TONY:  What was the budget for your film?  Also, what kind of camera did you use to shoot your film?

BROOKS:  The total budget was 5,000 dollars.  It was just under 5,000 dollars.  All of that went to paying the crew and the actors.  We needed to feed them as well.  We shot on a Canon XL2 for the most part.  That turned out really well because it shoots at 24 frames a second.  It has a great film look.  In all the flashback scenes, we actually used a different camera.  We used a Sony PD150, which is a cheaper camera.  It didn't have the 24 frame playback.  We filmed that a year before the rest of the production.  It gave me some time before I upgraded to the Cannon.

TONY:  Where did you shoot your film?

BROOKS:  We shot completely in East Tennessee.  We tried to use as many locations as we knew we could get into.  We used a lot of friend's houses.  We used a lot of local businesses that friends of the family owned.  The scenes in the woods were actually my mother's backyard.  We were probably fifty yards from her house the entire time. She's in her house and listening to us screaming during different murder sequences.  I'm sure she loved that!  We actually filmed in her house as well.  As far as the market, we just went into this old market and asked if we could shoot our film there.  They were very cool about it.  We just went in and started shooting.  That was very nice of them.

TONY:  I was very impressed by the actors in your film.  How did you find your actors?

BROOKS:  We were actually a little bit limited on our actors.  We didn't know how to go about having an open casting call on this movie.  I started asking friends and putting up flyers all around town.  I also looked into some local theater programs for the movie.  The villain is actually my brother.  I knew he could act.  He had done some modeling and wrestling.  I thought I could use him.  He turned out to be a really good doctor.  We actually had the part of Mark for a different actor.  We couldn't use him because he had gotten into trouble with another cast member.  We had to make a decision on the casting of Mark.  We decided to let the other Mark go and get a new Mark.  Erica was actually going to be our Melissa.  After we auditioned Austin Musick for Melissa, we decided to go with her.  It was a really good cast.  I'm very proud of them.  They did a great job.

TONY:  When you have actors working on a small budget, how hard is it to keep morale high on set?

BROOKS:  You have to keep churning out the scenes.  If you relax too much, everyone gets a little restless.  We had everybody working on the set.  A lot of the actors in this movie were new actors.  They had only done a little theater.  They never had the chance to be in a real movie.  They were excited and ready to pitch in anything they could.  Since our crew was so limited, we told people they could help out behind the camera if they wanted to as well.  We had some of the cast doing some crew work as well.  That type of collaboration really helped out.  It made them interested in the making of the movie as well.  It really helped keep the morale high on the movie.

TONY:  What kind of background in filmmaking do you have? Did you go to film school?

BROOKS:  I didn't go to film school.  I was first exposed to the film industry in college.  I helped out on an Independent film.  It was called “Oak of Weeping." I was also an actor in the film called Moose.  I didn't really want to pursue acting.  I was always more of a writer.  After this movie finished, I started writing a lot.  After a while, I had about three scripts written.  I thought it would be very cool to make a movie.  I'd never owned a camera or made a movie of any kind.  I made one short film with a couple of friends.  It turned out pretty cool.  It was a neat action type flick.  I thought I could do this for a living and it would be pretty fun.  I made a couple of commercials for some local businesses. I jumped right into "Point of Fear."  We really jumped in without any experience of any kind. How in the world we pulled it off, I still don't know to this day.

TONY:  Who do you look up to in the film industry?

BROOKS:  I really look up to so many directors.  It's hard to name just one.  I look at Sam Raimi and the little movies that he made when he first started out.  I really enjoyed his guerrilla style of filmmaking.  You look at "Evil Dead" for example.  He truly embodied the Indy spirit with that film.  They had no budget and no big name actors.  Everybody pitched in.  Everybody was just a nobody at that time.  They made a movie and it was just awesome.  They went on from there.  Any Indy filmmaker is my hero really.  For someone to go out and to have the balls to do it, it's just amazing.  I really take my hat off to them.

TONY:  Back to "Point of Fear," how important was it for you film to be more scary than gory?

BROOKS:  When we first started writing it, we thought it was going to be blood and guts for the entire movie.  As we started writing it, we realized it was more of a thriller than a horror film.  Because of this, I didn't want to make a movie that has non-stop blood and gore for ninety-minutes.  While it can be fun and it appeals to a large group of people, I thought it would take away from the story.  I didn't want senseless violence.  I wanted to tone it down a bit and make it seem more real.  If somebody is getting attacked, it's not an axe to the face.  It's violent without being excessive.  It makes it a little bit more real that way.  It's more believable that way.  Also, the character we had in the film was more psychological disturbed.  He wasn't going to take an instrument and just completely mutilate somebody.  He's probably going to strangle someone.  He's going to focus on their fears.

TONY:  How did you get such intense performances out of your actors?

BROOKS:  A lot of the actors were so intense when they came on set.  We actually didn't have a problem with getting actors to snap into character.  Since I was doing the camera work, I was right in their face for a lot of the film.  People were feeding off each other.  My brother helped out a lot with that.  He was a professional wrestler for a number of years, so he had no problem getting intense.  When he went out there, he was really getting into it.  He was going 110 percent with his acting.  A lot of the actors were feeding off it.  I was even feeding off it.  I was completely in the zone with my camera.  I have to give them all the credit.  I don't how much directing I did with this movie.  They directed me with their acting.

TONY:  Since this was your first feature film, tell me your best story and your worst story from your film debut.

