For our readers, please introduce yourself.
Hello readers, my name is Jethro Waters and I’m the writer and director of the feature film Gunfighter Paradise. I was born in Austin, Texas, moved to North Carolina at the age of 11, and I now live and work in Manhattan. I know where to find the best grits & Red-eye gravy in The South, and I also know where to find the best bagels in NYC. There is a chameleon named Elvis who lives among the plants in my apartment window (seriously) and he’s probably got the best view of any chameleon living in the city.
Day to day, If I’m not writing a script, filming, editing, color grading, shooting archery, or watching a movie, I’m on a never-ending battle-quest against the most heinous, evil, and destructive invention of all time: Motion Smoothing. Fellow movie lovers, we’ve got to get rid of Motion Smoothing in all of its nefarious forms and brands. Movies are magic. And the world inside of movies has never looked better than it does at 24fps. Some witch or wizard somewhere needs to invent a television vaccine (or virus) that eliminates the disease of artificial motion frame interpolation.
If you are that witch or wizard, or if you believe in this cause, I want to hear from you. Beyond that, I really love making music videos, which is the format that launched my career. I’ve had the incredible fortune to write and direct for some truly legendary musicians, and I’m taking a break from and edit a music video right now to write this.
What is horror to you, and what do think makes a work of art one in the horror genre?
Horror is half of what it means to be alive. The world, at times, is a pretty horrifying place. So for me it is one of the most powerful genres because of the sheer gravity of what is being shown and when it is done right, it is more captivating than most any other genre. In the really great films, the imagery, the messages, the themes and moods within a horror film stay with the viewer forever in a very unique way. The Shining. The Exorcist. Videodrome. The Night of the Hunter. These are works of art.
Who or what inspired your love for the art of filmmaking?
My dad, and the movie Die Hard both had a lot to do with it. Die Hard is the movie I was watching when my dad explained what movies are and how they are made. Up until that point I just assumed everything I was seeing was real, which is pretty amazing to think about, considering that we were ALWAYS watching Stallone, Bruce Lee, Chuck Norris, and Spaghetti Westerns. As soon as he explained what a movie was, I knew what I wanted to do with my life.
So, the answer is Die Hard. That movie inspired my love for the art of filmmaking.
Where did you get your inspiration for “Gunfighter Paradise”?
My father is a Vietnam Veteran and lifelong professional gunsmith and marksman. Growing up in rural North Carolina, I was a competitive handgun speed shooter by the time I was 12. Ours was a very conservative, Christian household, until I was in my mid-teens. And I was (and still am) very disenchanted by the wildly evident hypocrisy I saw in Christianity growing up. All the denominations.
All the religious folks accusing the other religious folks of not worshiping the right way. Though my mom is also religious, she is a lifelong educator and has always been a rather whimsical, free spirited person and she made sure that I also grew up inside of the library. GUNFIGHTER PARADISE is a semi-autobiographical horror / noir comedy and southern satire. It’s a kind of exploration of the ever-expanding American psychosis we are in – the results of a century’s worth of building a Frankenstein out of conflicting American spiritual ideologies and belief systems. The world of GUNFIGHTER PARADISE is a world where our neighbors have become the other.
What inspired your penning of “Gunfighter Paradise”?
I had been kicking around the basic ideas for this film for a long time. And I had just finished promoting and touring my first feature, a documentary called F11 AND BE THERE, and I knew it was time to get to work making a narrative feature. I’d had notecards for all the scenes on my wall for about 6 months while I was wrapping up edits on some other documentary projects. When I’d finished everything else, I took off three weeks, isolated myself in a house in North Carolina with only food, water, coffee, and those notecards, and I wrote the screenplay. 3 months later we were in production.
Are You Working in any other genres or have aspirations to?
I work in a lot of genres quite often and I enjoy changing it up. There’s always something to learn and new perspectives to find in different genres.
What would you like your legacy to be in the film medium (or elsewhere)?
Versatility and longevity.
What about horror do you think is so good at communicating social commentary and ideas about current social climates?
Horror is a most excellent place for writers, filmmakers, and artists to amplify what is going on in our current society. Many terrible parts of society and our social lives we just get used to, or desensitized to, and do our best to ignore, so by maximizing ideas and terrorizing viewers with visions of the things we may have become somewhat numb to, horror films can actually function for the greater good. We get shaken at the core and reminded of what parts of our society we need to change.
Who are some of the directors or writers that you look up to and who do you want to bring attention to in your field or others?
Luis Buñuel. Stanley Kubrick. David Cronenberg. Krzysztof Kieslowski. The Cohen Brothers. And there are hundreds more. Those are just the first that pop into my head.
What are you currently working on that you can tell us about?
I just recently finished a script for a horror film, based on true events, around some of the very first women who were accused of and executed for witchcraft in America. This predates the Salem witch trials by 40 some years. So I’m working with some great producers on getting that script into production soon. I’ve also written a Neo-noir western feature I’m shopping around. I’m currently working on a documentary feature about PTSD and American war veterans.
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers or creators?
Know that it is a marathon. Endurance matters most. Some folks start off with a lot more talent than others, but it is not about the amount of talent. It is about your ability to develop those talents, and to use them, to not give up, and to keep going. One step at a time, one day at a time, you keep going until the work is complete. And then you keep working for years after it is complete to get the work out in front of people. If you love the work you will keep going. And it is a hard, brutal business, but I will tell you this: I have never had an experience as wonderful as a theater packed full of strangers how are wholly transfixed, watching my work up on a 40 foot screen.
There is nothing else in the world like it.