Written by Steve ‘Frosty’ Weintraub

Opening tomorrow is Lionsgate’s remake of “My Bloody Valentine”. I managed to see the movie last week but I had to sign an embargo, so I can’t say what I thought. That being said, I’m not breaking any rule by telling you if you’re going to see this movie, GO AND SEE IT IN 3D. This movie was made to take advantage of the new 3D technology and it’s….man, I wish I could tell you what I thought…But I promise if you go see this with a crowded theater and you’ll all watching it in 3D…everyone is going to have a lot of fun.

Anyway, to help promote the movie, I recently participated in a roundtable interview with Jamie King. In the film she plays one of the leads and she’s great in the film. During our interview she talked about all the challenges of making the movie in 3D, what she has coming up, and she reveals all the nerdy things she’s into. It’s a great interview and one worth reading. But before getting to the interview…here’s a link to some movie clips and here’s the synopsis.

Ten years ago, a tragedy changed the town of Harmony forever. Tom Hanniger, an inexperienced coal miner, caused an accident in the tunnels that trapped and killed five men and sent the only survivor, Harry Warden, into a permanent coma. Then, exactly one year later, on Valentine's Day, Harry Warden woke up--and brutally murdered twenty-two people with a pickaxe before being killed. Ten years later, Tom Hanniger returns to Harmony on Valentine's Day, still haunted by the deaths he caused. Struggling to make amends with his past, he grapples with unresolved feelings for his ex-girlfriend Sarah, who is now married to his best friend Axel, the town sheriff. But tonight, after years of peace, something from Harmony's dark past has returned. Wearing a miner's mask and armed with a pickaxe, an unstoppable killer is on the loose. And as his footsteps come ever closer, Tom, Sarah and Axel realize in terror it just might be Harry Warden who's come back to claim them.

As always, you can either read the transcript below or listen to the audio by clicking here.

So did you have any sort of preconceptions of going into a 3-D movie about what that was going to be like?

You know, it was at an interesting time when they sent the script about the 3-D because my husband—he’s a director—and he had just come home after seeing James Cameron/Spielberg doing this panel at the DGA about 3-D and about how stereo is going to be the wave of the future. And that this new technology was basically going to be how all movies are going to be made. So I had just heard that so I was really excited about the idea of doing a film that was going to be using this kind of technology.

Had you seen the original film or if you hadn’t did you go and watch it?

No, when they sent me the script my writer friends were over the house and they freaked out because they were like “oh my God. This movie’s amazing.” It was like our favorite horror movie and blah, blah, blah because they’re like film geeks and they were obsessed over it and then once I read it I didn’t want to watch the original because I didn’t want to feel like…I didn’t know what it was going to be like and I didn’t want to have some preconceived notion of what I should do or…you know what I mean? I didn’t want to have some kind of judgment or be locked like in a box about the way I should perform something and then I watched it after. It was pretty sweet. I particularly liked the killing with the wiener water. That was a classic, so I can understand why people appreciate that movie. Yeah.

What was it like working with this 3-D environment? We heard it was a lot of lights, in the mines, you know all the stuff. Can you just talk a little bit about the on-location shooting of it?

I mean it was pretty intense because the thing that we didn’t know about the 3-D is how much time it took. It added like 30% more to our day. But since no one had used these cameras before then we found out once we started doing it that the rigs were really hard to move. It required so much light it’s ridiculous. Like when you’re lighting a scene, you can’t believe it requires that much light. And then you’re trying to adjust to how bright it is and how hot it is. And then they’d bring all these lights down into these mines that are not adapt for this kind of light and heat so then the mines would expand and things would fall off the roof and then they’d be bats flying by you and then they added a 6th day to our schedule then so were shooting a minimum of 18 hours a day for 6 days a week. And then we’d wrap at 9:00 in the morning on Sunday after working 18 hours. Sunday would be our day off. And then you’d drive an hour and a half back to the hotel. You would sleep the whole day and get picked up the next day at 9:00 a.m. and that would be like your weekend. So that was kind of like…so when you really see us it’s all like (noises) like that it’s really because we really were but it works. You know?

So I guess you were filming in Pittsburgh?

Yeah, Pittsburgh.

So I guess you didn’t get to enjoy Pittsburgh too much?

Not that much, but I just got back from there because my brother-in-law lives there, so you know, back into Pittsburgh.

Just in general and without giving away the ending, are you pretty good at like figuring out these mystery who-done-it sort of things?

I kind of am just because I read a lot of scripts, you know what I mean? So the more scripts that you read and you see the tendencies of what people go to and what writers do and the tricks and the things like that then yes. But a lot of my friends, it was really fun talking to everyone after the premiere because they’re like “I thought it was that person. I thought it was that person” and I loved that. It had that element to it because it just added a different layer to the film. I love the movie because it’s so balanced and all the things it offers. It offers like great gore and then the 3-D makes it such an event like such a like a roller coaster ride and then you’ve got really funny things. Like it’s so absurd at times that you’re like laughing. I’m like you’ve got that awesome like…my favorite funny scene is like…and you don’t realize its funny when you’re filming it and then you’re watching it and you’re like oh my God. That is pretty hilarious. Like the scene when we’re in the hospital and like Jensen has his cut on his arm and he’s getting fixed and all of a sudden we’re in the middle of this conversation and the Kerr pops out from behind the curtain and he’s like “and what would you be doing that for?” and it’s like so classic and funny, you know? So I love that you can be scared one minute and then laughing the next.

