Ethan Dettenmaier

(Horrorsociety): Hello…so who are you and what are you doing here?

ETHAN: My name is Ethan and I’m here to talk about the project SIN-JIN SMYTH (www.sin-jinsmyth.com)-

(HS): So what inspires a person like you?

ETHAN: My family is the best inspiration. And charity work-

(HS): Not just other movies but music, places, other people etc.

ETHAN: From an artistic stand point with music: The Stones, Mozart….AC/DC, (Iron) Maiden Sinatra, Morrison, Mancini….Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of opera…
I also get inspiration when I travel, surf, hit the soccer (football) field…I like to re-pack my sanity after some time in a quiet place…(This was recommended by Ethan’s anger management councilor)…I’m also inspired by good politics and good diplomacy—which is something you almost never see anymore— the work of Mandela. Gandhi. MLK…I also read a lot of history and I can find some real inspiration in the events that built this planet to where it is now-

(HS): How did you get into making movies? Was it a planned venture or just stumble upon it making stuff for you and your friends?

ETHAN: It wasn’t planned until about 2000 when I decided to make it my business… (But Ethan made his first film in junior high school about Soviet Commandos storming the Berlin Wall and the multi-national NATO tank crew that has to stop them) I wanted a real life first. I wanted to travel, work, build some character…but around 2000/2001 I decided that this was what I was going to do…so I took the only job avail. to me which was inside the Warner Bros. messenger service—I wasn’t qualified for very much because I lacked an education—but from there I made it my business to get established…I’d work all day making contacts….sometimes I’d be the last one on the property after the sun went down. Once I scratched together a script, I took it to a story editor I delivered mail to, I asked her to read it/proof it out because I battle dyslexia and didn’t want to embarrass myself…She was kind enough to look it over and said: ‘I have someone you should meet!’ It turned out to be an agent at ICM who got me started….Or it at least that told me that I have a chance to make this work…That script went out across town and served as writing sample and got me work as a script doctor, fixing dialog here, re-writing a third act there….things like that! I took every job I could find, paid or un-paid because it was about making contacts and getting my work out there- (Ethan has since worked for Steven Seagal and the producers of the Blade films)

(HS): Tell us a little bit about Jonathan Davis as one of the lead characters. What made you think about him for the role? You a fan of Korn?

ETHAN: Actually that idea came from the producer Lota Hadley who was instrumental in moving this film forward, from a production stand point, she really engineered the film. She had worked up a list of names based on some of the conversations we had…Davis was on it. Once we took the meeting—all rock stars are subject to a meeting to make sure they won’t tear the set apart—but once we took the meeting with him it became obvious that he was the right candidate due to his willing to buy into a new concept we had designed on the Devil….
Also his representatives (THE FIRM MANAGEMENT TEAM) who were present at the meeting saw merit in the film and really got behind the concept and wanted to make the deal work…and in this business, that can make all the difference when a talent rep has passion not just for the business around an idea but the idea itself it can be a serious asset to the production…

(HS): Did you ever have any kind of reservations about putting him into the film despite the fact he’s not really an actor?

ETHAN: No. Not after we did our homework. He had some experience on film and it was evident from his reel and stage presence that he could deliver-

(HS): Tell us little about the film and the story behind the madness?

ETHAN: I don’t think people realize what it takes to get a movie made….even though they’re smart and they think they know, until you’ve slammed your way through it, it’s hard to grasp the day to day operation-
This film was—and still is—a fire-fight because it began with an idea that the studios wanted then, wanted to change. It was a script they thought was too dark (Ethan has refused to cut a dark political ending to the film) so they wanted to buy it, then re-shape into their formula and when we refused to go along with that not only did it make our relationship with the studio very difficult but it forced us to go after independent resources to make this film…
This audience, the horror audience, despite the studios attempt to ‘dumb everything down’ is actually very smart and they know the difference between a good film and something like say….Exorcist: The Beginning. They want the best and with sky rocketing prices at the box office, they should get it….I didn’t want to be apart of the problem and watch what I believed to be a good idea re-hashed into a studio based marketing formula with studio notes and ideas that are complete out of touch with today’s audience…because that’s who we ultimately work for—the audience!!! I don’t want to be apart of Deep Blue Sea 2 or a re-make of Battlefield Earth…I don’t want to re-imagine anything…I go back to a time when going to the movies was an event…something original made by artists, not studio based accountants….
Now Warner Bros. liked to laugh at me….they said I didn’t understand that it’s about dollars..it’s: ‘How cheap can we make this film for? And how much do we think it will make?’ Or: ‘Can we off-set the budget with product placement tie-ins from Cooperate America? Will Cooperate American then approve the script?’ ‘Can we hit our female demographic by working in a love story? ‘And cut the content for a PG-13 rating so we can get a wider teen-age audience’-
-SIN-JIN SMYTH is a hard R!!! And I believe we make the best film possible first and then the business/finance will follow. I wanted more than simple slash and dismemberment done to the latest hip-hop track….and I don’t want to hire a hip-hop star so we can make our money back on the soundtrack—I want a good script to begin with that will earn the respect of the audience! And I want a soundtrack that sells because it’s good, not because it has an obvious marketing tie in….And around the studio, this mentality is considered to idealistic to do business with…but the best films were made by filmmakers, not studio execs—There are some good execs out there and I hope I get to work with them some day but they were few and far between when this film started—

