CAUSING A DISTURBANCE

Nick Vallelonga knows his way around a film set. He always did. He got his first taste of show business as a young child with “The Godfather.” He was just an extra in the wedding scenes, but the experience of it struck such a chord in him, movie sets have been pulling him back in ever since. Vallelonga went on to play bit roles in a number of other films like “Easy Money,” “Splash,” “Goodfellas,” “The Pope of Greenwich Village” and “The Flamingo Kid.” More recently he could be seen in “Little Black Book” and “Coyote Ugly.” But Vallelonga’s love of cinema doesn’t stop there. He co-wrote the noir Nicholas Cage movie “Deadfall” with its director Christopher Coppola in 1993. Vallelonga then went on to write and direct the sexual thrillers “A Brilliant Disguise,” “The Corporate Ladder” and the crime drama “In the Kingdom of the Blind, the Man with One Eye Is King.” Which brings us up to present day and a movie called “Disturbance.” Originally titled “Choker,” Vallelonga’s fourth film is kind of a weird film to label. It’s about a serial killer played by Paul Sloan tracking down aliens and eliminating them. But the film is not as complex as that may sound and it is also not nearly that simple. Written, directed, co-starring and co-produced by Vallelonga, the film began as merely an exercise in technology. Perhaps this is why it takes so many chances and breaks so many rules, which also makes it so much fun to watch. The week before his film’s DVD release I had the following phone conversation with Vallelonga. He shares with PollyStaffle.com how the film came about and what he was going for with it. We also discuss other projects of his, working with Michael Madsen, as well as being on Francis Ford Coppola’s movie set, the disturbance little Nick caused that day and how the 1972 film gave Vallelonga a career calling he couldn’t resist.

Nick Vallelonga

CCF: I read somewhere that “Disturbance” basically went from conception to completion in the span of 18 weeks, is that right?

NV: Yeah, maybe even a little bit less. I hadn’t made a movie in awhile and I really just wanted to do an experiment. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to make something to put out there. I had been thinking about the technology of HD for awhile. David Caruso had done a movie called “Session 9” and he told me about how they had used HD and how happy he was with it. He was telling me about that because we were talking about doing one of my other scripts together. Then I watched the movie “Starship Troopers 2” and I saw that it was shot on HD and I really liked the look of it. So I decided I was just going to do something fast and experiment a little. I literally just whipped up a script. I then got an HD camera and just started shooting. I think I wrote it in June and was shooting in July. Ultimately, the irony is, Colleen Porch, who was in “Starship Troopers 2” ended up being in my movie as well.

CCF: (LOL) Was this an idea you had on the back burner?

NV: No, I just thought, “What could I do?” I had the actor Paul Sloan and I wanted to do something with him, so I wrote something basically for him. I knew I was not going to have any money. So I thought, “I’ll just do a sort of throwback to a Roger Corman movie. I’ll make it a 50’s sort of sci-fi movie where there’s no real effects like an episode of ‘The Twilight Zone’ or something like that. Because I knew had I wouldn’t be able to do effects or anything like that. So I thought, “I’ll try to make some good characters and see what I can do on such a short notice.” It turned out better than I thought and everyone said, “You should definitely put this out there in the world.”

CCF: You mentioned how you wanted to do something without a whole lot of effects. That’s one of the really neat things about this movie is you don’t ever see the aliens in their alien form and you never see a UFO or any of that stuff, but you don’t need it and the movie still works. What was your budget on this exactly?

NV: I only had about $35,000.

CCF: Really. (LOL) That’s pretty amazing.

NV: That paid for feeding people and I did have to get some insurance because I used SAG actors. So it was enough money to pay a few minor things here and there, but that was it. I’ve had all kinds of reviews in my life, but it’s hard when people don’t see it for what it is. They see sci-fi, horror or action for the description and so I’m being compared to movies with millions of dollars behind them. On one level tough, if you make a movie for two cents or twenty million, either people like it or they don’t. On that level, I don’t mind. If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. Sometimes it’s hard though. I shot the thing in 12 days. My whole crew was maybe eight people. You know and I tried to do something a little different. It’s just a fun popcorn movie.

Colleen Porch and Paul Sloan

CCF: It’s funny you said it was a 60’s throwback. I didn’t really get that kind of vibe. What I got was like a throwback to the 80’s and early 90’s action and sci-fi. I was reminded of “Blade Runner,” “The Terminator” and “RoboCop.” All theses bigger budget films, but on a smaller scale, even “The Empire Strikes Back.”

NV: Well, that’s quite a compliment. I did do some visual things like that. You picked up on the “Empire” visual I did with the pipe fight.

CCF: Yeah.

NV: I had Paul Sloan. He’s a really good actor and he is obviously a very physically intimidating guy. I was hoping it would pull back images of Arnold and those types of guys.

CCF: Yeah, exactly. That’s what I got one hundred percent. And visually, the film just looks so good.

NV: Thank you.

CCF: Especially with the budget you had. I can’t believe that. One of the things visually I was curious of was all of the different colors and things, was that done digitally after the fact or was it intentional all along?

NV: With the short preparation I did have, I did have ideas. I wanted it to look more like a comic book. I really wanted to push the colors. We did what we could in camera and I had a great colorist. I worked at a post production house called Plaster City Digital Post. Ian Verdovec was my guy. He loved what I did and he pushed the limits even more with the colors and really blew them out. I said, “Let’s make it a comic book movie and have fun with the colors.” That was definitely planned.

CCF: Yeah, you’ve mention the whole comic book aspect. When I was watching it, not only did I get an 80’s sci-fi vibe, I also got a lot of other things. Logan’s character is sort of like this Lara Croft, “Tomb Raider” and the head alien, to me she was kind of like a vampire and then you have the cops, who are like from film noir movies. It had all these different elements from comic books and fantasy films.

NV: You definitely got it. That’s exactly what I was going for. Not a lot of people pick up on these things. Sometimes you put things in your movies and you hope they pick up one or two things, but some times they don’t. I was trying to throw in a chocked full of all kinds of genres and things you would recognize. I wanted it to be it’s own movie, but I wanted it to have all these elements of other things. You are exactly right. The cops, the Logan character and the leader character. And I was lucky I got the actors to do it. Collen Porch is not only one of the most beautiful actresses I’ve ever seen, but she is so talented, amazing and strong. One of the few things I changed in my script was I added the whole flashback sequence with Logan. I never thought I would get someone like Collen to play the role. I got her and I’m like, “Wait a minute. I can’t kill her.” (LOL)

Colleen Porch

CCF: (LOL)

NV: I was just, “I can’t have her out of the movie. I need more of her.” So we came up with that section, we worked on it together and added that background for her. The leader character was written for a man. I wanted a vampire guy as my main villain. I couldn’t find a guy. Hayley DuMond then came in and read for a different role and was so outrageously cool I said, “Hold on. Let me think about this.” And I literally changed the role for her. I didn’t change much. I just made her the guy. Even in the movie, the characters refer to her as “him.” I said, “Hey, I’m not going to change that. It’ll just be a weird little thing.”

CCF: Well, it worked for me.

(Continued - Click to read Part II)