When you read the script did you figure it out before you got to the end?

Well, we shot a bunch of different endings.

Oh, okay.

We shot different ways that it could have gone. So I didn’t really know until I actually saw the cut.

Did you have a favorite kill scene?

I have a couple of favorite scenes. My favorite kill scene, I really like the shovel situation with the girl. And my favorite scene is the first scene with a naked woman running around. That scene is so awesome. I loved that scene. It’s like you kind of have to have nudity in a slasher film but I love how confident and like she didn’t give a crap. She was like whatever. And she wouldn’t even put a robe on. She’s like “what?” You know? That’s what this girl was like and I don’t have the confidence to be that way. I’m like can there just be one person on set please and can you light up the candle because I mean I’m not like that ballsey at all. Yeah. I loved that scene. I just think it’s awesome. I just think it’s awesome. It’s so funny.

Do you like horror movies? Do you watch them?

I like zombie movies. I like genre movies like “Star Wars” and “Lord of the Rings” and “2001” and “Battlestar Gallactica” that’s like my kind of thing. I have like a real big imagination so I was never good with horror movies as a kid because I can never get out of my head. It seemed like something that would always linger and I couldn’t sleep from it. But now after doing this one I have a much greater appreciation for it.

I heard you might be developing a comic or two?

I am right now. I’m writing a sci-fi series with…do you know Mark Anderko? He wrote “Torso”?

Yeah.

David Fincher is doing his comic book into a film with Matt Damon and he’s an awesome writer and he and I met at Golden Apple one day and just started chatting. We became friends. I had like 5 different ideas that I was working on developing into a comic series. He came over and we ended up choosing one of my ideas and we just started working on that. I’ve been writing since I was 7 and that’s one of the reasons why I love film because I love great writing and it’s just been great working with Frank so much and with these great comic book people because now I feel like I have a great venue to really write and do that kind of format. So it’s really cool.

So when would that be? Is there a plan for when it might be coming out?

We just started working on it a couple weeks ago so we’ll probably do it as a 6-part series to start out with. So I don’t know exactly. We don’t have like a time-table for it. We get together whenever we can because we’re both pretty busy and with this movie coming out and the movie’s coming out and we’re really focused on that like doing the press and so as soon as I get a second to focus then we’ll probably knock it out really quick. Yeah.

You mentioned Frank Miller and that should have a lot of effects involved as well on a very different way than this one. I wonder if you could talk a little bit about the differences in the shooting approach in your experience between “The Spirit” and “My Bloody Valentine”?

Well the difference with something like “The Spirit” or how we did “Sin City” is that you literally have nothing around you. It’s literally green-screen everything. So Rosario Dawson is one of my friends and it was really weird because we’ve been friends since we were like 15 years old and we’ve always wanted to do something and it was so weird. I was like “yeah, we finally get to do a movie together but I’m taking to an X that’s supposed to be you, you know?” She’s like “Yeah, when can we actually do a scene together like a physical scene, you know?” It’s just weird to see us in a scene together but we weren’t really there together, you know? The difference with the effects is that with “My Bloody Valentine” we were on physical sets. We were physically with the actors. With “Sin City” it was just me and Mickey and “Spirit” just me and Gabe and so just a whole different thing, but the only thing that was similar was that we were using things that had never been done before and that, I feel, very lucky to be a part of.

Speaking of Frank Miller, honestly, do you think “Sin City 2” is ever going to happen?

Yeah, Frank just finished the script. I was with him the other night, so he just finished it and the thing is like I think when “Sin City” came out it was such a big hit for the studio, but the studio is frustrating because sometimes studios are really awesome because they have a great vision for something but then they wanted to do weird things with the 2nd one. And Robert didn’t want to go down that route so we’ve just been waiting until somebody knocks some sense into them when we can do it the way that we want to do it. None of the filmmakers or actors were like willing to sacrifice doing it in any other way than what we wanted to do it. So, yeah, I’m hoping we’ll do it sometime this year. But you know how movies are. I remember I was with Robert and Robert’s like we’re going in 2 months. I was like “oh, okay.” We have to work out everyone’s schedule but then it got pushed. You know what I mean? So it’s like you never really know with movies. It happens when it happens.

Do you think that with “Sin City 2” do you know if he’s taking existing material or did he write new material?

Both. Both. Yeah. So there’s existing material and then there’s things he’s added into it also.

With “The Spirit” how was it playing kind of this phantom siren that glows? I mean it’s such a unique character.

