A Q&A WITH TO YOUR LAST DEATH DIRECTOR JASON AXINN
Jason Axinn, the director of the awesome 2D animated horror ‘To Your Last Death’ shares his answers to seven questions that everyone is asking!
1. Please explain your inspiration when you first started developing and collaborating on TO YOUR LAST DEATH, and why you made this film.
My parents had very eclectic taste in cinema, especially when it came to animated films. I grew up watching “Heavy Metal, “Fantastic Planet” and Bakshi’s “Lord of the Rings,” all of which were amazing and influential. I always hoped to have a chance to direct animation.
2. What inspired you to become a filmmaker? Please explain your history in filmmaking.
When I was a kid,my dad bought a video camera to record family events. Of course, I immediately “borrowed” it to make ridiculous music videos with my sister, and hung on to it my entire childhood, making one short film after another. I grew up in New York but wound up going to film school at USC. After I graduated, I stayed in Los Angeles and explored different areas of the industry while building up my resume as a director. I was also obsessed with The Kids in the Hall, so I started directing a lot of sketch comedy, which led to TV pilots and then finally commercials.
3. What is your relationship to the cast of this film and how was it working with them?
William Shatner is a legend, and it was a huge honor to direct him in this film. He was incredibly generous with his performance, taking it places we didn’t know were possible. Morena Baccarin stepped so easily into the role of the Gamemaster that our recording sessions felt more like we were hanging out, having a good time, than working. As a huge “Twin Peaks” fan, getting to work with Ray Wise was a dream come true. Cyrus DeKalb is a complicated role to play, and Ray added the perfect amount of depth and complexity to deliver a truly mesmerizing performance. And Dani Lennon and I had been looking for a project to work together on for years – I was a producer on her TV show Bite Me – so having her lead this incredible cast was very exciting.
4. How was the production handled?
Production for this film occurred in countries all over the world, from Brazil to Poland to Russia to Iran to England to India to Ireland to the USA, just to name a few. It was truly an international production, which led to Skype meetings at all hours of the day and night for years. Collaborating with such a diverse group of artists led to some astonishing creative discoveries, many of which we managed to add to the film.
5. When did you meet your collaborators? How did those partnerships come about?
I met Tanya Klein and Jim Cirile through Epic Level, a production company I had directed commercials for. Tanya and Jim were looking for someone to helm their project; I was looking for an animated feature. We shared the same sensibilities about horror and animation, and luckily, they are also the nicest, funniest and most generous people, so it was an honor that they entrusted me with their film.
6. What was your biggest challenge with making this movie, and the moment that was the most rewarding to you, where you knew you had something?
Before making this film, I had mostly worked in live action, where the normal process is to shoot coverage of the actors in a scene and then choose your edits later, in the editing room. In animation, it’s exactly the opposite. The very first thing that you do is choose your edits during the storyboard phase, and then that’s the footage that your animators go and make. Nailing each scene’s rhythm on paper was one of the biggest challenges I faced. Getting that right helped keep animation costs at a minimum. We had very, very few retakes on the film, something I’m really proud of.
7. What made this project come together and be successful?
Doing an animated feature as an independent production is a nearly insurmountable task. An animated horror film was unheard of, and combine that with our stellar cast – we knew we had something special, and that got us to persevere and see it through.
