Scream Of The Bikini

Photos: Alan Mercer

'Scream of the Bikini' is a 1960's action-spy-thriller by acclaimed South American director, Fernando Fernandez. Jasmine Orosco and Paola Apanapal - in their English language film debuts - are Bridget and Sophia: gorgeous super models by day, brutal bounty hunters by night. Murder, intrigue and pillow fights await our beautiful leading ladies at every turn, as they match wits and martial arts with a coterie of madmen and women bent on world domination. Filmed somewhere in South America in 1966, and poorly translated and dubbed by Germans, this unintentionally funny James Bond meets Barbarella love child plumbs the seedy depths of the international fashion model/psycho-killer underworld with a boldness that only a gun to the head can provide.

Now if only any of this were true. What is true is 'Scream of the Bikini' is the winner of Best Comedy at the ThrillSpy International Film Festival and 3 Maverick Movie Awards including Best Director. Written by Bill Robens and Kiff Scholl, who also directs and stars along with Rebecca Larsen and Kelsey Wedeen, the film is a wacky send up of a 60's style spy thriller.

Once again my British buddy Brett Ashworth is the one who pointed me in the direction of these talented filmmakers. Richard Levi and I met up with Kiff Scholl, Rebecca Larsen and Kelsey Wedeen in the courtyard of the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood to talk about this labor of love and take a few snapshots.

AM: How did this film even get started?

KS: It's interesting because my co-writer Bill is a fan of classic films. I had come across a film by Jesus Franco, who goes by a different name on every movie he made. He was a German living in Spain and South America.

AM: What film did you see?

KS: The film I saw is called 'Kiss Me Monster' and it was sort of a female James Bond move. I thought it was so funny and unintentionally so. We were looking for something to do that would be a late night Theater piece. We launched the idea with Kelsey and she said this would be a better movie.

AM: Did you have a budget?

KS: Getting funds for a movie is almost impossible so we sort of assumed that it wouldn't happen. Kelsey encouraged us to go forward and start writing, so we wrote a couple of scenes and got Rebecca involved.

AM: How did you know Rebecca was the right one?

KS: We knew she was brilliant and that nobody else could play the part. So we wrote about four scenes and decided to film them with the camera we had handy. The idea was so out there style wise to dub an entire film when they're speaking English in the film, then why dub it?

AM: Yes why did you dub the film?

KS: Dubbing is part of what made those fun movies so funny! The bad translations and the disembodied faces from the voices. The idea is the South American actors are speaking English phonetically and the film shipped to Germany to be dubbed into English by Germans.

RL: Which is never mentioned in the film.

KS: Critics notice it and audiences comment on it a bit. They don't need to know exactly what it is we're doing. As long as we're consistent and true to it and that was our goal all along.

RL: There is a "Can't put your finger on it" tone that is coming across better than we ever thought it would.

AM: How many screenings have you had of the film?

KS: About six or seven so far.

AM: Are you happy with the audience response?

KS: We are elated.

RL: Every time somebody watches it, we worry that they aren't going to get it. Every time somebody laughs at something new.

KS: We thought it would be one inside joke. We thought only our friends would like it. We knew we had talent because we are award winning theater makers. We figured this was something that could work.

RL: But we were also so close to it so of course we think it's brilliant. There is always that nerve racking thing of "Are they going to get it?"

AM: Did you show it to other people as you were filming?

RL: At nauseam.

KS: We did, but not to great results. It was in such pieces and without the dubbing and the score. People would watch it and say, "Um, it's funny!?! Will it work in long form?"

AM: How did you know what to change?

KS: Vision. I had a clear vision of this from the moment we sat down to put pen to paper. I had people say, "Are you sure you want to do this under the guise of being directed by Fernando Fernandez?"

RL: Kudos to you Kiff for not giving that up. Directors are so often swayed by that doubt. I think the only reason that this movie is so good is because Kiff said, "I know what I'm doing." The star of this film is the style.

KS: I knew what I wanted from the beginning.

RL: He didn't let it go even when people were saying, "I don't know."

KS: "You'll see" is what I kept saying. Our editor was concerned while we were doing the dubbing. I said to the actors who were dubbing, "Now you're a different actor and you're living in Germany. You look at that character and tell me what kind of voice do they have? Feel free to over act." On camera I said, "Act pretty or evil." There is a sort of lazy, evil, beauty. For the voice over I wanted exuberant over acting. It's about the dichotomy.

AM: Hi Kelsey, nice to meet you!

KL: I'm sorry I'm late. Nice to meet you.

AM: were you involved in this film from the very beginning?

KL: Yes, I decided to executive produce which is a big job. I didn't realize quite how big it was when I started. Really we all did the job. We were a great team. Everybody pitched in and did a lot. Rebecca and I costumed it ourselves.

