EVIL. RABBITS. THAT IS ALL. I had the absolute pleasure of connecting and speaking with filmmaker Jake Fertig about his latest project, “Rabidts”. Based out of Charleston West Virginia, Jake Fertig has been producing several films including animations! He’s a truly inspiring guy everyone should definitely check out his works.
CoM: How long have you been making films?
I started with animation actually. When I was a junior in high school I fell in with some really rad upperclassmen, and had a very supportive art teacher. I was sort of tagging along on their little creative adventures. One involved an old VHS camcorder, some very crude stop motion animation involving a light box, and some sand. From then I was hooked!
I started making short animations. I would show on the morning announcements, and into college kept producing animations. I won awards for a few at film festivals, and around 2011 I met filmmaker Eamon Hardiman and got involved as a producer on a couple films in his Porkchops series. I acted in the third of those films Porkchops 3D. They were super low budget, and the sort of movies people who love bad horror films enjoy, so I enjoy them. (CoM: oh gotta love some bad horror! One of my guilty pleasures)
I am a teacher and I finished college in 2012. Going into that profession, and having kids, I slowed down a bit. It does make me more thoughtful. With my background in animation and fine art I tend to lean more towards wanting to make practical effects, but am moving out of animation with this film. I’m getting too old and dont have the eyes or hands to do hand drawn animation like I used to. I am also currently working on a feature animated film I’ve been slogging away at for 5 years but… That’s a story for another day.
CoM: Tell me about Rabidts! How did you come up with the idea for the film?
In the fall I was contacted about possibly making a feature film. I tossed it around for about a month, and started developing ideas in drawings. I am a visual artist first, and look at the effects end to start. It is sort of backwards, but it is how I do things. I started thinking about a movie with a single monster, maybe one you don’t see in full until the end.
I did some sketches for a Sheepsquatch monster, and that evolved into this thing having mutant babies, then I get to thinking about sheep = lamb = lamb of god = Easter…. What other animals are small and associated with Easter? Rabbits. I ended up developing the rabbits in sketches more, and realized making hand puppets for them would be way less complicated than making 3 giant sheepsquatch costumes (It would have taken 3 to get all the movements I needed).
I then just sat down with a bunch of junk and worked out how to build the puppets, and while I was doing that developed a script around them. I would work on the puppet, talk to it, then write about it, talk to it some more, then work on it some more. After the first outline was done I was able to craft the script pretty quickly.
CoM: Every film set has its challenges, what was your greatest challenge in filming the Rabidt models?
They are hand puppets. Many of the shots require them to get soaked in blood. (CoM: That sounds like a load of fun!) The blood I use washes out easy, but the puppets degrade after a couple washes as, again, they are mostly made of trash. Also the challenge is how to get different shots I want.
We just essentially wrapped the shooting with actors, so now I am into developing all of the special effects shots. There are tons of them in this movie. How to get the rabbits in all the different actions and poses I want is complex. My background has helped me. Some of it will be stop motion, some of it will be green screened, some of it will be puppetry, but all of it will be practical effects. Partly because of budget and partly because I think CGI has gone about as far as it can go, and I don’t know about you but I am sick of looking at it.
CoM: Did you make the Rabidt model? I love it. It’s so cute, but creepy. How did the design come together?
I did. I have made puppets in the past. I have always been sort of interested in them. The construction basically started with newspaper and masking tape. I made the head out of that, then took old recycled hospital towels (they are sanitized) that I got donated and sewed them into the body and attached it to the head. I build the ears out of wire and cardboard. The gums are paper mache and adhesive is acrylic caulking like they use in construction. The teeth are broken pencils. The eyes were a little tricky to figure out. I first bought them then realized how simply they were made and decided to make them to cut costs. They are just glass flat-backs with little painted eyes glued to them. $11 a set if you order them, or $15 for the materials to make 20 sets? It’s a no brainer. The fur was the most expensive part. Infact, outside of equipment costs the fur budget was the highest expenditure of the times budget. $18 a yard for that stuff. There is a giant rabbit in the film that took around 6 yards. (CoM: I really want to see the giant rabbit)
CoM: I love horror films with a lot of blood shed effects. What was your favorite death in the movie to produce so far, and how gorey can we expect this movie to be?
I like all of them for different reasons. I think my favorite that we have filmed thus far was a death scene with a bunch of friends playing a Dungeons and Dragons type game. One of the boys is choked to death by one which was hilarious to film, and his death involves him spewing blood out of his mouth all over himself.
CoM: How did you find the location you wanted for the film? I personally love finding interesting locations to film in.
Most of the locations were chosen for practical reasons rather than creative ones. The entire COVID thing has really caused the film a great deal of issues and trying to keep everyone safe and make a film has been complicated.
