In September 2003, my stills photographer, Julian, happened across an American filmmaker by the name of Mike Conway, who was giving away 100 free DVD copies of his low-budget sci-fi movie, Terrarium, as part of a first-come, first-served promotional give-away. Even though we live in the UK, Mike was happy to foot the bill and send us a copy. After watching both the film, and the making of, Julian, filmmaker Kevin Gates, and myself decided that an interview with Mike was a must for the site. The lengths Mike went to in order to make his movie are mind-blowing. He even built a full sized spacecraft in his backyard! Of all the interviews on my site, I would say this is the most inspiring thus far; if any of you get a chance, I urge you to check out the DVD (available from the official Terrarium site) which, in my humble opinion, has the most inspirational 'making of' featurette I have ever seen.

I grew up in Arizona. I graduated from the University of Arizona. Currently, I live in Las Vegas. I've been making Super 8mm and 16mm movies, since 1980, as well as shot some videos. I've made about 35 shorts and 2 features. I've also worked on many projects for other filmmakers. All together, I've worked on around 100 movies, commercials and industrials. None of my own movies have been professional shoots, they're more like home movies on steroids. By that, I mean they were pretty elaborate. I've used a lot of pyrotechnic and special makeup effects. I've used some elaborate sets, such as a fully furnished living room, where we drove a car through the wall, for my student film, DESTINY'S ROAD. I dug a 12' deep, 20' wide crater for another short, called SECRET POWER. I've done my own take on most genres. I've made a spy film, a western, several comedies, 2 werewolf movies, a slasher movie, a spiritual tear jerker, just about everything, except a musical.

I've always wanted to be in or work on movies. I started writing in the first grade. I made some crude comics. One of them was KING KONG VS GODZILLA VS THE BLOB MONSTER. It was about 130 pages. I also made a comic that combined Marvel's WEREWOLF BY NIGHT with STAR TREK. Another one was about a giant haunted house that was populated by all the Universal monsters, like Dracula, the Wolfman and Frankenstein's monster.

My biggest film and music influence was John Carpenter. His early work spoke to me - DARK STAR, ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, HALLOWEEN and ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. I bought my first synthesizer because of him. Here was a guy, who cowrote, scored and directed the $60,000 movie, DARK STAR and got a theatrical release. Amazing! I admire people who wear a lot of hats and can make a movie for cheap because they utilize their resources.

Thanks to word processing, you can write your script once and then make all the necessary changes you want. My original script ended with Dena, screaming in the alien lair, as the picture slowly faded out. My wife and friends, who read the script, thought that was too dark, so I added the hopeful ending with the lush valley and a chance for survival. I think that was the right change. In fact, even that is not enough for many viewers. They want it explained, fully. But, to show the astronauts, having babies in caves, or even worse, getting killed off by more aliens, would leave nothing to ponder. I didn't want a definite conclusion.

I actually don't use script writing software, just Microsoft Word. I just format the script manually. My wife, associate producer, Paul Folger and longtime friend, Heidi Rowley, gave me feedback. I remember the excitement of writing the first 2 monster attacks. They are the movie's stronger scenes. Right away, I would show my wife and Paul, who was renting a room from us. They would say, "Cool!" and then I would get back to the computer.

While writing, I would put soundtracks, from various movies, on. Listening to music from THE TERMINATOR, ALIEN or whatever else, would put me in the right mood.

I was going to make this movie so informally and cheaply, that I wanted to cast friends and coworkers, instead of people I didn't know. That way, I could get a hold of them and force them to keep going. Ha ha!

I work at Treasure Island hotel, in Las Vegas, serving banquets. It pays a lot more than production houses, so that's why I do it. Anyway, I casted a bunch of my coworkers. Tim Daley is a bartender. I liked his voice and his haircut, so I made him the captain. Carlos Marroquin has a great accent, so he became the doctor. Jim Hendrickson, my supervisor, became Robert. Jason Hall was one of the convention audio visual techs, so he became my engineer, Leonard. For those guys and my wife, I wrote their parts especially for them.

Paul Folger introduced me to Jeff Rivera (Brandon). Jeff knew all the actors from the Hilton Hotel's STAR TREK: THE EXPERIENCE. This turned into a lucky break because Shae Wilson, Foster Boom and Eric Randall were experienced actors. The cast was split with these people and first time actors. The chemistry was great and everyone held their own. They did this for no pay and didn't bitch too much. (Lol!) It's much more gratifying to pay people, but I was stretched too thin, on this one.

