INT: Ron Ford

April 1st 2001, 12:00am

Last Updated on July 28, 2021

I
like to think of Ron Ford as the king of indie horror filmmaking. Last summer, Arrow flew to LA to star in his newest flick
“Deadly Scavengers”. The film is now being released
on tape and I thought it would be gnarly to catch up with the
dude to see wassup! Here’s how it went down…

1- Hey, Ron!
Your new film “Deadly Scavengers” just hit the video shelves. How do you feel
about the movie? Are you happy with it?

I think it came out well for the money and time put into it. The budget was so small I had to shoot it in six days,
which necessitated that it have much more dialogue than
action. The action scenes came out quite well, but you have to
sit through an hour of talky scenes to get to most of them.
Fortunately, the characters are interesting enough that they
seem to hold the attention of most viewers. Likewise,
most of the acting was quite good, especially for this budget
level, and that helped a great deal, too.

The monster himself
could not be done with animation as he should have been (again
because of the budget) so I opted for a guy in a rubber suit. The costume was fine, but it was still a guy in a suit
and so had to be shot judiciously and shown only very briefly.
Actually, the creature effects came out quite well, because he
is never fully revealed. This was the first movie I have
made using real explosives and squibs. I did all the
pyrotechnic work myself and was quite pleased with that aspect
of it. I would have liked more time to polish the editing
also, we were just so rushed to make the producer’s deadline.
I thought Jason Peri’s score was quite good, and that helped
smooth over a lot of the rough edges.

2- You recently wrote a script for Denice Duff (Subspecies series). The movie was made and it’s
called “Song Of The Vampire”. Who directed the film?
Have you seen it? When will we get to check it out?

It was directed by Denice Duff herself. Her directorial
debut. I have seen the raw footage (the movie only
recently wrapped and is now editing) and it all looks really
good, really slick. It was well shot on 35mm,
professionally lit, and all of the acting is excellent. I
think I am going to be very pleased with the final film, in
spite of the many script changes that were made after it left
my hands. Denice is a marvelous person, and she really
knows what she wants as a director. It is a romantic vampire
movie, in the tradition of “Dark Shadows,” but like
that show it is also still full-blooded horror, with many gore
scenes and horrific moments.

3-
Has your play “The
Baron” finally hit the stage? Will you also direct it?

No, it was being seriously considered by a local company, but
I haven’t heard back from them in some time so I guess they
decided to pass. It will be produced someday. I
won’t give up on it. When it does,
I think I would like somebody else to direct. I’m not
interested in theater directing. I want to be on the
stage! I would like to act in it, playing Ned Forrest,
the character based on Ed Wood.

The website will be officially launched soon. I have
long wanted a website but was too much of an internet dummy to
do it myself, and I could never afford to hire somebody to do
it for me. Until my webmaster Patrick offered to make a
site for me. So that’s it. All the ducks were in a
row finally
and I went for it. Simple as that.