Darren Bousman "A Family Affair"

http://www.darrenlynnbousman.com/a-family-affair/

Darren Bousman, director of Saw II-IV, has a blog that I recently discovered and this post in particular peeked my interest enough to read it all. It's about his "indie" project called The Devil's Carnival and how he and his team decided to take the indie route of self-distribution and going studio-less. Also he discusses his disappointment on how his film with a star name role couldn't get be worth one theatre release, he did 60 theatre releases for this "indie" short film (56 minutes...) and apparently did great with nothing more than social media marketing.

Now do you guys think his name from the Saw franchise is enough to explain that kind of outcome? This short film clearly has done well in retrospect of him taking a very indie route to distribution. Heck, it's a SHORT FILM with ANY theatrical release.

Since then a sequel has released? I guess? it says 2014 no post-production or anything after it... but IMDb says on it's page that it's not released.... confusing...


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I don't know if you guys know Darren Bousman by name... but he's the guy who directed Saw 2-4 and made Repo. Everyone at Full Sail knows him as he's part of the Hall of Fame and returns to the school every year to give panels... But yea...

Today I learned how he got that first crucial job directing Saw II. He bullshitted it. Darren was working at some studio (teacher didn't say which) and his job was to read scripts and write synopsis on them for his bosses. During that time period something caused him to come up with a plan for getting to direct Saw II. He had all his friends call up the studio and say along the lines of "Have you heard of that Darren Bousman guy, he'd be a great director for the next Saw!". That got him an interview for the job. They asked him for an example of his work by the end of the week. (Week or two days... idk XD) He called his friends and put together a short within the small time frame, showed it to the execs, landed the job that would launch his career.

Very cool story on his blog! I wasn't that crazy about the Devil's Carnival (I LOVED Repo), but Repo was developed over the course of about 10 years as a stage show. Reminds me of the old adage: you have years to make your first album but months to make your second.

Your teacher has told an incorrect version of the story, but you can read the real story here: http://www.darrenlynnbousman.com/films-dlb/saw2/ I saw him and Zdunich speak at the Pittsburgh premiere of Repo, and the story was more or less that. He tried pitching Repo from the beginning, but they didn't want to make it a musical. They stuck to their guns, and eventually it was made, but Lionsgate didn't want to distribute it. So they four-walled it. They billed it as the "Repo Road Tour" and it went so well they did it again. I think the experience and popularity of that (albeit cult popularity) helped when they launched Devil's Carnival.

Oh, and so far, the sequel has not been released.

JoshL said:

Very cool story on his blog! I wasn't that crazy about the Devil's Carnival (I LOVED Repo), but Repo was developed over the course of about 10 years as a stage show. Reminds me of the old adage: you have years to make your first album but months to make your second.

Your teacher has told an incorrect version of the story, but you can read the real story here: http://www.darrenlynnbousman.com/films-dlb/saw2/ I saw him and Zdunich speak at the Pittsburgh premiere of Repo, and the story was more or less that. He tried pitching Repo from the beginning, but they didn't want to make it a musical. They stuck to their guns, and eventually it was made, but Lionsgate didn't want to distribute it. So they four-walled it. They billed it as the "Repo Road Tour" and it went so well they did it again. I think the experience and popularity of that (albeit cult popularity) helped when they launched Devil's Carnival.

Oh, and so far, the sequel has not been released.

Click to expand...

Wow... that's kinda weird that the stories are different... considering my teacher was a peer of his throughout college... O_O I wonder where she got that story from?

Quick google even proves she's wrong... on the FSU website...

http://www.fullsail.edu/grads/hall-of-fame/2011/inductees/darren-bousman

Silly teacher... lol

AS FOR REPO! I haven't seen it.... lol but I plan too and I'm sure the FSU library has a copy of it that I'll eventually check out.

As for a side note: I look forward to the upcoming Full Sail Hall of Fame and hope Darren keeps with his track record and visits once again to give panels. Although I dislike working on horror productions (mostly), I feel he has really good insights on the industry. Especially with his diverse experience in the different paths you can take with distribution.