Comment for Wattasakka

This was one hell of an exhausting movie. Took us almost exactly one year to produce, starting from late April 2006 with shooting the fightscenes at first. Escpecially when doing outdoor fights this is a clever way to go, as summers aint that long in Germany and your motivation is not at point zero due to unpleasing story-shoots.

And with the knowing of having created s.th. above average really makes the story-shoots a lot easier. To me story parts firstly have the purpose to built up characters which later on fight each other. Building up characters helps to give action scenes more depth and the viewer will sympathize for the character, thus creating a bigger impact and impression.

We’re improving on that I think, but Wattasakka has still lots of weaknesses in the storyline and escpecially in the character built up. Hide’s character introduction is really weak, so is Eduard’s. But I have to say that the script wasn’t written like that. Originally, a dialogue scene followed after the little training scene and also Michael’s role was supposed to be much bigger. It was a really tough decision, but there were just too many logical holes and audio/lighting problems so that we couldn’t keep the scene (including a fight between Hide and Michael). And we weren’t able to fix those problems due to misfortunes that occured during that time. It’s a real pity since a LOT of work went into those scenes and just having them as deleted scenes as an extra doesn’t serve them right.

Also, the role of the cult leader was written for another person which didn’t work out, so Hide took over that job. Really poor in my eyes and it once again shows how desperately we are in need of actors. Worst of it, Hide just looked ridiculous in that outfit and completely out of place.

The whole movie has a really dark theme and it’s bloody and many people die. Wait, isn’t every movie of us like that? Almost. Even cute plush monkeys won’t get spared. Seriously though, this worries me somehow... People are actually giving me strange looks lately. I think I’ve scared them.

Anyway, I actually like the character I play which is quite unusual. That’s mostly because I speak just one sentence in the whole movie and half of the time I’m wearing a gasmask and playing badass. Doing movies where the story is told through actions and less through dialogues has always been our method and always will be.

Speaking of individual scenes now, the introductory training scene with Hide, Eduard and me might be a little difficult to interpret correctly. As I said, the scene was initially planned to be longer, involving a dialogue between Hide and Eduard showing that they are friends and afterwards Michael’s character entering the school. The take that shows Hide looking somewhat despitiously into my direction and then walking into Eduard’s direction doesn’t make the connection between the characters very clear.

The way Eduard’s character died came as a surprise I guess. We just didn’t want to show how he gets killed (no more gore!) and so we came up with that idea of just showing his arm sticking out of the phone booth directly after the killer appears behind the window. More of an experimental way I guess.

The research scene appears a bit long but everything Hide does makes actual sense and builds up logically if you watch attentively.

That static shot of the bloody hand of the last victim has a hidden fun message involving the burger and the photo “Iecur” (meaning liver in Latin btw.).

So finally I can talk about the final fight! I’m sure everyone who watched Madmans Resurrection noticed the parallels. The type of fight where the hero doesn’t stand a chance against an overly dominating badguy and only lands hits by pure luck is very appealing to me, so I suggested to reuse that concept. One can also see the similaritys in the fighting style which is a mix of oldschool and modern and we’ve been calling it “Madman Style” J.

The Monkey Tale fight has a very big shortcoming, as to being just too static (one choreo-move after the other) and the fight taking place always on the same spot. No change of locations. So that was one thing we learned from Monkey Tale and we tried to avoid that in Wattasakka. We wanted to make sure to bring in lots of variety into the fight thus finding a good balance between punch/kick-exchanges, stunts (special moves), use of environment (throwing leaves, branches), and the change of location. I’m sure some people will complain about not having enough intricate choreo, but it’s the versatility that make good fightscenes. Shooting took us about 10 days which is relatively fast for our standards. The Hide vs. Michael fight only took us 3 days, that’s mostly because Michael could comprehend the choreography very fast (although being his very first screenfight) and I operated the camera.

I did the music for the movie this time as Eduard is gone to Russia for a year or so. Composing the endfight theme was brutal, took the most time of all the tracks. It was especially hard to fit the music to the mood of the fight and still maintaining a melody. I also had to make sure that accenting sounds didn’t come at the wrong place. The “Wattasakka Theme” playing in the credits is my favourite. It captures the style and feeling of the movie quite well, combining organs, military like percussion, various strings and wind instruments. On top you hear gasmask breathing throughout the second part of the piece.

Lots of work also required sound fx and foley, many scenes had to be fully rescored because of background noise in the original footage. Often I had to design and record own sounds because stock material just sounded lousy and improper. It was fun though (particularly doing the voices) and makes the film more unique.

The movie is not very heavy on VFX, they always require lots of time - escpecially masking jobs where you have to adjust every single frame. There’s some subtle VFX throughout the movie which I’m sure people won’t detect so easily. So good job Hide!

So overall this was the most laborious movie so far, costing us some incredible 200 Euros (s.th. around that)! ;) Most of the money went into the props for the “Wattasakka Room”, some into costumes, DV-tapes, food and drinks, and insect repellent for the forest.

I want to thank everyone who was involved in the movie and hope people enjoy it. And bear in mind: This is only a movie, so don’t take it too seriously!

1^st May 07,

Fukuyoshi Ruwwe, The YM