BROOKS:  (laughs)  My best story has to be when we were filming a sequence with the villain and a guy named Robert in the movie.  There's a tarantula involved.  Robert, who is played by John Miller, loves spiders.  He wasn't scared of spiders at all.  His character was supposed to be scared of spiders.  He would be laughing on set with the spider.  I kept telling him that he has to show how scared he is of this spider.  He kept looking at it and wasn't really getting into it.  We were in Steve Miller's house, who plays the sheriff in the movie, filming the scene.  Steve ends up leaving the room for about five minutes.  When he returns, he goes "John, look at me ... If you don't get this next scene right, this is what I'm going to do to you."  He takes this thing in his hand and drags it across his forehead three times.  All of this blood comes pouring out of his head.  John is just staring at Steve and in complete disbelief.  Steve then looks at John again and says, "If you don't get this next scene right, I'm going to cut you, son."  John was so scared of Steve.  Steve had never really talked to him.  It was nothing to Steve.  He was used to running a razor across his head from pro-wrestling.  They call it juicing.  Following this, he never looked at the spider again.  He ended up nailing the scene!  Steve just cut himself and the scene worked.  It was wonderful.

As far as the worst story, we had a confrontation with me and my brother actually.  It was near the end of our filming.  We shot the film in nineteen days.  Nevertheless, it was an intense nineteen days.  We were filming a scene with my brother and the female cop.  Jason wants to hit her over the head with a frying pan.  I thought it was nuts.  I didn't want anybody to die from being hit over the head with a frying pan.  I wanted him to strangle her with the cord.  He thought that was ridiculous.  He says, "Why don't we just have a bear come in and maul her to death?"  We were arguing back and the forth.  The actors and the crew were watching us and their eyes were going back and forth like a ping pong ball.  Finally, I said, "Jason, who is your boss right now?"  He says, "You are."  I said, "Exactly.  You have to do this the way that I want it."  I can say that because I'm his brother.  Hell, he picked on me for ten years. I can pick on him this once!  After the scene, we laughed about it.  To this day, we still laugh about it.  I don't really consider it a negative story.  We turned a negative thing into a positive scene.

TONY: How do you feel about the current horror genre?

BROOKS:  I don't even know if there's a current horror genre.  I'm really disappointed with it.  I haven't seen a really good horror film since "The Ring," which was a remake.  That really scared me.  I've been comparing everything to that.  Also, "The Exorcist" still scares me to this day.  Japanese horror is really becoming more prevalent.  We are seeing a lot of remakes of different Japanese horror films.  I don't think any of the remakes do them justice.  You see films like "Hostel" and other movies where you just see people getting drilled, sliced, and mutilated.  They can be fun and I think they are pretty good popcorn movies, but I think people are becoming desensitized to them.  They see a bunch of blood and it doesn't affect them.  Following this, you see directors who have to take it up a notch.  It seems like everybody has to outdo the previous guy.  It gets ridiculous.  I don't think it does any damage to the audience when they watch it.

TONY:  How hard is it to promote an Independent film?

BROOKS:  For me, the hardest part of making a movie is promotion.  Personally, I don't know any way to go about promoting.  I try to do radio interviews and get reviewers to review it.  It's just really hard because an Independent movie is a non-studio backed movie.  If it was backed by a studio, there's instant distribution and promotion.  Since we're a small company making this movie, it's really hard to get the word out.  Right now our biggest ally is word of mouth, interviews, and reviews.  While it helps, it's a slow process.  I think eventually word is going to get around and people are going to see the interviews and reviews.  It's eventually going to get noticed.

TONY:  Since your film was just released on DVD, tell everyone about some of the special features on DVD.  Also, how can people purchase a copy of the film?

BROOKS:  The DVD is released on a site called http://www.customflix.com/  It can be purchased from a link on our website, which is http://www.pointoffear.com/ You'll get a link on there that will take you right to the site.  We tried to pack the DVD with a lot of special features.  We have two commentary tracks on there.  First, you get a commentary track with me.  That commentary track is more serious and informative.  You also get a commentary track that a bunch of the actors did with me.  The commentary with us three sitting down almost turns into a comic commentary, which is pretty fun.  It's got some deleted and extended scenes.  It's got a blooper reel, which is really great.  It's presented in widescreen.   It's got the trailer.  It's got a lot of great special features that I think make the DVD worth the price.

TONY:  What do you have planned for the future?

BROOKS:  We are working on a film called "Boys of Summerville."  This one is a comedy about men's softball in a small town of Summerville.  We're getting ready to start shooting on June 4th.  We've got our cast completely nailed down.   We've got some really good crew members this time.  The budget is a little bit bigger this time.  It's still coming directly out of pocket.  We're glad to have a few actors who have been in some pretty big projects.  We've got an actor named David Dwyer, who was in "October Sky."  He's also been in "Robocop."  We've got Natalie Canerday as well.  She was the mom in "October Sky."  She was also the mom in "Sling Blade" with Billy Bob Thornton.  We've also got a few actors who have been in a few TV shows like "My Name is Earl" and "Stacked."  We've got some decent talent for this project.  I think it's going to really take off.  I think this movie will definitely be a step up from "Point of Fear."  The script is a lot more solid.  The crew is going to be more experienced this time.  We're going to bring back some actors that we used in "Point of Fear."  I think this film might get some distribution.  We're talking to a distribution company right now.  We hope to get it nailed down before we actually start.  If not, I'll get the word out there myself.

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