Dee McCullay
Filmmaker, Writer, Artist
Location:
Belgium
Biography:
I was an 80’s horror kid, always renting up all the horror and cheese horror I could find and making horror movie props and wishing I could get into special makeup fx when I grew up. A love for horror has always been there, as I had always loved it. By the time I started my first scripted horror short, Fallacious, I was fully prepared to do everything to make it a new age Halloween classic. Both Fallacious and Border Patrol have been well received, Fallacious more so with over 15,000 views and brought me into the horror spotlight.
Influences:
Heroes of horror include John Carpenter, Wes Craven, and Tobe Hooper & Tom Holland. I had always tried to emulate the work of Tom Savini, but never could with my sculpting.
Challenges:
As an indie FearMaker, the challenges are writing. coming up with a concept and then making it all work. From script to screen there is so much in between to think about to make it a reality including location scouting, casting, scheduling, shooting, preproduction, foley, ADR, sound design, music, VFX editing and as a one man crew in post this takes 14 hours a day until I am finally happy with what I have created. I am a perfectionist of sorts, and if something doesn’t look right
I am a perfectionist of sorts, and if something doesn’t look right I go back and work on it until I have done all I can do, and make it all it can be. Even though when finished and released I am still never happy with the films I put out, but a friend told me there comes a point when you have to just let it go and say that enough. But still never satisfied with my work and I know the next project will have 10 more problems and a whole new set of challenges awaiting.
With Scars, our star and driver hit the ditch the night of shooting and she had to get herself out, while the crew waited an hour and a half away at the location. She was late picking up the other actors who had by that time told me they are bailing out. By the time Kate got out she had picked up our make-up fx technician Dawnmarie, but the others would not answer their door. So she spoke with me about what to do and she came down late, and we were forced to take crew and throw them into the film, as the apartment was already paid for, for the shoot. It was a little chaotic behind the scenes with last minute actors and our script supervisor Jenny feeding the lines to the new actors, but we got it done in record time from 8:30 PM to 12:30 AM. Tired and exhausted we all cleaned up and left. I didn’t know what I had in the can but hoped it would be good. When putting it together I realized the next day, Hey we got something here!
Advice for the Community:
My advice for the indie horror community is don’t give up on your dream. Even with no to low budget, you can make it happen, with drive and determination. My films are low budget, but I do all I can to make them look epic and masterful. The more film you make the better you get, and the challenges you must face, you face with determination, and eventually, you will knock those blockades down and get your film out. And if you have done it well, you will be recognized.
Lastly, the horror community has really been great, with all the support I have received, coming from the paranormal into horror, I have seen a huge difference in support and the love shown. The Horror community is really fantastic and the right choice of genre for me. I just couldn’t see myself ever making comedy.