I'm not a big fan of CGI, unless it looks good, like in TERMINATOR 2 or JURASSIC PARK, but that costs big bucks. I decided to make the movie a straight horror/drama on a spaceship. I took a very barebones approach. I didn't want to see the ship flying. I preferred using the choking dream sequence, to segue from earth to the planet, Gallegos. This wasn't going to be your typical cheeseball sci-fi movie. It was more like an arty lounge movie.

When the first cut of the movie was done, it premiered at a Las Vegas theater, where it played for 2½ weeks. During that time, Chuck Carter (BABYLON 5), PJ Foley (STAR TREK: VOYAGER) and Bart Anderson (ESSENCE OF THE FORCE) saw TERRARIUM and became fans. However, they relayed to me that it was missing something. How could you have a sci-fi movie and so few effects? These guys volunteered their own time to add badly needed visuals. How could I not be excited by that?

Having shot film for most of my life, this decision was a no brainer. It was my hope that someday, TERRARIUM could be blown up to 35mm, from the 16mm negative, like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or THE EVIL DEAD. Also, the ship looked so fake on video, that the shallow depth of field and dark shadows yielded by 16mm saved the movie. For backup precautions, we also shot a DV version, with the Canon XL-1. The ship looks like a big piece of wood on the video footage. My next movie will probably be shot on DV, but TERRARIUM needed to be 16mm.

Ha ha! Of course, the budget skyrocketed! I thought we could build the ship for $2,000, but it ended up being $8,000. Man, is wood expensive! We used 180 4' X 8' sheets of plywood for the ship! Several hundred 2" X 4"s were used. Of course, there was the carpet and padding and satin for the walls. At 768 square feet, this was like building a small house!

Of course, there was the landscape, itself. 17 tons of sand had to be trucked in, as well as 3 tons of rocks and boulders.

Everything just added up. I had to buy 12 flight suits, 12 cryo suits, army boots, rubber M-16s, Glock and 9mm handguns, flashlights and walkie talkies, not too mention other props. There was a lot to consider on this movie. No wonder most indie filmmakers don't do sci-fi!

A friend of mine decided to go to college, out of state. She asked me to care for her pet tarantula, which lived in a terrarium. I had to go buy a bag of crickets, every week or two. I would put about 10 crickets into the terrarium. I never saw the spider eat, just the aftermath. I started picturing the crickets as people and thought it would make for an interesting movie. So, the crickets became astronauts!

In spring, of 2000, I took about 3 weeks and wrote the first half of TERRARIUM. Production got pushed back, so I waited a couple of months and finished writing the second half, which I'm guessing took another 2 - 3 weeks.

In July, I had the first shipment of wood delivered. It took a month for my stepdad, Arley Steinbrink, Paul Folger and I to build the ship. Mid-August, I took my 2 week vacation. We had to finish the ship and then had 10 good days of shooting. After that, we went back to our jobs and filmed sporadically through October, so 2½ months.

Around November, I took the film to Fotokem labs, in Burbank, CA. I spent 3 days, supervising the transfer, from the 16mm negative to DVCam. I came back to Vegas, transferred the DVCam to Mini DV and uploaded the footage into my computer.

January through March, 2001, I edited the visuals. This was made harder by the fact that I was editing silent film.

April through October, I edited the sound, which was wild sound, taken from the Canon XL-1. Since the Canon Scoopic film camera was so loud, the sound and picture couldn't be recorded at the same time. We shot the video first, then did film takes.

November, 2001 through January 2002, I composed the music and added sound effects. Basically, I worked around my job and took a year for the post-production.

January 30th, 2002 - TERRARIUM premieres in Las Vegas. I got a lot of feedback from the premiere. I did some touch up editing. The effects guys ended up taking until November to give me their shots. I think they would have blown it off, if I didn't ride them about doing it. Offering is one thing, delivering is another. Don't tell me something, unless you mean it. Ha ha! I'm a son of a bitch, that way. I don't let up, until I get what I want.

Once I got the new effects shots, I edited them in and started the DVD authoring process. A glass master was made from my DVD-r. I finally ordered the first 1,000 "pressed" discs in May, 2003.

Wow! I think you guys are the first ones to pick up on the ESCAPE FROM GALAXY 3 reference. Of course, I'm a fan of low budget movies, so I've seen a few. As you know science fiction is pretty hard to do on a budget, so when something like CUBE comes out, I have the utmost admiration for how well it was done.

