This blog is about the personal journey I went on from January 2013 to now and how I went from nothing to making horror movies . I hope you enjoy it.
By : Jamie Santamore
Note : You might be asking what does the first two paragraphs have to do with Wicked Carnival Productions, keep reading I'll get you there...
Back in the day I had a Occupational Therapist named Mrs. Ede and she always thought I would be on stage or screen as an actor because I have the ability to make people laugh. I had never really considered acting or even writing stories when I was a young kid. I had always wanted to be a pro wrestler growing up which yes is a performance but not the type of acting that Mrs. Ede was talking about, she saw me winning Tony Awards or Oscars . In the 7th grade my teachers actually let me put on a wrestling match with my Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy (wrestling another kid was an liability issue) it was after that "match" that I started to take it seriously.
Over the next several years I wrestled in school and started backyard wrestling with my friends and in 2004 I hit a wall. My father passed away and I was a man lost in the world, while I continued to wrestle for a few more years the passion was gone. I hung up my tights in 2008 and thought that chapter of my life was over and I was looking for the next adventure. I returned to wrestling briefly in 2012, wrestled on two shows and then it all fell apart again and I quit for good just a few short months later the next BIG Adventure would present itself to me ..
When this crazy journey started with an idea in January 2013 I had no clue how to get to the point I'm at right now on April 1st 2016. I had an idea that I thought would make a good slasher movie, I didn't know what the next step was after writing a script. I even had a script writing program that basically did all the work for me other then the actual writing of the script. At this point I had written a fan script for Halloween 3 but never showed it to anyone it is still sitting on the shelf in my office. I knew I could write a slasher script because lets face it it's a pretty basic formula to follow (if you choose to follow it) I played it safe with Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis .
I didn't have any friends in the film industry to pass the script to, I didn't have any friends to help make the movie, I didn't know if I could make a movie early on. so I asked around on how I would go about getting things together to actually make Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis .
In all honesty I didn't know the steps to take in the right order to make this happen, I just went off and started looking for cast and crew, locations to shot in and I started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money.
It's not a well kept secret with out first attempt to raise money on Indiegogo.com and that was the first time I questioned myself not only as a writer and director but weather or not I could make this happen. I told my cast members who hadn't signed anything close to looking like a contract and could walk at anytime that I couldn't pay them to do the movie and we lost a few cast members but the Main cast stayed on because they believed in my script and my vision for the project. Crowd funding campaigns two and three also failed . After a failure I learn something, I'm not afraid to fail because as long as I learn and continue on I will ultimately be successful .
After a rough first weekend of shooting I thought people would be leaving the project because I was in WAY over my head as a director to my surprise everyone came back the following weekend and that's when I knew this movie was going to happen no matter what we all came together as a TEAM and decided that we would all work hard to make it work.
So after we put in the work and the movie wrapped shooting in June of 2015 we had a release date of Halloween fast approaching so I started a fourth campaign this time using Kicktarter.com to cover the cost of making the DVD's for the release party and to sell. This campaign got to 25% funded before it ultimately failed to gain funding and my Executive producer ended up paying for the DVD's out of pocket.
We were off to the races with the DVD we sold well on the release date. 9 copies in store and 2 online orders so 11 total on the first day my goal was to sell ONE DVD and I would consider it a successful day.
Fast forward to today and we're 11 days into a campaign on Indoegogo.com for Sins of Man II : Vengeance which starts shooting on May 1st and wraps on June 18th with the release date of Halloween 2016 .
Things are rough right now but I know my cast and crew are here on this crazy ride with m til we finish shooting the movie, I also know that things will be different on set this time around as we have a clear idea of what we are doing, how we're going to do it and what we need to do to make Sins of Man II : Vengeance into the film that puts Wicked Carnival Productions on the map ! The Sins of Man Trilogy is the first franchise that are released and housed with under the Wicked Carnival Productions Brand.
We have a web series in the works as well as 5 other films all horror films but at some point I would like to possibly branch out and do other films like Chris Fyfe and I are looking into making a space / sci fi movie . Chris loves Star Trek and I would love to help him make an awesome sci fi movie that he can be proud of .
