Interview with 4 time WWFF entrants “Happyfunland Films”

Happyfunland Films is Mike and Aaron Weatherford, two brothers from Stanley, KS. Their offbeat style of short films have been featured in all 4 Wild West Film Festivals. They won 1st place in the first WWFF for the film “Reyes De La Callle” and 2nd place in the first WWFF Scare Factor competition for the film “The Godless.” Most recently they were 4th place Runner-up in the 2006 Scare Factor competition for the film “Deleriance”. We sat down with the 2 brothers Mike (age 29) and Aaron (age 25) and asked them about their odd films and quirky characters.

HOW DID HAPPYFUNLAND FILMS COME TO BE?

MIKE: It started when we got together to make the first short for the first Wild West Film Festival.

AARON: We were looking for a name of a film company that encompassed the words ‘happy’, ‘fun’ and ‘land’.

YOU ARE BROTHERS RIGHT?

MIKE: Yes, by birth.

HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE IN YOUR FAMILY, BROTHERS AND SISTERS?

AARON: 6 boys, 4 girls.

MIKE: A mother and dad. And other people who have lived with us. Russians exchange students…

AARON: Mexican Exchange students…

YOU GUYS HAVE WORKED TOGETHER BEFORE ON OTHER FILM PROJECTS?

MIKE: Yes, we’ve worked with other film studios. We’ve done a lot of work with Lickety Split Films.

AARON: We’ve made a lot of films with them. ‘YETI! A Tale of the Brothers Krong.’, ‘Dale’s Still Dead.’

MIKE: Longer movies. Features. An hour, hour and half variety.

WHAT IS YOUR FILMMAKING PHILOSOPHY?

MIKE: First of all, We don’t want to win any festivals. That’s not our goal. What we want to do is make a movie that’s funny, it’s quick, it’s to the point and it has a story. If you can make a movie that’s funny, and it’s short but it also has a story line, you know… It’s a good movie, win or lose.

WHO INSPIRES YOU GUYS AS FILMMAKERS? WHO ARE YOUR BIG INFLUENCES?

MIKE: Robert Zemeckis, probably.

AARON: Rob Reiner.

MIKE: John Hughes.

AARON: Gee Gee Allen.

MIKE: Wes Anderson.

AARON: Belushi.

MIKE: Well, if you’re talking character development, which we always try to have great characters in our films, you gotta go with the Kansas City native…Robert Altman.

AARON: Yeah, Robert Altman.

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE LOCAL KC/LAWRENCE FILMMAKING SCENE?

AARON: Hey, we’re here. We’re doin’ it. We’re kickin’ it. There’s many others out there kickin’ it.

MIKE: It’s starting up. I can see it getting bigger and bigger. I think we need to make better use of our landmarks in this town. We have a lot of cool theatres in this town and we need to use them. I think it’s on the rise.

WHAT ARE SOME LOCAL FILMS THAT YOU’VE SEEN LATELY THAT YOU REALLY DIG?

MIKE: I liked ‘Cars’.

AARON: ‘Over the Hedge’.

WHERE DO YOU GET THE OFFBEAT IDEAS FOR YOUR FILMS?

MIKE: I try to come up with a character that I would like to play…then we make a movie off of that character. So like I haven’t played a Puerto Rican Drug Lord Guy… so that’s who I want to be in this movie…let’s make a movie off of that character.

AARON: I tend to see the scenes in my head and piece them together. Draw a nice storyboard. The ideas seem to come together, you know?

YOU (MIKE) TEND TO PLAY THE MAIN CHARACTER IN A LOT OF THESE FILMS. YOU’RE KIND OF A MAN OF MANY FACES. YOU’VE PLAYED EVERYTHING FROM A LATIN DRUGLORD, TO AN EVIL BALDKNOBBER, TO A HICK PARK RANGER TO THE GHOSTLY HOMELESS MAN. WHAT’S YOUR ACTING PHILOSOPHY?

MIKE: Have props, will travel.

TELL ME ABOUT MAKING ‘REYES DE LA CALLE’, WINNER OF THE 1st ANNUAL WWFF.

MIKE: It was a crazy time when we made that movie. We spent $46 for a motel room in the middle of a rainstorm and filmed until 4 in the morning with some actresses who we didn’t know that well. And the criteria was you had to say the phrase ‘What are you doing in here?’ somewhere in the film. And we thought what if we said that in Spanish? Is anyone else going to do that? It was clever. And I was like ‘That’ll be fun’. That was one of my favorite memories. Let’s just do this in Spanish. We got on google and googled up words in Spanish and made up a story.

AARON: We wanted to have the character say ‘Hey, Whore! Get me a diet coke!’ in Spanish. But it didn’t translate all that well.

WEREN’T THERE TWINKIES SCATTERED ALL OVER THE SMALL MOTEL ROOM AFTER THE FILMING OF THAT MOVIE?

MIKE: Yes, twinkie residue and cigarette smoke everywhere. Something probably not uncommon for a motel room like that.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR INSPIRATION FOR YOUR FILM “THE GODLESS”. WHICH YOU WON 2nd PLACE FOR AT THE FIRST WWFF SCARE FACTOR COMPEITION. IT WAS A VERY SERIOUS FILM WITH SERIOUS TOPICS, A DEPARTURE FOR YOU GUYS. IT HAD BALDKNOBBER CHARACTERS MURDERING PEOPLE WITH SHOTGUNS…NOT AT ALL A COMEDY.

