Having worked as an actor, editor, musician, director, producer, stuntman, and model-maker in his nearly three decades in filmmaking, Adam Boster knows the industry inside and out, and he's using that knowledge to help independent filmmakers get the most bang for their buck at Boster Castle Studios, a studio in the Midwest that takes a practical, efficient approach to making movies, with ample amounts of resources available for directors.
With the new film Slasher.com now on DVD and VOD, we caught up with Boster for our latest Q&A feature to discuss producing and acting in the new movie from Chip Gubera, as well as working with Casper Van Dien in the upcoming movie Darkness Reigns and what the future holds for Boster Castle Studios.
Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us, Adam. What attracted you to the story of Slasher.com and your character, Agent Hunter?
Adam Boster: Well, word comes down the social media streets of Columbia, MO, that my friend Chip Gubera (director of Slasher.com) is having a hard time finding locations for a feature he's starting, like NOW! I call up Chip. He tells me what he needs and I come back with, "Hey, sounds like my house and its surrounding acres could solve some of these emergencies! Oh, and (clears throat) why didn't you hit me up to help you on this project from the beginning?"
Almost reluctantly, Chip responds to me with, "Well . . . I knew you wouldn't be into the content of the film . . . "
I come back with, "Okay then, don't tell me about it! But yes, of course you can use my house!" We're talking about local production so we help each other out around here. Little did I know what I was actually getting myself into, but Chip started shooting. Still not having read the script, the more I got involved helping with resources, I started looking at Slasher.com from the producer perspective, as an opportunity to take a local low-budget film to a place of profitability for its investors and knew I could tackle distribution if the film could hit the bar. This was the business model I was looking to perfect so we could repeat it and grow the local film industry.
The rough-cut screening was the first time I had seen the whole story and man, was I in deep at that point! Well, we hit the editing bay with a vision to make this film market material. As we started to spitball ideas on how to enhance the film's experience, Chip approached me with a government agent and his "crack team" chasing down this slasher. I bit hook, line, and sinker when he asked me if I would play the part and bam, Agent Hunter was born.
What types of scares can horror fans expect to experience in Slasher.com?
Adam Boster: It's a strange movie—funny, very strange funny. I mean, no spoilers, but I'd call it uncomfortable horror. It takes you through stages where you start to question stuff, strange stuff . . . like spoons! Then it leaves you with a, "Did that just happen?" "How do I feel about that?" experience. I never thought I would be involved with a film that goes where this one does and I constantly feel I have to walk around with a disclaimer posted on my sleeve that says "***NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THERAPY BILLS OR SIDE EFFECTS FROM WATCHING!***" I can tell you this: you'll never look at a spoon in the same way! Did I mention it was strange?
Where did filming take place for Slasher.com?
Adam Boster: Literally in my backyard! I have a few acres at my house as well as a 40-acre back lot to shoot on. It was all right here in mid-Missouri, shot as a local homegrown film. We used Chip's house! The infamous cabin was near Fayette, MO. Every location was either in Columbia, MO, or a stone's throw away. The film commission and visitor's bureau here are a dream to work with and always lend any hand they can for us.
What was it like working with director Chip Gubera?
Adam Boster: We've known each other for about a decade now and Chip cares about the final product. As the leader of a grand artistic project like a film, most directors get seriously caught up in the "wonder of THEIR amazing vision" and lose sight of the entertainment business side. Successful directors seem to grow past this stage and embrace the business side as the machine that allows them to produce art for a living. Chip cares so much, he is willing to put the ego side away and take the extra steps at the end, when it seems so much harder to go shoot some extra footage or re-record dialogue. When he knows it will increase the value of the film, he does it. I seriously enjoyed our collaboration during these stages and always dig working with Chip!
When you look back at your time on set, is there a particularly funny or memorable moment that stands out?
Adam Boster: Oh, definitely! In the film, I play Agent Hunter, but also Ben Kaplan's stunt double across from Kevin Purvis, who doubled for R. A. Mihailoff. After the rough cut, Chip and I decided to beef up some of the fight scenes in an effort to enhance the intensity of our two male lead adversaries, but we didn't have R. A. anymore. Well, Kevin Purvis not only fit R.A.'s build, but comes to the table with a lifetime of actual field combat experience. I'm sure Kevin's life story would be more action-packed than most Bruce Willis movies, only Kevin really lived it, ya know! Add in my martial arts background and the combat scenes became a playground as Kevin, Ben, and I mapped out our moves!
I love doing fight choreography and just love working with Kevin, Ben, and of course Chip! Wow! Between that and the action scene raids of Agent Hunter, which was a great role to play, I'll never forget telling my son, Jace Boster, who was 19 at the time and playing the role of one of my raid team members, that he was gonna have to hang back from raiding this bedroom with nude lovers going at it as we entered, then pulled their naked bodies apart. I mean, I even got to throw Greg Allers to the floor at gunpoint, then shove my boot in his face! Greg would scream. I would scream. Then the entire room would bust out in laughter after each take! It was classic.
So, having a great time on the super demented set of Slasher.com with friends and family, I'd say that was memorable. My wife, Angela, even played a wild part! "So, honey, what did you do today?" "Oh . . . laid on top of a whole bunch of half-naked people in a ditch and played dead." It doesn't get more family than that folks!
Over the years, you’ve worked as an actor, editor, musician, director, producer, and stuntman. Has being involved in so many aspects of filmmaking given you a unique perspective on the industry?
