From The Suversive Submissions of Amy Hesketh to The Challenging Submission of Bea for the sake of weird and wonderful Cinema!
Weng’s Chop readers are probably at least aware of the name Amy Hesketh — I reviewed her 2012 film Barbazul (a.k.a Bluebeard) back in issue #5 — but probably not as familiar with her body of work as a Weng’s Chop reader should be, I mean her films have so much of what a proper Chopper craves: sex, violence, suspense, horror, drama, rich atmosphere along with a familiarity with and passion for all those great Euro genre films of yesteryear that make us all so weak in the knees and kick our nostalgic glands (among others) into overdrive. Honestly, we should all be ashamed of ourselves for not already knowing volumes about this right-up-our-alley talent. ASHAMED, I tell ya! Well, fear not, dear reader …I’m here to ameliorate your vicissitudes of unfamiliarity , and enlighten you to the painful passions of a filmmaker whose work should figure prominently in your library of weird and wonderful cinema.
Tony Strauss – Weng’s Chop #8
So, it is official. The Passion of Isabel, a story of horror, extreme torture and obsession, is now Jac’s ongoing project and you can be a part of it, maybe a small part, but a part anyway, by joining the very exclusive Red Feline Club.
Jac and Bea are very busy now, preparing themselves, organizing and decorating the set, setting up the equipment and testing all of the props and gadgets they will be using for the next few weeks of pain and pleasure. In the past, the work of preparing the set was supervised by Jac and Amy and carried out by a crew which included them, of course, since Amy was the handy person that built the big props like the rack, but now the entire production rests on Bea and Jac alone. Mostly Jac, because all the heavy lifting will be done by him. He did all the heavy lifting in Agent X and many of the movies we have, most of them, actually, so, it’s not something he’s not already familiar with, painfully familiar. So, it begins, a new production for the new year and for the new cycle. I’m not ready to call it the Bea Cycle yet, but it might become just be that. I heard they already have 5 productions in mind. Two of those possible films include traveling to far away locations, which can be thrilling and special. I have another picture that Jac took with his iPad and sent it to me. I placed the title on it and all of that, but I’ve been told that it doesn’t look pretty, so I’ll change it for future promos. I can’t wait until I start receiving the high quality pictures taken with the good cameras and with the set all ready and lit with the Arri lights.
Greetings All, ?? What has happened to AMY?? I must have missed something here! I read where Jac has her tools and will try building sets from memory! I guess when remembering the Red Feline movies with Amy the “sets” did not require a whole lot of building!
Lashes
Amy is well, healthy and happy, but she’s in the US for some time with a lot of work and academic pursuits. Jac has the tools she uses to build props like the Spanish Horse and The Rack in Maleficarum. Jac will attempt to build his own version of the Spanish Horse. I had early word that it might involve spikes, it just might. He has the tools and all the materials used before. Bea and Jac discussed the possibility of having Isabel going through that particular torture, I also heard that Bea might want it to be somewhat worse than before. The problem is that they can’t go crazy and use all the tortures available to Torquemada, that would be overkill, so they have to choose and choose wisely. They might submit some of those choices to a vote in the Red Feline Club.
Eda
Margot: Aside from the fact that you misidentified the author of my comments, you missed my point. It is not a question of whether your expanded films generate more revenue in a shorter period of time than your smaller ones. It is that it took such an incredible amount of time for you to produce and release Justine that you would have done far better making four smaller films in the same time. Do you understand the concept of “opportunity cost”? And I’m sorry, but even producers of $200M films don’t take 9 months for post-production (except maybe for Jim Cameron, but you can take that time when your films gross a billion dollars). My comments were directed to Amy, and I would love her response. I will not deign to offer any more advice, and will hope that you prove me wrong. But I doubt it.
I’m truly sorry for not identifying you properly when responding to your welcome advise. Second, Amy is really busy these days, as is Jac and neither of them have the time to sit and go over the comments at the Gimp or any other place to respond to all the comments, so that makes me the official first responder, I’m in charge of shedding light in our tremendous work and putting out the fires, including those I start. I’m the spokesperson in the group and I have just enough information not to put my foot deep in my mouth, and I’m not always successful. I also love our amazing bunch very much and I become like the mother hen of the group when I sense they are coming under attack. Maybe Amy will stop by and respond, but she took a long time to answer the questionnaire for a big interview… so, I don’t know. Having said that and without the wish to be argumentative, I’d like to comment on your comment. But I fear that it will take a bit to make my point, so bear with me. To avoid loooooong posts, I’ll respond in parts, in different posts. First, you can be sure that 200 million dollar films take a lot longer than 9 months in post. Star Wars: The Force Awakens began shooting in April of 2014 and production was completed in November of that year! It was finally released December 14, 2015. That’s more than one year in post. All those special effects take a couple of years to make them work. As a matter of fact, they began post BEFORE they started shooting the actual movie. Since they have the huge budgets, they can hire crews of hundreds for post but even with a huge crew they take a very long time to do post, a lot more than 9 months. The rolling credits at the end of some of those movies feel like they last as long as the movie. In the other hand, a small Woody Allen film takes one year from shooting to release. In our case, in 4 1/2 years, since the end of 2010 we produced The Via Crucis of Mila, Barbazul, Maleficarum, Le Marquis de la Croix, Dead But Dreaming, Ekeko, OLALLA. JUSTINE, Pymalion and 5 music videos. That’s almost 2 feature films per year, we released one or two features every year during those 5 years, we gave employment to a lot of talented people and at least 7 in our crew were year round full time workers. And we had a great time doing it. And made good money. (To be continued)
The time to be part of the new adventure, The Passion of Isabel, has come, you can do it by joining the very exclusive Red Feline Club!
Your contribution will give you the choice of a download or DVD of The Passion of Isabel and access to the club. The DVD has an extra 10 dollars for shipping. The club will turn into a celebration of the last twenty years of work. It will feature all of our films, beginning with Red Feline on the Cross, the stories behind them, the pictures, the Diaries, the Trainings, the stories that never made it to big or small screen, and it will also feature all the present and future work. We’ll be updating with frequency; however for next few days and weeks we’ll concentrate on the The Passion of Isabel. If you want to have anything to say in the production of this up and coming passionate film, you have to JOIN NOW!
Production will start next week and although the first two days of shooting have already been planned, there’s plenty of input the makers can still receive.
A 30 USD contribution will give you the the film and ONE month access to the club.
A 50 contribution the film and 3 months access to the club.
A 100 contribution the film and ONE year access to the club.
There are also membership only options, 15 for One month access and 25 for three months.
Join the very exclusive Red Feline Club
http://bit.ly/2ipnRd0
or get one of our great movies, big or small:
Red Room, Sirwiñakuy, Romana Crucifixa Est, AristoCrux or JUSTINE.