(Some of this debate with the studio can be heard in this radio interview, here:
https://esnips.com/doc/df31efec-7a3b-49c3-9f15-5a2dbb6d5175/Channel-66.6-HM-~-Haunted-Radio-102706b.mp3 )

(HS): What makes Sin-Jin Smyth unique from other horror films?

ETHAN: That it’s not a sequel or a re-make.

(HS): Are you a big fan of the current trend in horror…the remakes??

ETHAN: No! It’s a planet with 6 billion people on it….are you telling me there are no new ideas out there!

(HS): Is there a lot of CGI in this movie, or more of the old school, (and spookier) style…latex and makeup?!?

ETHAN: Old school…I don’t believe CGI is perfected yet and there for I’m not comfortable using it as a crutch….all the FX, Make-up FX and explosions on SIN-JIN SMYTH are real…

(HS): What kinds of advice can you give other Indie filmmakers out there wanting to really get into this business?

ETHAN: Get out there and do it. Stop making excuses for yourself, get on any camera and shoot anything you can….do it.
No one is going to ask you to become a film maker…you have to target the opportunity and make it happen for yourself and that takes serious conviction and ingenuity but I’m hoping somebody has the guts and determination to make something original and help revolutionize this business….Maybe you-

(HS): Do you have any plans on making another movie of any sort? Even non-horror?

ETHAN: Yes, I’m on a project called KNIGHT FEVER a super 1970’s cop piece about a special police force assembled out of SWAT, Vice and the Bomb Squad that have to stop a renegade platoon of GI’s who are trafficking opium into The United States (In the bodies of dead GI’s) from Vietnam. Then I’m off to Africa for SOLDIERS OF DESTRUCTION about the German Afrika Korps last days of World War Two…then more horror including SIN-JIN SMYTH 2—which starts in Hitler’s bunker then cuts to present day United States, in the year 2015 with the country torn apart by a civil war and the soldiers have to operate in a nuclear winter…
Also MARK OF THE VILLAIN about a turn-of-the-century- Scotland Yard investigation into a corrupt medical school….And RESPECT THE DEAD which is centered around a grave robbing racket in New Orleans that works on the edge of the bayou… (Also in the works at Ethan’s Warner Hollywood based SNAPKICK PRODUCTIONS INC. is THE STATION CHIEF, a film about CIA ad visors in the Middle East. A film about The French Foreign Legion. A western about Confederate Raiders who refuse to surrender at the end of The Civil War and another film about Samurai ghosts who terrorize the countryside during a Japanese civil war…

(HS): Can you tell us about any good behind the scenes pranks or down-time action on the set?

ETHAN: It was constant comedy…We you’re working straight nights (The entire film takes place at night) everyone gets a little crazy!

We shot in a prison in Downtown Los Angeles…the place had been closed for decades…It was also used as a location for the original assault on Precinct 13 for Carpenter…it’s rumored to be a haunted place and when you work there, you have to channel in your own electricity so you can only light about 20% of the place up….and this complex is massive with under ground tunnels and boiler rooms…we filmed in an old, industrial meat locker which, in the film, serves as an interrogation chamber where the steel doors are opened up and prisoners are trafficked in on meat hooks, removed and then faced with a room full of stainless furniture and craftsman power tools….and as the temperature in the chamber drops, the interrogation led by Richard Tyson (Kindergarten Cop, Three O’clock High) who plays this instructor at The Federal School Of Interrogation right, this bureau we created that is in-tune with the political climate of the film, intensifies…Now these chambers locked from the outside and could seal a member of the crew inside and the locker itself is soundproof so no amount of screaming would get someone attention….and…it’s dark inside…

