Jason steele Interview

This Is my interview that i did with My pal Jason I had the pleasure of interviewing my good friend Jason Steele. He is an actor writer movie maker. He is currently playing Sherlock Holmes with the Central Alberta Theater. I sat down with him to ask him about his new web series The Bin: What inspired you the write The Bin? I had just finished doing Sherlock Holmes in June and I really want to make a movie, and then other people had me shooting short movies, but I wasn’t making my movie, and so I said I’m am making my movie and the only time I could make it was four days away. Instead of saying I can’t do it or can I do it instead I asked a yes question which is how am I going to make a movie this weekend I just assumed it was going to happen I just needed to figure out what would I need to do, and so I said it needs to be something that people could learn lines for, which nobody can learn lines for in four days they have to have super powers, so I said we will just improvise the movie we will make up lines and we will improvise and make up our own lines and then I said we need actors then I said ok what kind of movie am I going to make? I said in order to make a whole movie in a weekend, which was my goal I didn’t really accomplish, but I made it other times it has to all be in one place so we never have to change to another location and we have to do it without changing lights and camera angles because on a big movie set it takes like half an hour for every shot just to change, make up our own lines and then I said we need actors and camera crew so I called up actors and I called up my camera crew friends and I said who’s available this weekend and it worked out that everybody was which worked out great. We decided to shoot everything in a grain bin and I needed a story that is intense and I said what if I came up with a story that was intense so I came up with a story where everyone was trapped in a grain bin with a bunch of different personality traits, fighting with each other and trying to escape from this bin, so we filmed these scenes in a grain bin where all these people are trapped by this physio path. We needed a little more with them lead up to getting into the bin, because we have to have the phsyco path catching the main character so we had to figure some scenes how to do that, It ended up being some extra shoots I think 5 locations and 7 actors it was a ton of fun and it came out really good there are some rough sound spots because we are filming in a grain bin it was very echoy, a lot of echo inside of a grain bin, but I like how that sounds I could understand what people were saying I think it is very good because it’s authentic its real coming from inside, there are a couple scenes that where the scenes were hard we filmed at a ranch with horse riding and I had the camera on my shoulder, and so the sound was hard because I was trying to keep up with the horses because they were running so you could hear me breathing, if you listen really close you could still hear it, so editing that footage was editing really hard that day, its really cool there are a couple of twists and turns that people won’t expect. I have done some test viewings at this point, and the twists people didn’t expect the twists which was really cool I even give clues and once they see it they are like oh it was a lot of fun. I wanted to make it into a full movie, but then I wanted to make it in to a web series instead because we are going for things that people want to see for free. We still want to see Marvel movies on the big screen those are spectacular so we are willing to see that for 15.00 but for a lot of movies we just want to make it easy, because we don’t want to sit on facebook we want to get things done. So I said lets do a web series it has some crude content in it but it still mostly be ok on face book. How long did the process take to write? So, the writing itself it came in a couple of spots first was the idea phase it was a Tuesday when I came up with this idea and I said ok I want to film this on the weekend so it was 4 days later, so I said ok I came up with the concept based on what I had and what needed to had to happen ,so what needed to happen I needed to make it all in one place, I said what is a story that can be told in one location. There is movies like Buried with Ryan Reynolds as a man who wakes up in a coffin and the whole movie takes place inside of that coffin and really it’s a good movie its engaging because he’s doing whatever he can but it’s all inside of there, and I thought can we do something where it is that contained so putting it inside of a grain bin gave us that, so I just needed a story that we could have why would anyone be in a grain bin for an hour a half?, and so I started looking at different possibility’s and we ended not just in the grain bin but we ended on just in the grain bin we filmed other scenes so I just had that idea, and then the night before we filmed is when I actually sat down and wrote the outline, and for that what I did was I came back a little bit to Hero’s Journey and creating characters and giving each character a bit of a story arc and then just creating an outline based on that arc so I didn’t give them lines to say, but I gave them snippets of story so I said what are the reasons for them to cut at those places so we can do little scenes and if a scene dosen’t work we just reshoot it. What I came up with in this grain bin there was a trap so if they scream or get to loud it sets off sleeping gas and knocks everyone out. We created scenes in such a way that between each scenes there was a certain task they needed to accomplish, they would start off with whatever happened before wake up I needed to created a story arc of our main character arriving in the bin and her journey there and dealing with all these other and keep it interesting we couldn’t just have the same fight over again. I never really wrote it how a normal script is written I just had an outline, and I started with this outline scene by scene outline and then when we actually filmed it I said ok this is the next scene this character this is what your goal is, and each character I told them this is what needs to happen during this scene and this is how the scene needs to end so that it would work with the story, and then I just let the actors improvise it, they crated the scene completely improvised which was great because I find when actors have a script and I know this just by being an actor myself that our first time through it we can have a lot of fun with it, but some parts of it can be a little harder for us to interpid it So some of it is going to sound weird we are not going to deliver the lines right because we don’t have the same vision as the writer that came up with it as actors we will go off a little off track, but with improvising as long as we know our character, we can be that character for that scene and its fine , we don’t have to worry about getting the lines right because we are making up all the lines as we go and I think that worked well. So we did that outline for that day then we did some scenes a couple days later on Tuesday we shot some scenes at Tribe restaurant and some scenes at Kevin Spirit Healing Ranch and then it sat for a while then earlier this year in 2019 I went to visit our lead actress Lucaiana Eve I said well lets plan our next shoot because we needed to shoot some opening scenes to lead into the scenes we filmed, and so she and I sat down and outlined four more episodes at the point we decided it was a web series we outlined four more episodes with all these characters stories and actually added a new actor at that point to. We said we wanted to the have a roommate character after we filmed most of the movie and the worked out great we found Tasia Racette who was great. We filmed 4 more days witch were shot at my home, then we filmed some scenes at integrity liquidation because when I had been there to pick up some props when we filmed the first time I thought this is a really cool place like there’s so many cool things and one of the things they sell there are a lot of security things like hidden cameras and security cameras and alarms and things for that. I thought well they sell all these things and knives and just sort of things, and I thought well these are the type of things that she would want when she goes to try and capture a bad guy capture this physco path, so we went there to film the scene where she buys a hidden camera witch comes up later in the movie and some other stuff, and that worked out great because we got these great locations that we could film at, and now we could thank them as sponsers because we were allowed to film there and filming there gave us a extra location that we can show apprecation for all the cool things I was able to buy there. So as far as writing process it was based on what I needed to film, I didn’t really care where I filmed It could’ve been in my chiopracters office it could’ve been a whole movie shot in there office. I could’ve been in a bank but would’ve I had access to a bank probably not so I needed a location I could access and would be interesting a film that’s all set in my house would be boring, though the first four episodes are filmed at my house there is some stuff that make it intense but I wouldn’t want to set the whole movie in a house, but you set the right situation and you can really make it intense which is what I aimed for, and part of it I outlined and part of it Lucina Eve and I outlined together and created a cool thing for those opening episodes. What is your casting process? Casting great. So the various cast members that I had most of whom I work with before and so I seen them on stage or performing before we had Lucina Eve who she and I had been friends on facebook and I seen some of her post and I thought that she was really funny and had really good sense of humor and it was really quick minded and quick wit, so I asked her to do some murder mysteries where you need to very quick witted very clever, and she was great very natural and so those had gone well and I thought she has such a natural skill that I feel like she would be good in this role to and so I cast her in the lead role and she knocked it out of the park she was great. We had Kirsten Merriman she was in worst date ever with you, I also worked with her on Air Raid and Siren Songs which was a musical stage production I feel like I have seen her in something else but she has a natural talent as well. Julia Van Dam who I worked with on Air Raid an Siren Songs and she has done some murder mysteries right at the beginning of the first episode you will see her on a missing person poster, I don’t put much attention on it right there you just see it for a second but it comes back multiple times and she’s the person that Val Lucina Eve’s character is trying to rescue or trying find, if she can’t find her alive she’s going to find information and maybe try to claim a reward. Julia is great to work with. We have Aryin Street who she actually teaches drama a ponka high school and she also done murder mysteries with me as well and does a great job and she’s always great to work with as well and does a great job and she’s always great to work with. Her character doesn’t say to much. Julia’s character she’s been in the bin for a while a couple of years so imagine how sick she would be. She’s been in there for a couple years she’s pretty sick. Aryin has been in there maybe 6 months or a year, there are a couple clues that Airyns character might have been pregnant when she went in for those that notice that, that will give the idea why she is the way she is, because she is none verbal in the bin she almost become animalistic she’s been in there so long she doesn’t even act human anymore she’s acting like a rabid dog almost just confused and quiet. There is also Hannah Morrow who she is the most reccent