AARON: I was inspired by Silver Dollar City. The ride ‘FIRE IN THE HOLE’. We would always watch the guy climbing out of the burning house with his pants down. They always made it seem so comical but …in reality, people died.

MIKE: It was a departure for us. I wanted to make a funny movie like I always do but since it was a horror festival we had to make something scary. We had some scary ideas. I think it was the most money we’ve ever spent on a 3 and a half minute long movie. We had to rent lights and a generator.

TELL ME ABOUT YOUR FILM ‘MY FRIEND MICKEY’. AN ENTRY THAT DID NOT PLACE IN THE SUMMER 2006 WWFF. A LAVISHLY PRODUCED FILM THAT THE JUDGES DID NOT SEE EYE TO EYE WITH. IF I RECALL YOU RIGHT YOU MADE AN ALIEN PUPPET CREATURE FOR THAT FILM…

AARON: Mike’s wife Julie stayed up until 2 in the morning that night sewing the puppet. Unfortunately she got left off the credits.

MIKE: We spent a lot of time on that. Once again we tried to do something different than the other filmmakers. We thought that if we had a puppet in our movie it might be a little bit different. And so we made an alien puppet. We got a local kid actor to act with the puppet. And you know you can’t blame the judges. I thought we were right up there.

AARON: It was the AIDS comment, I think that did us in…

YOU HAD AN AIDS COMMENT IN IT?

MIKE: Yeah, about an orangutan giving (the alien) AIDS…

IT’S VERY BOLD OF YOU TO APPROACH SUBJECTS LIKE THAT IN YOUR FILMS.

THE MUSIC IN THE FILM WAS OUTSTANDING. WHO WROTE THE TITLE SONG?

AARON: My good friend, Sam Billen. He’s in the band the Billions and recently released a solo album on Northern Records called “Miracles”.

YOUR LATEST OFFERING TO THE WWFF WAS ‘DELERIANCE’, 4th PLACE RUNNER UP IN THE LAST SCARE FACTOR COMPETITION. FIRST OF ALL, WHAT IS YOUR DEFINITION OF THE WORD ‘DELERIANCE’?

AARON: It’s kind of like ‘deliverance.’

MIKE: But A little bit like ‘delirious’. I wanted to go for a word…a title that would sum up the fears of someone that is delirious but they are looking for deliverance.

THERE IS A SCENE IN THAT MOVIE WHERE A GHOST OF HOMELESSMAN MAKES OUT WITH A STEVE URKEL DOLL. WHERE DID YOU COME UP WITH THAT IDEA AND IS THERE ANY HIDDEN MEANING BEHIND IT?

AARON: Our father…

MIKE: I mean, you could say there’s a lot of meaning behind that…I’m just gonna leave that up to the audience. I mean, you’ve all seen homeless people with a doll before and why not a Steve Urkel doll?

WHAT’S A MAJOR OBSTACLE YOU’VE FACED IN THE CREATION OF YOUR SHORT FILMS?

AARON: Finding actors and actresses that aren’t afraid of us.

MIKE: Yeah, finding actors and actresses that are just willing to put it out on the line. Sometimes it’s just location and finding the right actors. Because you can have an idea for an Old Man in a movie but if you can’t find an old man and then you have to have a Teenager play an old man, it doesn’t always work.

WHAT’S NEXT FOR YOU GUYS? WHAT PROJECTS ARE YOU WORKING ON RIGHT NOW?
?MIKE: Well, we’re always looking forward to the next Wild West Film Fest. But we’re always thinking of new ones. I have several ideas. I still would like to bring in more puppets somehow. And incorporate cartoons or Claymation into our films.

AARON: One thing is we want to give back to the community, as well. We’d like to have a message about autism in our next films…

MIKE: Actually, we are working on a film in coordination with Lickety Split Films. A winter movie this Christmas. A holiday themed film with lots of characters in it.

WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT WORKING ON SHORT FILMS?

MIKE: Well, we come from making long format movies (an hour, hour and a half movies filmed over 2 to 3 years at a time). It’s fun to make movies over a weekend like we used to do back in Middle School. Just film it in a couple hours, go back edit, write some music. It’s fun. It’s quick and I think that’s when we’re at our best. ??AARON: Yeah, you don’t get all caught up in getting that one shot perfect. You get more into finding that perfect funny song. Just having fun and kicking back.

YOUR TEAM IS THE ONLY FOUR-TIME ENRANT INTO THE WWFF. WHAT FEEDBACK HAVE YOU GUYS GOTTEN ABOUT YOUR FILMS YOU’VE MADE?

MIKE: We’ve been told that they like our movies. And that they’re pretty funny. It seems to be that when our movies shown the crowd gets a real cackle out of ‘em.

AARON: That’s what we’re all about. Cackling. Getting the crowd to laugh.

MIKE: Except with ‘The Godless’. People were shocked and scared. That’s not what we normally do. But we’ve gotten good feedback. Positive…

AARON: We always show them to our Grandma first. And if she doesn’t like them, then we feel we’ve done a good job.

MIKE: Our older brothers usually hate them.

MIKE AND AARON’S HAPPYFUNLAND FILMS AND LICKETYS PLIT FILMS CAN BE VIEWED ON THE LS FILMS WEBSITE HYPERLINK http://www.licketysplitfilmsa.com www.licketysplitfilmsa.com.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 21st, 2006 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.