From L.A. Times: “XOXO tells of a twentysomething man who meets a female contemporary on Facebook and begins a digital relationship with her, only to find the object of his affections take the relationship to an obsessed and stalker-y place. Think Fatal Attraction (but with Facebook).”

I loved Black Swan, but hated Catfish. What do you think? We all have a little Facebook stalker in each of us…don’t lie, you know you creep up on that girls page…

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More to Come

We’re always trying to improve Killer Film and give you guys – our loyal readers -  more of what you want.  This is just the first of a series of planned new features to make Killer Film even more fun to read and interact with everyday. If we aren’t already your favorite online movie community, we plan to keep working at it until we are.

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Next up: Farmville. No, we’re kidding on that one, but this Mafia Wars news bit is legit.

Source: Collider

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From people with tattoos on every body part, to digital tattoos powered by your blood, this controversial feature documentary will take you on a visually stunning, and to some, disturbing journey into the world of tattoos.

With the help from a sociologist, psychotherapist, bishop and a host of celebrities, including David Carradine, Jason Mewes, Brad Dourif, and many more as a young woman (Sousila) tries to discover why tattoos have become such a large part of modern western society.

Watch in awe at the artistry and extreme measures people go to, to be different. Discover Meg Gaffney’s powerful story as she seeks a tattoo artist to replicate her nipple area after battling breast cancer. ‘Tattoos: A Scarred History’ is a must see visual treat, regardless of whether you love or hate tattoos!

Teaser: Angry Happy Arab from Mousa Kraish on Vimeo.

Source: Variety

Director Nathan Hope

This past June, a little film called Elsewhere (review) came out. Killer Film had the luxury to chat with Nathan Hope, a veteran cinematographer from such shows as CSI and the new series, Dark Blue, about his directorial debut. Read on!

Jon: First of all, thanks for talking with us at Killer Film. You said in the making-of featurette that this was a story that you had to get out of your head. Can you explain the origin of the idea?

Nathan Hope: My pleasure. The idea kind of started with the fact that my producer wanted to make a movie that would be in a small Indiana town, called Goshen. Elaine Ehrlich and Vince Palomino had raised their money to film in Goshen, because they knew a lot of people there and he thought it was an interesting, scenic location, one you haven’t seen in a lot of movies before. But we didn’t have a story yet. So Vince came to me and said we want to make a movie, and he wanted it set it in this town and we want to make a genre film, a horror or thriller, something that will have a good, commercial market.

So we sat down and started thinking of ideas, and something struck me as interesting at that time, was the way the Internet kind of infiltrated everyone’s life, and broke down the barriers of what is a small town and what is a city, you know? The things people move to a small town for, like you know your neighbors, you know the guy at the store, that type of community was growing rapidly to a much larger arena. The reasons people lived in a small town, sense of safety and comfort, was being eroded by the Internet, specifically social sites. We thought it would be interesting to do a mixture of that showing how a small town was being absorbed into a larger world. That’s where it came from; a mystery set in a small town but is opened wider by the Internet.

Jon: The film uses technology and how it’s an advantage and disadvantage for the characters. Did you see something within the world of social networks, like a Myspace, Facebook, or Twitter that scared you or intrigued you on how teenagers are using them?

Nathan: Yeah, you know, it’s totally fascinating. The script was written three years ago. So back in 2006, Myspace was the juggernaut. Facebook was around, but was just becoming an open system, and wasn’t quite like it is now. Friendster was around, I don’t know if anyone uses that now. Myspace was taking over the social stratosphere, and what I thought was interesting was how teenagers were exploring who they were through different persona’s. What happens now, people put on these persona’s, they put them on their profiles on these social networking sites, and play around with that. The problem is they are not just playing around with those ideas with their group of friends, it’s opened up to the world at large. I have a friend who is a professor of education, who told me there have been studies done that show kids who uses these social networking sites think they are just communicating with their group of friends, but there’s no awareness to them on how far reaching it all is.

What I find intriguing and frightening on the whole thing is kids are playing with ideas of you they are, but it’s to a much larger audience than they expect. It has the potential to become a frolic with danger.

Jon: On the flip side, how does these social networking sites help out a small film like Elsewhere?

