Exclusive Interview: GRACE Director Paul Solet Vs. Brian S

Writer/Director Paul Solet has this cool little film out there right now entitled GRACE and if you haven't seen it yet then the Boogyman is coming for you! No seriously, he is!  Paul is one of the NEW generation director's we have and was on one of my TOP NEW GEN. Director's polls earlier this year!  He has won numerous awards including 2005's Means To An End winning "Best Short Horror Film" from Fangoria Magazine. In 2009 GRACE appeared at The Sundance Film Festival and hasn't slowed down since! Paul Solet is a great storyteller and sells his vision  superbly! He took time out of his very busy schedule for me so check out what he has to say!

Brian S- You have a cool connection with Eli Roth, Adam Green and a few other people.  Tell us a little about this and who else would you like to work with in the future?



Paul Solet-  I’ve really lucked out with mentors.  I met Eli when I was eleven years old and he’s been a great friend to me ever since, and anyone who knows Adam Green knows what a mensch he is.  Having people like this to look up to, and to learn from is so important.  I can’t tell you how much I’ve benefited just from being able to watch these guys go through their own journeys.  Still, the most helpful thing these guys have taught me is that there are no shortcuts, and that no one will do the work for you.  I hope to be able to pass it on.



Brian S-  Grace is kicking ass out there right now!  You are getting noticed left and right! Has this opened any NEW doors for you?



Paul Solet-  Absolutely.  When Grace got into Sundance, the world really opened up for me, and it’s been opening more and more with each subsequent achievement ever since.  I’ve gotten to meet so many talented people I can’t even begin to tell you.



Brian S-  As awesome as Grace has done and is still doing would you consider doing a sequel?  The ending kind of leaves it open for us!



Paul Solet-  I’m not interested in doing a sequel, no, but I’m glad you asked.  A film ought to leave you caring about where the characters go next.  To me, it’s as important to know where characters are heading after the credits roll, as it is to know where they were before the titles began.  I really believe that part of telling a story that transcends is having done all that footwork.  Of course, I don’t own the rights to the film, so if someone else decides GRACE has been so profitable they want to do it again, they’ll surely do it.



Brian S-  How cool was it working with Adam Green and Ariescope Pictures?  He and I are very old friends you know, we go back at least four months now and he owes me a Hatchet t-shirt!  Kidding Adam!  Or am I?



Paul Solet-  Like I said, anyone who knows Adam knows he really is a fucking great guy, but on top of that, he’s an outstanding producer.  Having a producer on your first feature who is also a director and a writer is such a tremendous luxury, and Adam can switch between those hats very easily.  I’m equally indebted to the rest of Ariescope, Cory and Will and Jason.  It’s just an outstanding team, and a great group of guys.  They really fell in love with GRACE and did nothing but sacrifice to get it made.  I’m hugely grateful to have hooked up with them.



Brian S-  Anyway sorry I get distracted, so in my Grace review I proclaimed it to be the best horror movie of the year!  The entire DVD is awesome, it has so many cool extras too! Did you get to decide what extras were put on the DVD?  Did you have free reign?

Paul Solet- Thanks man, that means a lot.  Green and I grew up rabidly devouring DVD and laserdisc extras.  It was, and continues to be, as important a part of our schooling as our formal schooling, so we fought like hell to make this DVD/ Blu-Ray the most amazing package out there.  We hired our own people to do the docs instead of settling on whoever the production companies wanted to use.  I hired real directors, old friends who weren’t just there to do a job.  Adam Barnick, who did five of the six docs, is along time companion, and an unbelievable talent.  He put together a series of featurettes that are as informative and artistic as they are entertaining.  And Jake Hamilton, a long time creative partner of mine, produced a doc on the amazing ride of our Sundance experience that is so effective it makes people cry.  We asked for money to produce this stuff, but in the end, it came down to these guys sleeping on my floor and breaking their asses on their own time to make this happen.  I am so proud of what they did, I can’t even begin to tell you.  I’m just bummed that they’re both so talented I probably won’t be able to get them on the next one….



