January 29, 2010

For the fifth and final entry in our “Indie Scream Queen” series, we profiled actress-director Shannon Lark. Formally crowned the Fangoria Spooks model in 2008, Shannon has spent the lasts several years making a name for herself in the genre she loves most.

She helped launched The Chainsaw Mafia, a website and group that caters to the support and education of the filmmaking process for up-and-coming horror directors. You can catch her next in Mel House’s feature film Walking Distance, alongside Adrienne King, Reggie Bannister and Paranormal Activity’s Katie Featherston.

Make sure to read the other four entries on our Indie Scream Queen series, all linked at the end of this interview.

Robg.: How did horror factor into your childhood and upbringing? Did your parents let you watch scary movies growing up?

Shannon Lark: They actually did not let me watch scary movies until I was at least 11 or 12. I was able to catch Eraserhead when I was around 7 years old when I was home alone, but the Freddy movies and stuff like that; I wasn’t allowed to watch them until later. I would talk to friends and they’d tell me things about those movies that they’d watched with their older siblings. I actually got into horror because I saw a stage rendition of Romeo & Juliet with my mother. When it came time for the lovers to die, they had these silk streamers that burst out of their chest, so at that moment, I realized it was supposed to be blood and it was really my first idea of what death could be and so, that actually really got me into it. So, ironically enough it wasn’t horror that got me into horror. [laughs]

Robg.: It’s funny they wouldn’t let you watch horror movies, but they’ll bring you to see Romeo & Juliet, a play in which the two character die a horrible death at the end!

Shannon: Exactly! Before the production, we got to go backstage, myself and a bunch of girls and meet with the ballerina’s in the show and I think the other girls were interested in the ballerina’s whereas I was more interested in how they did the gore. When you know you’re attracted to that sort of thing, you just know.

Robg.: Were your parents creative at all? Did they encourage you to pursue acting or anything in a creative capacity?

Shannon: We grew up in a really small town in New Mexico. When she was 13, she became a relatively popular theater director. She had directed about five full scale plays, and I started acting in her plays. That’s how I fell into acting. But through my teenage years, I was too busy experimenting with drugs and partying and trying to get away from my family, so I kind of shunned the whole idea of acting, because I felt it was representative of my sister and I wanted something for myself. I actually didn’t find it again until I moved to San Francisco. And when I did find it, my mom was totally supportive. My Dad? No, not at first. [laughs] He was a minister. So that was an interesting situation. I tried to tell him about scripts I was writing and he didn’t want to hear about any of it! He was in denial for many years until actually just this year. We started talking again and he understands what I’m doing now and he accepts it.

Robg.: I know that one of your first horror films was a short that you had done in high school, I believe. But technically what was your first horror movie that you worked on and what stood out about that experience?

Shannon: Well, the very first film I made in high school didn’t have blood or gore, it was more that the entire concept was horrific. I made a short film called Babies For Breakfast. And it’s terrible. It was my first film. I had a VHS camera. I just thought I needed to pick up a camera and just do it. I had just started to act and I was cast in a film called Mr. Clever, it was a feature film where I’m gutted and hung from a meat hook. It’s a terrible movie as well, but I had fun with that. I decided I wanted to be a filmmaker and I needed to take my career into my won hands because I just can’t wait for roles to come to me. I felt I had to get myself out there. So Babies For Breakfast was my very first attempt at that.

Robg.: You’ve done quite a couple of low budget independent horror films. What was one of the most difficult things you’ve been asked to do for the sake of low budget filmmaking?

Shannon: The hardest thing that I’ve been asked to do and I don’t want this to sound too conservative, but I was asked to put down my morals for the sake of the role. So I’ve gone into auditions and they’ll go “Hey, 500 girls have already auditioned for this role, and they’ve gone as far as taking off their tops off to show us their bodies. What are you going to do?” So, I’ve experienced some of that. A lot of scripts come my way and they’ll ask “Which stripper do you want to be?” Those sorts of roles come to me all the time and that’s the hardest thing for me, because there are certain aspects of every script where you think “Wow, I want to do that. That’d be a good role.” So it breaks my heart when I have to say I don’t do nudity. I won’t do this.

Robg.: You actually brought up my next question. How do you feel about nudity that may be expected of a “scream queen” in horror films?