Nathan: I think…(laughs) This is kind of funny, because we were like making a film on a cautionary tale of what could happen, but we were like we sure hope people are interested and go to our Myspace page. It’s a funny two-face nature to the whole thing. But I think the sites aren’t either good or bad, it’s a matter of how you use them. What adults do with their time, is essentially their business. I think things like Myspace and Facebook are great possible platforms for independent films, because the big hurdle isn’t just getting made, which is a tough thing to do anyway, it’s how do you tell people about it? Running advertisements in magazines and on TV are just too expensive, and nobody has the money to do it.

So you got to find a new way to get attention for your movie, and this is a great way to doing it. I think the challenge is you have to make it interesting, you can’t talk down to the audience. Teenagers are so much more savvy now, as far as Internet and entertainment, then I was at their age. They can smell you a mile away if you are just making a commercial for them, you have to make it interesting, you have to get them involved, and you can’t underestimate their intelligence.

Jon: Elsewhere is your first directorial feature film. Working as a DP on such TV shows like CSI and now Dark Blue, did that fast paced filming environment help you during the shoot?

Nathan: Working on television is probably the most fast paced environment you’ll find for filmed entertainment. So it helps you to know a short-hand, so you can be efficient, and get through the day’s work. Having worked on the set for hours and watching director’s refine their craft, over and over again, helped finding what works and what doesn’t. It’s like an excellent boot camp. You just want to be careful and remember you’re making a film, which is twice as long as a TV program, so you want to take the positive lessons you’ve learned, but you don’t want to make your film into a TV show.

Jon: The film is more, to me, as a suspense film, but there’s some flirtatious scenes of horror. You’re no stranger to the genre, working again, as a DP for The Fog, Mimic 2, and Hellraiser: Inferno. Did working on these rub off on you or did you see something within the story, outside of what you’ve previously mentioned, that would work with these elements?

Nathan: We always conceived Elsewhere to be a suspense/mystery film, and one that was rooted in the characters. We wanted it to be character driven. So, you know when you have as little money as we did for the film, the best production value you have are your performances. We really wanted you to get invested with these characters so you can stick with them for the duration of the film. The horror genre is, in my opinion, it gives you certain license to play around visually and thematically, because it gives you a little more rope to play with. These certain aspects you could say that have a horror film twist to them. Those elements defiantly crept in but I’d say it’s still more of a character driven mystery.

Jon: One of the key elements I loved about Elsewhere was the writing of the teenagers. Most films make them one-note, a cliché, so how did you approach writing teenagers and did any of the actors help you out?

Nathan: If you cast a movie correctly, the actors will always partially write their characters, either through improvisation that happens on set, or things they say in rehearsals. I took a couple of lines from their auditions. They would bring an improve line, and think it was so much better than I had written, and I would jot it in the script’s margins. When it comes to writing teenagers, you write them like you would write anyone else. They have needs, wants, and they usually don’t talk about them directly. When it comes to it, you shouldn’t write up or write down, just write where they live. It always bugs me when teenagers talk too clever or talking outside of things they are really concerned about. It concerns me when it’s all about jargon, and you can barely understand what they are talking about. Just approach them as actual characters. I did have some readings with real teenagers and they acted it out for me, and asked them if it’s realistic or if they would say it. So we did a workshop to feel it out.

Jon: The writing help the actors, but they too are very good and believable. Can you explain the casting of Anna Kendrick (Twilight), Tania Raymonde (Lost), and Jon Gries, and what they brought to their characters?

Nathan: Absolutely. First of all, for the size of the film we had, we got an amazing cast. Our casting director, Monika Mikkelson, just brought a lot of great talent to the table. A lot of them have done work, but weren’t a household name yet. When I was auditioning for the roles, the actors who were coming in, were just obviously right for the parts as they walked in. Anna had just worked Rocket Science for a friend of mine, and I knew she was incredibly talented and a very smart woman. She was a pleasure to work with. Tania came into the audition basically dressed the part, came in as the character, and never broke character. We were like is she just perfect for the part because she is the part, or is she perfect since she understood the part? (laughs) Jon we made an offer to, and initially ask him for another part which was juicy but small, since we didn’t know if he would be available for a large amount of time. He came back and said, “I would actually like to play Mr. Tod” and we like “Oh my God, that’s great. If you are willing to take more on in the film, we’re happy to have you.”

