This installment I sit down with Mike Conway founder of Midnight Sun Entertainment.

Before we get started why don't you tell us about yourself and your company.
 
My company is simply me "doing business as" Midnight Sun Entertainment.  I put that production name on the front of movies I produce.  As for me, I've spent quite a few years making shorts and features, starting in Arizona and continuing in Las Vegas, Nevada, which is my home.  I've pretty much made every genre, except musical.  I hate musicals.  :>)  What I like is horror, sci-fi, thrillers, comedy and action.  All told, I've written/directed about 30 shorts and documentaries, and four indie features.
 
1) So why make a sci fi movie those are hard to sell in the main stream let alone in the indie world?
 
Actually sci-fi is very sellable, because so few no-budget filmmakers attempt monsters and spaceships.  Christian Viel's RECON 2020 movies are the best example of a 30K movie becoming a million dollar, four feature franchise.  He is a model to me.  Years before I ever met Christian, I made a movie called TERRARIUM, which was shot in 2000.  It took a few years, but Lionsgate studios picked it up with the changed title, WAR OF THE PLANETS.  They released it one week before Steven Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS hit video stores.  100,000 copies of my flick were thrust on unsuspecting U.S. and Canadian outlets.  Some stores had 30 copies of the movie on their shelf.  People expecting a Tom Cruise movie were probably really pissed!  Pretty cool to see my 25K, 16mm, made in the backyard feature result in a couple million dollars worth of product.  This was before Japan and Thailand picked it up.  Of course, I didn't see much of a profit, but we broke even, covering production and premiere expenses.

 
THE AWAKENING also broke even and was just picked up, with EXILE in a Video On Demand deal.  I think the former will soon profit, while EXILE has to play catch up in a bad recession.  I don't doubt that it will make money.  The question is how long is that going to take?
 
 
 
2) Where did you get your ideas for the movie from. For those that are a it lost the movie in question is Exile.
 

I came up with the blind guy and his motion sensor gun more than 10 years ago.  However, working with Heather Lei Guzzetta, on THE AWAKENING, gave me ideas for a female android character.  She was it!  I wrote the movie around her.
 
 
 
3) What kind of food was offered for lunch/dinner on the set?.
 
Really good food!  My wife, Sheila, is an award winning chef.  As you know, we shot in a remote location, in Utah.  We have a small motorhome and Sheila cooked right out of it.  In the morning, she made omelettes, eggs, bacon to each person's order.  Lunch was either sandwiches or hot food, like lasagna.  For dinner, we drove back to the town of Fillmore and ate at various restaurants.  We didn't skimp on food.
 
 
 
4) What are you plans for upcoming movies? Just so you know if any of
them are good I'm gonna steal them HA, just kidding.
 
For as big of a horror fan that I am, I'm really overdue for a scary-ass feature!  After that, maybe a comedy.  Now, if I get pegged into more sci-fi, I'll be happy to do it, if a budget is thrown at me.
 
 
 
5) What was the hardest part of filming?
 
Day one!  We were behind on completing sets.  Our professional DP plain doesn't show up for the entire movie.  It really comes down to working with what you have.  You have to just get that first scene or two done, then it starts to flow.  Driving five hours to Utah and shooting on location actually turned out to be the easy part.
 

6) Who are some of you favorite writers/directors?
 
James Cameron, Alfred Hitchcock, John Carpenter.  Carpenter is very much a model to me in that he directed these ultra-low budget movies (DARK STAR, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, HALLOWEEN) and he wrote and scored them.
 
7) What is your most disliked area of filming?
 
What an interesting question!  Refilming, reediting!  When you sell to a distributor, they might hit you with a QCR (quality control report).  They make a list of everything wrong with your movie - distortion in certain dialogue, mis-fire edits, color correction and all sorts of things.  I went through that with WAR OFTHE PLANETS and it was a nightmare.  Basically, this is re-editing.  I would make a bunch of corrections and they kept sending me a new QCR!  I shot new footage to replace bad shots, dubbed a bunch of new dialogue and sounds.  After about the fifth time, it was acceptable.  Even then, I had my doubts that they would take it.  Yes, this is definitely the most disliked part of the whole process.  It makes you not want to sell the movie.
 
 
 
8) Any weird or funny stories you care to share that may have happened
while filming?
 
Let's see, we had to bring our three kids with us.  In the hotel room, the baby swallowed two pennies!  One passed, but unknown to us, the other lodged in his throat for over a month.  He would eat and we had no idea.  It took an X-ray to figure out why he was getting fevers.  There it was!  It looked like a picture from a Looney Tunes cartoon.
 
Our motorhome got stuck, sideways, while trying to turn out of a ravine trailway.  The volcanic sand just swallowed the tires.  We told the cast to go back to town and return to us in the morning.  There was no cell phone service, that's how far out we were.  There were mountain lion tracks on the ground, so I built a fire and turned on the generator.  I set up some movie lights and Sheila and I dug all night to get the vehicle out.  We got one hour of sleep and then met the cast at the hotel to start another day of shooting.
 
I'm sure you noticed in the documentary about how are main actor took a stick to the head?  The actor, Brian, is a martial artist and wanted to be in charge of stunts.  It was his idea to saw through a branch (more than halfway) and then take a shot to the head with it.  Kind of like breakaway furniture.  I know how to hit someone with a stick and not do it for real, but Brian had his own plan.  I started shooting the scene and a bad guy hits Brian in the head.  Damn, there was a lot of blood!  His girlfriend walks up and sees him hunched over.  She was all smiles, until she saw the blood.  I immediately let her know that it wasn't my fault!
 
 
 

9) How hard was it for the cast to film in a rocky and sandy locale?
 
The fine volcanic sand would get in pouches, bags, everything.  Other than that, it wasn't bad at all.  The cast loved it.  They kept taking pictures of the black rock and other surroundings.  For them, it was like getting paid to camp out!
 
 
 

10) How long did it take to make this film?
 
We shot it in 3 weeks, in 2007.  However, I was discouraged with how to deal with fixing the monster, ship and fog scenes.  Then my father-in-law and a good friend, both of whom worked on the movie, died.  I was really bummed and didn't know what to do with EXILE.  A year later, I learned some After Effects and was able to finish all the shots that needed fixing.  Post-production - editing, sound and music scoring, etc. lasted several months.  The movie first screened in April, 2009.
 
 
 

                 3 Random Questions
1) If your wife ok'ed it who would you sleep with besides her?
 
Gina Carano.

2) Batman vs MoonKight who wins in a fight?
 
Christian Bale would verbally slay MoonKnight!

3) Were you ever into CCGs?
 
No.