d3rang3d Interviews : Lance Polland
Submitted by : d3team

Not only was he part of the team who produced the original screenplay for forthcoming horror treat Live Evil, Lance Polland was also inovlved in producing/ directing/ writing horror anthology Slices which is about to have its premiere Tromadance in Utah in January of 2007.

We caught up with Lance and he was kind enough to spare us a few words about both movies. You can check out Lance Pollands website HERE and the official Myspace for Slices HERE

Please note that the movie images used in this interview are from the movie Slices

d3rang3d : Can you tell us about Live Evils storyline in your own words?

Lance Polland : The main concept of bad blood killing of the Vampires really started with Vito Trabuco, he had this sick idea of doing a punk rock horror movie about vampires who seek clean blood like junkies looking for there next high. When Vito, Lenny and me sat down and Vito showed us the opening Voice Over and at that point we went over ideas for the basis of the story and characters and finally the arc of what we wanted to tell. I can tell you that I was writing like crazy, 5 to 10 pages a day and then narrowing that down to what we could use and what had to be thrown out. As three guys writing together for the first time we all gelled pretty good.

d3rang3d : The idea of Vampires facing extinction due to their food - us - polluting our bodies too much is an interesting concept. A comment on society?

Lance Polland : We are all fan of George A. Romero films and the undertones he has in his movies beneath the horror and gore, we wanted to do something similar. We wanted to tell a compelling story and still lace it with how society is today, so comparing modern day Vampires with drug attics on a road trip sounded cool with us. It's a basic story of good verses evil in a modern western sort of way, the line between the Priest and the Vamps is kind of blurred and by the end of the movie you would have to decide yourself who was the real good guy and who was the real bad. It is much in the vein of a Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns.

d3rang3d : All writers have their own mental images of the characters they have created - what do you think of the casting, does it capture your own mental picture of the stories characters?

Lance Polland : That's an interesting question, I was part of the original casting of the movie and most of those actors are still very much in this film. Mark Hengst , Åsa Wallander and Kimberly Sanders all remained in the film playing the characters they were cast in which we thought were perfect for the roles. It's funny now that I look back on it because when I me and Lenny wrote the first draft of the Max scene I had thought of Ken Foree in the role and then reading he was cast as Max was really cool for me, Lenny and Vito. The actress cast that I was really happy about was Tiffany Shepis, I'm a huge fan of her movies, she is a good actress and hope to work with her and Ken some day!

d3rang3d : How much has the screenplay changed from your original since Jay Woelfel re-wrote and adapted for screen?

Lance Polland : I can't say for sure since I have not seen the adapted script but I have talked with Jay Woelfel about it and he said it's still pretty close to what he originally read when he took the job. Jay has been really cool through the making of the film as he is the only person from production outside of some of the actors who would still keep in touch or answer any questions about how the filming was going. They really couldn't say much, but any updates no matter how small were always welcomed by us the writers.

d3rang3d : Have you had much involvement in the making of the movie itself?

Lance Polland : I was involved in filming of the open scene of the movie, which was filmed in Amboy, Ca. and turned out great I might add. The writing of course of the original screenplay, but after the we began filming LIVE EVIL myself and the other two writers, one of which was the original director left production over irreconcilable differences with the Producer.

d3rang3d : Was there anything from your screenplay that didn't make it to the movie, or that you would have liked to have seen done differently on screen?

Lance Polland : I have read online that the Gas station scene was cut due to time and that kind of sucks because they cast Jeff Burr in that scene, Jeff is one of my all time favorite directors! However, that was one of my favorite scenes I wrote, but I can't really say for sure because the producers of the film haven't shown me or the other two original writers any of the movie.

d3rang3d : And what's your favourite scene from the movie, the one that's really captured your personal vision?

Lance Polland : I'm not sure how to answer that question since I haven't seen any footage besides the trailer online, but I would say that the opening scene of course since I was apart of filming that in Amboy, Ca. And probably the house party scene with the Mac character, co-writer Lenny Lenox and me spent a lot of time working that scene out together while writing the script .

d3rang3d : What's next for Lance Polland - any new projects in the pipeline?

Lance Polland : "Slices" is my current project, it's a horror anthology film like "Twilight Zone the movie or Creepshow. It has five different segment set in different time periods by five different directors with a wraparound that ties all of them together. We are premiering at Tromadance in Park City, Utah next week.

d3rang3d : And finally, the open non question, your chance to say anything you like - cuss the critics, plug your favourite beer, anything goes. The microphone is yours, so any final words?

Lance Polland : I would like to that no matter what had happened between the original writers and the Producer, we are very happy that the movie was made and we can't wait to see how it turn out and that we are very pleased that actors like Tim Thomerson, and Ken Foree are reading the lines we wrote! And last but certainly not least we look forward to SLICES premieing next week in Park City, Utah!