Brian S-  I have to add the Grace movie posters one of the coolest I’ve ever seen!  Did you have anything to do with that?  Will you sign mine?  Sorry dude, the fan in me sneaks out from time to time.



Paul Solet-  No worries, brother.  Of course I’ll sign it!  I’m so pleased with the job they did on that poster.  Paul from Vox lead the team responsible, and they seriously killed it.  They’re the guys who did the DARK KNIGHT posters, and pretty much every other truly stunning one-sheet you remember in recent years.  To be honest, I don’t know how the hell we even afforded them.  I think they were just fans of the film.  Anchor Bay was very cool about keeping us involved in the whole marketing process, which they really don’t have to do, so we got to work with Paul’s team on the poster and weigh in a lot.  What you don’t realize, is that there were thirty-six other comps that team put together for us, half of which were equally effective.  I’m very grateful to have had them on our team.



Brian S-  Ok, Grace deals with a mother’s love for her baby.  How did you get so in tune with this subject matter?  You really hit a home run with it!



Paul Solet-  Thanks man.  It was very important for me to get this subject matter right.  Being a man exploring this material, you really better get it right.  I did as much research as I could possibly do to really acquire a genuine understanding of the experience of having fertility challenges, and giving birth, and the trauma of carrying a stillborn to term, but I’m obviously not a mother or a woman, so there are things I’ll just never understand at a cellular level.  Because of that, I resolved to really be vigilant about seeking the input of women throughout the process, from development to marketing.  Seeing the film so warmly received by the feminist community and by women genre fans has been one of the greatest triumphs in the whole process for me.



Brian S-  How do you feel about the horror industry right now?



Paul Solet-  I’m extremely excited about the horror industry.  Having the luxury of traveling to so many festivals over the last year has allowed me to meet and get to know so many unbelievably talented directors.  As fans, we tend to spend a lot of time complaining about less inspired studio forays into the genre, when we should be talking about the films that have worked and spreading the word.  Look at movies like VINYAN and THE CHILDREN and MARTYRS.  Look at Marina de Van’s new film.  Independent, micro budget efforts like THE HORSEMAN and low budget films like THE LOVED ONES.  These movies are out there, and they’re fabulous, we just need to redirect our perspective.  And in the end, it’s on us what succeeds and what doesn’t.  If you go torrent a film and you love it - fucking buy it!  I understand not wanting to wait.  It is what it is.  We’re geeks, we crave this shit and we want it now.  But when you snag something online early, if you like it, spread the word and then put your money where you mouth is.  That’s the only way to change things.  Money talks.



Brian S-  What’s up next for you?  Spill it!



Paul Solet-  There are a number of projects that are really exciting right now.  I’m sort of superstitious about this stuff, so I can’t make any announcements yet, but there are some projects that have me so thrilled I dream about them.  I’ll have more for you very soon….

Brian S-  Ok, would you like to ask your fans a question or tell them anything?  Did I leave anything out or forget anything?  I usually do but I say I do that on purpose, or that’s what I tell my boss, makes me look more professional.



Paul Solet-  I’m just really grateful to everyone for all their support.  We really have been so widely embraced by our community, I couldn’t ask for anything more.  We don’t make movies in a vacuum, we make them for you, and when you love them, there’s nothing more gratifying.  Know that on a film like GRACE, you really are the entire marketing campaign.  We have no money.  But we have your word of mouth, and we have a unity in the genre community that they just don’t have anywhere else.  We really can demand that the movies we love keep getting made just by buying the DVD and spreading the word.  We’re all in this thing together - fans, filmmakers, bloggers, sites, magazines - this is our scene, and we can take responsibility for keeping it healthy ourselves.



Brian S-  I want to thank you Paul for your time, your kindness and most of all your beautiful film, Grace!  You are a talent to be reckoned with and we all want to see more movies from you.  I wish you nothing by success, my friend!



Paul Solet-  Thank you!  I promise you I’ll keep on working my ass off to keep them coming!

-P