Bloodsucka Jones is the baddest vampire hunter on the planet and his trusty sidekick Vanessa help a couple of idiots fight an army of vampires in one hell of a horror comedy so if you love graphic violence, kids cursing, and nudity then this is the film for you.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?[v=Hf7uy2qshDs]
After years of working in many different media fields, one morning Justin woke up and thought he should make his in progress script into a movie. His hard work, determination, and passion paid off. “Blooodsucka Jones” currently is playing the festival circuit and has already played in Canada and Los Angeles.
If you’re in the Louisville area, you can see it at the Fright Night Film Fest on July 26th at 6pm.
http://www.frightnightfilmfest.com/
By the end of the year it should be released on DVD and VOD. Just in time for holidays! In the meantime check out “Bloodsucka Jones” Facebook and Youtube pages.
www.facebook.com/BloodsuckaJonesTheMovie
http://www.youtube.com/user/bloodsuckajones
Five Quick Questions with Justin Armao
“Bloodsucka Jones” is your directing debut. Can you tell us about your filmmaking background?
JUSTIN: Like a lot of kids who grew up with Star Wars, Jaws, and all that cool stuff I fell in love with movies and read anything I could about them, cut out the newspaper ads and glued them on my wall, and waited in huge lines on opening day, etc….. I have no formal training in film. I did not go to film school. I did take one film appreciation class in community college and probably got a C+. I began to get interested in it when in the early 90’s I worked full time for a few years as an extra. I got to work on about 300 Commercials, TV shows, and movies. I loved it and I learned a lot and got to see every type of thing being made from behind the scenes and I got to do everything from working 13 hours days with a totally naked Elizabeth Berkley on Showgirls to getting stuck in a stairwell with Marlon Brando while he schooled an A.D. on why he does not work past his agreed cutoff time. I got started making movies by making a short film on a video camera about me wanting to kill my friend (It was a comedy of course) and I shot it and edited it on a VCR and was hooked from that point on. Then I moved on to working on some short films my friends directed and they are awesome people and were open to ideas so the first time I had an idea and we did it and I got a laugh it was like the best drug on the planet. I started writing a couple scripts right after that. I saved up a few bucks to make a feature called “The Unfortunate Cookie” and we had a great time making it and but only got halfway through when I suddenly got full custody of my daughter who was 5 at the time so we put it on a shelf. I promised myself I would make a movie once she was old enough and I could save up the money. During that time were filming I began to write Bloodsucka Jones while we were filming. I worked here and there over the course of 8 years then one night I could not fall asleep and it turned midnight on April Fool’s day 2008 I got out of bed and thought I will just fool myself and try to make a movie so I started a Myspace page and 5 years later here we are piece of cake, piece of long drawn out, expensive, but rewarding cake.
You wrote, directed, produced, and acted, among other jobs in your film. I’m sure it was challenging and a lot of work, but was the overall filming experience fun considering the films material?
JUSTIN: It was without a doubt the time of my life. I knew it would be hard to make but it was ten times more work and time than I thought but luckily I got to work with two of my best friends Andy Cauble and Bloodsucka Jones himself Preston Gant. They were there producing it with me every step of the way from acting to producing, directing, location scouting, etc…. and it was worth it all the way. Yes because of the type of material it made it so much fun. We would be shooting a bikini car wash one day to shooting a bloody scene with 5 pre-teen vampire girls tearing someone apart in an industrial complex at 2 in the morning. The best compliment we got was that almost every person who worked on it said it was their favorite thing they had ever done. We even let a lot of the actors pick their own character names and they loved doing that. We had the motto that no one ever yells or gets mad, everyone is super nice and friendly and we will take anybody’s idea and just try it out if possible so there are many many ideas from everyone in the movie it really was a family. We had over 150 people work on it and most of them were paid nothing so we were so lucky to meet so many incredible people that were so generous with their time. We had the best crew ever none of which we had known before and all of which are close friends to this day. We had a great camera operator who became our editor as well Brad Harris who really brought the movie together in editing with his endless awesome ideas he really made it great.
I noticed Mindy Robinson is in your film. In the last couple years she has been insanely busy appearing in over seventy films. How did you cast her and how was working with her?
JUSTIN: Yes Mindy was awesome to work with. We needed to shoot some vampire montage pickup shots about a year ago and she was one of 5 girls we needed as sexy kick ass bad girl vampires. We found her through a casting website lacasting.com a great site if you ever need to cast a film. Mindy was so much fun from the get go. She was texting me as she was driving to the set talking about the looks she was getting at the gas station in her sexy vampire gear. The reason she has just exploded so fast is that of course she is a gorgeous girl but she is always on time, she is excited to work on anything no matter how big or small, she makes it fun, and has no attitude whatsoever. She deserves all that success and she really appreciates it. We were lucky almost everyone on this film was the same way. We will be bringing Mindy back for Bloodsucka Jones 2 in a bigger funnier part so we are excited about that.
“Bloodsucka Jones” was voted top ten by Screamfest. Was it shopped around or did you always plan on making it yourself?
JUSTIN: I send it out to some production companies and put it in a few other screenplay contests including the first two seasons of Project Greenlight in which the other contestants review your screenplay but nothing came of it because it would get some awesome reviews then some old guy would review and say I don’t understands these kids today and these dang vampires. We really did just want to make it ourselves because just like your neighbor who is fixing up an old rusty Mustang because that’s what he loves to do this is our rusty old mustang and she turned out pretty good……..Rusty Mustang sounds like a great character name.
What will we see from you in the near future?
JUSTIN: We are going to begin pre production soon on the sequel called Bloodsucka Jones vs. The Creeping Death in which BSJ fights an army of Zombies and a few more vampires. I just finished the second draft of the script. We hope to shoot late next year and promise it won’t take nearly as long to make. We are also working on the scripts for Bloodsucka Jones 3 and 4.
Thank you Justin! With several films in the works there’s plenty of Bloodsucka Jones to look forward too. Be sure to follow the Facebook page for news and upcoming events.
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