It really is a unique character. I mean I think that it was a great way for us to just hang out and work together again. It was really great because we were using a phantom camera that had never been used before and it’s a camera that shoots at 1,000 frames per second, so it makes like the shooting experience was unbelievable and it was fun to do that character because of my schedule I didn’t have to be there the whole time because I was already committed to something else so I just got to fly down and shoot it really quickly and then they interwove it throughout the thing. The camera was amazing and working with Gabriel was really fun too because it was such a really fun experience because the DP and all the camera guys everybody was tripping out looking at this film because they couldn’t believe they could shoot….like I was jumping in the air doing these ballet moves and it’s literally as if I was hanging in the air for like 5 minutes, you know? So that part of it was really awesome to see what they could do with the film.

Jaime, because you’ve worked with 2 different types of technology now between the 3-D camera and the phantom camera, does that make you more in demand as an actress because you’ve performed with them and been comfortable with them?

I don’t know. I’ve noticed that people hire me a lot for genre films and things of this kind of nature, but I think it’s just because I’m such a fan of those kinds of films. When people send me scripts, those are the ones I typically gravitate towards, but I think it helps that I’ve been involved with working with this kind of technology and these kinds of cameras because I know how to be with them and be comfortable with them.

You know how to be with them? What does that mean?

Like some actors can’t stand green-screen and some of them bitch and complain that people aren’t there and there is no set and when I hear it it sounds like whiney little—excuse my language—bitches to me because if you’re an actor you’re job is to create something that’s real and authentic, you know what I mean? So, yeah it’s awkward and yeah it’s a little bit strange but you should be grateful (a) that you’re working, (b) with things that have never been used before and to be able to tell stories in a different way. And it’s like you’re a child again. You just make it up inside of you and you do your best to make it real. You may feel stupid at times because it feels awkward and strange but anything that you learning feels awkward and strange at first I think.

You mentioned that you’re a little bit of a nerd for sci-fi “Battlestar”, “Lord of the Rings”, “Star Wars”, is there any one of those things out there that you would really liked to have been a part of or one that you’re trying to pitch yourself for?

Well, I harassed Dave Filoni and then he finally hired me so now I’m doing voices for the “Clone Wars” so I was like “Dude, hire me. Dude, hire me. Dude, hire me.” I would e-mail him and harass him and follow him around Comic-Con and then finally….

I have to interrupt. Was this for Kyle or was this for you?

It was for me. The female characters from “Star Wars” are bad-ass. And they’re fun and of course my husband loves it because then he comes to all the recordings and stuff like that. And he gets to like geek out with everybody, but yeah there’s certainly ones that I’d love to be involved in—The Dark Knight, you know? Play Catwoman or something like that or maybe be involved in the “Iron Man” films. Something like that would be really cool.

What about “Fanboys”? Are we ever going to see that?

Next month, finally.

I’ve heard so many release dates.

Yeah, tell me about it. Drives me up the wall. That studio is retarded.

Did they put back the old ending or the old story…so I’ve heard?

They did and you know what? This is what I want everyone to know is that through the power of the media, the Internet and fans he got his movie back. If it weren’t for the fans and if it weren’t for the Internet and the bloggers and everything like that, they would have taken his movie and totally raped it and pillaged it and turned it into like a really crappy spoof movie.

Well, Jay Baruchel said they did do that.

Oh, they did and then he got it back.

Exactly.

They just don’t know what they’re doing. That’s what happens when you get people who aren’t really fans. I think they know what’s funny and then they want to make a bunch of money and then they turn something and then you watch and you’re like “what is this?” I mean, half of the people didn’t know what they were talking about, but because people really revolted, Kyle got his movie back and it was the most triumphant…as much suffering that we went through…. through the whole process, it was extremely exciting to see the power that the Web and the fans have.

So the story of the dying boy is back?

Yeah.

Well, Jay will be happy when he hears that.

I know. I know. We hang out with Jay and he’ll be happy. Yeah. It’s great.

I was going to go back to the “Star Wars” thing. They’re doing like a live-action show.

I know.

With your in with the cartoon…

I know but you know what? They’re going to shoot in Australia.

I heard that too.

And as much as I love the idea of being in Australia I wouldn’t want to move to Australia. Not for like 3 years because I love doing all different kinds of films and stuff like that so I think it would be hard for me to move to Australia for 3 years and take myself out of being able to make any other kinds of things. I’m really happy playing all different kinds of characters just by doing the voices and stuff like that but I heard it’s going to be absolutely amazing because they’ve been writing it and it’s going to be really like dark and cool and so I’m excited for that.

I was going to say according to the always accurate IMDB, you have a few other projects coming up.

It’s so accurate. Don’t you love the Internet? I love the stuff I read about myself.

Yeah, so what is actually true? What do you have coming up in 2009?

I definitely have “Waiting for Forever” coming out. That was a movie that I did with the Keach family with Rachel Bilson and Tom Sturridge and Nikki Blonsky. What else do I have coming out? “Fanboys” is coming out. I did a movie called “The Pardon”. That’s really awesome that’s coming out. I don’t know what else is on my resume. Thankfully I’ve been blessed to be working a lot, so there’s a lot of things that I’ve done that are coming out this year, so I’m very happy about that.