BEHIND THE LENS #527: Featuring Anthony Frith

It's another entertaining and enlightening episode of BEHIND THE LENS thanks to co-writer/director ANTHONY FRITH and his documentary MOCKBUSTER. Now, MOCKBUSTER isn't your typical documentary. This is a documentary directed by Anthony Frith concurrently with his directing of an Asylum Studios B-movie classic, THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. I know you know The Asylum, the studio responsible for the SHARKNADO franchise and a few hundred other glorious B-movie genre gems that inevitably revolve around sharks, aliens, dinosaurs, Nazis, Russians, nukes, bad accents, vampires, zombies, and generally a take-off on known blockbusters by altering titles and scripts ever so slightly into what have become known as "Mockbusters." Enter Australian filmmaker ANTHONY FRITH. Anthony has an interesting background but has primarily made a living making corporate video shorts and PSAs like "how to grieve" video manuals, but has long dreamed of directing a feature film. One day, the light bulb went off, and he got the idea to reach out to The Asylum, asking to direct a film. As luck would have it, The Asylum had a movie for him to direct – THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. Terrific! But, Anthony has to adhere to The Asylum model – 6 days to film, there is no script yet, and we want it shot in Australia. Okay! But Anthony took things a step further. He saw comedic potential in documenting the process of making a film for The Asylum and spoke with David Latt, CEO and Head of Production, about his idea to shoot a documentary of the making of THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT while he was shooting THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT. Needless to say, Latt loved the idea and said go for it, which meant Anthony would be directing two films simultaneously – a documentary and a narrative, with the documentary capturing the entire Asylum process of B-movie filmmaking. Thus, MOCKBUSTER was born. MOCKBUSTER is a scream! And this conversation with Anthony is almost too much fun as Anthony and I dive into the logistics and challenges of directing two films concurrently. THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT was financed entirely by The Asylum, while it was left to Anthony and his documentary producers to find financing for MOCKBUSTER. As you will hear, Anthony makes it clear that the two productions maintained separate budgets and did not overlap financially. They also had separate crews. http://eliasentertainmentnetwork.com