Gruemonkey’s interview with Joe Hallett (Paintball Massacre)!!
Hello Grue-Lings,
Today we have for you a interview with Paintball Massacre star Joe Hallett.
At the age of 7 years old he took up training in Martial Arts predominantly Freestyle Kickboxing. After his first class in this combat sport he never looked back. He started travelling the country entering numerous national tournaments becoming British and European Champion. After watching Bruce Lee movies he decided to teach himself the Nunchaku, which eventually was his signature weapon of choice at competitions. He reached his 1st Degree Black Belt at the Great Britain Martial Arts Academy in 2001. Eventually he saw Musical Forms, which he liked and started to compete in, starting from the bottom. Knowing nothing about this art, to being one of the top forms competitors in the country. During his competition career he travelled the World including Florida, Corfu, Croatia, Portugal, Austria, France, Germany gaining multiple World Championships under his belt. In 2004 he began to learn Gymnastics and Martial Arts Tricking to add to his long list of skills. In 2007 Joe opened his own Martial Arts school in Yeovil, Infinity Martial Arts where himself and his qualified instructors teach over 200 students per week. He regularly travels the World performing on top shows alongside his performance Team Resurrection, performing in-front of thousands of people on shows including Reading Festival, European Festival of Martial Arts, Seni Expo, Bodypower Expo, Cage Rage and Bercy Festival of Martial Arts. At the age of 16 years old Joe found his calling for the TV and Film Industry. He started to work on micro budget productions gaining vast amounts of experience along the way. In 2012 he was offered some fantastic opportunities to work alongside amazing actors on some bigger budget productions. He has now proved himself as a Stunt Performer and Actor, slowly making a name in the industry.
He is no stranger to horror. You can catch him in films such as: Knights of the Damned, I Am Vengeance, Recon-1, and Paintball Massacre.Here is our interview with Joe Hallett. Martial artist, producer, actor and pandemic-battler Joe Hallett gives us the 411 on his latest film, the frighteningly fantastic PAINTBALL MASSACRE– out this month On DVD AND Digital from Uncork’d Entertainment.
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GRUEMONKEY: Where are we talking to you from?
JOE: I am currently at my home in North Cadbury, Somerset, England.
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GRUEMONKEY: How’s it all going there? Has it been as frustrating a year there as it has been elsewhere?
JOE: It is going ok, always could be worse. We have just come out of Lockdown 2.0 in England, which we were in for a month. If there is one word to describe this year, frustrating would be on the top of the list. Like many, I had plans early on in 2020 and unfortunately many have been scuppered. However it has giving me much time to evaluate my goals and aspirations for the future.
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GRUEMONKEY: And how has that affected your career?
JOE: My day job is a Martial Arts instructor, teaching on a weekly basis, so the pandemic has really kicked me in the teeth with that side of my career. However it has allowed me to focus on the release of “Paintball Massacre” and provide me with valuable extra time in post-production, which I most likely wouldn’t have had if I was working my normal hours. As an actor it has been a very quiet year, I have been fortunate to work on a number of amazing short films and have been in discussions with a number of very exciting projects which will hopefully get off the ground in 2021.
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GRUEMONKEY: It’s interesting to see that the indie film game has experienced a real boom this year. That must be a win for actors and filmmakers?
JOE: This is one positive effect the pandemic has had on the film industry. Due to cinema closures and studios putting back their releases, it has left a huge hole in the entertainment market which has given independent filmmakers a purpose and opportunity to create new content for the millions of viewers stuck in lockdown at home. 100% a win for actors and filmmakers all round. I was amazed by the amount of high quality short films and lockdown features produced remotely whilst actors, producers and directors were in isolation, some are pure genius, just goes to show what we can achieve when we put our minds to it.
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GRUEMONKEY: Do you think we’ll see less and less theatrical releases now though, because of what’s happened?
JOE: In my opinion you will never beat the cinema experience. There is something special about going into a screening with your popcorn and loosing yourself in a story for a couple of hours. The bright colours popping off the screen and the surround sound bringing everything to life. However I do feel Covid-19 has given studio heads a real ultimatum and they question whether the cost of a cinema release outweighs the box office income. Sadly less and less people are attending cinemas and it seems the audience are getting more lazy by looking for the easiest and most convenient way to watch a film. Video On Demand and Digital market are now huge and I hate to say it but that is what is killing cinema. I do hope and pray that in 10 years time there will still be cinemas around where we can take our friends and families and indulge ourselves in the magical world of cinema.
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GRUEMONKEY: How would you prefer people see this film?
JOE: We had a plan for a small cinema release however Covid-19 put a stop to that very quickly. So we went for plan B with a simultaneous physical DVD and Digital release. I would prefer people purchased the physical DVD and watch the film in all its glory with 5.1 surround sound and enjoy the bonus features included on the disc compared to a digital rental or purchase.
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GRUEMONKEY: Let’s backtrack. When did this come together?
JOE: “Paintball Massacre” has been a huge part of my life for 4 years. The initial concept of the film was conceived in 2017, after a project I spent nearly a full year on fell through. I found myself at a loose end. Having made many contacts I thought let’s take that risk and do it myself. The film was developed over a year and we went into pre-production mid 2018 and rolled cameras in September 2018. Then we spent a full year in post-production and now we can’t wait for everyone to see it. Ideally we were aiming for an early 2020 release, however that proved too optimistic during a Worldwide pandemic.
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GRUEMONKEY: And what was the initial appeal?
JOE: I have always been a fan of dark comedy horror, nothing too scary with enough humour to take the edge off. There hasn’t been a true British horror for quite some time and I set out to fix that with “Paintball Massacre”. One thing that lets films down these days is they are either too action based with little story, or too story based which ends up getting muddled midway and fizzles out. With “Paintball Massacre” the aim was to produce an ensemble feature film where you really get to know the characters and root for them and I think we have achieved this.
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GRUEMONKEY: Did the film begin with the story or the characters?
JOE: The initial concept was a group of friends going paintballing and ending up being murdered one by one in the way that links to their profession. We started with a list of 10 main characters, what they did for a living and how would they be killed. From there our talented writer Chris Regan created a basic outline and the story grew into something really unique.
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GRUEMONKEY: Speaking of, any of those roles hard to cast?
JOE: There were two roles which we knew from the get go were very important and needed the correct actors to take it on. One was Marshal Shelley who runs the paintball facility, we needed a strong and charismatic women who could hold her own against anyone and we found her in the superb Katy Brand. The other was Lauren Bryce our glamour model who really is horrible, so self absorbed and ignorant of anyone around her. We ended up putting a casting call out for this role and the search resulted in us finding our Lauren in the very beautiful Natasha Killip. Both Marshal Shelley and Lauren Bryce go logger heads on a number of occasions in the film and both pulled it off.
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GRUEMONKEY: Anything personal in it?
JOE: There is a hidden message in “Paintball Massacre” concerning a number of major topics, Mental Health, Suicide and Bullying. Without giving too much away there are number of moments highlighting these issues, which need to be addressed Worldwide. I was badly bullied at school personally and those bullies made my life a living hell all through my school life. I have also experienced the loss that suicide leaves and we need to tackle these things head on before it takes hold too much.
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GRUEMONKEY: If it were the main feature of a drive-in double feature – – what would you suggest as the other film?
JOE: There are a few that come to mind however the one that stands out would be “Severance” as there are some loose similarities to “Paintball Massacre” and they would compliment each other really well, each providing some scares and laughs.
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