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Alex Drummond and The Shower

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by Holly Grigg-Spall

After trying out the studio system for size and making some head way, screenwriter Alex Drummond decided to take a horror script and make it himself—over a summer, with his wife and co-workers in the restaurant business. Drummond directed and produced The Shower, a fun, entertaining, but thought-provoking movie about a group of friends who get trapped at a baby shower when a mysterious virus starts turning people into homicidal maniacs. In addition to working on post-production for The Shower, Drummond has a script in pre-production with Flash Ambition Entertainment, his action-comedy You’re Dead Meat, Piplowski made The Tracking Board’s Hit List as one of the year’s best spec scripts. Plus he gained recognition from Scr(i)pt Magazine’s Open Door Contest for his romantic comedy When Joseph Met Mary and from our very own Creative Screenwriting Magazine for Homer’s Odyssey.

Alex Drummond

Alex Drummond

HOLLY GRIGG-SPALL: What came first, the screenplay for The Shower or the desire to direct a good script?

ALEX DRUMMOND: I decided to write something I could make in one summer. I had other scripts that needed a bigger budget and studio backing, but weren’t going anywhere fast. I figured doing something like this would allow me to get the experience and the exposure, so that I can make some of the other things I’ve written.

I wanted to direct, but I’d always felt I needed to work on my writing and focus on creating really good scripts. It felt like I had been waiting for years and came close with a couple of scripts to getting something made, and then came the time to just step up and do it myself.

Greg Drummond's The Shower

Greg Drummond’s The Shower

GRIGG-SPALL: What challenges did taking the producer role present?

DRUMMOND: Writing is just me, sitting in my underwear, at my computer. Producing is going out, meeting people, and pitching my script, and I’m not all that good at it, but I’ve got better during this process. The people I worked with on The Shower included my wife, who is also one of the producers, and my manager, friends and colleagues I work with at a restaurant. All of the other producers are actors in the movie as well. We just decided we could all put our heads together and make something good.

As a writer you think what is on the page is clear, but when you actually have to verbalize your ideas it’s very different. As a director and as a producer you have to be able to explain what you’re thinking to your team and other people.

GRIGG-SPALL: Do you feel the experience of directing and producing on this project has made you a better writer?

DRUMMOND: I understand a lot more about the market. For example, I now know foreign sales are very important for distribution. I know more about what people are looking for, and what they are putting money into. You have to tell the story you want to tell, sure, but if you want to get into RedBox or Netflix you also have to check off the boxes that they’re looking for too.

I can take all that experience and apply it to my next script. There are some things you don’t think of as a writer that you will need, stuff that seems small—like transitional scenes—but end up being important when directing. You realize as a director you need shots that as a writer you just don’t consider.

Greg Drummond's The Shower

Greg Drummond’s The Shower

GRIGG-SPALL: How did you raise the money for the shoot?

DRUMMOND: We were originally going to do Kickstarter. However, everything was pretty rushed, because my wife was pregnant at the time, and she is in the movie as the mother at the centre of the baby shower. So, we wanted to wrap before she gave birth. I felt like if we waited until later the energy and enthusiasm of everyone involved would dissipate. I was concerned about the percentage that Kickstarter takes out, and that you don’t get the money until 45 days after the campaign ends, so we would have had to start without the money we needed.

We set up a PayPal account and a website and sent out emails to people explaining what we wanted to do. My manager put together a prospectus we gave to investors. If you gave $500 or more, you were considered in an investor position in the movie. We did incentives in the style of Kickstarter—like DVDs, posters, invitations to the screenings. We did that kind of campaign, but through our own website. The percentage we had to give PayPal was less than Kickstarter and some people wrote checks. Making giving easy was very important we found. We’re actually doing our post-production fundraising campaign right now. We did different social media campaigns, but this time we asked for 500 people to give just $20—ideas like that make it simpler. Our budget was $8,000 (just for the actors) and it ended up growing to $16,000. My wife went into labor when we were shooting, and we had to shut down production for a month, so that was a unforeseen cost. When we finish post production the total cost will be about $60,000.

Greg Drummond's The Shower

Greg Drummond’s The Shower

GRIGG-SPALL: Have you considered how you will release the movie?

DRUMMOND: I’m seeing now in post-production that we have to transition the momentum we have online to focus on the release. More people are aware of the movie at this point, so we need to get those people to support the movie in their towns across the country, perhaps even host screenings, or go to local festivals. We will want to get it into festivals, but we want to use social media to get a good crowd at those screenings.

GRIGG-SPALL: Did you find writing a script to direct yourself to be a different process than writing on spec?

DRUMMOND: When I started writing I knew 85% of the movie had to take place in one house. I decided we wouldn’t have guns or explosions, and we couldn’t employ stunt people. This meant for the zombie-like people we could only do make-up, but not too much, and we couldn’t have a special effect for when they are “turned” as such. In the film one minute you’re talking to someone and the next they’re trying to kill you, so we had to figure out how to show that without any visual effects. Hopefully that’s worked and we’ve resolved the difficulty in a fun, low budget way.

We had a hard time finding a location to shoot in and also finding a neighbor of that home that would also let us shoot in their house. The cheapest location we were offered through a service was $1500 a day and that was impossible for our situation. In writing I had to consider where we would be and what shots would be possible between the two houses that we could use.

GRIGG-SPALL: How have you approached completing the movie?

DRUMMOND: We had a friend who is a professional editor work on the footage while we were still shooting, and I worked with him for a couple of months. He took some time off from his regular jobs to do this and then went back to working full time, so I’m working on it alone now. I have been through the stages of despair, grief and anger over what I didn’t do and what I didn’t get. But I’m now thinking people are going to like the movie for what it is, and not focus on what it’s not. It’s taken time for me to reconcile that. What’s good, I think, is at the end of the day as writer-director-producer I only have myself to blame. I can’t blame anyone else.

Greg Drummond's The Shower

Greg Drummond’s The Shower

GRIGG-SPALL: How has your experience with this film informed what you want to do with your career going forward?

DRUMMOND: I just want to make movies now. It’s been 16 months of craziness and difficultly, but it’s also been so much fun. I enjoy writing but actually making the film has been the best thing possible for me. My next script would ideally be something I could make again without too much crowd funding required. However, if I have an idea that would be a big expensive movie, I’ll still write that. I just enjoy writing, I mean I’ve written 25 screenplays. I like coming up with the story and working it out. Now, after this experience, I find the directing, editing and producing fun too.

However, we’re really still in the middle of it with this movie. I’ll keep looking forward and thinking about how to make the movie better and how to get people to see it. People say to me—“I can’t believe you did this!” I’m glad I did it. I feel like I’ve been in LA for 12 years just waiting for someone to pick me, and this way I can show them what I can do.

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Holly Grigg-Spall is a freelance journalist and editor writing on film and women's health. Her non-fiction book, 'Sweetening the Pill,' is available now (<a href="http://www.sweeteningthepill.com">sweeteningthepill.com</a>).

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