Exclusive Interview: Michael Rousselet, Tomm Jacobsen and Jon Salmon on Directing DUDE BRO PARTY MASSACRE III

On Tuesday, July 7th, Dude Bro Massacre III will be released on both iTunes and via the film’s official site as well. The throwback slasher send-up recently premiered during the 2015 Los Angeles Film Fest which is where Daily Dead had the opportunity to catch up with the trio of directors behind Dude Bro Massacre III- Tomm Jacobsen, Michael Rousselet, and Jon Salmon.

During our interview, the filmmakers discussed how the project evolved from a fake trailer conceived for 5 Second Films, the successful website that releases a brand new short-form video each weekday, into a feature that was successfully funded via Kickstarter. We also heard about how they shared directorial duties on their low-fi, high-ambition horror comedy and how they nabbed some of Dude Bro’s killer cameos as well.

For more information on Dude Bro Massacre III and its release this week, be sure to check out http://www.dudebropartymassacre3.com/ for all the details.

Congrats on the film, guys- it’s a lot of fun. I'm curious to hear how this all came together, because I read about how this all started off as a trailer and now here we are, talking about the feature film version at the LA Film Fest.

Michael Rousselet: Thanks- it’s kind of crazy, right (laughs)? And we're all writers and directors and also, we’re basically a self-sufficient comedy troupe. With Dude Bro, I think we were just trying to just cram as many laughs as we could into every minute, every second, of the film. The bottom line was that we just didn't want to have the audience be bored so we worked hard to just keep the story moving forward and to keep the jokes coming too. And I think 5 Second Films has been a great training ground for film makers, better than any film school I've ever attended.

Jon Salmon: It was a whole new world for all of us, honestly, going from 5 Seconds Films to making a feature. Creating the jokes came easy- we had drafts of joke after joke after joke, there was a basic art to it and everyone was involved in that process. But then we had to go back to the script and really work on the characters. We went through them one by one, and then we had to figure out what the purpose of each scene was too, and then how it all related to the story and those characters.

Michael Rousselet: Because if you don't care about the characters…

Jon Salmon: Yes, you get about twenty minutes of people laughing and then, if there’s nothing else to keep them interested, they're exhausted and then you lose them.

Tomm Jacobsen: That was the big learning curve for all of us, I think.

Was keeping the momentum behind the film’s tone one of the hardest things on Dude Bro? Because when you're doing in the movie like this, where it has to completely commit to its intent, so it’s important to finish just as strongly as you start. Some satirical horror movies have tried but they don’t end up sticking the landing in that respect; you guys do a really good job of that though.

Michael Rousselet: I think a lot of credit goes to Brian Firenzi who did all the editing on the film. He is also the father of 5 Second Films, one of the writers and he plays Officer Sminkle too. It’s kind of insane that he also was our editor too, but he did a great job kind of piecing this insanity together because the tones weren’t easy at all.

Jon Salmon: He's a master editor, too. Like when you look at the timeline of the movie, he's cutting shots in half and splicing two different scenes together, doing things that I would've never thought about doing during the editing process. There are these great moments where he just gets like the perfect reactions from two different people in the same spot but then cuts the frame in half. It was amazing and also really helped sell those jokes too.

Beyond just creating an actual movie, you guys also use commercial snippets to break up everything, giving the film that authentic VHS feeling.  Was there a method to your madness when crafting those? 

Tomm Jacobsen: That's another element of 5 Second Films that we wanted to put in there to represent our home. We thought the commercials would be funny, especially if you grew up in that era, where you would try to record a movie on TV and you would try to edit out the commercials but would always get a little bit of it in there, despite how hard you tried to get it perfect.

Jon Salmon: Yes, that may have been like a writing room day one mandate for us. I don't know who brought that idea up to begin with, but we thought having those would really make this feel like some VHS artifact some fan would dig up like 20 years later.

Two things I want to talk about before we go- the cameos and the character of ‘Mother Face.’ How did you guys manage to get so many fun folks to make an appearance in this? And then I’d love to hear a bit about what inspired your villain because I thought she was great.

Michael Rousselet: Oh cool, thank you. Well let's talk about 'Mother Face' first. I think she was in the trailers at first but I don’t think she had the name just yet.

Tomm Jacobsen: She didn't have a name, but she just had that face, on top of her own face. And I think someone was like, "Well it's sort of like she’s got her mother face on" and that made us all laugh in the writing room. Then we realized, "All right, that's where it is" and that’s how we got her name (laughs).

Jon Salmon: And as far as our cameos go- Larry King was fun because he had us on The Larry King Show, talking about 5 Second Films, and about our Kickstarter for the film. Afterwards, he says to us, "You know, I've been in 30 movies and I never died. I would love to die on a movie." So we told him that since he said that on tape, so we were going to hold him to that.

Michael Rousselet: And then we came back like six months later and shot his scene using a green screen he has in his office. So we threw him into this thing and I don't think he had any idea what he was doing (laughs). He only used on one take, one take for everything. He was a true pro.

Jon Salmon: Hearing him say, "Dude Bro Party Massacre" was hilarious.

Michael Rousselet: We all got shivers down our spine (laughs). And I also want to give love to Patton Oswalt because we consider him the Godfather of 5 Second Films. He tweeted about us saying, "I love these films; they are so funny" and we flipped out because he's such a hilarious and respected icon to us. And we tweeted back saying, "Would you like to be in some 5 Second Films?" and he said, "Absolutely!" That's how the relationship started and so, when we did the Kickstarter, he paid the exact amount to get a cameo. So we're like, "Oh, my God! Legally we had to have him."

Tomm Jacobsen: We tried to cut the scenes out but he was too great in this (laughs).

Michael Rousselet: He's such a trooper and a very funny guy so having Patton think we're funny is like the most validating thing I've ever felt professionally.

Oh, and one last thing- are you guy's planning anymore Massacres depending on how this does?

Jon Salmon: Of course. The blood will never stop.

Tomm Jacobsen: Yes, I don't know if how you make a sequel to a sequel to a fake sequel but we'll figure out a way to do part nine as the next one.

Michael Rousselet: Actually, we are going to do a POV found footage haunted house movie- it's the POV of a blind man so, it's going to be very confusing for audiences (laughs).