Speaker 1: Folks, it's showtime. People say, good money to see this movie.
Speaker 2: When they go out to a theater.
Speaker 1: They want cold sodas, hot popcorn, and no monsters in
Speaker 1: the protection booth. Everyone pretend podcasting isn't boring.
Speaker 2: Don it off.
Speaker 3: Coming to get you, Barbara.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're dead.
Speaker 4: They're all messed up.
Speaker 1: Georgia's films literally change the face of horror as we know.
Speaker 3: It didn't hide the fact that the games were inspired
Speaker 3: directly by George Romero's films. At that time, there was
Speaker 3: nothing more I wanted than a live action Resident Evil.
Speaker 3: Think George, make it Resident Evil. And then suddenly the plug.
Speaker 1: Was pulled on this. Having him involved would have had
Speaker 1: the potential for him to leave a blue print. How
Speaker 1: did we not get this? And you can, Chelle you
Speaker 1: the misgivings about every project someone else.
Speaker 5: This film just feels so much more hor so much
Speaker 5: more my life, and so much more name I.
Speaker 4: Think George really took things to the next level on that.
Speaker 1: This guy knew Resident Evil.
Speaker 3: He would not sell his soul just to get a
Speaker 3: film done.
Speaker 6: I think that they're buying your.
Speaker 1: The Resident Evil series exists because of him.
Speaker 3: He'll never be for time Rememory Iron.
Speaker 4: When there's no more mom in Hell, I'll see you
Speaker 4: when Pittsburg.
Speaker 6: George a Romero's Resident Evil.
Speaker 1: Everyone's trying to die.
Speaker 4: Hey, folks, Welcome to a special episode of The Projection Booth.
Speaker 4: I'm your host Mike White. On this episode, I'm talking
Speaker 4: with Brandon Salisbury. He is the director and co writer
Speaker 4: of the new documentary George A Romero's Resident Evil. It's
Speaker 4: a little bit of a mouthful, but it's a pretty
Speaker 4: fun documentary talking about the project that never became realized.
Speaker 4: All about George A Romero's Resident Evil. All about George
Speaker 4: A Romero's Resident Evil. It's right there in the title.
Speaker 4: Thanks so much for listening, and I hope you enjoyed
Speaker 4: this interview. Can you tell me a little bit of
Speaker 4: your history as far as filmmaking and what got you
Speaker 4: interested in horror overall?
Speaker 1: I am a United States Marine veteran. I served in Iraq,
Speaker 1: did twelve years total in the service, including the Army
Speaker 1: National Guard. I got into horror when I was really young.
Speaker 1: My mother loved horror films, so she had a stack
Speaker 1: of VHS tapes. My father wasn't so much interested in horror.
Speaker 1: He was a John Wayne Cleanness foot kind of got
Speaker 1: so my mother and I really bonded over horror films.
Speaker 1: I learned how to operate a VHS tape by myself,
Speaker 1: but I popped in and ended up being Knight a
Speaker 1: Living Dead and it scared a head at him. It
Speaker 1: must have been five or six, and it scared me
Speaker 1: off of other zombie films until I played the Resident
Speaker 1: Evil games. When Resident Evil two came out in ninety eight,
Speaker 1: and then when George was attached to direct, I went
Speaker 1: back and was like, I had to watch more of
Speaker 1: his films. And then it was around that time, just
Speaker 1: getting in the early days of the Internet and reading
Speaker 1: interviews with George Romiro, that I got into this fascination
Speaker 1: with his career and his approach to filmmaking, and that
Speaker 1: led me to wanting to get it pursue filmmaking because
Speaker 1: of film and after my military career was done. You know,
Speaker 1: it took a few years, but then I just decided,
Speaker 1: you know, I need to go for this. It doesn't
Speaker 1: matter how old I am. I'm just going to go
Speaker 1: for it.
Speaker 4: Tell me a little bit about those early days of
Speaker 4: your filmmaking. What kind of stuff were you making?
Speaker 1: This is the hysterical thing. The documentary is the only thing.
Speaker 1: It's the first thing that I filmed. I didn't make
Speaker 1: any home movies. I did not make any shorts. There
Speaker 1: was nothing before this. So the first thing that I
Speaker 1: did was something that I had a license for with Capcom,
Speaker 1: to make this documentary about George Romero and Resident Evils.
Speaker 4: That's amazing. So you just swung for the fences right
Speaker 4: on out.
