Savage County
Savage County Official Trailer from Savage County on Vimeo.
In the summer of 2009 in Memphis Tennessee with a script co-written by Dan Alvarado and a crew of talented actors and filmmakers from Los Angeles and Memphis, I directed Savage County as what was originally intended to be a fifteen-part web series that worked as either short chapters or as a feature-length “film for new media.”
Greenlit as a leap of faith on the part of my boss, David Gale, and MTV Networks and produced by BR2 in Memphis* – it was a project that was exciting initially only for its potential. When we made it, we didn’t know where it would live, or how it would work within the network’s many tendrils. With a production budget of $250,000, it was always possible that it might just be an expensive experiment in online horror.
Since completing Savage County, many groups at MTV Networks have taken another leap of faith on the project, committing to distribute and air it across platforms if we manage to do for Savage County what so many online projects have to do: prove that the audience cares.
As I write this (August 18, 2010), we’re well on our way to doing this. We’ve partnered with Eventful to create a “demand” campaign that allows audiences to take a look at a trailer (and soon, other material from the film) and let the network know if this is something they want to see. If 100,000 people opt-in to the demand, MTV2 has committed to airing the feature-length version of Savage County. In eight days, we’ve gotten over 52,000 demands.
I’m honored that so many people have taken time out of their day to check out my movie. I think it’s hard to comprehend, since the film was backed by a network, how indie the production was in its scope, and in the freedom I was given to make it. If it wasn’t for the talent of the team and their support of my vision (support that cost them sleep, comfort, and sanity in some truly awful locations), there wouldn’t be a Savage County. Like anybody who just finished his or her first movie, I’m very grateful to the team and proud of what we pulled off.
In an early blog post about Savage County, commenters went crazy over the note that Savage County was inspired by Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but it’s an inspiration regardless, alongside dozens of other horror movies that used limited means to tell a story with a bigger impact than the production budget can buy. We had HVX200′s instead of CP-16′s, but I think the example of 70′s horror carried us a long way.
We’re going to be releasing a lot of cool stuff in the weeks ahead. I’ve been given freedom to create a lot of extensions to the movie that aren’t just ads, but entertaining and scary in their own right. Again, I’m working with great creators and hope that we’re going to be earning all the support we’ve gotten so far.
* Craig Brewer‘s production company, run with his producing partner, and Savage County producer Erin Hagee. I met them working on $5 Cover: Memphis.