A vast majority of the film was filmed at my parents house in Fraziers Bottom, West Virginia in their backyard. You find if you are filming at night you can film just about anywhere. Also, their house has tons of great little locations on the property. It is a little under 3 acres but it does serve as a great little all-in-one location.
The other primary location has been at a wildlife management area near their house. It is also in an area where strange things happen. For example, his entire area is around where the whole Mothman legend happened. Tons of history. It is where I grew up and locals (including myself) have seen lots of strange things. Supernatural stuff. It also is eerie at times, but I love it. One of the kids working on the film remarked about how there is a low fog every night that falls over the fields. That sort of thing certainly doesn’t hurt.
CoM: How else has the pandemic affected making this film?
Oh boy. Firstly, we are around 2 months behind where I needed to be. I rewrote scenes to minimize contact so folks could be socially distanced. I limited the set size for the same reason. We try to keep all these things in mind when we film but sometimes it has been impossible.
Basically, the main actors and I had a discussion about doing this, I shot the entire main sequence in two days with us together. We were taking care before to be safe and isolated ourselves as best we could after. I removed a few scenes because of the larger requirement for people. It has helped in a few ways. Everyone is off work and so it made scheduling much easier. I also break things down to where I can shoot singles as one-on-one instead of keeping everyone on set.
CoM: What other movies would you compare this to?
I am not sure, but for reference material I have used Army of Darkness, Critters, and John Carpenter’s “The Thing” among others.
CoM: What horror movies inspire you the most?
I am not sure. I really love bad movies. I get encouragement from those films more than ideas I think. It is more of a “Look what they did. I could do that!” than anything else. It motivates me. Like going to an art museum it just gives me energy. I recently saw “Sexsquatch: The Legend of Bloodstool Creek” and have been telling everyone about it. It’s terrible in all the right ways, and it also got distribution. If those films can get an audience then anyone’s can.
I just want to make things different. A major filmmaker that inspires me is Ralph Bakshi. I mean, it is out of the horror genre but I like the grit of his animated films. I like things that are visually different. We live in an era of too much sameness. It is alright for something to not make sense or jive with what everyone else is doing. Major cinema is dead. It’s boring. Even classics like Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street have been used up. All the beauty has been sucked up out of them. We need newness, even if it is badness. That’s just my opinion.
CoM: How many films have you created in general?
That is hard to say. Short films I have probably made about 50. Mostly animations. I have made 3 no budget, no script, one day shoot feature films. Those were fun. I just released one of them to Youtube. I have worked on a few feature films, but this is the first “real” film I have undertaken myself.
CoM: What was your favorite film to shoot?
In my youth I loved animating more than I do now. I have fond memories of that. It was always just me, alone, working on things. Any of my animated short films maybe.
CoM: What are some of the most underrated horror movies in your opinion?
Low budget horrors in general. I know it’s a cliche answer, but it is the way I feel. If Netflix or some streaming service would find 20 directors in rural America who have never made a movie over $5,000, and were making really great little horror projects, then gave each of them $100,000 to make a movie… I think you would see a renaissance of horror cinema a year later. The equipment is so accessible and living in rural areas you can get everything for cheap or free. Talent, crews, locations, sets, props, etc. Most of it is already there. Almost everyone on my film is doing their job for the first time. Who doesn’t want to work on a shitty horror film?
CoM: What is your favorite monster horror movie?
It is my favorite genre in horror, so I have tons of them. I am a huge Godzilla fan. I love the 1974 Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla. I am also a fan of 80s monster movies… and 50’s monster movies… Pretty much anything with a cool creature.
In my personal collection I collect horror movies that either have a killer pig, or a killer in a pig mask. In that subcategory Pig Hunt is probably my favorite. Chawz is a Korean killer pig movie that is pretty funny.
CoM: What advice would you give to an aspiring filmmaker?
Just make the movie. Shoot it on your phone. As a friend said “Just lean into your limitations”. Realize what you have and what you don’t have, and don’t take yourself too seriously. Just make the movie. Even if it’s shit it’s one more movie than most of the people who will be judging you will ever have the balls to make in their life, and even if they did it’s unlikely they are much better.
CoM: Is there anything else you’d like the audience to know about you or your craft?
I am a public school teacher. In my film we have people from all professions. Bus drivers, waitresses, retail managers, retail workers, a nurse, lawn care professionals, a truck driver, a dental hygienist, and students all working on this project.
If something is important to you then you will find time for it. What you are doing right now doesn’t have to define you. Yes, it is stressful and frustrating and you scream yourself to sleep at night trying to make creative things happen. Would you want it to be easy? Just make your thing and don’t worry about what people think.
Keep up with Jake and check out his work here!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/609764062978760/
www.rabidts.com
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