WWTW Interview: Mike O’Dea (‘Ghostman’)

Mike O’Dea has a superhero story to tell, and no one is going to stop him from capturing it on film.

The Mass.-based writer/director had made some inroads on turning “Ghostman” into a big screen adventure. When he met resistance on the script from an interested investor he decided to go independent via his production company Shamrock Films.

Now, O’Dea hopes film fans will help support his vision via a fundraising web site called IndieGoGo.com.

WWTW checked in with O’Dea to find out more about “Ghostman” and why he won’t play by the rules.

WWTW: In what key ways is “Ghostman” different than the standard superhero film?

MO: “Ghostman” is actually the “anti-superhero” because he doesn’t save people, he steals from them. I like to call “Ghostman” the “Paranormal Activity” of superhero films because we’re also filming on a prosumer HD camera with a budget of only $20,000. I was told by a respected producer that it wouldn’t be possible to make “Ghostman” on a budget so small, not when the average superhero film in Hollywood costs $200M to make. But that just makes me snicker. I love a good challenge.

“Ghostman” will look hyper-realistic much like a documentary, but one of the biggest differences compared to the average superhero film is that “Ghostman” is based on a crime-romance novel I was writing called “Boston Rose.” It’s about a master thief who gives up his life of crime to be with the girl that he loves. So the movie will have the standard superhero action without the CGI effects and a very deep and gut-wrenching love story at the heart of it. To me, Hollywood superhero movies are cookie-cutter and formulaic. They have no heart and no culture. “Ghostman” will have the Irish culture of “Miller’s Crossing” and the heart of “The Notebook” on heroin.

WWTW: How far along was the “Ghostman” project when you decided to walk away from the existing deal? Was there one event/difference of opinion that made you go indie, or was it a combination of factors?

MO: I spent three years trying to get my Irish mob movie “Townies” financed. Harvey Keitel called me after he read the script and gave me the advice to shoot the movie on my own. So I bought a camera and a boom mic on eBay and went to work with no money. A few months into production we were surrounded by the State Police after firing prop guns in public without proper permits. National news of the incident caught the eye of a Hollywood producer who agreed to finance “Townies” and shoot the movie over with me as director and star of the film.

But the script was rejected by his investors and I was given notes to revise it with. Soon after Ben Affleck announced his movie “The Town” that would be filmed in the same neighborhood at “Townies” and in the same genre. I had no choice but to change the name of my film to “Code of Silence” and move the story elsewhere. I spent the next two years re-writing my script in fear that Affleck may be using more than my idea. In 2010 a major studio agreed to co-finance and distribute “Code of Silence” but they didn’t want me to direct the film. Unwilling to compromise my creative vision and six years of my life, I walked away from the deal and began working on “Boston Rose” as a vehicle to prove myself with as a director. I spent five months writing 20 drafts of the script and it slowly morphed into what is now “Ghostman.” When I turned the script in it was rejected by the investors and I was told to sit down with the producer and fix it or the movie would never happen. I realized then that there was no way for me to be an artist under the Hollywood umbrella and I turned to a crowd-fundraising website called Indiegogo to make the movie on my own.

WWTW: How did you hear of IndieGoGo.com? What do your peers say about it?

MO: I constantly update my Facebook fan page and my blog about my on-goings in the movie business and several fans who were aware of my struggles e-mailed me about Indiegogo as an alternative to finance “Ghostman.” IndieGoGo allows people with dream projects to create fundraising campaigns and ask for donations from $1 and up in exchange for perks that can be anything from signed movie posters, T-shirts, ‘Special Thanks’ in the closing credits or cool experiences like being an extra. At first I cringed at the thought of begging for money but after seeing all of the passionate artists on Indiegogo raising funds successfully, I quickly jumped on board. Some people are totally baffled as to why I walked away from Hollywood financing to raise money on IndieGoGo, but art means more to me than business. Most writer-directors would demolish their scripts and re-write it any way they are told to get their movies made, but I’m not one of them. I believe in collaborating and getting feedback, but not being forced to make script changes that I don’t agree with.

WWTW: Can you share a status report on the fundraising effort behind the film?

