Vampirism Bites - James Fernandez

Posted by Steve on 11 February 2011 | 0 Comments

Tell us about your sci-fi web series.

Vampirism Bites is the story of Belle, a vampire fangirl whose wish was to finally be one. She got that wish on a blind date. Then she got turned. Then she went on to quickly discover that the world of vampires is absolutely -nothing- like her books and movies and TV shows told her. Other Vampires are jerks, she completely messed up and is trying to rebuild her friendship with her BFF Kristy, Vampire Hunters exist and are also jerks, her powers are hard to control, and she doesn't even get fangs for a decade, setting us up for Episode 1 of Season One. Life may suck, but Vampirism Bites.

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

The major spark for me came from a few different areas. Seeing the current trend of Vampires to be over-sexed emo crybabies in ridiculously flashy/couture/tight outfits blank-staring and angsting their way through existence made me miss the magic of Mr. Joss Whedon, who dared to have actual fun. From there, my favorite type of humor is working in fantasy settings like this and introducing inconvenient reality to it. Say, something like those venerable fangs -the icon of the genre- aren't something that just suddenly transform in contracting Vampirism, because teeth don't grow that fast when we get them, I have with the idea they don't change that fast either. Then once they have the things, I then throw in the fact that in our universe, The Dracula imposed a law against Vamps having their fangs visible because of the fact it would be pretty easy for people to tell them apart from others and lynch mob, so you have to do something horrible to keep them tamped down.

Overall I wanted to try and put vampires and vampire-hunters into just enough reality to make it like a car that comically stalls out just as it's about to get into Badass gear, almost every time. That's Inconvenient Reality, my friends. So far, it's working from feedback I'm receiving, and I'm grateful as a writer that my risk is, at this point, paying off.

Other inspirations include getting away from the crutch of Vamps as Sex Machines and 24/7 Orgy Masters. I understand the paradigm used of Immortal Love and Lust with vampires, but it gets to a point in modern shows and movies where every 4 minutes there's:

A) For teen-targeted demos: deep sex-stares and lip-biting and breathing heavy over each other while angstily longing for one another in the most absurdly acted way possible, or
B) Hilariously overblown, over-acted, laceration and bleeding filled sex that's supposed to be "hot", but causes me to laugh because it just looks ridiculous.

I also try to bring in a bit of sci-fi to the mix by working to "explain" how parts of their world work as a way to help the audience get into the universe. For instance, in VB the melanin that vamps had at turning is permanent, allowing them to operate in the daylight. They can't get lighter, can't get darker. So if you burned easily before, you still will, and if you're a black vampire, you get to laugh at the honkey vamps. Daylight vamps allow for more interesting situations, and are a necessity when operating on a budget a hobo would balk at, but mostly more interesting situations.

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

My Sci-fi influences include Gene Roddenberry whose Trek universe started it all for me, H.G Wells, Isaac Asimov, and Stan Lee & Jack Kirby. My favorite modern sci-fi creators for TV are JJ Abrams, Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof, Joss Whedon, and Aaron Sorkin. Some of my favorite movies: The Truman Show, M*A*S*H, Big Trouble in Little China, Anchorman. Sci-Fi Novels: The Tommyknockers, The War in the Air, Fahrenheit 451, I, Robot.

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

No Canon 7D's were harmed, or used, in the making of this production! As an avid practitioner of the art of being poor, I used two Canon HG-10's, two directional mics, no lighting (thanks poverty!) equipment, and for the first seven episodes of Season One, Pinnacle's Studio 14 Ultimate, the rest of the season was cut on Sony Vegas Movie Studio 10 with Pinnacle as the back-up and support for effects Sony didn't have.

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

I had an international flavor for this show I absolutely did not in a hundred years believe I would get being a web series creator in Michigan. I was ridiculously fortunate to have some wonderful, unexpected participation from:

-Guitarist Ketil Strand from Sweden, who performed his 6-string version of the iconic piece that would be tied to Vampires in modern entertainment: Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D-minor. It's our title and end-credits theme.

-Steve Bosworth of Customfangs/HobbyFX from the UK created custom-made vampire veneers for our star Natalie Baxter (Belle) after he watched our test-pilot "Season Zero", to support a Season One.

-Filmmaker and video game producer David Welch, filmmakers and YouTube Partners Freddie Wong & Brandon Laatsch (YouTube Channel "freddiew"), along with their roommates and fellow filmmakers and VFX artists Niko Pueringer and Sam Gorski (YT Partners "corridordigital"), were ridiculously kind of enough to be our special guests in Episode 10 as Vampire Hunting Scientists! (Except for Mr. Laatsch who was kind enough to operate the camera for us, and did not appear. Maybe I'll get lucky and snag him down the road.)

I went to high school with Jeff Arwady, who did the music composition/performance inside the episodes. Even though life and time pulled us apart post HS, we've found ways to continue to work together, having first dipped into filmmaking with him by creating Star Trek parodies at each other's homes as kids.

I went through four actors before we found the actor to play Pierce in the 11th (and 3/4) hour. The first couple guys were no shows, the third one had to pull out right near shooting, and then we finally had lucky #4. I had back-up plans to change the character to a woman and re-cast, just in case.

There was a real champion running his dirt bike all over the land right near where we were shooting scenes for almost a whole day. He constantly ran it for over four hours straight, and you can still hear the damn thing in the background of scenes shot there.

The show's historical existence supposes that it wasn't Bram Stoker whose legend of Dracula, vampires and hunters was reality, but actually the Belmont clan featured in the Konami Castlevania series. The idea is that the "true" world of vampires is so ridiculous to publishers and studios that only a video game developer was willing to buy the rights to the story and put it into use, horribly distorting it to a point of contention with some vampires and hunters, while the publishing houses and studios went with the sexier, but completely inaccurate, track they saw as more profitable.

We've begun a campaign to bring the second season to life! The campaign, entitled "Do You Want 2?" uses IndieGoGo to look for some fund-raising to principally increase our production value, and to get a chance to work with Legend of Neil and Guild Season 4 Art Director Bryan Fulk on a custom prop.

Vampirism Bites can be found online, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

Vampirism Bites - SciFinal Page