No MSG TV: Interview with Filmmaker and Musician Frank Palangi

Interview with 518 Independent Filmmaker and Musician Frank Palangi

By Kat MacKenzie

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Note: At Death’s Door by Frank Palangi is premiering October 16, 6:30pm at the Strand Theater

 

RRX: So Frank, who turned you on to horror films?  What was your first movie that you saw?

Frank: My mother.  I don’t know the first one.  My first movie was the Disney one with Mickey.  It was kind of dark and scary.  But my first movie was Terminator 2 in the movie theater.  I was like two. I remember it too – sitting behind the cinema, sitting behind the chair in the cinema, watching the whole thing and the screen looked huge.  Ever since that movie everything just changed.  And then it was Friday the 13th and Halloween were my first horror movies I’d ever seen.

RRX: And your mom exposed you to that?

Frank: Yeah.

RRX: That must’ve been so cool!

Frank: Yeah, and Night of the Living Dead too.  Thriller –  Michael Jackson’s Thriller!  I had stayed up because in the 90s they always re-aired it every year.

RRX: When did you start collecting masks?

Frank: I don’t know when I got my first one – I think I was really young for Halloween.   I would say I was like four years old or something – four or five.  The hockey masks.  My mom – she was into crafts and all that stuff.  She was like we can take the hockey masks and add paint, and cut pieces out of it and make it your own.  And I go, that’s really cool.  Let me do that.

RRX: And then you started using them in films and creating films from there?

Frank: Yeah I got my cousin’s VHS camcorder.  Those are the ones you never see on the internet at all.  But yeah and then in high school I started making them.  I call myself one of the godfathers of fan films because there were only fifteen of us in 2005 doing fan films.  I know there were people before that making them but YouTube was in its infancy. And I remember I started uploading them right in senior year, so from senior year onward that’s what you see.  The first one was Halloween 9 the Blood of Michael Meyers.

RRX: That’s awesome.

Frank: Yeah, it’s got half a million views.

RRX:  Aw…cool!  So you had a passion.

Frank: Yeah.

RRX: So I’ve actually watched you and I noticed that as you progressed…I watched your early films and your acting….the acting of everyone in the films is getting better.  Have you noticed yourself growing more as a director and that’s affecting how the films are coming out?

Frank: Yeah.  Every project you grow.  Whether it’s behind the scenes or your acting, or working on somebody else’s project. I could see it just with these original movies the past couple of years.  Each movie is growing.  But I push myself with each one, you know.  I’m trying to push the quality, I’m trying to push the camera, the angles, the actors.  I think there are still a lot of the actors I work with I’ve known for a long time.  So I think just through the fan films, acting, they get better at it too.  And then there are some newbies that want to be actors, and they are really gifted to start with and I’m like, wow, there’s a lot of rawness there.  I’ve had to work at everything…

RRX: Pulling it out of people.

Frank: Yeah, just to get up to a certain point.

RRX: I’ve actually acted in Frank’s films and he did a great job of pulling that out.  He had me do it over and over.  And eventually something does come.

Frank: It does.  I think that’s because of the music.  When I did vocals and stuff I thought, oh yeah, one or two takes for a vocal track, give it your all and that’s it.  But when I went to Nashville they were like, yeah we’re going to do 48 takes.

RRX: Wow.

Frank: So I think that’s the notion of like, you do it until it’s 100% right, or the best you can do.

RRX: Yeah, until you get the real meat of it.

Frank: Yeah, it takes a while.

RRX: Well speaking of Nashville I know you are also a musician and you have some new material coming out.  New music.  Is that true?

Frank: Maybe next year.  I have one song done.  I call it a mini EP.  Because it’s really one song cut up into 3 tracks.  And it’s the same concept around a vampire.  That I’m supposed to be the vampire sucking the blood out of everybody.  But I’m not.  It’s just what I’ve been branded.  So it’s kind of like the vampire that goes around “I’m not the one killing everybody.” But the vampire himself is evil, is the bad guy and he goes around saying I’m not evil just because I’m a vampire.

RRX: I actually like that – how you’re fearless with some of the dark topics.  You’re not afraid of…they call it the shadow self in healing…accepting that part of yourself that’s a little darker.

Frank: Yeah, because we all have dark sides we have to deal with.  It’s not even dark sides, it’s just certain things out of our psyche that pop up that we associate with.  You know, whether you went through…it could be a car accident but then you transfer that into something else.  For me I was thinking at the time I guess I am the vampire and I’ll own up to it.  But I’m not the vampire.

RRX: You’re not a vampire. I know you really well.  So…you’ve upgraded your equipment I’ve heard recently.

Frank: Yeah.  Both studio and camera stuff.  Yeah I was filming with Black Magic 6K for a while and I loved it but the cinema camera that was approved for Netflix is the 12K one so I was like.  I kind of have to sell this and hunker down, and do this.  The only disadvantage is it weighs so much.  It’s like holding a 20 pound weight around with you for like 8 hours.  I don’t have as skinny wrists – I used to have really skinny wrists – they are a little bigger now.  I’m just like, man.  So that’s the only downside of it but it looks great.  Lenses I’m starting to use filters on the front and stuff.  It’s just that I am more visually creative.  I’m aware of the story, but to me the visual if it happens and dictates what the story is, it will still say that.  That’s John Carpenter Halloween…It’s very visual.  The story is actually very minimal.  But you have just enough to go off of.

