A Grand Marais native is working hard to make his mark in the movie industry.
As a youngster Brandon Cole fell in love with films, but his creative nature led him to work in radio and theater for years before he moved to Duluth to pursue his greatest passion, creating movies. Brandon began a movie production company in Duluth which he has named Death Calm Studios. The Cook County News-Herald caught up to Brandon, and he agreed to be interviewed. When did Death Calm Studios begin?
Death Calm began in August 2011, under the name Charboneau Productions. Charboneau was the name of my family before they moved to America and changed it to Cole. It was a tribute to them and a means to put my student film on YouTube.
Two years later in the fall of 2013, I was thinking of a name change to cater to the darker horror films we were producing. One night I had a dream we had built a studio, there was a sign I couldn’t quite make out. The next evening upon returning to Grand Marais for a visit I told my mother about the dream. Within 15 minutes of returning home, my mother got the call that one of her childhood friends had passed away by taking her own life. My mother was devastated.
Cook County native Brandon Cole is premiering “Before I Wake” on October 27 at 7 p.m. at the Grand Marais Playhouse, 51 W. 5th St.
That night we stayed up watching horror movies. I remember her being very calm and relaxed. It then occurred to me how watching dark films depicting stories of graphic death can somehow distract us from the realities of death in real life. Other filmmakers have referenced this in the past. At times of great violence in our history (wars and such) our films tend to get darker. Sometimes this can be attributed to a political statement but it is also a distraction from a harsh reality. It was seeing this first hand through my mother of “cinema death calming” that distracted her from a real death that the name Death Calm was born. Soon after I was advised by a director that I worked for to make Death Calm an official business. I took his advice, and it has grown from there. Do you have a partner(s)?
Officially no. I have several people who take on management roles at the studio. In the past, some of those people have come and gone, which I understand because it is hard working with a company that is trying to build from the ground up with almost no money. But many people stick it out because they believe in what we are doing.
Right now we have a solid group of about 10 people who are there every time we do something and roughly another 10 that would be there in a pinch if we needed them. Currently, our top people who make most of the critical decisions are: Heather Olson, who is the rock of the studio, she handles all of the business management. Scott Hensley does our camera work as well as some writing and post-production; in him, and I have a great creative dynamic. Katie Ruud handles many of our promotional posters and graphics. Chris Linder helps me with many of the creative post-production decisions, and my brother Christian helps with much of the post sound mixing. What is your latest film about?
I wrote our latest film after picking up two clown masks on clearance at Walmart. Within a few days, I had a story and first draft. Looking back at the script I realized it had undertones of the falling apart of families and stuff I was still coping with about my parents’ divorce and the death of innocence. But on the surface, it’s about killer clowns slaughtering people. Who writes the films?
I used to do the bulk of our writing, but in the past year Scott has stepped to the plate and written or even co-written scripts with me.
Others, like Katie Ruud and Heather Olson, have done some writing as well. In fact, the next script we are filming is one written by Katie. Another Grand Marais local Logan Netland has written a script we are sitting on waiting for the right time to produce it. Logan also writes some music for us in post as well as performed some on-set duties. Others like Ian Lafont, Kevin Fosberg, Savanna Rachel and Taylor Ziegler have ideas floating around the writing room. How do you finance your projects?
I work odd jobs like wedding videos to get money to feed people and pick up things we need on set. Various crew members, Heather Olson, Scott Hensley, Taylor Ziegler, Logan Netland, Galen Reynolds and others have kicked money at projects to make them happen. My grandmother Irena Carlson has also financed several aspects of projects, and my mother Laurie Corwin pays for our editing software in place of birthday and Christmas presents. Last year you worked on Virginia, Minnesota, an independent film. Have you worked for any other filmmakers since then?
I have worked on several other projects since then as a hired hand, though incoming work seems to be coming less frequent with the loss of tax incentives. Where do you find actors? How do you find film locations?
Many of our actors are also our crew members, Katie Ruud, Kevin Fosberg, Ian Lafont and Logan Netland have all taken on roles. I have made cameos; we also find other actors through connections we make on different sets or the local theater. One Minnesota-based actor Nick Sullivan has acted for us four times. How long is your current film?
Eight minutes. What kind of equipment do you shoot with?
A Canon 5d MK2. Who do you look up to in the film industry? Writers? Directors? etc.
I look up to the obvious masters and innovators, Wes Craven, George A. Romero, John Carpenter, Sean S. Cunningham, Tobe Hooper. I really like what Eli Roth and James Wan are doing inside the Hollywood structure. And I look up to several of my peers who are outside the Hollywood structure not playing by rules, doing things their way and still succeeding. Is it hard to get films distributed?
I haven’t really tried outside of festivals. Do you enter your pictures in film festivals?
Yes but contests are more our focus until we get to a feature. Do you have a side job to bring in some cash? Or are you making enough money now with your studio work?
I refuse to have a day job as it drained my creativity, though I do work side jobs like wedding videos for cash. I know your little brother Jack. Any chance you can get that silly goose into one of your films?
I would love to when able.
As you can see from the above making this studio work is definitely a collaborative effort.
We have currently partnered with Nopeming Sanatorium to do their haunted night tours.
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