What started off life as a $200 fake trailer entry into Robert Rodriguez's SXSW Grindhouse Trailer Competition some years ago, Hobo With A Shotgun is now a fully fledged feature of bad-taste supreme starring the legendary Rutger Hauer. The film was released in the U.S. this past Friday and hits U.K. screens on July 15th. We had an opportunity to talk recently to director Jason Eisener about the the rise of Hobo and his long-time respect for lead actor Rutger Hauer, the making of his award-winning short Treevenge and he was also kind enough to drop some hints about what he's tackling next - in his home country of Canada, of course. Obsessed With Film: Hi, thanks for taking the call. Just wanted to ask you a couple of questions about Hobo With A Shotgun.
Jason Eisener: Sure thing.
OWF: We saw Treevenge maybe a year back and loved it. How did you go from making Treevenge to making the Hobo With A Shotgun trailer that won the Grindhouse contest?
Jason Eisener: We actually made the Hobo With A Shotgun trailer before we made Treevenge. Basically while we were writing the script for Hobo With A Shotgun and raising money, and I, we just liked to use our own money, a couple grand, basically went out on weekends with friends, we shot Treevenge. And it fit so well on the festival circuit, it ended up being nominated for Best Short at Sudance, and that really helped us get the financial backing that we needed behind Hobo, because with Hobo, the original trailer, its only a 2-minute trailer, it doesnt really get you involved with the story or show you how we handle narrative and making Treevenge was a great way to get people behind and show them how we handle character and story, and how we deal with violence, and the success of that showed people that we werent just a one-trick pony and could make a feature film.
OWF: Speaking of that, how you deal with violence Treevenge and Hobo feature pretty over the top action choreography. Is that how envisioned it originally?
JE: Yeah, I loved action, some of my favorite you know action is very hard to do and time-consuming on set and it can be hard for filmmakers to wrap their head around it. But Ive just always loved, ever since I first picked up a camera and made action films with my friends. I grew up watching action and horror movies, exploitation films, thats what gets me excited about film and when it comes time to make my own films, I love directing action, its a lot of fun.
OWF: Did you always plan Hobo to be feature-length or did it spiral out after the success of the trailer?
JE: No, at first we thought it might make a cool short film, but when we put that original trailer up online, it started blowing up and becoming a viral hit, we started seeing all these comments of people demanding that we make a feature film, we first thought, well maybe we should go out on weekends and try to make this feature film. But when we won that contest, we ended up, the Canadian distributor of Grindhouse, theyre called Alliance, they wanted to take our trailer and attach it to the theatrical release and they shipped very close to 200 film prints of that trailer. We shot the original trailer for $120 on Mini-DV and I havent heard of anyone doing something like that, releasing it across the country and then they wanted to talk to us about the idea of making a feature film.
OWF: You were at Sundance with Rutger Hauer and you said hes your favorite actor.
JE: My best friend and co-writer John Davies and I grew up together and we discovered our love for cinema at the same time. First we were tracking down our favorite directors and checking out their films but the first actor that really caught our attention, and we tracked down all of his films, was Rutger Hauer.
OWF: What did he catch your attention in? Was it Blade Runner?
JE: No, it was a movie called The Blood Of Heroes, which is also called Salute of the Jugger and a movie called The Hitcher, by Robert Harmon. just had such an amazing presence on screen, and this cool, smooth style and he creates such mysterious character even when he plays villains, youre almost kind of rooting for him in a way.
OWF: Whats your favorite Hauer performance?
JE: I would probably say The Hitcher.
OWF: Whats next for you?
JE: We are currently developing a martial arts film there havent been really any martial arts films made in Canada. It all takes place in this high school its basically a place for the worst students in the world, when theyre kicked out of their schools, theyre brought to this high school and its basically what life would be like in the high school thats kind of in the same world as Hobo With A Shotgun.
OWF: That sounds really good. Anything youre basing it off of?
JE: Im not too sure I dont know what genre the film will be, the films that are big inspirations on it are The Wanderers, and Three OClock High, maybe a little bit of The Karate Kid, Riki-Oh, and Rock N Roll High School. Its going to be in the spirit of Hobo but I just want to make a movie thats even more of a rock show.
OWF: Sounds violent.
JE: Yeah, I dont know if Im going to go the same route as Hobo the violence is so over-the-top and crazy Im not too sure Im going to go that way. A recent movie thats been such a huge inspiration is a movie called I Saw The Devil.
OWF: The Korean revenge thriller.
JE: Its amazing, the action is so hard-hitting I love how fast the action is and its quite realistic and at the same time very over-the-top, Id like to play around with that a little bit as well.
OWF: Thats a good target to aim for. Do you plan to keep your productions based in Canada in the future?
JE: For now, yeah totally the thing is we had such an amazing time making Hobo and we were given so much freedom to do what we wanted. We never had anyone breathing down the back of our necks, a bunch of producers or studio execs sitting by the monitor and giving their opinion or anything. I dont know if a movie like Hobo could quite be made like it was, in the studio system. Id be totally down if you could make a movie like that in the States, and be allowed to have that freedom, but its working great in Canada right now and I dont see any reason to stop doing what were doing, were having a blast right now!
OWF: Thank you very much for your time. Good luck to you.