We recently mentioned that The Wild Hunt – a feature film co-written and directed by Film Production grad Alexandre Franchi – was soon to be released online and through video-on-demand service providers.

To give us an idea of the effort that went into making his first feature film, he sent us more info about the behind-the-scenes action he saw alongside his crew, and where his career is heading now.

Can you tell us a bit about the challenges of getting this film made?

Alexandre: We shot this film in 35mm, at night, with 150 extras in costume. We had fire, fake blood, and battle scenes. Our main location was 2 hours north of Montreal, lost in the woods with no cell phone coverage and limited electricity. We had an initial budget of $500,000. You could imagine what could go wrong. Everything!

And it did: bad weather, logistical problems (firing our Assistant Director after 4 days), shooting without an AD for the rest of the film, breaking stuff, accidentally setting fire to stuff, losing our minds, losing costumes, losing actors (ie: forgetting to pick them up in Montreal on the day), etc… etc…

But we had the magic. A great Director of Photography (Claudine Sauvé), a dedicated crew of 20 fanatics, amazing actors, and about 70 core medievalist extras who came for two weekends to fight for us.

[Alexandre also blogged about these challenges – and much more – for The National Post in the lead up to the Toronto and Montreal premieres. You can read some of those posts here.]

The Wild Hunt was honoured as an audience favourite at Slamdance. What was the atmosphere like at the screenings there and in Toronto?

Alexandre: The atmosphere at Slamdance and Toronto  was quite good. The room at Slamdance is quite small, so it’s like having a private screening with your friends. But what I found to be the best ambiance was during a midnight screening on a weekend at the Seattle International Film Festival. The room was packed with 700 or 800 people — a midnight audience that loves genre films and crazy stuff. It was amazing to see so many people laugh, gasp, and shudder at once.

The Calgary Underground Film Festival screening was also excellent: people were allowed to drink beer in the cinema; it was a riot.

Your team has elected to distribute the film through video-on-demand and online methods. Why?

Alexandre: Ideally we would have wanted our film to open in theatres, but given the new reality of the marketplace, our extremely low marketing budget, and the fact that we do not have “stars” acting in The Wild Hunt, VOD is more realistic.

Basically The Wild Hunt came out in 2009, just at the end of the recession. It was a bad year for the distribution of indie films. Not too many deals were made, no MGs were paid, it was lousy. We were initially slated for a limited theatrical release in the US but that distributor did not respect his contractual obligations and we had to look for another distributor. The momentum our film had gathered with the awards and the word-of-mouth was lost.

Our current US distributor, Cinetic Media/FilmBuff still saw some potential for the film, but they felt that video-on-demand was the best way to have a good return on investment and get the film seen.

Where do you go from here? Are you working on another feature?

Alexandre: The idea is to pitch for some projects in L.A. through my agents while working on my own projects here in Montreal.

One thing you realize after doing one feature is that you are a beginner. It’s really exciting actually! There are a million mistakes you can still make and there is the adrenaline rush of exploring stylistic or story ideas that fascinate you—hence the necessity for me to still keep doing my own stuff.

So yes, I am working on another feature film. Something crazy (no costumes this time). Can’t say more at this point. I am also attached to a couple of films seeking financing. One of them is from Canada and the other is through an L.A.-based company. I know that I am being vague, but in this business one learns to not count his chickens before they hatch, so I don’t want to jinx anything.

Thanks, Alexandre. Best of luck on your upcoming projects!