So Kevin Gage who plays Dax climbs into his SWAT gear and pulls over his rain coat to keep the blood off his uniform and as he picks up his sledgehammers and gets ready when he suddenly stops…’Did you hear that?’
I look back at him, “What?”
‘I thought I heard something…like a scream or something…
‘Get back to work-‘
‘Would I waste your time with this?‘
Meanwhile, the actor known as KM was set to be tortured in this scene starts to get nervous…
So I jump on the radio and get the AD Jonathan Zimmerman who worked with Tobe Hooper and I say: “Jonathan where are you’re people…anybody in D Block?’
And his voice cracks back…”Negative…I’ve got unit 1 on its way back to you from lunch and unit 2 shooting exteriors’…
“There’s something down there-“
So I did what every responsible director would do—not willing to play the teen slasher victim—I said “Security….check out the west wing…I’ll be at the craft service table having coffee”-
The Kevin says: “Don’t leave it to security…they’ll get lost down here….send KM to check it out….”
And I say “Good idea, KM get down there, let me know if you see anything-“
And he practically cries…”Meeeeeeee?”
“Yeah you, get movin’!”
So he slowly starts to move dow
n the dark passage and he’s getting nervous….”He-hello…Any-any one in here?” and just as he disappears into the darkness—-BOOOOMMMM!!!! Suddenly everyone jumps out and the lights go on….It was his birthday! Surprise sucka’!

(HS): What’s one of your favorite directors (other than yourself) that you look up to or like their style?

ETHAN: Kurosawa made the biggest impact. I also respect the work of John Ford (The Searchers), Curtiz (Captain Blood, Casablance), Pollack (Three Days Of The Condor, Out Of Africa), Peckinpah (The Wild Bunch) for his hard-hitting on screen violence….I also like the work of Wells on Touch Of Evil…Roy William Neill (The Scarlett Claw) who could engineer great images. James Whale…early Carpenter. Coppola…(Ridley) Scott. Mendes.

(HS): Have you already got some kind of idea on what’s going to be on the DVD?

ETHAN: Yes an advanced look at the special features and their content will be avail. at www.sin-jinsmyth.com around Christmas and the special features, in addition to interviews, will have an independent film school on it that follows the production step by step. A SIN-JIN SMYTH short which is a comedy, a day in life of SIN-JIN SMYTH and another film SIN-JIN SMYTH, THE ULTIMATE IN PARKING ENFORCEMENT….Some special features about locations, production design, recording sessions with the musicians composing the soundtrack (including MIDNIGHT SYNDICATE and THE CULT) and a few additional surprises.

(HS): Do movie crews take time out to shot stuff just for the DVD, or is it really added on (or found out about) later?

ETHAN: Now I think it’s pretty much planned out…But before anyone knew this technology was going to exist very little was planned/shot for a behind the scenes material…now, of course, special features can be the best thing about the DVD!

(HS): Now it looks like you have been all over the place promoting this movie, and its working! What kinds of “tricks of the trade” can you give others on how to get their work out to the public?

ETHAN: Start with an effective story line…that will carry a film farther than anything else. Then take any familiar elements, like your cast, and send word right to their on line fan base in an effort to get them talking….be polite, considerate and pro-active and the word will get out there…

(HS): Given your experience shooting this movie, is there anything that you would do over again, or anything that you regret doing.

ETHAN: I was pretty ambitious in wanting to make a statement against the current executive driven trend in horror and only an audience can say if this was the right approach to take but I wanted to give the audience my absolute best despite our very limited resources so in retrospect it’s tough to say what I would do differently because I believed the in the story but mostly I believed in my producing partner, Lota Hadley, my crew and cast, I believed we could make a good film without selling out to product placement or taking studio notes so…that may be a question I’d be in a better position to answer after the film comes out-
(some advanced reviews of the film have already been seen on line:
https://blogs.ign.com/Horror_Brain/2006/09/21/31486/
https://www.moviehole.net/news/20060810_clint_gets_a_sneak_peek_at_sin.html )

(HS): Are we planning on getting you in front of the camera anytime soon?

ETHAN: I think audiences, world-wide, would appreciate if we just leaved that to the professionals.

(HS): What is horror to you?

ETHAN: That’s a good question because it’s defined differently depending on who you talk to. Horror can be one thing to a filmmaker, another thing to a studio executive and a completely different thing to a Gulf War Vet…as a writer, it can be all of those things…and as the creative work evolves, then the element of horror can also evolve. So depending on the work in front of me, Horror can be something specific like sadistic abuse or it can be a napalm strike across a desert village, just about anything depending on the context of a certain story-

(HS): Is there anything else you would like to say?

ETHAN: Thank you for taking the time to talk to me. Thank you Horror Society.

(HS): Our thanks go out to Ethan for doing this interview and we wish him and the crew the best of luck with Sin Jin Smyth!! Thanks Ethan!!!

Check out some more pictures and review of the movie here: Sin Jin Smyth Review

For more on SIN-JIN SMYTH please visit www.sin-jinsmyth.com and to vote for to the film in this year’s upcoming SPIKE TV/SCREAM AWARDS (Sin-Jin Smyth is nominated for most anticipated film of 2007)

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