver action movies
it didn't take itself too seriously it's non-stop action there's a lot of jokes it's it's supposed
to be funny and it was like I almost like went like okay almost like the last action hero Chad
Michael Murray's character falls asleep and then when he wakes up it's almost as if he's waking up
in his own action movie so like everything is larger than life full of cliches and like I'm
kind of playing towards that like 90s sensibility and then on top of that I'm using like a lot of
like 90s like famous songs like well not songs but artists so I had like some DMX music in
there who I was I was friends with DMX before he passed away we did a couple projects together and
I just kind of thought that that's it's just I play towards that and I also think
like some of the the style to the film as well like you opening the film up more bigger wides
kind of how I like to shoot the action as well it kind of plays towards the stylistic sense
of the 90s versus a lot of stuff is more fast paced and quicker now and I do kind of merge it
now with like this quicker cutting thing like I kind of do the frenetic camera work and I'll do
like shooting at like a 45 degree shutter and then 22 frames a second at the same time for
an action sequence so it can kind of speed it up and then I'll yank out frames and kind of do that
sort of stuff for the fight scenes but I kind of do that in the scope of also kind of keeping
like 90s colors and framing if that makes sense and I think that's kind of a little bit more fun
right I think I remember with the first born movie which I really enjoyed that one was a tiny
bit slower than some of the others that were just like too fast for me yeah it was too frenetic yeah
you didn't breathe enough yeah well like you look at like a movie like a perfect example of some of
like the really close-up fighting scenes that like became very popular and and were very frenetic and
very fast-paced was batman begins like that casey style of fighting that's like in in batman begins
where we're super close up and everything's like handheld like this I think that kind of you're
kind of like wait what's going on in that and but that became like more of a style of what we saw in
like the late 2000s and I think if you if you go back a lot of the action was kind of inspired by
like the further back you go was inspired by a lot of the stuff that was coming out of like Asia
so I think and that was like much more seen in the why because you wanted to see the person actually
doing this stuff if that makes sense so that's how like people like li Bruce Lee and Jackie
Chan got famous is because they could actually do the things and you would see them do it
and then it's it's also interesting because you look at stuff like the matrix that that was
all about slowing stuff down and I think as as stuff goes on we like to we've we've gone to
speed it up so I’ve kind of found like this hybrid style of of between that and what we're doing now
sure and if we think back to let's say like Miami Vice or the show Hunter I don't know if you
remember hunter I don't but I remember Miami Vice oh okay it's a great LA-based like cop show and
it had sort of this like sort of feel a little bit with the with the Han Zimmer sort of like feel of
the music in the background and I feel like that a lot of that's lost it's it's not I know with drive
there was some of that yeah drive but drive isn't quite an action movie it's more of a
yeah it's more of like a thriller action I think like what's kind of dictated what happens is you
get like a big action movie that kind of dictates like the style of action and like right now we're
being dictated stylistically by like the John Wick films and like The Raid movies I think that's kind
of where like at least where I'm like that's what I think of when I think of like this generation's
action stuff and I but like I think I like playing a lot with like frame rate and shutter speed
so like I'll do stuff either a 135 degree shutter or 90 degree shutter or 45 degree shutter
to kind of enhance some of the moments and then I really like doing like 22 frames a second because
it kind of makes it a little bit more frenetic but I can kind of toy with it as well and then
slowing it down later for certain beats and then there's a lot of like I'll do stuff in reverse
because it kind of sells the impact a little bit more but it's it's interesting because that all
comes from a horror background I think as well because like when I was playing with shutter
speeds in the in the past it would be when I was like having a ghost move really weird and
then I would pull out frames and and play with the shutter speed to like have that happen and
now I'm doing that in action sequences to make it seem like people are fighting like
like much more quick so I think it's interesting as well as like some of the reverse stuff you we'd
do that in like a horror movie you'd have an axe in the person's head and you have them pull it out
but then you'd play that in reverse and it looked like they slammed it right into the person's head
and then you just like you use a v effect to reveal the wound so I think it's just it's kind
of it's kind of interesting a lot of it is similar in style like you could take some sensibilities
and also sometimes maybe people see some horror sensibilities in the action movies that I'm
making because I do like building tension before a fight in a lot of it and a lot of
that is playing towards some of the sensibilities I learned from like a horror movie but instead
of like a ghost popping out at the end like a person pops out and they get into a fist fight
so it sounds like the transition wasn't that difficult then you you welcomed the challenge
yeah yeah I mean I think stylistically for sure I welcomed the challenge and it wasn't
that difficult in that sense it's still like a learning curve like I was like playing with
different styles and I was very lucky to work with like talented editor talented DP on the
action movies i've been doing and stuff and as well as like very closely with my stunt crews.
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