Utter Trash--Speedfreaks

Zombies, Skaters, and Backyard Wrestling

An interview with Lucas Campbell, Andy Campbell, and Cory Maidens

By Bob Ignizio

Left to right: Cory Maidens, Andy Campbell, and Lucas Campbell

Almost everyone has a great idea for a movie, but very few have what it takes to go out and make the sucker. The guys at Speedfreaks Productions actually turn their ideas into reality, and on a budget that wouldn’t even cover one month’s rent for most people. Brothers Lucas and Andy Campbell write, produce, and direct. Stacey Silvers helps out on the writing, and Ezra Haidet does the special effects. Stacey and Ezra weren’t on hand for this interview, but Cory Maidens who starred in the group’s most recent epic ‘Midnight Skater’ was. I sat down with the three of them at a Kent coffee shop and we discussed the ups and downs of no budget filmmaking.

Although both Lucas and Andy have studied television production at Kent State (Lucas recently graduated), their filmmaking careers actually started at home in Sebring, Ohio with that ever popular pastime for bored youth, backyard wrestling. “We did the backyard wrestling stuff about 3 years ago. We liked doing it for a while, but then we got tired of getting hurt so much,” says Lucas. They videotaped several of their matches, and after the wrestling ran its course moved on to making movies. The results were ‘Kiss it You Dang Kanucks’, and ‘Kiss it You Dang Kanucks, Too’, a pair of action-comedies full of inside jokes that Andy describes as, “so ridiculous that they’re only amusing to us.” Lucas adds, “They helped us learn what to do, and what not to do. It gave us a lot of experience. The only way you learn is by doing it and looking back at how bad it was. Now we try to make stuff a little more like a normal movie so everyone can enjoy it.”

Their first attempt at a more professional product was the short film ‘Teenage Zombie House Massacre’. Lucas states, “‘Teenage Zombie House Massacre’ was pretty much a group effort; we all had an equal role more or less. We thought it would be funny to set it in the eighties for some reason. I think Andy just wanted to pretend he was Axl Rose and he had the hair for it.” At the time, Jared Bullis (who has since moved to Athens, Ohio) was part of the Speedfreak’s team and ran the camera, capturing the action in wide screen black and white. “The black & white we wanted to do because it was a zombie movie, and we could use chocolate syrup instead of mixing corn syrup and food coloring for blood. Widescreen was because Jared thought it would look more like a real movie,” says Andy. ‘TZHM’ makes the most of its limited budget with good locations, enthusiastic if somewhat unpolished performances, and an obvious affection for the horror genre. It premiered to a good response at KSU’s Kiva theatre and like all the Speedfreaks’ efforts can be purchased on VHS from their website.

For their most ambitious project to date, the feature length ‘Midnight Skater’, everyone’s job became a little more focused with Andy and Lucas taking full charge of producing and directing. I asked the brothers how they handled working together. “We fight a lot,” says Andy. “Luke’s more in control of the visual directing, like setting up the shot and doing the camerawork. And then I have more of the role of directing the actors.” Lucas says, “We billed Andy as producer on Midnight Skater, but he also helped get people together, and coached people a lot like a director would do. I was more the guy behind the camera, actually setting up the shots.”

With regards to his directors, the movie’s star Cory Maidens says, “They’re the most professional directors I’ve ever worked with.” Of course, they’re also the only directors he’s ever worked with, but is that really relevant? Continuing, Cory adds, “They gave me a lot of free reign and I just tried to be creepy. I got a lot of “make your eyes look bigger” or “do that crazy laugh”. There were definitely moments, like the first scene, where I could have used some more direction. That was the very first thing we shot, and it’s painful to watch. Sometimes it’s frustrating, but I think they made my first acting experience pretty easy. ‘Midnight Skater’ was kind of an ordeal, but I was relatively intoxicated for most of it.”

Just how much of an ordeal was shooting ‘Midnight Skater’? According to Lucas, “There were a couple times when the cops showed up. The opening shot, where the Midnight Skater skates down the hill, we were in reverse going down the hill and I’m leaning out the car with the camera, and some stupid Kent State bike cop stopped us and gave us a $100 ticket. It’s so horrible when you’re trying to make a movie with no money at all and some guy puts you back a hundred dollars. It really is like renegade filming sometimes. You don’t always have permission; you just have to get what you can done.” In addition to police harassment, the cast and crew had to put up with freezing temperatures and being covered in fake blood and pig intestines. Cory says, “I got shot in the eye in every single scene where blood squirts on my face. It was a mix of tomato sauce and other things, and it burned. I really wasn’t too fond of Andy after that.”

After about 3 months of shooting and another 2 or 3 months of editing, ‘Midnight Skater’ was finally ready for public consumption. Although Lucas and Andy wish some things would have worked better (“When you get out there and it’s freezing and latex isn’t sticking and blood isn’t squirting, you just have to make it the best you can because you have a lot of other scenes to shoot,” says Lucas) for the most part they seem happy with the movie. So do the people who’ve had a chance to see it. Lucas says, “We premiered ‘Midnight Skater’ at the Mantis. It doesn’t hold too many people but it was packed solid. Afterwards, everyone was like, “it’s the greatest thing ever”. We always get good responses.” Not bad for something that cost about $500 to make, including the ticket they got slapped with.

Right now, Lucas and Andy are plotting their next epic with Cory once again slated to act. Although they’d like to make better and different kinds of movies, they also recognize their limitations at the present. Lucas says, “We’ve all come up with great ideas for scripts, but we just don’t have the actors or the money to do certain things. So when we’re writing feature movies we always think who do we have for actors and can we actually do this instead of would we like to do this.” Even with all the limitations they’ve faced, the Speefreaks crew has delivered some genuinely enjoyable videos. Here’s hoping they get to do what they really want to do soon.