Jeff Celentano Interview – BLACKWATER LANE (2024)
any challenges you faced in this film I know that you know you had the action sequences you had some live animals on set any challenges that sort of you face along the way uh no you know um weather live animals all easy I’m kidding no children water and animals don’t do any of those [Music] three what’s going on everybody it’s Ted again with the countdown City Geeks and I got another very special interview for you all uh joining me today is the director of the brand new horror Thriller Blackwater Lane featuring Minka Kelly Maggie Grace and German the one and only Jeff Santano what’s going on Jeff I’m doing good Ted how about you I’m doing wonderful especially after watching this film I enjoy the work of all three of these individuals and uh it’s very um refreshing to kind of see them all together because you don’t see them working together very often uh tell us a little bit about how you got involved with the project um well my partner uh Warren ostergard um was friends with the producer Liz Fowler and he called me up and said hey I think you’d be a perfect director for this um you had met Liz years ago and she always liked you and we all got together and I read the script and I thought wow this is like the old kind of horror films that made your mind just go into like a full tornado of like thoughts like how what is happening like you feel like you’re kind of going insane you know I like that and then the twist at the end blew me away a little bit and I was like wow this could be something and so I was I was on board and then obviously when we decided on London or not London but England in the countryside of England I was really excited because I thought this movie can only get better with these great locations I was actually going to bring that up uh you have this wonderful uh location that the movie primarily takes place this little cottage surrounded by a pond it’s it’s gorgeous um wait wait little cottage well I you were correct about that it it’s probably about a what three 4,000 square foot uh home maybe I think it’s 8,000 square foot oh my gosh I can’t tell but you can’t because you know what you’re right um funny you brought up a really good point so when we Scout this house I haven’t told this story before um I was going down the road with my team of my ad and my DP and my wife and I got down the road and I said turn around they said what I said turn turn around let’s get out of here Jeff you know how it is you got to look at the location you might be missing something I I’m not missing anything there’s a palace sitting in front of us it’s unrealistic there’s no way an audience is going to believe these people live here and they inherited this it’s like Remains of the Day or or you know down Abbey sure and then then I thought well I don’t have to shoot it that way and then when I walked in expecting this Gothic house it was more done like a Brentwood home like very modern inside yeah still still integrated into the into the architecture of the house but more modern like as you saw in the movie and I fell in love with it and then there was this giant Cathedral room and I thought what are we going to do with that and then and then somebody said well my production designer said why don’t we make that the renovation room because they’re renovating the house and we’ll cover it in plastic so we’ll kind of ruin the gothic look but it’ll be creepy and much scarier in this room and that’s when I said oh my gosh we found the house and I looked at my crew and I said if I ever say turn around again make sure you force me like you just did to go with your ideas because you guys were on the money yeah it’s it’s the perfect location it kind of Bec its own character in a way because the shining it reminded me of the of the hotel and The Shining that all these weird they have all these weird um sculptures made out of bushes and stuff around the property oh wow that you saw in the film the mo mo around the entire house was Swans in it and cray like lobster in the pond like weird weird stuff and I have it in the movie there’s a lobster in the film yeah you’re right describing it as unreal because it it looks just Immaculate it’s just wild um Minka does a lot of the heavy lifting as she’s the main character and she’s the one that’s going through all of these sort of um what what a lot of times feels like mental issues and you’re you’re as an audience you’re guessing throughout the film what is real and what is not uh talk to us about your collaboration with with Minka Kelly and uh just the performance that she put on in this movie well I needed somebody who could deliver the emotional life constantly because a lot of people don’t realize when you’re shooting a movie like this um to me that acting is so impossible to find because people don’t realize is it’s not like I put a camera in front of you and go cry or be terrified I put a camera in front of you for about four hours and say cry and be terrified for four hours like it’s not one take it’s 15 takes and can you deliver the the level of emotion every single take because you have to match it you know sometimes you get less less is more sometimes you don’t need a lot of emotion although it’s just in the eyes or when the eyes well up when there’s tears filling them but they don’t you not you’re not balling your eyes out is more powerful sometimes like I said simple moments are better and I think Minka had that range she had that ability to be really real pull you in and not to mention she’s gorgeous so that helps you know um she’s you know she’s really easy to work with she she just was the right actress she just fitted perfectly I love hearing that you have a a few action sequences in here um on a road did you guys do that Outdoors did you were you able to kind of construct uh these shots inside somewhere how did you pull all those off no we did all of it outside um on the road uh there was a couple scenes that I shot with they call it poor man’s process where you put the car on these blocks and then they move the car around and then there’s fans and wind and rain uh we did that for the close-up stuff uh because we want we wanted additional shots but um not that we were lacking them we just felt like if we had them it would enhance the scene so we did that after the fact when the movie was uh toward the end not during the action stuff um the stuff that we shot on the road that was a military base that we we got full rights to use and it really eerie there’s these weird deer out there that uh look like they something out of a horror movie they have weird horns and these weird breathing things and I can’t remember the name of them right now but they’re they look like big rats and they were standing all over in herds and I was like wow I wish I could get them in the film they’ll never stand still but uh but anyway that’s that’s where we did it any challenges you faced in this film I know that you know you had the action sequences you had some live animals on set any challenges that sort of you faced along the way uh no you know um we live animals all easy I’m kidding no children water and animals don’t do any of those three um especially not all together I think I had all of it I had water animals um you name it but um it was a very smooth production everything came together pretty well my biggest challenge was time yeah um movies are all based on a schedule sure and you’re gonna meet that time and you have a certain budget and you have to you have to know how to elevate that into something that will be worthy of an audience seeing in the theater and that was what I set out to do so my biggest challenge was trying to adhere to that and always make sure I lived up to that how was the shooting schedule lag was it grueling was it really short yes rough two weeks a months no no no it was like 20 days oh wow yeah so it was it was short for a movie like this but I think I focused on the psychological part more than I did you know big giant sequences you know um I wanted to keep it more intimate and and more claustrophobic in the house so I think that helped us I think so too at times it’s uh you know kind of a straight horror and other times it’s very cerebral and like I mentioned it keeps the audience guessing all the way to the end and I absolutely love that aspect of it uh final question for you I want you to give a well final final part of this interview I want you to pitch the audience why should they see this movie Blackwater Lane if you want to stop watching all the garbage that you have to sift through on all the different streaming platforms and you want to watch something that you’ll actually realize after you’re done I didn’t waste one minute of my time and I can refer this to other people and that was a great ride and a great experience like getting on a roller coaster then that then I’m happy that’s all I set out to do uh you know we have so much content today I want to make something different I want to make something that took us back to the movies that were really well written and well executed and that was what my goal was um I just want you to be entertained and say wow this was a great movie we found you know absolutely Mission accomplice Jeff Santano uh thank you so much for joining me today Blackwater Lane will be out very soon go check it out uh on demand in theaters wherever you can find it and Jeff hope we have a great rest of your day man thank you man really appreciate it thank you Ted [Music] [Music] he [Music]
Steady here and today i am joined by director of the film Blackwater Lane which stars Minka Kelly, Maggie Grace, Dermot Mulroney…Jeff Celentano! See the synopsis below and find watch the film today on video on demand.
Synopsis: Minka Kelly, Dermot Mulroney and Maggie Grace star in Blackwater Lane, a supernatural thriller based on the wildly successful New York Times bestselling book by B.A. Paris. After witnessing a tragedy on a dangerous country road, Cass is visited by a ghostly presence and begins to question her sanity. As these otherworldly experiences intensify, Cass is driven closer to the brink until she begins to assemble the pieces of a horrific plot against her.
#JeffCelentano #BlackwaterLane #film