Vampire Mob - Joe Wilson

Posted by Steve on 15 October 2010 | 1 Comments

Tell us about your show.

We're a show made for adults, with swearing and murder, and comedy.

Vampire Mob is about Don Grigioni, a hitman and vampire, who just found out his mother-in-law is moving in, for eternity.

The cast includes John Colella (CSI: NY, The West Wing), Reamy Hall (Criminal Minds), Marcia Wallace (Mrs. Krabappel on The Simpsons), Kirsten Vangsness (Penelope Garcia on Criminal Minds), Chris Mulkey (Hank Jennings on Twin Peaks), Jim Roof (The Swear Police), Andrea Cansler (The Groundlings), Cris DAnnunzio (As The World Turns) and Elizabeth Beckwith (Curb Your Enthusiasm).

VMob is a comedy, but very much grounded in the reality of the world. If you like spoofs and big goofy comedy, this is NOT the show for you.

I'm a big fan of peeling away layers of a story, discovering more about the characters with each layer, so I don't want to give too much away.

We shot the entire show in Los Angeles, including in a castle in the Hollywood Hills.

The first season includes six episodes and launched on June 30th, with an online premiere on June 27th and one in Los Angeles on the same day.

Where did the idea/concept for your series come from?

In July of last year, I got the idea while working as a private investigator during an investigation, honest.

I worked as a PI in the intellectual property field for over 11 years, previous to that a background investigator, prior to that a bartender in Boston with regulars who were known for being affiliated with organized crime.

The investigation was intellectual property involving the mob, the term, and I joked while speaking with someone under pretext (I was using a fake name, fake job title, fake company and a fake reason for calling) about how the vampire thing doesn't seem to be going away and, at the time, Johnny Depp was onscreen in Public Enemies, so where's the vampire mob story?

Originally, Vampire Mob was intended to be a one-off short, writing the lead role specifically for John Colella, an actor and good friend who I worked with on The Swear Police, a short I made in 2008, which won best short under five minutes at the LA Comedy Shorts Film Festival last year.

In August, I wrote a one-act play based on the character of Don Grigioni as part of LA Cafe Plays a ten-hour long process where five plays are written, rehearsed with a director and performed twice in front of packed houses, all in ten hours. It takes place at the Ruskin Group Theatre every month and has for the past six years

There was a backstory and motivations for his character I didn't know until I wrote the play, but at that point, Don wasn't a hitman. I never intended to make Vampire Mob a webseries, it just became apparent that as this story developed, it was a world best explored as an episodic.

I wrote the part of Don's mother-in-law, Virginia Jones, specifically with Marcia Wallace in mind, having no idea that she would say yes.

Name some of your sci-fi influences. Any favorite movies, TV shows, novels?

I love me some Venture Bros and actually knew Doc Hammer back in Boston - even photographed him and Lisa Hammer, who is Triana on the show. I've been getting into Torchwood and Caprica. I was a fan of The X-Files until it pissed me off one too many times, kind of like the Star Wars prequels. I'm a sucker for the first Ghostbusters movie. The first Matrix installment is infinitely watchable, the sequels, not so much.

Tell us about the technical production of your show. What camera & equipment did you use? Editing software & hardware? For visual effects, etc?

We had no sponsor, production company or web site backing us, so everything we did was self-funded, with donated talent and locations.

I shot Swear Police using two cameras I owned, a Sony VX-2000 and a VX-2100, which were used on reality shows prior to HD rigs becoming prevalent. When it comes to a no-budget production, use the tools available, so we shot using those cameras, both of which are currently down and need repairs (we won't be shooting season two on them!).

I like to have two cameras running on all takes when possible for speed in shooting, coverage and to have an editing palette with lots of choices. We had two microphones running, both Sennheiser ME66's, one boomed, one mounted to camera two. I operated and directed, John Vargas, our assistant director, operated camera two and we had one boom operator. That's the biggest the crew ever was, three people.

I cut on Final Cut Pro and I've been Steve Jobs's bitch since 1986.

Can you tell us any interesting facts or trivia about your show? Any funny stories?

Vampire Mob is the only webseries about vampires (I might be lying).

The very first scenes we shot were in a moving car at night. I had never shot in a moving car at night and needed to light it. I was trolling the net looking for solutions and found an interview with the cinematographer from 24 who said that they shoot a lot of car night interiors on Van Nuys Blvd. in Sherman Oaks because the street lights have three heads.

Off to Van Nuys Blvd.! We get there and, wow, it is bright! I had portable LED lights I bought off of eBay, which were labeled under cabinet lighting - two of them for $18 - but didn't need them thanks to the street lights.

John Colella is at the wheel acting and operating the car, I'm riding shotgun, directing and operating a camera, headphones on, with a giant furry boom mic (you can see these scenes in the season one trailer). John is a very good actor, trained at the Goodman School of Drama and I have seen him on stage in five different plays. The guy has some serious acting chops.

We get a few takes in and during one, I can see John's eyes darting from the rear-view and side mirrors, still driving and acting, not losing a nuance, not dropping a line, a great take. I cut and he instantly says, cop! and a black and white car drives by us.

When you're driving around in a car with two switchblades, two .45mm handguns, a few gallons of fake blood in giant glass jars and you don't have a permit, cops get your attention. I told John if we got pulled over, with him at the wheel with his teeth in and the contents of the car it would make for an odd day in traffic court.

We kept shooting, more cops driving by us, but we didn't get pulled over. Then it was off to a dark alley in Hollywood!

Vampire Mob can be found online, on Facebook, and on Twitter.

Vampire Mob - SciFinal Page

Vampire Mob is raising money for Season 2. Check out their Kickstarter page to donate or learn more.

More behind the scenes from Vampire Mob below:

Loose teeth on the set! Reamy Hall checking her teeth between takes with John Colella, and
that blur is John Vargas, assistant director.

Marcia Wallace (left) and Reamy Hall (right) breaking each other up.

Our second table read in January - (left to right) Elizabeth Beckwith, Jim Roof, John Colella,
Shyla, Reamy Hall, Kathryn Zaloga (producer) and John Vargas (assistant director)