Through it all I can say I'm in a good place because with every failure I find alittle success and I'm living my dream with the help of my amazing cast and crew . If you would like to help make Sins of Man II : Vengeance Please DONATE HERE :
Back in the day I had a Occupational Therapist named Mrs. Ede and she always thought I would be on stage or screen as an actor because I have the ability to make people laugh. I had never really considered acting or even writing stories when I was a young kid. I had always wanted to be a pro wrestler growing up which yes is a performance but not the type of acting that Mrs. Ede was talking about, she saw me winning Tony Awards or Oscars . In the 7th grade my teachers actually let me put on a wrestling match with my Ultimate Warrior wrestling buddy (wrestling another kid was an liability issue) it was after that "match" that I started to take it seriously.
Over the next several years I wrestled in school and started backyard wrestling with my friends and in 2004 I hit a wall. My father passed away and I was a man lost in the world, while I continued to wrestle for a few more years the passion was gone. I hung up my tights in 2008 and thought that chapter of my life was over and I was looking for the next adventure. I returned to wrestling briefly in 2012, wrestled on two shows and then it all fell apart again and I quit for good just a few short months later the next BIG Adventure would present itself to me ..
When this crazy journey started with an idea in January 2013 I had no clue how to get to the point I'm at right now on April 1st 2016. I had an idea that I thought would make a good slasher movie, I didn't know what the next step was after writing a script. I even had a script writing program that basically did all the work for me other then the actual writing of the script. At this point I had written a fan script for Halloween 3 but never showed it to anyone it is still sitting on the shelf in my office. I knew I could write a slasher script because lets face it it's a pretty basic formula to follow (if you choose to follow it) I played it safe with Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis .
I didn't have any friends in the film industry to pass the script to, I didn't have any friends to help make the movie, I didn't know if I could make a movie early on. so I asked around on how I would go about getting things together to actually make Sins of Man : Rise of Mortis .
In all honesty I didn't know the steps to take in the right order to make this happen, I just went off and started looking for cast and crew, locations to shot in and I started a crowdfunding campaign to raise money.
It's not a well kept secret with out first attempt to raise money on Indiegogo.com and that was the first time I questioned myself not only as a writer and director but weather or not I could make this happen. I told my cast members who hadn't signed anything close to looking like a contract and could walk at anytime that I couldn't pay them to do the movie and we lost a few cast members but the Main cast stayed on because they believed in my script and my vision for the project. Crowd funding campaigns two and three also failed . After a failure I learn something, I'm not afraid to fail because as long as I learn and continue on I will ultimately be successful .
After a rough first weekend of shooting I thought people would be leaving the project because I was in WAY over my head as a director to my surprise everyone came back the following weekend and that's when I knew this movie was going to happen no matter what we all came together as a TEAM and decided that we would all work hard to make it work.
So after we put in the work and the movie wrapped shooting in June of 2015 we had a release date of Halloween fast approaching so I started a fourth campaign this time using Kicktarter.com to cover the cost of making the DVD's for the release party and to sell. This campaign got to 25% funded before it ultimately failed to gain funding and my Executive producer ended up paying for the DVD's out of pocket.
We were off to the races with the DVD we sold well on the release date. 9 copies in store and 2 online orders so 11 total on the first day my goal was to sell ONE DVD and I would consider it a successful day.
Fast forward to today and we're 11 days into a campaign on Indoegogo.com for Sins of Man II : Vengeance which starts shooting on May 1st and wraps on June 18th with the release date of Halloween 2016 .
Things are rough right now but I know my cast and crew are here on this crazy ride with m til we finish shooting the movie, I also know that things will be different on set this time around as we have a clear idea of what we are doing, how we're going to do it and what we need to do to make Sins of Man II : Vengeance into the film that puts Wicked Carnival Productions on the map ! The Sins of Man Trilogy is the first franchise that are released and housed with under the Wicked Carnival Productions Brand.
We have a web series in the works as well as 5 other films all horror films but at some point I would like to possibly branch out and do other films like Chris Fyfe and I are looking into making a space / sci fi movie . Chris loves Star Trek and I would love to help him make an awesome sci fi movie that he can be proud of .
Through it all I can say I'm in a good place because with every failure I find alittle success and I'm living my dream with the help of my amazing cast and crew . If you would like to help make Sins of Man II : Vengeance Please DONATE HERE :
STAY HUMBLE, STAY HUNGRY MY FRIENDS :)