Speaker 1: It wasn't meant to be this. I originally was looking
Speaker 1: at it as something that would be like long term
Speaker 1: and I would be making shorts. But it was something
Speaker 1: that once we started working on it, it took off
Speaker 1: beyond anything we could ever foresee. And next thing you know,
Speaker 1: we were deep in production on this very big project.
Speaker 4: Now he's saying, we I don't imagine that's the royal wee.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me who else you worked with on us?
Speaker 1: When I first decided that I wanted to make this
Speaker 1: sense a documentary, I reached out to Robbie McGregor, who's
Speaker 1: been connected to the Resident Evil community for decades. He
Speaker 1: even operated a bunch of Resident Evil fan sites back
Speaker 1: in the late nineties early two thousands, So he had
Speaker 1: written a in depth article about twelve years ago that
Speaker 1: was about the production of the first movie from its
Speaker 1: conception back in ninety six when Constantine Film got the
Speaker 1: rights all the way up to the release, and he
Speaker 1: tried to cover each era of the production. And I
Speaker 1: had even helped him uncover a few bits and peace
Speaker 1: that I remembered and uncovered it and sent it to him,
Speaker 1: so I'm actually credited in the article. So I immediately
Speaker 1: reached out to him and said, listen, your article is
Speaker 1: already a good baseline. Would you want to write this
Speaker 1: with me and focus on George And he immediately was
Speaker 1: like yes, So that's what we did, and then you know,
Speaker 1: we eventually brought one other people to help us, including
Speaker 1: Tom Robinault, who was the cinematographer and he was amazing.
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of names attached to it, and
Speaker 1: it's really kind of a who's who of the Resident
Speaker 1: Evil fan community with some of the big platforms. We
Speaker 1: have Andy Cox from Biohazard to Classified it was over
Speaker 1: in the UK. We have JJ Truelock of Residents of
Speaker 1: Evil and his team helped out. Some of them were
Speaker 1: doing second unit for us, some of them were working
Speaker 1: within trying to get us in connection with people. Joel Welsh,
Speaker 1: who is a member of the community, did a lot
Speaker 1: of additional research and he was I'm rarely responsible for
Speaker 1: getting us in touch with Kenny Chee while the writer
Speaker 1: of Resident Evil Won. So it was really neat to
Speaker 1: work with all these people that I've seen their work before,
Speaker 1: I've watched them on YouTube, and then now we were
Speaker 1: all working together to try and bring this story to life.
Speaker 4: It's fascinating because this documentary shows me a world I've
Speaker 4: never seen before, you know, and I feel that all
Speaker 4: good documentaries do that. No of the Resident Evil game
Speaker 4: sounds like you are a huge fan and all these
Speaker 4: people that you've talked to, big fans and creators and
Speaker 4: played a part in it, I had no idea. So
Speaker 4: to be able to pull back that curtain is really
Speaker 4: commendable and to take me into that world and show
Speaker 4: me why are so many people into this and how
Speaker 4: has it affected them.
Speaker 1: That was one of the goals, was to establish the
Speaker 1: importance of not only who George Romiro is, but also
Speaker 1: the video game and why the video game is so
Speaker 1: important and how it was and then ultimately why the
Speaker 1: movie would have been so important. With both of them
Speaker 1: combined together, and then obviously the fallout and how it
Speaker 1: slots into George's legacy. It's very much fifty fifty. It's
Speaker 1: half about george legacy and half about Resident Evil, the games,
Speaker 1: the commercial, the movie, so that it's a balancing act
Speaker 1: to kind of give the best of both worlds and
Speaker 1: also explain it in a way that if you don't
Speaker 1: know anything about either or just one or the other,
Speaker 1: that you can not get lost with the story that
Speaker 1: we're telling.
Speaker 4: Well, it sounds like so much of the making of
Speaker 4: this was about connections and who can get you a
Speaker 4: fu and just getting those little pieces and putting them
Speaker 4: all together. I mean, did you make a master list
Speaker 4: of here's all the people you want to talk to
Speaker 4: at the beginning or did it just kind of grow
Speaker 4: organically a little bit of both.