KS: There was a crew of six.

KL: We did every job ourselves.

AM: How much fun is that?

KS: It really was fun. We knew we were diving into a gigantic project so it better be with people we loved.

AM: Did you ever think you might not end up being friends?

KL: You can't work on a project this big, even though it's a low budget indie film, without some tension. This was a hundred person cast.

RL: I would say that when you get passionate people who are intelligent and have opinions together there are going to be points when it gets big and hard. No matter how much you love somebody if you disagree and you're passionate it will be passionate.

KS: Especially when you're a first time filmmaker. All of us have worked in film before, but for all of us as a team to do our first project together on such a stylized concept. It was inevitable we would have miscommunications and misunderstandings.

RL: We kind of planned for that. This film is going to have intentional bloopers.

KL: We had a code word and if things got too intense we would say unicorn. (laughter)
I think we only had to use it twice.

AM: How long did it take to get this project finished?

KL: We didn't shoot like a normal movie. We shot on weekends and sometimes we'd take a month off if we were all doing another show.

AM: How did you keep up the continuity?

KS: That was to our advantage. For them to have longer or shorter hair was all part of the gag.

KL: The safety belt was the style. It's a beautiful way for first time filmmakers to jump into something because every mistake we could credit to ourselves. As long as the other humor flies then the things we couldn't control still work. If we didn't have the style down it wouldn't have worked because it would have come across as clumsy or cheap.

RL: The way we do it, it's deliciously clumsy.

KS: It's incompetent to the point of hilarious. We couldn't be incompetent. We could make mistakes but we had to be true. That was the other reason we dubbed the whole movie. With no sound on set you never had to wait for an airplane or a bus passing by. It was always to our advantage. It also gave us the opportunity that if the actors didn't know their lines or didn't have time to learn their lines, we could just feed the actor their line.

RL: I didn't know my lines ninety percent of the time.

KS: The actor could just recite them which gave the actors that fabulous flat bad actor quality that is easy to nail when you are a good actor in that environment.

KL: And I think we were lucky to have this huge pool of talented comediennes to choose from because we've all been in the theater comedy scene for so long. We knew we had people that we wouldn't have to do rehearsal with and we could count on them.

AM: Is that how you got Taylor Negron?

KS: Yes I had met Taylor and directed a reading of one of his plays a couple years ago and we hit it off and have been friends ever since. I called him on a whim and asked if he would like to do a little cameo in our movie and he said yes. I was floored and so honored. His appearance in the film is one of the gems of the movie.

KL: Talented people like to have fun. We weren't asking him to come on for six weeks. He has such a great sense of humor that he nailed it.

RL: All these people were like, "Sure what am I doing that night?"

KS: These people said, "Sure I'll drive in the pouring rain to a strange house in Glendale.

AM: Can a movie like this be made again?

KL: We set it up for a sequel.

KS: People really want to see a sequel. They want to see more. There is also talk of a half hour series instead. I think that the one thing the movie sort of suffers from is the length. It lends itself to short form.

KL: We were up against something in doing this genre. Because the pacing of those films is so horrendous. We tried to watch some of the original movies from the sixties and we couldn't get through them. We were up against a challenge there. We wanted to emulate a sense of that pacing for comic value but we re also appealing to the MTV generation. We walked the middle line with the film.

KS: Some people think we nailed it and some think it could use a little trimming. That's always the case. I'm sure some people think 'Avatar' could use some trimming.

KL: I think the gags would work even better in a series on Comedy Central or on the web.

RL: You can have a long pause that is hilarious.

KS: Ultimately it was a great learning experience and fun!

AM: Are you looking for distribution?

KL: We just signed with a sales agent. We are looking for distribution. We would love to do a mini-theatrical run like second tier kind of thing in smaller cities like college towns. We're not sure if we're going to get that distribution or not. We already have an offer from someone who can do the DVD and Cable market.

RL: That was our original goal. It might be bigger than we thought. If there are people out there who want to make a movie, don't spend your money on film school. Just make the movie. That will teach you everything you need to know.

KL: We didn't wait for anything. We just started making the movie. We used the people that we had. We shot on the days that we could and it came together. The money came. The costumes came. If you put that energy out there you will make a movie and that's really why we're all here.

AM: That's very inspirational. It's good for people to know this. A lot of times what holds people back is not having all they need.

KS: It becomes overwhelming.

KL: Sometimes you do overwhelm yourself but if you take a leap of faith and jump in and start doing it, doing and following through is the most important thing.

KS: That and surrounding yourself with talented people who you know and love and trust.

To learn more about this unique film check out the web site http://www.screamofthebikini.com/Scream/Bikini.html