He was a really rewarding actor to work with. He understood the character and the script, he is a film maker’s actor. He would recommend things like “I don’t want to say this, because it might give away the character too early, but what if I do this?” His instincts are always right on. Time and time again, in the editing room, I would think “thank God he did that” because in the heat of the battle, I don’t know if I would have that insight to the character, and he brought a whole new dimension that paid off.

Jon: He’s one of those actors people don’t know by name, but always pops out here in there, in TV or film, and delivers a solid performance like he did here.

Nathan: He’s a chameleon. He obviously does great comedy like in Napoleon Dynamite and from film to film, he’ll appear different from character to character but you want to watch him.

Jon: How long after the film wrapped did you have for post-production before the release?

Nathan: How long we had and how it took are too radically different numbers. (laughs) We had the film finished probably in early 2007, and in the independent film world being what it is, we had distribution deal in place, so we were very excited to be going out in 2008, the economy began to really show weaknesses, and then our first deal fell out, forcing us to find another one. Finally, we got our release in June 2009. So, all in all, the film was shot and cut within 8 months, and then it took a good year and a half to find it’s way into the world.

Jon: Do little things help out like Anna being cast in Twilight or is it just finding the right timing?

Nathan: That is all part of it with right timing, you know, it can’t hurt you when one of your actors gets cast in a higher profile film after you’re film is made. There are countless films that struggle to find distribution and all of a sudden, one of the leads blows up and then there’s a lot more interest in the project. That’s why I think film’s in the independent world have gravitated towards star casting, because it’s so hard to get a film made with no names. So when you have a film like Elsewhere that had little money and cast people who are the best for the roles, instead of who has the highest profile at the time, and we were pretty confident that something like that would happen since we had a talented cast. It was just a question of who was it going to be first.

Jon: Elsewhere looked great on Blu Ray, which I saw it on. A relative small picture like this finds it life so to speak on a format like this. But it seems like this whole world of home entertainment is changing, from 1080p presentations to digital downloads. How do you feel about the market, meaning what’s best for Elsewhere and such films like this; DVD/Blu Ray? Downloads? Netflix Instant View?

Nathan: It’s interesting. There’s this proverb saying “May We Live in Interesting Times.” Independent films are definitely in interesting times right now. All films are, but independents more so, because it’s so expensive to get your film out there. People aren’t interested in taking risks like they were a year or two ago. Right now, films like this are kind of on life support, and the way it’s going to get better is when the mode of distribution gets more streamlined. Anyone can grab a digital camera and make a movie rarely cheaply, but it’s getting it out there is the problem. I think that in a perfect world, independent films would benefit from a central HUB where you can download your movie there and theaters could grab it digitally if you had theatrical distribution, or pay-per-film like day-and-date releasing some companies are doing now, or download it and burn it to DVD at home. But if there was a centralized location for it, I think that could be the future of independent film making. All of it could be a part of it, Netflix, Blu Ray, as long as it is cost efficient, you can cut the millions of dollars for advertising, meaning you don’t have to recoup as much to turn a profit.

Jon: Is there anything you like above something else, like Blu Ray, Netflix, or digital downloading from like iTunes?

Nathan: I love the idea of Blu Ray, because if your film isn’t going to be seen in the theater, you want the highest quality possible. The people who watch movies on Blu Ray, probably have a nice flat screen TV and home theater system, so they’re going to get a nice theater-like experience from the film. Downloads are the future, but there is something that stings knowing that people are watching it on a tiny computer screen. If you put subtle details that could impact the story, could be lost. While you don’t want to make your film specifically for that audience, losing certain subtleties, it’s going to be soon that streaming will be at a point where it’ll be like the theater down the street. So technology is going to catch up, and everything will be on a giant server somewhere and it’s going to just be piped to whatever venue people are going to pay to watch it in.

Jon: I believe there is a LG Blu Ray player tha has Netlfix in it, so you just sign into your account and you can stream their Instant Views straight to the player, so you can watch it on your TV instead of your computer.

Nathan: Oh, is that right? Already ahead of me! (laughs)

Jon: I know it isn’t full fledged 1080p, I think it’s 720p or 1080i.

Nathan: Right. That’s still better than a Quicktime movie. The question of speed will be irrelevant within 5 years.

Jon: I’m still a big fan of DVD and Blu Ray, mostly for the extras. Do you think those will be downloadable too and do you think those extras will just fade out with streaming?