MO: I launched the crowd-fundraising campaign on IndieGoGo on the first week of January and the campaign ends on April 15th with a goal amount of $20k. It’s slowly raising money at this point, but it’s hard for people to get excited about something they haven’t seen yet, so after I raise $2k I’m going to film some of the movie to make a teaser video with. I think that should help the campaign immensely once people see how cool the film look.

WWTW: What are the main ways technology makes it easier for an indie filmmaker like yourself create a film that looks as polished as some bigger budgeted efforts?

MO: This is the greatest time to be an indie filmmaker. You can pick up a used HD camera on eBay for $2k that shoots 1080p HD and there is a chance that your film could be the next “Paranormal Activity.” It’s a small chance, but even still, it’s a chance. But if you want the “film look” like a Hollywood movie then you need to use a 35mm lens adapter on your camera. Even then it won’t look as organic as film. Personally, I don’t care for the polished Hollywood film look. Okay, I’ll be honest. I loathe it. I’m a guerilla filmmaker and what that means is that I grab my camera and hit the streets to get my movie made, sometimes with risks involved. It doesn’t take me two hours to set up one shot. I don’t have to pay $50k to close down a train station for a half hour. I can walk right in there with my camera in a duffel bag, get the shot and walk out. A big budget movie can’t do that because film cameras are enormous and they have a hundreds of people on their sets. Big budget films may look like Heaven ought to look, but I can make a film for $20k that would cost them $20M to make.

WWTW: Can you tell us more about the filming style of “Ghostman?”

MO: I want “Ghostman” to be a candid and virtual experience. The camera lens will act like they are the eyes of the audience standing in the room with the characters. Everything will be filmed on a shoulder mounted camera so the camera movement will be similar to a persons natural head movement. There will be no zooming because eyes don’t have the ability to zoom. I’ll also record the audio directly from a boom mic that’s mounted directly to the camera. By keeping the lens and the microphone in same place, it receives information just as a person would in the room and makes for a much more life-like movie experience. I also plan to incorporate a camera angle during “Ghostman” scenes that’s popular in 3rd person shooter game.

WWTW: How hard it is for smaller budget films to get a full theatrical release?

MO: Hundreds of microbudget feature films are completed everyday in the United States and only eight of them have grossed over $1M in the box office in the past twenty or thirty years, including “The Blair Witch Project,” “Paranormal Activity,” “Deep Throat” and “Clerks.” Those odds make it very hard for smaller budget films to get a theatrical release beyond art house theaters. But distributors are losing so much money on big-budget films that they are starting to taking the chance on microbudget films more often than they used to. Studios like Paramount even have microbudget divisions now.

WWTW: Will Video on Demand and outlets like iTunes make a big difference to smaller films?

MO: Eventually every filmmaker in the world will have the ability to bypass the traditional Hollywood system and distribute their movies to any device in the world from one solid platform. The future is bright.

WWTW: What are your thoughts on the indie movie scene in 2011?

MO: I think we’ll see more microbudget films getting their chance to shine on the big screen. It will also be the year that more big budget films mimic the ‘video look’ of smaller films because it’s the trendy thing to do. HD camcorders are more affordable and powerful than ever. Standard definition video and mini DV tape have become the equivalent of tube television and VHS tape in a very short time period. Technology is advancing faster than ever and that is only a good thing for indie filmmakers like me.

WWTW: Where does your tenacity come from – another filmmaker might have already walked away from this project.

MO: You’d be hard pressed to find another filmmaker who would ever walk away from the movie deals that I have. I could have let someone else direct “Code of Silence” and I would have earned a six-figure paycheck. Most filmmakers would sell their parents for a deal like that, but I walked away from it. Dozens of investors and production companies offered to finance my first film “Townies” only if I was willing to give up the starring role and let someone else direct the film. I walked away from those deals, too. When I was told that “Ghostman” would never get made unless I wrote the script, it was my breaking point. I knew that I would never be allowed to be an artist as long as I was holding hands with Hollywood and singing “We are the World.” Sylvester Stallone was dead broke like me and he never gave up on getting his script for “Rocky” made in his vision. Neither will I.

(Photo: Writer/director Mike O’Shea is using a new fundraising model to shoot his anti-superhero film “Ghostman.”)

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