WDET News
- "The Midnight Hour" is Near!
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Aug 15, 2008Arts and Culture - Link to Audio
August 15, 2008 by Pat Batcheller
An aspiring local filmmaker is producing a new horror series for cable access television…shot entirely in Metro Detroit…and starring mostly Michigan-based actors. They’ve been working on weekends this summer to get the first episode “in the can” by September. With just a few weeks before its debut… the show’s creator hopes this is the start of something big. WDET’s Pat Batcheller reports.
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Lee Martin is a full-time marketing manager…but he’s always wanted to make movies…ever since he got his first real camera as a child.
“I got a Regular 8 Bolex movie outfit for Christmas one year…(how old were you then?)…11…(how old are you now if I may ask?)…41…(okay)…and so it was kinda something I did throughout high school… real short bits on Super 8 and Regular 8…”
Martin says making movies today is more sophisticated than it was 30 years ago, thanks to digital technology. Last year, he shot a film for the direct-to-DVD market. But because he works full-time, he had to break it up into a trilogy rather than do a feature-length production. That gave him the idea for his latest project—which he calls “The Midnight Hour.”
“It’s a horror show…half-hour for CMN-TV, it’ll be on public access, Comcast and WOW”
On a rainy Saturday in July, Martin directs the first of the Midnight Hour’s eight half-hour episodes. The set is the 150-year-old Miller House at Nankin Mills county park in Westland. It’s an ideal location…with its creaky doors and dank basement. Downstairs…the floor is wet…as rain leaks in from the outside. Above…there are spider webs—and spiders. In the corner…a large wooden door opens…revealing an empty room. Here in this creepy cellar…Lee Martin prepares to shoot the laboratory scene for Episode One of the Midnight Hour…”The Diabolical Doctor V.” Alex Alexandrou plays the title role.
“It’s pretty cool…I play an evil person. Because most of my life, being English, you play a nice English person or someone of a butler…which really doesn’t help much. So actually I play a character that’s evil and away from the English accent to a point, because I play it a very Greek accent.”
Alexandrou is one of several aspiring actors who’ve signed up for the project. They all have other jobs… which is a good thing…since Lee Martin can’t afford to pay them very much. He had to sell his car to come up with the money just to shoot this one episode.
“This episode alone is setting us back even though everyone is working at the very lowest imaginable pay rate, it’s 15-hundred or so dollars.”
Despite the limited budget…Martin says his ad on Craig’s List drew 150 taped auditions from all over the country. He’s looking for dedicated people. He found one in Joseph Tinpan of Sterling Heights. Long before the other actors arrived… Tinpan was in makeup…being transformed into the hideous Aldo…Doctor V’s human guinea pig. He says the role requires dedication and patience.
“I just try to keep my mind preoccupied like I think of songs I heard on the radio or that I listen to on the Internet, whatever. I think of like things that keep my mind off of what’s going on. Just try to keep your mind busy so you don’t think about…sitting in a chair for four hours.”
For Tinpan and the rest of the cast…the Midnight Hour offers more than just another acting credit. They can use the experience in their full-time jobs. That’s one reason why Herman Jenkins of Detroit took the role of the police detective investigating Doctor V’s diabolical deeds. The veteran model and stage actor owns a business that works closely with inner-city youth.“What we do is we use sports and entertainment concepts to help kids learn, so being involved in any of my acting projects or this film gives me an opportunity to sponge from real life directors and cinematographers and I try to take all that back and work with kids in the city.”
Whatever their motivation for getting involved in the project…the cast and crew of Lee Martin’s Midnight Hour are already getting noticed beyond Metro Detroit. Martin says the show is drawing some interest from a European network that shows horror films.
“FearNet in the United Kingdom, the head of acquisitions is aware of our project and says he’d like to see the pilot.”
Martin says he’d also like to pitch the program to television stations in this market…following the path of Nightmare Sinema…which went from cable access to Channel 20 in March. One of the creators of that show…Glen Kirkland…is working closely with Martin on the Midnight Hour…which debuts on CMN and other local access channels next month.