I think most of us have watched a low budget movie and said, "I can do better than that!" I think these kinds of movies are healthy inspiration. They are obviously on the market, so what does one have to do to get their own movie out? To answer your question, these movies are VERY influential on me.

The CGI was an afterthought. Originally, I had no plans to use it. Now, that it's in the movie, I love it. The fact that it isn't seamless, lends itself to the rawness of the movie, kind of like how some people like the look of high grain 16mm in various horror films. The way TERRARIUM is put together, gives it its own flavor.

This was shot on Super 8mm film, in 1989. I actually star in it, while my friends, Chris Stevens and Nino Mattiaccio, did most of the camera work. This was back when the Super 8 film had sound on it. You just got it processed and your sound was already on the magnetic stripe.

The story was about a regular guy, Will, who has a run in with modern day witches. He falls for Daphne, who is played by TERRARIUM's Lily Santoro. The first problem is, Daphne lives in a conservative mountain town. The residents fear her and take their anger out on Will, for getting involved with her.

The second problem is Daphne's ex-boyfriend, Daniel. He is a warlock, who made her what she is. Daniel hangs out with a bunch of guys, who have no powers of their own. They're just thugs, who do his bidding. Basically, Will has a lot on his plate!

The funny thing about THE BLACK CRYSTAL, is that you don't see magical powers at work, except for some suggested stuff. There are no special effects, other than gun shots and some blood. It's a lot like a western, where our hero shoots it out with the bad guys.

This movie actually got picked up by a California distributor. It went to several U.S. regions, Aruba (Netherlands) and South East Asia. I don't know if it went anywhere else. I didn't make any money, because the distributor bankrupted, right after the 1991 Gulf War. Two years of legal wrangling went by, only for me to find out that they lost the 1" video master tapes.

I still have the raw transfers and film elements. I actually shot some new scenes, including one of the witch killing a pesky mountain man. Someday, I'll transfer that and do a serious re-edit, since I have better technology to work with.

On a side note, the actual title was THE BLACK TRIANGLE, but the distributor said that crystals were the in thing, so they changed the title. I didn't like that because it sounded too close to Jim Henson's DARK CRYSTAL.

There were 3 out of focus shots, out of the 6 hours of footage. Everything else came out. After the night shooting and dark interiors, lit only by flashlights, I feel that I could shoot anything and make EVERY shot come out. As long as you double check the light meter and use a tape measure to line up the focus - that's it, really.

Negative film has a lot of leeway, especially these new stocks, like Vision 2. My mistake was not opening the aperature even more. I found that nothing was over exposing, so I could have avoided a lot of dark shots. Open up!

Some people "bracket" their shots, which means they shoot one take at the proper exposure, another take is shot 1 stop under, while the last take is 1 stop over. I don't believe in wasting that much film, so I didn't do that. Many shots in the movie are one take.

Since we shot the scenes on video, first, we had something to look at, right away. I would suggest using video on any film shoot. Since I didn't see any of the film until months later, the video gave me a pretty good idea of things to come.

My experience went like the following - I bought a Canon Scoopic 16mm camera for $1,000. I also have a second Scoopic, that I paid $700 for. Nowadays, film goes for about $45 for a 100 foot roll (2 and a half minutes). I bought around $4,500 worth (Approx. 130 rolls), but that was in July, 2000 and I got a bulk discount, so I averaged around $35 a roll. I ordered straight from Kodak.

Dealing with the lab was pretty easy. They processed the film negative, which I now keep in the closet. Next, you schedule a transfer session, unless you want it unsupervised. During the transfer they just reverse polarity on the viewer, so you can get positive images right to video. Then you just sit there and say, "Lighter, darker" or "Fix the color on that shot." Quite painless and fun, except for the $7,500 bill.

I you haven't worked with film, before, I would try to get a DP, who owns their own camera. Otherwise, you could buy a Scoopic or a CP 16. The latter can be rigged with a sync sound recorder. I think you could get either camera for $1,000 or less.

For film and lab costs, you can figure around $12,000 for shooting just over 6 hours of film. If you are doing a simple drama, that could be your entire budget, like the film, KILLER ME. I thought Foto Kem, in Burbank, was pretty good. Call up film labs and compare prices. Many offer student rates.

This is a great time to be making movies. The technology is moving so fast. Consumer High Def is already here, but it should be more user friendly, by the end of next year.