Speaker 1: I think we ended up with something like fifty different
Speaker 1: people that we wanted to interview, and unfortunately a majority
Speaker 1: either didn't respond, they declined, or they were unavailable. And unfortunately,
Speaker 1: once you start production on something like this and encur debt,
Speaker 1: you are either going to just live with that debt
Speaker 1: and not make it, or you're going to ultimately finish
Speaker 1: something and deliver it, So we felt very proud of
Speaker 1: what we were able to do, even lacking particular involvement
Speaker 1: from certain people, and it was unfortunate, but it happens.
Speaker 1: But we still feel that there's an amazing cast of
Speaker 1: personalities that are able to tell their pieces and connect
Speaker 1: the dots and fill in some blanks and finally show
Speaker 1: this story and some of the revelations that come out
Speaker 1: of it.
Speaker 4: When did you start to really work on this? What
Speaker 4: was the timeline for this?
Speaker 1: Twenty nineteen is when I got the idea to do it,
Speaker 1: and that's when I contacted Robbie McGregor, and it was
Speaker 1: bybu worary of twenty twenty that we decided, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this it's going to be a bigger story than what
Speaker 1: we thought. The pandemic hit, so we were trying to
Speaker 1: get into the George A. Rameiro Archives in Pittsburgh to
Speaker 1: actually read all the screenplays, and we didn't get to
Speaker 1: do that for like eighteen months. So we spent eighteen
Speaker 1: months just continually doing more research, finding old articles that
Speaker 1: have kind of been lost or just not really heavily discussed.
Speaker 1: And then the fall of twenty twenty is when I
Speaker 1: connected with Sues Romero, George's widow, asked for blessings because
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do this project without her understanding
Speaker 1: my intent, the kind of story we want to tell,
Speaker 1: to let her know that we are admirers of George
Speaker 1: Ramiro's work, and then it just kind of progressed. There
Speaker 1: was some false starts because it was rough trying to
Speaker 1: get some financing, because documentaries can be hard to finance,
Speaker 1: especially working on trying to acquire licenses. We got a
Speaker 1: license in early twenty twenty two from Capcom, and then
Speaker 1: again there was more just trying to find financing. We
Speaker 1: did announce it near the end of summer twenty twenty two,
Speaker 1: which actually allowed us. It finally brought a lot of
Speaker 1: like traction to us, where finally we had a sales
Speaker 1: agent who was linking us up with some people that
Speaker 1: could get us money. And then by the beginning of
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three we started filming. And then it took
Speaker 1: about eight months to get everything filmed, because you know,
Speaker 1: you might film a bunch of stuff and then had
Speaker 1: to wait two months for an interview, and then you'd
Speaker 1: film a bunch of stuff and go. We had everything
Speaker 1: locked together. Then my daughter was born, and then the
Speaker 1: cinematographer's son was born, so we had some downtime there,
Speaker 1: and then we finally delivered the cut, the lawyers got involved,
Speaker 1: we kind of had to go do some reshooting, and
Speaker 1: then we finally got everything legally cleared in April of
Speaker 1: last year, and then they started their process of working
Speaker 1: on getting it ready for release, and it ended up
Speaker 1: being this month few days ago that we finally released it.
Speaker 1: There were many times where we thought it was never
Speaker 1: going to get finished. It was very challenging, and you know,
Speaker 1: it was very demanding, very much a struggle. So the
Speaker 1: fact that we were able to complete it, put it
Speaker 1: together and actually enticed someone to buy it and get
Speaker 1: it out there for everyone, it was like, Wow, we
Speaker 1: are very proud of ourselves for what we managed to accomplish.
Speaker 1: Because doing something of this scale, trying to deal with
Speaker 1: the complexities of George Ramiro's legacy and dealing with a
Speaker 1: six billion dollar corporation in Japan who owns the rights
Speaker 1: to the video games, plus we're dealing with different people's
Speaker 1: ips to try and tell Georgie's story. It was very challenging.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people have actually said that they're
Speaker 1: really amazed at how much the documentary talks about, because
Speaker 1: it's a much bigger story than just George wrote a
Speaker 1: script and then he didn't make the movie.
Speaker 4: How many folks did you end up talking to for this?
Speaker 4: There are fourteen in the documentary.
Speaker 1: And we filmed twenty two. So there's some stuff that's
Speaker 1: on the cutting room floor. So after we put everything
Speaker 1: together and then we had to cut it within a
Speaker 1: certain timeslot, we had to keep it under a certain
Speaker 1: run time, certain things were left on the cutting room
Speaker 1: floor to try and focus it a little bit more.
