Matt: What / how got you into the industry today and where you are now ?
Dionne Copland: I wanted to get into the film industry because watching/renting movies was a major
part of my childhood and an important pastime for my family. I loved looking at the horror movie VHS covers when I was super young to scare the shit out of myself, daydreaming about being old enough for my parents to let me rent them. That’s really where my love of horror started.
Right now, Turner and I are still in school, but have a lot of independent projects planned. He just
finished a feature length script that we’re looking forward to shooting next year and I’m currently
working on a feature script as well. However, I’m looking to submit some scripts to competition when
they’re completed because writing is kind of taking over my main area of interest right now.
Turner Stewart: I've always been such a huge movie fan and for as long as I can remember my dad
and my grandma let me watch pretty much any movie I wanted to as a kid and I remember my grandma always letting me rent or taking me to the theatre to see these extreme gorefest movies. I specifically
remember watching a rip of Guinea Pig 2 on the morning bus ride to Fourth Grade on my iPod video
and a lot of the best films I saw as a kid were the ones I knew to watch covertly. Extreme and
underground films always left an impression on me growing up, so now that Dionne and I are shooting our own films and working with underground film makers like Ryan Nicholson and Vince D'Amato it all feels very comforting and meaningful. I honestly couldn't feel better with where I am right now, and we aren't even out of school yet!
Matt: Do you have any embarrassing shorts or college movies that you experimented whilst you were on your journey to now?
Dionne Copland: I have a few abandoned ideas that never came to be, yeah. Nothing I'm particularly embarrassed of, but could have been an unmitigated disaster had I attempted them without a budget!
Overall, I’m pretty happy with everything Turner and I created in university thus far, whether it was for class or on our own time with friends. I’m extremely proud of how far Computer Hearts has come and that was before either of us were accepted to our film production major.
Turner Stewart: Oh my god, you have no idea! Unlike Dionne, who has been awesome right out of
the gate since her first short HTKP/HIDE, I have a ton of 'experiments' prowling around on YouTube,all of which are incredibly embarrassing for everyone involved and hopefully won't ever be unearthed.
Our 'first' Hentai Cop Film is on Youtube and it's called “The Last One,” which some friends and I
made for a 24hr film contest, and several of those friends ended up being involved in Computer Hearts including Chance Hansen and Graham Trudeau. And I should add that Computer Hearts, S.I.D.S, and Don't Look Down are our college movies, so I think we still have quite the journey ahead of us.
Matt: You recently won a few awards for computer hearts it seems to have been quite a success how has the journey been with it ?
Dionne Copland: The journey has been a lot of ups and downs, it’s amazing now that it’s doing so
well to look back and remember when it really wasn’t – back before the final cut when most of the
people who viewed it weren’t horror fans (first mistake, play to your target audience). A lot of time was poured into this project and before I came on it was all but abandoned. I’m really glad that Turner didn’t give up on it though and that we got it finished! Now the blu-ray is selling really well and it feels good to hear that people like what we’re doing and that there’s interest in whatever we do next!
Turner Stewart: As Dionne said, the initial audience sort of hated it when they first saw it, but when
Dionne recut it into the shorter 'Vanessa2 Cut” and we started to share that version with the horror
community the film really found its stride. Computer Hearts was almost the film that never was, and I
talk a lot about how without Dionne that movie would have never been finished and nobody would
have ever seen that giant vagina computer haha! That award was actually won at the first ever festival screening of Computer Hearts , and I will admit that finally seeing it on the big screen I definitely had tears in me eyes. The most important thing I can say is that we had a lot of amazing people working on that movie, and we really couldn't have made the film without all of their dedicated work.
That 'Audience Choice Award' goes out to all of those people who made that film as original as it is, and we hope that future audiences have the chance to see the movie in the cinema and that they enjoy it as much as that audience did
Dionne Copland: Oh man, countless movies/people inspire me.
Turner Stewart: Dionne, Vince D'Amato, and I recently organized a Troma Retrospective here in
Vancouver, so obviously I'll say that Troma has been a big influence for us. Dionne and I really dowatch everything we can, and looking at our DVD shelves right now I see an extensive collection of
films covering everything from arthouse to extreme horror. I think that for myself, the biggest
influences would definitely be Tsukamoto and Cronenberg, and when you watch our films I think you
can pick out countless references to all sorts of random films. I will add that Ryan Nicholson and Vince D'Amato are two film makers who have been incredibly supportive of Dionne and I.