Film is great, but it is expensive. Even I am considering buying something like the Panasonic AG-DVX100. I will try it for at least one movie, anyway. Does that mean that my film experience was a waste? No, film is still the superior medium, for resolution, even if it's only for a few more years. I learned the value of a shot. Some videographers are lazy about how and what they capture, because it's so cheap to just shoot and lighting is much easier on video.

Each format has its own set of restrictions. If I'm shooting film, I can take advantage of the format's latitude with light and get those X-FILES type of shots, where the subject's face is in shadow, but their hair is so bright, it looks on fire. Very dramatic. With video, I can get macro shots of ants or people's eyes, without even changing a lens. I look forward to working on either format, for my next project. There's not much point in bashing one format or the other, they're just different. I'm thankful that there's both!

The credit card bills got bigger! I ended up spending another $5,000 for the DVD authoring setup. Then, the theater premiere and advertising cost us another $8,500. If you're going to promote your film, make it an event! We took a broken down auditorium, took out 3 rows of seats and built a mezzanine for the computer and video projector. I rewired the place for sound and brought my own amps in. Just the speaker wiring was $400! We painted the bathrooms, rented outdoor lights, the kind that shine in the sky. We put up posters, got a red carpet, even a caterer for the press screening! I played the movie, right from the Adobe Premiere timeline, from my computer to the video projector, since there was an hour and 45 minutes of material to show. I don't know anyone, who has done that. Did that for 2 and a half weeks!

Sheila's great. We met at the premiere of THE LOST WORLD. Not a great movie, but it brought us together. She was by herself and I was with a friend, who knew her. She was an executive chef, at a country club. She just really liked to watch movies. Of course, once we got married, I told her she had to be in my movies. No previous acting experience, she's just a natural! She loves the whole process of seeing a movie come together, now that she knows what goes into it. From raw footage, to something with finished music - it's pretty dramatic to see it evolve. She is my number one supporter. How many filmmakers are fortunate to have that in a marriage? It's huge.

We actually bought this house with a big backyard (about 70' X 150'), specifically to make a movie, called PIT DWELLER, but then I came up with the TERRARIUM idea.

There were a lot of horror directors there, like Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven and Stuart Gordon. Eli's very intelligent. He knows about every horror movie. He's quick with his answers and always backs them up with examples. Someone was bagging on the new TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and remakes in general, and he just blurts out, "what about John Carpenter's, THE THING, or THE FLY or INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS." Those movies are arguably better than the originals and have their own twists. He's an encyclopedia. I asked him about the weird tone of CABIN FEVER and he said that he wanted it to polarize people and become a movie that is still talked about 30 years from now, like they do with TEXAS CHAINSAW or LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. He can't stand clueless studio execs, who don't know their movies. My kind of guy!

Tons! Coming from a film background, this was an eye opener. Gone are the days of Moviolas and going to the TV station to edit linearly on tape. This is the first movie that I've cut with Adobe Premiere. I love non-linear editing.

I also had to learn Photoshop, so I could make my own advertisements, DVD covers, etc. I had to learn about MPEG 2 compression rates and DVD authoring and burning.

This is the first time that I've utilized the internet for promotion and sales. I'm proud of my first real website, www.terrariumthemovie.com. I designed it in Photoshop, then gave it to my brother-in-law, Steve Sprunger. He made it functional.

Technically, this movie represents a lot of firsts, for me. On the human side of it, my family and friends were heavily involved. This is the first house that I've ever bought and it played a huge part in the making of this movie, with the garage being the alien lair and the backyard being an alien planet. My daughter, Carmen, was born during post-production. TERRARIUM has been a journey that is ongoing. Because of it, I'm now meeting the kind of people, who can really make a difference on future productions.

Start small. Make some short movies, that only require 2 or 3 actors and then go from there. I made a short movie, called ROADKILL. From that, I got people willing to do TERRARIUM. Once they see that you're serious and know what you're doing, people will want to be involved.

Get a decent DV or film camera and a nice editing program, then you'll be off to the races. Realize upfront, that lighting and sound are important. I kick myself for not having more background and hairlighting in TERRARIUM. You want your subjects to stand out. Use an external mic, on a boompole, so you can get in close and avoid a lot of ambient noise.

Everyone has a few bad movies in them, before the good stuff flows. So, start shooting some stuff and try to keep improving. You learn by doing, not just by listening to others. Of course, watching low budget movies will teach and inspire you. Seeing what people can do with everyday resources is more profound than what you can get out of a mega budget Hollywood production.