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Filmaker Profile
Christopher MacMillan-Ramirez - Director/Editor
Name: Christopher MacMillan-Ramirez
Education: Southern Methodist University (5 and ½ long ass years!!!!)
Film School: SMU and making my own films independently of the school, like this one
Film Bio: “Octane” “Toastmaster” (Both as Director), “Ballsy”, “Drifting”, “In The Ordinary”, “Playing For Keeps”, “You Are Here” & “Zero:Hour” (All as Producer) (Co-writer on “Zero:Hour”)
Film Philosophy: Make Entertaining Films!!! (At least that was my Philosophy when I made “Toastmaster”.) Now it’s make films that reach a wide audience and tell a good story. I want to produce and make films where it doesn’t matter if you like the genre, actors, or even the filmmakers involved, you still enjoyed the film and you enjoyed the experience of the film. There are plenty of filmmakers out there that I don’t personally agree with style wise or opinion wise, but I still like the films that they made (Brett Ratner…Are you listening????) At the end of the day the fact is I work in a business and that business runs on the Audience and their desire to see films. This is a job pure and simple and when it comes down to it, I simply want to make films that people want to see and that I feel good about putting my name on. I feel very honored to have my name on all of the films that I’ve worked on, sure they may not have turned out the way we all intended them too, but I feel that they all have my personal stamp on them either as a director or a producer and that makes me feel like I’m doing my job.
Filmmaker Influences: George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, James Cameron, Ridley Scott, Sam Raimi, David Cronenberg, Alfred Hitchcock, Terry Gilliam and John Carpenter
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Short Film
"TOASTMASTER"
A Culinary Kung-Fu/Superhero Flick of Ridiculous Proportions.
1997, 16mm, 24 minutes, Quicktime File
Jonathan Howell as Toastmaster
Click to watch the movie
Click to watch the movie with Commentary from
Director/Editor Christopher MacMillan-Ramirez &
Producer/Cinematographer Erin MacMillan-Ramirez
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Q & A With Filmaker
Q & A with Director/Editor Christopher MacMillan-Ramirez
Q: What made you want to make this film?
A: Erin and I had just got our hands on quite a bit of short ends (The last couple of minutes of film in a reel that productions don’t use due to the fact that these last few minutes could, but rarely ever do, have light damage when the reels are changed out.) from “Walker, Texas Ranger”. We had two features that we were preparing to shoot with these short ends, but being the producer that I am, I wanted to make sure that we didn’t waste our money shooting with these ends and then not be able to use any of the footage. I thought that we should test some of the ends and see if they were even usable. The only thing we could think about was an idea that a friend of mine was originally going to shoot with us, but pulled out at the last minute for whatever reason. We pulled out the original script and gave it an overhaul so that we could shoot it with no money. It was all really about practicality and was simply chosen as a test to see if we could even pull off what we wanted to do for the upcoming feature with the short ends that we had.
Q: What was the budget?
A: $700.00. That was for the film transfer and the color correction. Everything else you see in the film, we either got for free or negotiated for, except the “Original Bagel Babe Costume”. I think that cost us a couple of bucks at “Michael’s”, oh and food I think we might of spent like $100.00 buck on food for the weekend that we shot.
Q: What was the biggest obstacle and how did you overcome it?
A: Shooting the film without sound and then having to redub all of the voices after the fact. It was very much like a Hong Kong film in that all of the voices were added after the fact. We were editing at a friends house, he just got an AVID and we were the guinea pigs. It was 1997 and technology wasn’t what it was today, everybody and their monkey’s can make a film today with their laptop, hell I think our dog George was making one with the cats the other day! But yeah trying to pull all of it off in Post was a pain, but we used it to our advantage and made the movie more of a funky cool Kung Fu flick by not having the voices match up with the lips.
Q: How long did it take to shoot?
A: About two weekends. The first weekend was concentrated on Jonathan (Toastmaster) and the Sock Puppet. Since we had a tremendous amount of scenes with just Jonathan in the house and talking with the puppet and training, it was easy enough. Erin lit the scene and I ran the camera and Jonathan was our only cast member for two days, I think. The opening with the girls was shot on a Friday night, the puppet and Jonathan and his training was on Saturday. Then the next weekend was the finale out in Greenville, TX, which is about an hour outside of Dallas, where we shot the Jinsu’s layer and the big Finale fight. That was shot over two days (Sat and Sun). Then we shot the Grocery store scene that Sunday night after the Greenville shoot and all I remember was that both Jonathan and Bree (Bagel Babe) were both really tired and getting sick, but they were troopers about it all.
Q: What’s your approach to directing?
A: Do what ever it takes to get the shot. The actors are actors, they know how to act, let them act. I’ve never been an actor’s director, but you know give them some guidance, make sure they know where you want them, but their professionals and they too have a job to do and their usually damn good at it, so I can tell them what I want, but I also want them to have the freedom to do what they instinctually feel is right for the scene and authentic for the character. As far as directing, it’s more than just being on a set and yelling action, it’s the pre-production through the post-production, and since I was also the editor of the film it was easy enough for me to know what I was going to need footage wise for each scene. I’ve got so much going on in my head throughout the shoot that It really boils down to being FOCUSED AND TRUSTING MY INSTINCTS.
Q: How do you feel about the finished product?
A: Yeah it’s fun…There’s a lot that I feel, looking back on it now with almost ten years of experience behind me, there is a hell of a lot that I would do differently now, but It’s just so much fun still and I watch it and I remember everything about the shooting of it and the planning and yeah it’s great and I feel that we got the tone of what I wanted to accomplish with it…and I look at it and can say “Not bad for $700.00.”
Q: What’s next for you?
A: “Zero:Hour” is in pre-production right now, we have a short film that we are shooting as a sort of dry run test first before we shoot “Zero:Hour”. Then I’m producing another independent film for NOC Films that is really kinda down and dirty really low budget, I’m actually working on the soundtrack right now in order to help Erin with the tone of the film. After that I’m thinking about directing again. Maybe somewhere down the road there’ll be a “Toastmaster 2000”.
Q: Who would be your dream actor to work with?
A: Let’s see, I really dig Russell Crowe, Colin Ferrell, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Ewan McGregor, Kate Winslet, Clive Owen, Edward Norton, Scarlett Johansson, Sam Jackson, Topher Grace, Zack Braff , Rutger Hauer and Christian Bale.
Q: What would your dream film be if you could direct anything?
A: I got a fairly ambitious action film in my back pocket. It’s actually more of a love story with the action as a backdrop, but I really want it to be something that no one would expect from an action film. We’ve been working on it for a few years now and I think it might be the right time for it soon.
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