The Arrow
interviews Richard Raaphorst
The
World Championship Soccer
Games, a war
between
Holland and Germany,
what looks like Nazi undeads and exec produced by Brian Yuzna. Sounds
interesting to you? It sure does to me! The name of the movie is
“Worst Case Scenario”
and after viewing the promo (click
here to see it yourself)
Richard Raaphorst
to get the lowdown on it. Here’s what the man had to say!
ARROW: What’s your favorite horror movie?
RICHARD: Mary Poppins.
ARROW: Your first film was a short called
“Zombi 1”. What can you
tell us about the film?
RICHARD: It was a short (15 min) supper-16 black and white zombie flick made to finalize my graduation
on the art-academy of Rotterdam. They where not amused.
ARROW: What kind of distribution did it get?
RICHARD: Canal + France/ Chanal + Poland,
and it has its screenings on a lot of festivals all over the world
from the Netherlands to Korea.
ARROW: I saw your promo reel for “Worst Case Scenario” and I
gotta tell you…it looked fantastic! How much did it cost you to make
that reel?
RICHARD: Incredible, but true. Everyone we
asked was glad to work for free, so we ended up only
paying for the special make-up material, some location cost and
catering. For a large professional crew and lots of extra’s, 100 in
all, the cost still amounted to about $ 7,000. But that was covered by
a sponsor.
ARROW: How did the shoot for the promo go? Would you call it smooth
sailing? What was the fiercest obstacle you had to overcome to bring
it all home?
RICHARD: We only had money for a two
make-up pieces. So for the rest of the zombies we had to rely on
no-budget costumes and some DIY mask-making. Still it turned out okay
on-screen. During the shoot we had really nasty weather that looks
beautiful on film, but caused two near-disasters: one of the extra’s,
lying on the cold sand, arms and legs bound, had to be rushed off by
the lifeguards with hypothermia and an easy-up tent (used to keep the
equipment dry between set-ups) was picked up by the wind and for a few
hundred yards cart wheeled down the beach where the crew were working.
That thing could have killed people.
ARROW: What was it about Bart Oosterhoorn’s screenplay that made
you say I want to do this picture?
RICHARD: Our perception on things are
very much the same. Besides, he is very original in storytelling and
has an extremely sick mind.
ARROW: What’s the expected budget of the production?
RICHARD: € 8M = US$ 9.5M.
ARROW: What are you going to shoot it on?
RICHARD: Our DOP prefers 35mm, but we are
still considering Hi-def.
ARROW: You’re in pre-production right now, expecting to shoot this
summer. Are you planning on having a “name cast” attached or are you
going with “no names”?
RICHARD: In order to sell in
internationally we want ONE big name (he knows who we mean). But for
the rest, unfamiliar faces will help to make a weird story more
convincing. It doesn’t help a movie when you wonder “why the hell
would J-Lo want to wrestle a giant anaconda?”
ARROW: How gory can we expect the film to be?
RICHARD: Extremely.
ARROW: What’s the expected ratio in terms of what will be CGI and
what will be practical effects in the movie?
RICHARD: We want to keep CGI to an
absolute minimum, but we do have some scenes that just can’t be done
without.
ARROW: What effect or scene in the film do you think will blow all
of our fanboy minds to horror heaven once we see it?
RICHARD: Our zombies are not just walking
dead: they are the product of sixty years of experiments. So they have
lots of individual character. What will be something to see is WHY
they were made, their final purpose. That’s going to be HUGE.
ARROW: There’s a “Brian Yuzna Presents” tagged to the film’s
credits. What is the extent of his involvement with the project?
RICHARD:
We know Brian well and showed him a first edit with his name on
it. It almost gave him a heart-attack, but he said he was proud to
have his name on “something of such high quality”. He helps us with
some contacts but apart from that, he won’t be involved: he works for
Filmax exclusively.
ARROW: Do you already have other films in mind that you intend on
tackling once “Worst Case Scenario” is done and over with? If so,
which ones?
RICHARD: Bart intends WCS as the first in
a series of four films called “Famous Monsters in Europe”. This is the
Frankenstein-film. The others are about a vampire circus, a werewolf
in a city park and a bog woman.
ARROW: Beer, Jack Daniels or apple
juice. Which one do you feel
like drinking right now?
RICHARD: Sounds like a great cocktail.
I’d like to thank Richard for his time
and wish him the best in his upcoming war i.e. shooting a picture.
Take down the Fort bro!