Indie Spotlight

""Vigilante Diaries" is a new graphic novel-inspired action comedy series starring Jason Mewes. Documentary filmmaker Michael Hanover (Mewes) turns his camera to the dark world of vigilante justice. Documenting the lives of "The Vigilante "and his lethal sidekick, "The Kid", he finds himself unexpectedly thrust into the middle of the story he is trying to tell. Taking down drug lords, mafia kingpins and getting some action from "the twins", Hanover must learn to survive in this dark new world. With a heavy dose of blood, gore, sex and gamer style first-person shooter action sequences, Vigilante Diaries will have you on the edge of your seat."

---

Thanks for taking the time to talk with us, Christian. How did the idea for Vigilante Diaries come about and why did you want to move forward with this as your latest project?

Christian Sesma: The idea for Vigilante Diaries came from Paul Sloan, a good friend and sometimes writing partner. He had this cool little PUNISHER homage type web series he thought would be fun to shoot in between movie gigs. So, after calling Jason Mewes and asking him if this would be something he'd be up for and him being super pumped for it. I took it to the next level and approached my friends at CHILL.COM to finance the pilot episodes and see where this little series could go.

Was it always planned as a web series or was it initially pitched as a full feature/TV series?

Christian Sesma: Yeah, Vigilante was always planned as a series.

Jason Mewes may not be the first person that people think of as an action star, but he really works in this role. Did you always have him in mind for this project? How did you get him on board?

Christian Sesma: Mewes is such a hilarious and versatile actor. Paul and I worked together with Mewes in my indie action/comedy Shoot the Hero! in 2009. We all became good buddies. So when the idea of the series came up and we needed a comedic lead to take us through this graphic novel world of violence and badassery. Who better than Jason Mewes?

It seems like it would be tough to balance the comedy and action. Can you tell me about your work with Paul Sloan to get your visions down on the script as well as in front of the camera?

Christian Sesma: Paul and I are total film geeks at our core. So, our vision was razor sharp. Make a kick-ass graphic novel style action/comedy and just do what we love doing. So I brought on my right hand man, Cinematographer A.J. Rickert-Epstein (who also edited, VFX'd and Sound Designed) to round out the creative team. All hard core film buffs that think Predator and Aliens and Die Hard are the holy trio. Balancing action and comedy, really comes naturally.

Working with a small budget, you were still able to pack in plenty of action. Can you tell us about the challenges of shooting intense action scenes on a small budget?

Christian Sesma: Again, back to the my Cinematographer and I, we had just finished working on a cool Sci-Fi feature with plenty of action. We just know we can pull that stuff off at a cost. The challenges are time. As always. So we just made sure our P's and Q's were covered and set out to do our best.

It seems like this is something that the actors really had fun with. Can you tell us about your time on the set? Are there any interesting stories you can share?

Christian Sesma: I like to run a really fun set. And I believe a lot of that has to do that my production team are all very talented. So it's literally just a bunch of badass goofballs, doing their job efficiently and confidently. I feel if you're not in the movie biz to have a good time and not do cool stuff, it's miserable. We just don't have time for ego's or bad attitudes. As for an interesting story? Anything that spews from the mouth of Jason Mewes is pretty interesting. It was a constant good time.

This series is unique in that the first two episodes are available to purchase and help fund additional episode product. Is this something you always had in mind? Why go the crowd funding route?

Christian Sesma: I think the model CHILL has is something that was available to us. So, we went with what would help us produce this series right away, before Mewes went off to do another movie or Sloan got too busy or even myself. As for crowd funding, we really think the fan base is there for people to want to see Mewes doing a cool stand alone thing, and you never know where it will lead either on CHILL or another platform.

Have you been happy with the response the first two episodes have received? Will you be making any changes/enhancements to future episodes based on feedback?

Christian Sesma: We've been super happy with the feedback. It's been overwhelmingly cool. People dig it. There are always going to be guys on the web that will complain about everything. Man of Steel is gets hated on, so we just need to make sure our core audience loves it and they do. As for changes, I think we'll continue to listen to what the core audience wants. Enhancements? Hell yeah. Bigger, badder and meaner. We know we have to push envelopes each and every time. We have rocket launchers, car chases, helicopters, ninjas, etc. We plan on going bananas with the action.

If all goes well, how many episodes do you have planned? Can you give our readers a tease of what's next?

Christian Sesma: We have a 10 episode arc on paper, thanks to Paul Sloan, who cranks out amazing scripts. Tease of what's next? Jason Mewes character will now have to save the Vigilante with the help of the Kid, and in doing that realizes his own dad is heavily involved in this whole thing. We try not to go too heavy on the dramatic story lines in such a small series, but we do need to make sure we have a real core story going here. So the more episodes we do, the more Jason's character gets deeper into this world and becomes a vigilante/superhero himself.

Ideally, what would you like to see happen with Vigilante Diaries down the line? Is this something you'd like to see on TV or as a feature film? Are you already working toward that?

Christian Sesma: I would love for Vigilante Diaries to take off as a series. It's a blast to make. It's a no-limit type project that we feel we have a huge range of creative freedom with. We get to make the genre and style of project we all love which is the graphic novel, comic book, action/comedy. We are trying everything to keep this going, one way or another. Vigilante will prevail.

Comic-Con is taking place next week and I understand that some of you from Vigilante Diaries will be attending. Can you tell our readers where/when you'll be appearing?

Christian Sesma: Jason, Paul and I will definitely be there Thursday through Saturday. Jason will be part of the big Hall H panel with Kevin. We definitely plan on doing some really cool street level promotions with Twitter giveaways by Jason!

---------