FLAPJAX – Independent Film – Local Shooting – an Interview with Rocko Zevenbergen

FLAPJAX.

There’s an electricity that shoots through the air of a creative passion project, no matter the particular outlet, but in independent film, especially low budget film, that electricity is palpable, and of course, flowing through the camera and sparking lines.

Rocko Zevenbergen of Bad Taste Video is shooting just such a lightning storm in the Capital Region in August, shooting his sophomore film, FLAPJAX.

I connect with Rocko and we talk Cenobites.

Photo by Noah Meihoff

RRX: You guys have a movie coming here that’ll be filming in August and it’s called FLAPJAX. It’s a sci-fi horror comedy, which is a broud thing, so can you take us through what this movie is all about, what’s the story, what are we going to be looking at?

RZ: So basically, FLAPJAX tells us the story of an overzealous fast-food manager who unknowingly executes the plot of an alien race by serving a new item called Flapjax.

RRX: I have to ask, are these flapjax like “human flapjax,” or would telling me what they are kind of spoil it a little?

RZ: These flapjax, let’s just say, have some side effects that you won’t find on the back of the box.

RRX: Oh good, good. So it’s a sci-fi comedy horror, sounds pretty fun. What drove you to write this particular story? There’s 120k backing on this, so this project has to be big when it comes through, when you’re looking for backing like that, so why this story?

RZ: Our first story, “I Need You Dead” was made on about 25 thousand dollars, and it was kind of this middle finger to what was going on in the film industry at the time, like 2010s, still going on today, this endless dick sucking of eighties film genre, which frankly I’m kind of sick of, and have been sick of for a while. So I wanted to make a movie that drew people in with the eighties kind of thing, with lots of saturated colors and goofy pics and things like that, and I love that stuff but ultimately I made a very experimental film that breaks down and kind of flips off the audience, a very punk rock, experimental movie.

I thought I did it well with what it was supposed to do, so when it came time to do our sophomore feature from the Bad Taste Video team, which is our collective, which basically makes these films; for FLAPJAX, we wanted to make a film that was accessible, and wasn’t a big FU to the audience. Because we knew that we could do that. We wrote this story, and you know, something that we would like to see in theaters, a popcorn movie full of adventures, hi-fi comedy, horror, just a little bit of everything. And it just very quickly kind of expanded, this micro epic that had a lot of scale a lot of scope, and so, it became very clear early on that we were going to need at least a hundred thousand if we were going to do it. And even that being said, this story is like a million-dollar movie, but we’re doing it on a hundred thousand, we’re still doing it at an incredibly low budget, all things considered.

We’re having a lot of volunteers, lots of people who are traveling here just to work on the movie, you know we got crews sleeping on the floors, air mattresses, AirBnBs in the Capital Region. Despite having 120k to spend, it’s still very, very rough.

Photo by Brooks Houser. Edit by Gunner Manley. Model: Jessica Fishenfeld

RRX: People like me, or people less into the entertainment aspect than me, we don’t understand that when you sat a 25k movie or a 120k movie, we don’t understand what the difference is, because if I had 25k in my hand, I’d be over the moon, throwing a party and what-not. What do these amounts tell us about your scope, capabilities, etc.?

RZ: If I had 25 thousand in my hand, I’d be over the moon too. That’s a funny thing, is that the 120 thousand that was brought together was from a lot of people, so it’s money that is collectively owned by all the people who were involved in the film, money that was raised through Indiegogo type stuff, but also live fundraiser events, raffles that we did, merch that we sold, concerts that we threw, team members that invested their own personal money for a percentage stake in the film, private investors who saw how much we raised about hallway into our campaign and saw that there were people who believed in us and decided to purchase percentage points as well.

But also a way to rack up that amount too is like we’re shooting the movie on an Arri Alexa mini, an incredible camera that itself is worth 100 thousand, but we are working with Polaris Pictures, who is taking a small percentage cut of the film, in exchange for just letting us use their camera for the month. They get to put their logo on the front, and that adds value to our 120 thousand dollar budget, so it’s not all cash, but a mixture of things that gets that budget real.

One of the big things that makes that number real is that we still value the work that our team members on the Bad Taste Video team d0, albeit very low; I have myself on the payroll for like 500 a week, but I’m not going to see any of that money, instead, I’m just having it convert into percentage points, and a lot of our crew have kind of forfeited their pay for percentage stake in the movie instead, so that racks up to 10-, 20 more thousand dollars of money that is just being turned into investments in the film by our crew. I find it interesting, this very grassroots approach to coming up with that kind of budget, and it requires our whole crew to very much be family that believes in what we’re making, passionate about making the final product; this is not just another gig for anybody working on this project.

RRX: You have an FX team coming in from Serbia, that worked on Hellraiser for Hulu. How did you get them, and is the prospect like working with them?

RZ: I work with a gentleman named Justin Martel, who runs a company named “Not the Funeral Home.” They produce “The Last Drive-In” with Joe Bob Briggs. The AMC Channel. I am a producer on that show, so I work with Justin often, and working on the show, he had brought up a team in Serbia, as they had worked on some projects together, had a really positive experience. They were kind of floating around as an option for us for FX work, and so I decided to reach out, and I kind of let them know about our limited budget, what we were working with, and they got really excited about the project, were down to work with our budget, and we’re flying them out here to help; one of the team members is just paying for their own plane ticket just to come out and be a part of it, because they’ve never been to America before and they’re really just excited to come be here and be working on a film, and they’re volunteering their own time while they’re actually here in New York.

We’re basically just paying them to make the effects, but they’ll be on-set working for free, which we’re super super grateful for. Even though they worked on these incredible shows, these incredible projects like Hellraiser, I think there’s just something about the way Bad Taste Video operates where people are willing to compromise a little bit of the fiscal to be a part of something with that extra pump of passion.

By Cynergy FX, Serbia

RRX: You said that you’re looking for people in the area to get involved with the film. Can you elaborate on that?

RZ: Yes. Anyone that is interested in coming out and being part of the production – at this point, it is mostly volunteer based – but we’re making something we believe in, Bad Taste Video team is especially about bringing people in who are green, who just have never been on a film set before, or are maybe looking to explore a different position on set that they’ve always wanted to learn; we pride ourselves as being an educational production team for those looking to break in, looking to learn more. As long as they’re willing to work with us, low budget, we’re willing to put in the effort to make it a worthwhile experience for them and a positive experience for them, and we always go all the way with the distribution of our films, so our movies can be a calling card for anybody who works on them and not, you know, dusting on the shelf.

To get involved as either a volunteer actor or a volunteer crew member, just email aerin.badaste@gmail.com.