Nathan: The idea of extras are kind of fascinating, because like 10 years ago, the idea of thinking about EPKs, behind-the-scenes, or cast interviews wasn’t given much thought to. The last 10 years, it has grown up, and all of these films have websites with bonus material, I wonder what role extras will have in the future. I feel like that those will just disappear, and you’ll go to a website and stream all of the extras there or something like that. I think extras are wonderful if you can have them. On a little movie, you’re stressed and strained as it is just to get your movie shot and cut, let alone thinking about how you are going to get cast interviews, behind-the-scenes, and all of that.

But for people who enjoy those, they love it, and if you can reward your fans, I say do it. On Elsewhere, we kind of joked between my producer and I, when we were looking for additional scenes, the reality is what we shot ended up in the movie. It wasn’t like we had the luxury of shooting a half an hour of film, to be cut out. It was just stuff we cut out that just shows you how the film evolved.

When we approached to do the commentary on the movie, I had in mind if I watch this movie, what would I be curious about? From a film makers standpoint, you can plan everything on the film, and something else is going to come up. You can’t prepare for everything, you can only prepare for what might go wrong. (laughs)

Jon: Finally, outside of your TV work on Dark Blue, what’s next directorial wise?

Nathan: I’m directing a lot of TV right now, and feature wise I don’t have another film set up yet. There are a couple of scripts of interested slipped away, so I don’t know what is next. So TV is a great place to refine your skills and just awaiting whatever the next opportunity will be.

Jon: Heck yeah! So thank you again to devoting your time to talk about Elsewhere to Killer Film and our readers.

Nathan: It was my pleasure! We appreciate that you put a positive take on our film on the web, and good luck with everything.

Anything to add? Feel free to contact me at jon@killerfilm.com. Have you seen Elsewhere? If so, let us know what you thought in our comments section and in our forums!

The Film:

Every once in a while, an independent film slips through the cracks, only to have people never hear of it. Usually, that’s a sign that the film is probably best left unheard of, but in the case of Elsewhere, I feel sorry that it isn’t getting a little attention. What seems like generic independent junk on paper; pretty teens, a mystery, they solve it, turns out to be a nice little thriller. Nathan Hope, the writer/director and a TV veteran from CSI, really carries the film out of any possible blandness with a nice script.

The film focuses on a small town, and a missing girl. Nothing to that as that’s kind of a traditional set-up, but the topic of the social networking sites, like Facebook or Myspace, and the nature of a person’s background, adds some interesting subtext to the film. The cops aren’t really interested in this missing girl due to her past. We see real life incidents that mimic this scenario. The film is a thriller, but flirts with some supernatural elements. The mystery is probably the film’s more predictable and clichéd angle, but Hope really understands and develops the teens’ relationships with each other, while examining their online culture.

The acting is good, and really adds to the film. Anna Kendrick (Twilight) anchors the film as she goes looking for her friend. Far too many times, we see these indie films casting pretty faces and they can’t act, let alone sell us the drama, but Hope chose wisely, and Elsewhere benefits from that. The film peters out, and the mystery is sort of predictable. Oh well, because Elsewhere is a nice little film, and ascends the crap that fills out store shelves. The film tries to tackle interesting issues, and despite the anticlimax of the “reveal”, spending time with characters that are handled like real people, instead of teen caricatures is a refreshing one. Elsewhere is one of those films that by judging by its cover, it’ll get outright dismissed. Luckily for indie films, critics are the middle man that can sell it to an audience. They just need a helping hand, and this time, I was willing to grab hold. Hope could be an interesting guy to follow.

The Blu Ray:

Audio/Video: I haven’t heard of E1 Entertainment, but if this is a sign of things coming from them, I’ll be happy. For an unheard of indie, the audio is clear and bass heavy, while the video is crisp, detailed, and captures Hope’s gorgeous framing. This is a pretty solid looking and sounding high def disc.

Commentary: Hope is joined by his producer and offers an great listen as they chat about the nature of shooting an indie, casting, fun, and the hard work going into Elsewhere.

The Road to Elsewhere: This eleven minute piece is fine, offering us interviews spliced with footage form the film. Short and sweet, but gives us the actors take on the film. Shot in standard def.

Deleted Scenes and a Trailer round out the extras.

Conclusion: So what if you haven’t heard of this film. It’ll make for a decent rental for thriller fans, even if it doesn’t offer anything new, it’s well-acted, shot, and written.

The Film: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The Blu Ray: Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Source: Dark Horizons