Speaker 4: And I know you talked about just how you have
Speaker 4: been involved in this world of both Romeiro and Resident
Speaker 4: Evil for so long, But were there any things that
Speaker 4: surprised you while you're going through this and learning more
Speaker 4: about the project.
Speaker 1: I think one of the biggest surprises was just being
Speaker 1: able to read through Georgia's scripts and seeing the small
Speaker 1: little things that have changed, and then finding out that
Speaker 1: there was concept art done, and getting to see the
Speaker 1: concept art, and then finally getting to read the Alan
Speaker 1: McElroy drafts, which was one of those mythical things that
Speaker 1: not too many people knew about or even knew the
Speaker 1: contents of McRoy was the writer before George Romero, so
Speaker 1: being able to kind of start connecting the dots and
Speaker 1: how everything was sort of put together, that was the
Speaker 1: biggest surprises.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 4: I know obviously with documentaries the editing is so crucial
Speaker 4: to bring this all together to really craft the story.
Speaker 4: Can you tell me a little bit about the editing process,
Speaker 4: and also did you run it past like friends or
Speaker 4: did you have like a test audience that you would
Speaker 4: send different cuts to.
Speaker 1: We ran a lot of it through the producers, and
Speaker 1: all the editing was done by Tom Robineal and then
Speaker 1: I kind of supervised it to make sure like my
Speaker 1: vision was there, but we would sit there for hours
Speaker 1: getting everything cut together. We did show it to a
Speaker 1: few friends, and then we did have a private test
Speaker 1: audience that sort of went through when we see people's
Speaker 1: reactions and then some people crying at the end of it,
Speaker 1: that it was like, Okay, I think we're onto something here.
Speaker 1: But a few of George's friends actually got to see
Speaker 1: it as it was being put together, and they were
Speaker 1: complimenting the visions, saying like, we understand what you're trying
Speaker 1: to do.
Speaker 4: What's in store for the documentary? Now are you going
Speaker 4: to take to conventions because I imagine that that's where
Speaker 4: George's people are. That's something that the distributor will have
Speaker 4: to decide on. The next step is trying to get
Speaker 4: all the special features done up or the.
Speaker 1: Physical release later this year, and then we'll see where
Speaker 1: the future holds for it.
Speaker 4: So are you going to then move on to George
Speaker 4: Romero's the stand?
Speaker 1: I don't necessarily have any plans to do more Lost
Speaker 1: Media projects. I'm actually currently attached to do the adaptation
Speaker 1: of Fate the Unholy Trinity, which is a horror video game,
Speaker 1: and I have another documentary in the work that is
Speaker 1: an announced yet and we're kind of keeping it under wraps,
Speaker 1: so that one we're hoping to actually film later in
Speaker 1: the year.
Speaker 4: Well it's great, So first movie, and you actually still
Speaker 4: want to do a second movie?
Speaker 1: Yes, I am committed. They do say that filmmakers are
Speaker 1: not right in the head because it is a torturous process,
Speaker 1: but then at the you're done, you want to do another.
Speaker 1: So how about you?
Speaker 4: Where can people keep up with you and your work online?
Speaker 1: I am on Facebook, Easy to find me, It's my
Speaker 1: real name, Brandon Salisbury, and I'm also on Twitter. It's
Speaker 1: at mister midnight al m R M I D and
Speaker 1: I T E and then O W L so mister midnight.
Speaker 4: L Brandon, thank you so much for your time. This
Speaker 4: is great talking with you today. It was great talking
Speaker 4: to you too.
Speaker 2: Your son off.
Speaker 5: Half the name other Game, half the name Mother Game.
Speaker 5: Half the name other Game, half the name of the game.
Speaker 6: Yump top of the crowd, raised the queen, the fred
Speaker 6: of mistake in your cradle. Can't shake the dree while
Speaker 6: you're residing to front the grabb battle with gas and
Speaker 6: give you room to freeze the pumatic with math. Everybody
Speaker 6: get front, you pumping your friends till you pump in
Speaker 6: the back. But would you back up with this?
Speaker 2: Come up?
Speaker 6: You're keeping your speaking knocking you jumping in your tan and.
Speaker 2: Your pumping place in the hot colling off freaks of
Speaker 2: calling off freak masther m John John O the gay
Speaker 2: May You're a game, the gay the game back.
Speaker 6: Get him up in the back, say get him up
Speaker 6: in the back.
Speaker 2: Up the name coverin the name can come call it
Speaker 2: God preser