Shannon: I think nudity is totally fine. If other actresses want to do it, that’s OK. I don’t think we should banish nudity from movie making. There is a place for it, but as for right now, with the low budget films I’m making, I have not found a script where I found it was pertinent to the story. If I do a nude scene, I want it to be really horrific. I’d really want it to actually mean something. I don’t want it to be just for the sake of T and A. With the overabundance in this sub-genre of slasher films, there are many of those T and A movies, and what’s that done is created a market for wanna-be scream queens who can’t get in if they don’t do nudity. So that’s one of the things I’d like to change with my own work. And it’ll probably take… forever. [laughs] Because I want there to be a choice, I’d like women to be able to make the decision that “if I don’t do nudity, I still can get work.” I think that there should be both. There’s more then enough room for everybody.

Robg.: Doing film work is obviously one of the most difficult industries to be a part of. What kind of day-jobs or gigs have you had to do over the years to help sustain your career?

Shannon: For the past few years, I’d been living up in San Francisco and the rent was just outrageous. So I was at a nightclub called the Starlight Room in downtown San Francisco over in Union Square. I did that during the night. I’d go to work at 3:30-4pm, get out by 2:30-3 in the morning, then wake up at 8 or 9am the next day and work on my company, work on scripts, work on my projects, do photoshoots and that kind of thing. I did that until I had a physical collapse! My body just wore out. So after that, I moved to New Mexico, and I got a part time job as a waitress. Just to keep things funneling along, because in the low budget world, you need money to make these things happen, you just have to work to get the bare minimum.

Robg.: I saw a bit of a film you did called Ludlow with Staci Ponder, which I thought you were great in. It seems like generating your own projects is the best way to get to play roles like that. Is that what you’re aiming for?

Shannon: Oh totally. Honestly, I think every actress, even if she isn’t a scream queen should learn filmmaking. Learn about directing, writing, cinematography and just gathering people around her to create something because no one’s going to just show up and make everything you want come true. It’s just not going to happen. So you need to take it into your own hands. And so often, now with this digital age, things are changing so much. If you’re an actress, this is the perfect time to take advantage.

Robg.: You were crowned Fangoria’s “Spooks Model” a few years back. How did that benefit you having that title for a while?

Shannon: Mostly it was the fans and people that I met. The networking that I got to achieve. A lot of people got really turned on to my work. So I was really able to go to the conventions and events and solidify more of my relationship with these people. It really is about who you know and you need to be out there and you need to be networking. Fangoria did everything that they could for me. They really helped to promote me on their site, and I was also writing a column for their website for a little while called “Chronicles of a Serial Killer”. It was a really good experience to be with them. They weren’t going to make my career happen for me, I was already working on my career. They really provided a platform for me to develop more contacts and relationships.

Robg.: You did a part in Mel House’s upcoming flick Walking Distance. The thing that impresses me about that whole crew is that they’ve got this whole group out in Texas that make up their own little horror community. What was it like for you to step into Walking Distance and seeing the Texas filmmaking community as an outsider going in?

Shannon: It was wonderful. You can tell that they’ve worked on productions together before because everything was so tight. So, whenever they go on the set and Mel would talk to Phil (Roy), the cinematographer and say, “Hey, we’re doing this shot today,” everything would go so smoothly and so quickly. They were just well communicated. I felt like I was involved in a family from the moment I stepped off the plane. It was a really good experience. I just did ADR for Walking Distance, so I can’t wait to see the whole thing myself.

Robg.: Lastly, I wanted to talk briefly about The Chainsaw Mafia, because it’s a website, it’s also your production company. So for those that don’t know what it is or what it’s about, what are the origins of The Chainsaw Mafia?

Shannon: The Chainsaw Mafia started seven years ago when I first moved to San Francisco and I realized I wanted to be a horror film director and actress, and I was looking on line and at the time there really wasn’t places that people could go to and say, “Hey, I really want to be a horror filmmaker. What do I have to do to achieve that?” And so what I did, I picked up some books, followed people around and stayed really ambitious. Really, The Chainsaw Mafia is there to offer support to filmmakers and people who want to watch and take part in the films. It’s actually going to be changing a lot over the course of the next few weeks. We’re changing the scope of the entire website. The Chainsaw Mafia will still be a segment of it but we have a lot of big plans for the website.

Robg.: You mentioned earlier that you wanted to make yourself projects as vehicles for you to act and direct in. Does this mean you’d like to stay exclusively in horror films or would you ever want to branch out and do comedy or drama?

Shannon: I would be willing to branch out into films that aren’t typically horror films, as long as they have a horrific situation happening in them. Because that’s really what I want to exploit in my work. I’m not interested in romantic comedies or anything like that. I’m not interested in anything light. I want it to be all horrific or intense or off the wall. Lastly, I just wanted to mention the Viscera Film Festival, it’s a film festival I run for women and we’re having our first premiere in Los Angeles in the Spring of 2010 so I’m very excited about that.