RRX: I wanted to mention that bc you’ve been working with another writer, right?

Frank: Yeah, Christopher Pelton.

RRX: How did you guys meet?

Frank: I don’t know, I think he just found me on his podcast. He was like oh you make movies do you want to be on my podcast?  And he goes, I’m a writer.  I just wrote all this stuff.   I’ll give you the movie rights to my book if you want to make a movie.  So At Death’s Door is his original story concept.  So I had to take it and just expand it and change it and do the cinema thing.  

RRX: But he gave you a baseline.

Frank: Yeah but I was glad that he liked it because some writers are like, you’re changing things.  You can’t change anything.  He’s like dude, they are short stories.  Do whatever you want. So I was like alright, that sounds good.  So from there we just kept working together and developing these things and we did an anthology and that created the movie which – the premiere is coming up at the Strand Theater.

RRX: October 16th right?  6:30.

Frank: I don’t know when you guys will be seeing this but October 16th the premier is at the Strand Theater.  .The movie is also coming to Tubi and Fawsome and YouTube and some other platforms.  I just don’t know when.  They don’t give you release dates anymore.  It says licensed and you just gotta wait.  Like Tubi could literally be next Halloween.  Fawsome could be next week.

RRX So if people want to see your movies do they just follow you on Instagram, or Facebook?

Frank: I’ve been pushing YouTube a lot. I have a playlist with all the stuff on YouTube and the older films you can watch on Tubi, Fawsome, Troma TV has a couple of them.  There’s a couple odd apps that have the movies too.  Those are the main ones.  The new ones I’m just waiting for them to go live.  So I’ve been in Scream Magazine twice.  Had two full page article things on it and I’m like, American Psychopath is technically out but it’s not.  It hasn’t really come out yet and the new one isn’t out at all.  So I’m just waiting and waiting.

RRX: So is that the production company?  Like the people that put out the movies?  The actual app?

Frank: A little bit but it’s actually just Tubi themselves.  They are putting out less and less.  The guy told me they actually are – they cut everything.  They are only taking 20% of what they used to.  So you can imagine where its….so my guess…I really think…2 years from now it might show up.  It might take a little while.  We will see.

RRX:  So I did want to ask you, since you are an independent filmmaker and independent musician…if you had $20,000 to put into a film…what would you make?

Frank: Horror films.  It would give the movie a bigger feel, more production quality.  Definitely it would enable me to get a “real actor.”  You know…someone that just has more credits and stuff.  Genoveva Rossi who was in the Walking Dead and a lot of B horror movies and stuff like that.  We used to call them direct to video.  Remember that?  Hollywood video days. We got her for a voiceover and that’s kind of the first actress that’s in some world out there actually doing it coming in.  I’ve got a couple other people in mind but it would enable some cameos…at least something…because these people…they have to be paid.  Or certain budgets – you know sometimes you have to rent out a location.  And you’re like, well I don’t really have that money and stuff like that.  It enables you to do that kind of stuff and all of the sudden you’re not shooting in a garage made to look like an insane asylum basement.  You’re actually filming in a jail somewhere.

RRX: Yeah that would be cool.  But you make it work.  I’ve watched you.

Frank: Well it’s like sets.  Probably if I had an area too where I could construct my own sets for some things that would be kind of cool.

RRX: Because you spend an entire day putting a set together when you know you’re going to film the next day.

Frank: Well it’s temperature controlled, it’s indoors.  You’re dealing with everything when you are making a movie.  There’s elements – the sun.  Even at night.  It’s like…

RRX: Lighting too.

Frank: Even animals and stuff walking around.  There’s a snake right there – whatever. Skunks.  Stuff – they invade everything.

RRX: What’s your next plan?  What are you working on next?

Frank: I have 3 movies that are finished just waiting for distribution.

RRX: You’ve been working your buns off.

Frank: The Farmhouse is the next one….Warren County.  Suburban Serial Killer the series is the cut up version of the stories of Warren County.  I don’t know now what’s going to happen to that.  So I do have 3 features and that and we will see what happens next year but …these movies have to come out first I think before I start anything else.  I’m not going to like go and film another 10 movies.

RRX: And then hopefully your music will also come out next year.  

Frank: Yeah, I do want to release one other track at least besides that one…but…since that one’s Halloween themed I figure either around my birthday for Valentines day.  Like that’s a perfect horror valentine!

RRX: He’s born on Valentine’s Day.

Frank: So I was thinking that or I do have to wait until next Halloween.  But…if not I might release a cover song in between.  Maybe something original.  I don’t know though.

RRX: But your original music is so good.

Frank: The films have been keeping me busy.  So that’s why…like I still produce people.

RRX: Like me!

Frank: Their music.  But I actually don’t have as much time for my own music as much.

If you live in the 518, check out Frank’s film At Death’s Door premiering October 16th at 6:30pm at the Strand Theater in Hudson Falls, NY.  For more info on Frank Palangi Films go to https://palangifilms.com or for more info on his music frankpalangi.com