Please tell us about the projects you worked on before making ‘The Baby Ripper’. How did you start, and how did you learn to make films?
Well, for starters I got into filmmaking during Covid. It was right at the beginning of it all and I had a lot of free time to do things. So I just decided to finally get on it! And also because I was looking for a purpose in my life, at that time I was nineteen years old and I knew I had to do something creatively, but I just didn’t know yet.
Some other projects of mine that I’ve worked on, there’s a lot so it’s hard to tell them all. But they range from horror, drama, etc. I never learned to make films, I’ve never been to film school. I guess it comes naturally to me.
For the baby ripper, I had gotten the idea from out of thin air. And from there I just started to mold the story, originally it was two girls who went on a road-trip with one of the being pregnant, it was a completely different story but ultimately decided to change things.I was also inspired by those old school road trip films.
Tell us about ‘The Baby Ripper’. How do you describe it?
I would describe it as a horror film, since in the short film we’re in layla's nightmare, and I had actually named the character after one of my favorite songs. But going back to the nightmare, I had little to work on with this film. It didn’t take that long to film either, it only took about four days really.
But going back to the nightmare, I call it a horror film because I’m her dream she’s in the middle of nowhere. With nothing but a road going straight. And up ahead comes this guy who’s out to get her. Which is something that’s about to come true. Basically knowing what’s going to happen to you is scary enough.
Please tell us about your favorite filmmakers.
I don’t really have a favorite filmmaker, but I do have a major influence. Would be Michael jackson, he never allowed anyone to call his work “Videos” that was taboo to him. And I agree with it completely, I upload my films online and I don’t want to call them video’s because To me they’re far more than that.
Michael wasn’t just a singer to me, when you watch his Short films like thriller, Ghosts, etc you can see he was a filmmaker deep down. He had a vision. And never took no for an answer.
If you were given a good budget, what would be your ideal project?
If I was given budget, I would definitely make one of my recent short films “Rock of vile” in to a feature film, it’s such a unique story line, horror and sci-fi, I wanna take the supervillain trope and do something more with it. Make it even more diabolical.
And also Uncle Rick, I feel that one would hold so much emotion, and sadness. But only time will tell.
Describe how you would ensure that production is on schedule. What steps would you take?
I would make sure that everything is prepared for filming, actors/ actresses are ready to be in front of the camera as the character they are portraying. And make sure that nothing goes on, because when something goes wrong it’s going to push things back a few days or weeks.
We need to be organized if we want to get something done before the release date.
What was the hardest part of making ‘The Baby Ripper’.
Definitely making it seem that road was far away, and making it look like the head lights of the car were actual headlights, but we’re really two flashlights I used. There were a lot of perspective shots I wanted to do but could do little because it was a small space I was working with.
Not to mention, I feel like I didn’t have enough to work with. I feel like I could’ve done more with the baby ripper.
If possible, tell us about your next work. What plans do you have for your future work?
Well currently I just finished a short Mokumentary called “Talking To Zombies” and I’ll probably expand more on that in the future hopefully, and I’m also planning on doing a part two to another short film I did a month ago called “Roxy!”
So I’m looking forward to that, and a few horror films as well.