Speechless

I loved how in the new aladdin jasmine had a song, its about time . The song itself says something, I won't be silent it's important to say what you feel and not keep it inside, and not keep it inside Speechless (Full) Performed by Naomi Scott as Jasmine Jasmine singing Here comes a wave meant to wash me away A tide that is taking me under Swallowing sand, left with nothing to say My voice drowned out in the thunder But I won't cry And I won't start to crumble Whenever they try to shut me or cut me down I won't be silenced You can't keep me quiet Won't tremble when you try it All I know is I won't go speechless 'Cause I'll breathe when they try to suffocate me Don't you underestimate me 'Cause I know that I won't go speechless Written in stone, every rule, every word Centuries old and unbending Stay in your place, better seen and not heard Well, now that story's ending 'Cause I, I cannot start to crumble So come on and try Try to shut me and cut me down I won't be silenced You can't keep me quiet Won't tremble when you try it All I know is I won't go speechless Speechless! Let the storm in I cannot be broken No, I won't live unspoken 'Cause I know that I won't go speechless Try to lock me in this cage I won't just lay me down and die I will take these broken wings And watch me burn across the sky Hear the echo saying I won't be silenced Though you wanna see me tremble when you try it All I know is I won't go speechless Speechless! 'Cause I'll breathe when they try to suffocate me Don't you underestimate me 'Cause I know that I won't go speechless All I know is I won't go speechless Speechless!