An interview with Joseph Winter and Vanessa Winter, directors of DEADSTREAM!

By this point in October, we’re all knee-deep in the respective discourses of  “Hellraiser” and “Halloween Ends.”  I took a quick break myself to discuss the new Shudder original “Deadstream” with its creative team.  Husband and wife duo Vanessa and Joseph Winter sat down to talk about their new film, which they wrote, directed, co-produced, and Joseph starred in.  The buzz around “Deadstream” is spreading faster than Michael Myers’ evil (okay, not a FULL break).

The creatures that plague Shawn are really eye-popping.  How did you approach creature design from a found-footage aspect?

Vanessa Winter:  We wanted to see if we could earn an “80’s creature feature” feel within the grounded found footage genre.  We also wanted to know if we could get away with showing more monsters and making them tangible.  

We brought on our creature designer Troy Larson after we previously worked with him on a short film. He just brings so much personality and style to his monsters, so we felt like they were perfect for the story. I’ve also to give credit to our makeup effects artist Mikaela Kester.  It's difficult doing practical creatures and makeup when there's just this unforgiving flashlight right on them and they're super close to camera. Normally would light just for a creature scene. but this is just lighting for whatever the flashlight was picking up. So I think we took some risks there, but I think I think it ultimately ended up working cohesively with the tone.

Joseph Winter: When we talked to Troy, we didn't have very much money to give him. We presented him a script that had all of these gags and we knew we had to cut something from it. He came back to us with this idea where we don't cut anything from it, and we can do all of them.  If you make it fun enough, the audience won't mind if there are some cut corners to make some of the creatures. So we decided to all in such a style you can tell that it's foam rubber and see the seams and makeup.  Hopefully we can earn the audience just buying into it and thinking it’s fun.

L-R: Joseph Winter and Vanessa Winter

I want to get into Joseph’s performance as Shawn.  Most found footage films focus on scares and effects instead of people, and it would have been so easy to make him a jerk, instead of the hapless schmuck he is.  Can you talk about calibrating Joseph to play this specific dope?

VM: I’d like to give Joseph a compliment because we spent quite a bit of time developing it.  We did “read-aloud tests” and our readers were responding well to the jokes.  We were writing for some of Joseph’s strengths as a performer

JW: At least we thought so.

VW: We started tech rehearsals and realized just how much pressure was on [Joseph as] the central performance with the cameras pointed at his face for so long.  We wanted a character that people would root for as he’s being pummeled by ghosts.  Someone who was watchable for the duration of the movie, so the most effort was put into trying to fine-tune it.  There were a lot of rehearsals and then Joseph would track things on his iPhone.

JW: The thing I want people to know, and I know it’s the case with all movies, is that the version of “Deadstream” we shot was not what you see now.  We were able to go in with ADR during testing.  We were able to figure out the parts of Shawn that people just couldn’t handle.  Things that were annoying the audience in a bad way.  By the end, some people weren’t rooting for him or enjoying the ride.  We found his character while we were shooting it, but we fixed and added things in post and it really came together with just my voice.

VW:  It was always morphing from the script to the final edit.  Just trying to find that character.

When Shawn is breaking into the house and says “Being banned from the internet has given me time to work on myself,” it’s one of the funniest lines of the year.

JW: Vanessa’s so happy right now because that’s her joke and I wasn’t sure of it.  Then we watched it at Beyond Fest and that joke hit.  People were laughing so hard at it.

VW: [grinning] This is good, because we keep score of how many people laugh at our jokes [Joseph laughs].

JW: Especially jokes we hated [Vanessa laughs].

It’s a nice balance.  Your next project is “V/H/S 99” and I’ve heard your segment takes place in hell.  What would your personal versions of hell be like?

VM: I think my personal hell would be not having access to a map app and having my mom try to tell me over the phone where something is [laughs].

JW:  I think for me [laughs], having to sleep in a bed where the sheets were tucked around me wrong.   Honestly, this is one of the biggest things in my life.  [Laughs] Sleeping and being hyper-aware of the blankets and sheets around me.  That’s the hell I could come up with in no time.  It’s probably not the right answer.

Deadstream is now streaming on Shudder.

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