Matt: What have your standout movies for 2015 been so far in the indie horror community ?
Turner Stewart: Dionne and I have been way too busy this year to keep up with the community as
much as we're used to, but because of our film festival CinemaFantastique we were exposed to a lot of incredible new film makers. The stand-outs for me in that program were Shannon Lark and Lori
Bowen's I am Monster and Jeremy Jantz' Heels. Then of course this year I absolutely loved American
Guinea Pig, and although we were involved in shooting it, I have to say that when we finally saw
Gutterballs 2 we were really fucking shocked haha! Vince D'Amato's Glass is another really unique
and engaging neo-Giallo that I suggest everyone check out when it finally comes out too. I think that
mine and Dionne's favourite indie horror film of the year is definitely Astron-6's The Editor.
Matt: How has the reception of Computer hearts been has it all been good or is there any comical
stories you would like to share ?
Dionne Copland: The reception now is incredible, a lot of great reviews, a ton of support for not only Computer Hearts, but upcoming projects. However, it wasn’t always great, especially before the
Vanessa2 Cut when most of the people who were watching it weren’t particularly fans of horror let
alone indie horror. Now that it’s found its audience it’s been getting a lot of love.
Turner Stewart: Neither of us ever expected for Computer Hearts to be watched or reviewed by as
many people as it has, and every time someone buys a copy we have ourselves a little celebration.
Honestly, I can't believe that we're nearly sold out after only two months, so we extend a huge thank
you to everyone in the community that has supported our little movie.
Matt: What have been your favourite moments being a filmmaker ?
Dionne Copland: This summer we’ve been lucky enough to say that four works we collaborated on
including Computer Hearts, have been in horror festivals across North America. We collaborate oneverything; we always co-produce, I co-directed CH, Turner shoots the films, I act in them, we’re a
great team. Which makes for great filmmaking moments like the first time we were referred to as
‘underground famous’, it was surreal to hear; something neither of us expected to be said about us at
this point.The greatest moment though might have been when Turner and I were driving Lloyd Kaufman and his wife to the airport and he offered to be in our next film for free because he liked us so damn much. Still over the moon about that!
Turner Stewart: Both Lloyd Kaufman and Stuart Gordon own a copy of Computer Hearts, which
feels so surreal since Dionne and I have all of their movies sitting on our shelf too!
Dionne Copland: Finishing the last two years of school, but sprinkling in a lot of projects around it.
We have Turner’s feature that we’re already getting some preproduction rolling on. I have a short film we’d like to shoot this fall, and possibly a true crime documentary or two we’ve been hammering out the details of recently.
Turner Stewart: Busy! I still have years and years of school to go as I work towards a doctorate in
Film Theory. Then Dionne and I are also really involved in everything to do with our campus theatre;she's in charge of the film programming and I'm the president of our university's Film Society. On top of that Dionne, Vince, and I run the Shivers Film Society, and with that we are gearing up for our film festival CinemaFantastique 2, which will be in July 2016 (submissions are now open on FilmFreeway!). To complement our film festival, starting in October we are launching a new home video distribution label via CreepySix Films; we want to reach out to the film makers screening at our film festival and other independents and give them the chance to have their films released on bluray.
The first films we are rolling out will include Reversed, Human Nature, Carmilla (AKA Vampires vs.
Zombies), and Computer Hearts.As Dionne mentioned, before the end of this year we have a few short film and documentary projects
that we're working on, but our next big Hentai Cop Film will be shooting in June 2016. We're just
starting preproduction now and there are already a lot of people excited to be a part of it, which is
really invigorating for us. All I can say about it now is that it's like Computer Hearts on crack times amillion, an internet jonestown cyberpunk mindfuck punk techno gore shit mod fuck explosion. The
script is fucking electric and Dionne and I can't wait to shoot it next year, and right now I think we're
going to try to raise a small portion of the budget via crowdfunding and presales come January. Our
plan is to have it finished for a late 2016 release, but in the meantime there will definitely be a lot of
output from Dionne and I whether it's our own films, film festivals, home video distribution, or
anything else crazy that we find ourselves involved in!
Would of course like to extend my gratitude to both Turner and Dionne for the indepth interview and like to wish them all the best in the future I will be routing for them .....
Visit there site ...
hentaicopfilms.bigcartel.com or computerhearts.vhx.tv
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