One of world premieres at this past B Movie Celebration was Brett Piper’s “Queen Crab.”
“Slightly deranged young woman lives alone in an isolated cabin. Her best friend is a giant crab. B movie excitement ensues. An awesome new feature length stop-motion giant monster movie from fx master Brett Piper!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?[v=HFbfUmlHxOY]
The film was entertaining and Mellissa (Michelle Simone Miller) is a genuinely nice person, so you kind of root for her and the crab. Especially since the giant crab is only defending herself against the people that have something against giant crabs.
“Queen Crab” is a creature film that’s fit for the entire family and the crab is even likeable. Brett was kind enough to share a bit more about “Queen Crab” and the filming.
Five Quick Questions with Brett Piper – “Queen Crab”
How did the story of a girl and her pet crab come about, instead of just a giant crab?
BRETT: I’d always wanted to do a giant crab movie and in fact I’d written one a few years ago that was much more a generic ATTACK OF THE CRAB MONSTERS type of thing. But I wanted something easier to produce with the resources I have at hand and also with a slightly different hook. I started with the idea of the little girl who’s father was working on a growth formula and her feeding it to her pet crab and it just grew from there. My working title was MIGHTY JOE CRAB, which shows how seriously I was taking it.
“Queen Crab” has a giant crab shell, baby crabs ran over, plus all the crabs used for the stop motion. How many crabs did you have to build and did you do them all yourself?
BRETT: There was one stop motion crab, three full sized “squishable” baby crabs, and a full sized giant crab claw. And yeah, I built them all myself.
Stop motion is an art form in itself and some love it and some hate it. If you have the tools and budget, would you dabble in CGI or will you always stick with the hands on effects.
BRETT: I’ll always stick with hands on effects. If I had the resources I might use CGI for shots that absolutely couldn’t be done any other way, but I’d still use practical effects whenever I could. Building the models and such is 90% of the fun in doing these movies.
How and when will “Queen Crab” be available to the general public?
BRETT: I wish I knew! We haven’t even started shopping it around yet. I’ll keep you posted.
What’s next for you?
BRETT: I’ve been working on a movie called TRICLOPS, which is also a throwback to the drive-in movies of old. This is actually the first time I’ve had two movies overlap, shooting one while doing post on the other. It gets pretty confusing at times, especially when both movies share many of the same cast members. I sometimes forget which one I’m working on. I’m also working on an Amityville movie that Mark Polonia is producing, and may be doing another short movie in the spring as part of an anthology.
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