Adam Boster: I'm gonna date myself here but, after I'd been in the industry for more than two decades—and that's years ago—people would say, "If there's a job title at the end of the credits, Adam has done it at least once." I've lost track of how many times I have watched as crew members in every position have gotten myopically focused on their role and lost sight of the overall project, often cutting corners with gain and glory in mind, but costing so much more on the back end even up to losing the whole project. We are all guilty of it. I am—more than I can remember—and it wasn't until I got tired of losing my own time or money in those situations that I really started to voice my thoughts loudly when I would see those challenges arising again. A broad understanding of filmmaking definitely helps when you are on tight budgets and need to pull magic out of a hat, and you don't even know where to find a hat! That's when you pull on life experiences and friends—lots of great friends!
One of my biggest challenges is watching filmmakers spend hard-earned cash, "cutting their teeth" to "make a reel" on shorts, pilots, and especially features that have no market value. If you’re gonna spend your seed money and ask for favors in the entertainment business, learn the business side of the business. That's why it's called "business." Producers, directors, and writers need to study what sells and then create your project around that core premise. Working with Fairway Film Alliance has drastically improved my understanding of what projects are worth sinking money into, and which ones are just money pits. Why pour your life into a project if it has no possibility of bringing you any return? Make films that can sell.
You recently opened Boster Castle Studios in the Midwest. What unique opportunities does this studio provide for independent filmmakers?
Adam Boster: Ya know, I'm gonna have to quote Andrew P. Jones here, who was complimenting some of my team, "When we decided to shoot Darkness Reigns in mid-Missouri, we had to form strategic alliances with the local professionals and we were really lucky to find a great partner in Boster Castle."
Ken Chamitoff and I produced and directed Money Fight independently. We built a team of investors, who together raised every penny of our budget. We watched Hollywood gobble up that money like a bloodthirsty creature and then ask for more and more. Shooting in L.A., we couldn't even have an actress light a cigarette without paying a rep from the fire department to stand there! The union struck and closed our set a whole day, cost us over $70,000 in lost wages, trashed schedules and forced overtime, only to say after digging through our books and budget, "Oh crap! You guys better get back to work cause there is no way this film can afford to go union, and you're burning money standing here!"
Then, there's the Hollywood game where people scare you into believing you can't accomplish something in order to get you to hire them. Man, our team fell for that crap! Look, gimme a guerilla filmmaker with a marketable concept, part of his low budget raised, who just needs the nitro in the tank and we start breathing heavy! The environment here in the Midwest is so welcoming, helpful and ripe! People get excited when a film comes to town which allows for a much broader freedom to create ideas. You can move faster when you need to and these local resources always stretch the few precious dollars that are available.
For almost ten years now, one of my great dot-connecting producers, Rob Evans, and I have found ourselves pulling last-minute solutions for films from Boster Castle resources. We've thrown together building raid scenes full of assault rifle props, screaming nude people, ghouls, monsters, cars, equipment, stunts, martial arts fighters, locations, crowds of people, and tons of background artists! You know when the script says, "and there's a crowd of people" that can be a hard task! And in big filmmaking cities it gets expensive fast! I would say assets. Studio space, production offices, prop and costume shops, crew, equipment, camera cars, 4K+ editing suites, sound, color, and distribution! Serious dollar-stretching assets when you are trying to bang out low- and micro-budget projects.
You also have another project coming up called Darkness Reigns. What can you tell us about that project?
Adam Boster: Right off the bat, Andrew P. Jones was a great director to work with and the film stars Casper Van Dien who, even though I worked on Starship Troopers, I never had the chance to meet directly until Darkness Reigns. On Troopers, I was a model-builder of all things, making spaceship cockpits and futuristic devices which came into being . . . in this new generation . . . as Wi-Fi tablets [chuckles]. So, this time, I was a local resource producer for Andrew, helping him gather assets, equipment, crew, and other crazy last-minute things.
Before I knew it, Andrew cast me as a piano player in a scene with Casper and his beautiful fiancée, Jennifer Wenger. Now, Casper plays himself, as an actor who is filming on the set of a horror thriller. I'm part of the horror element in the story where things start to go horribly wrong for Casper's character and the film crew... the characters in the crew in the story. Ya follow? Yeah, it was confusing sometimes to us, too, but it makes total sense when you watch it unfold. It's already completing post-production and you should be able to get your hands on it very soon.
With Slasher.com now out on DVD, do you have any projects on deck that you can tease? Where can readers find you online?
If you’re a fan of IMDb, there is a crazy list growing there that you can check out at http://www.imdb.me/adamboster. Money Fight and Darkness Reigns are both completed and will hit the market here soon. In the Wake of Ire is a drama by Brian Maurer starring Gregory Sporleder, which is currently in post.
But it's going to take series-based productions to strengthen this local film economy, so we've been banging out a funding relationship with Troy Lowman of SNM Global Holdings, which is a new media company. We'll start filming the first Lost Treasure of Jesse James in 2018 and we are in development on an American meltdown action series called I-70 Knights. It's a great time for Boster Castle Studios. If I have my way, film will be the next big Midwest crop!
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(Image 5007 (top photo) Small portrait of Adam Boster. Owned by Adam Boster. Photographed by Joefer Bautista, www.atsituab.com , https://www.facebook.com/joefer.n.bautista)
Raised on a steady diet of R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps books and Are You Afraid of the Dark?, Derek has been fascinated with fear since he first saw ForeverWare being used on an episode of Eerie, Indiana.
When he’s not writing about horror as the Senior News Reporter for Daily Dead, Derek can be found daydreaming about the Santa Carla Boardwalk from The Lost Boys or reading Stephen King and Brian Keene novels.
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