'Twixt' director Francis Ford Coppola & the Paranormal

Coppola & Val Kilmer, Comic-Con 2011, photo by Aaron Sagers

Legendary director Francis Ford Coppola (Bram Stoker's Dracula) is aiming to reinvent your moviegoing experience with Twixt, an upcoming supernatural thriller that will incorporate live music by acclaimed independent performance artist Dan Deacon.

At San Diego Comic-Con Coppola, along with Deacon and star Val Kilmer, demonstrated some of the interactive experience of the film, which incorporates both 2-D and 3-D elements. Coppola told us that he'd actually be attending traveling viewings of the show, and would remix the film with Deacon during each showing so the audience's movie and music experience will differ from the previous. He did just that, and even belted out a tune at Comic-Con, and to highlight how 3-D can be fun when done right, the viewers who received a sneak peek were given glasses that doubled as an Edgar Allan Poe mask.

All this is well and good, but what is Twixt really about? According to the official synopsis, it's revolves around a writer (Kilmer) with a declining career who arrives in a small town as part of his book tour.  He gets caught up in a murder mystery involving a young girl and is approached by a mysterious young ghost named V. He's unsure of her connection to the murder in the town, but is grateful for the story being handed to him. Ultimately he is led to the truth of the story, surprised to find that the ending has more to do with his own life than he could ever have anticipated.

The trailer for Twixt follows, as does a short interview with Coppola himself where he discusses his own take on the paranormal and how it played into the making of the film.

The Night Shift: Back to the Graveyard

The Night Shift is the production diary of Fighting Owl Film's new independent supernatural-adventure-comedy of the same name currently in "post" in Mobile, AL. Over the course of the next several weeks and months, you'll get an insider's peek at what it's like for filmmakers to craft a new entry of paranormal pop culture from Erin Lilley, a producer and actress on the film.

Back to the Graveyard

The past week has felt very familiar. You see, the gang (Thomas, Soren and Herbie) and I all headed back to the smaller of the two cemeteries where we filmed The Night Shift, to shoot a couple of interviews for Macabre Theatre. Just like last year, it was insanely hot and humid; I think the mosquitoes remembered us, because they were out with a vengeance. I also had the same feeling of, "please, God, don't let the cops pull us over," because we left our apartment with a shovel, a hand-truck, and a body in the trunk. Honestly, I'm not sure if I should be relieved or very, very disturbed that not one of the neighbors who watched us pack batted an eyelash.

As with everything having to do with The Night Shift, this was a learning experience. Thomas is still new to this whole being in front of the camera business, so he had some nerves to overcome. The show required we shoot in HD, so we had an unfamiliar (borrowed) camera and a whole slew of computer challenges to contend with. Who would have guessed that our post-production programs wouldn't play well with high-definition? We're currently researching both hardware and software options now, since a new HD camera is probably going to become a necessity. Now, how we're going to pay for it is another story. We're looking into options for that, too.