The Feature Vampire Film "The Sanguinarian"

PRODUCTION NOTES
(contains spoilers)

What if there was this vampire? What if he was hiding? What if he was suicidal?

And so, Charles A. Beal and Analisa Ravella began a script and film that richly develops a
world of the night, where blood is the key to commerce and status and power. A world we all
once knew, a long time ago, when the cadence of jackboots thrummed across the radio and
when a small man very nearly ground the world under his boot heel.

The script was written in the fall of 2006. Principal photography began in February 2007 and
ran for twelve weeks, shooting in DV format on a Canon XL2. Directed by Analisa Ravella,
with Michael D. Gough as director of photography. Film released 2010.

Filmed on location in Idaho, primarily in Boise, the film’s international soundtrack includes
songs from well known musical artists Anders Manga, Cylab (including appearance), and Iris.
With a haunting electronic score from artists Brandy Angela and Jyri Glynn.

The film features a wide variety of breath-taking costumes from couture designers all over the
world. This includes Berlin-based Louis Fleischauer of AMF Korsets, Tressa Williams of
Fierce Couture, Los Angeles, Terry Brown of Dragon’s Blood Creations, Australia, and
Janny Perez of New-York based Line “Just Janny”. The Blood Bar set was designed by
renowned metal artist Irene Deely of the "Woman of Steel Gallery".

A tremendous amount of research went into the film. It uses an unconventional and surreal
world of vampires to tell the very real story of Josef Mengele, the Nazi doctor who worked
primarily at the Auschwitz Concentration Camp in World War II. In order to develop the
metaphor for the real story being told, the film was set out-of-place, out-of-time. Characters
were drawn from various eras, and a surreal twist was put on period costumes, to visually
illustrate the vampires’ attempts to hide.

The dialogue was written in pseudo-Shakespearean prose, to help create the seductive world
of the vampires. And, as an attempt to describe things that cannot be described with words.

The cast had numerous rehearsals to increase the actors’ confidence with the material.
Female actresses were corset-trained, as all true artists must suffer for their craft. Dozens of
sets of fangs were molded and fitted. Make-up brought each face from the land of mundane
living into the luminous land of decadent dead, and exotic and often gravity-defying hair styles
took the breath away, courtesy of teams led by Paulina Ivy and Miranda Carter.

And the world of the dangerously beautiful and mythically impossible began to walk around,
asking for a cup of coffee or the location of the restroom. The film gave people a chance to
live in another world, an exhilarating, addictive, and absolutely magical place. To dress in
exotic costumes, to speak pseudo-Shakespearean prose, and for a little while, to be someone
else. Someone enchanting, unearthly and achingly beautiful.

In the course of making this film a reality, over 140 people contributed to it. It was produced
and shot on a shoestring budget, with resources begged and borrowed from across the globe.
And, an otherwise disparate band of misfit and maladjusted aesthetes came together, soldiered
up, and ran an exceptionally professional production. Up and down the scale of it, from
insurance to permits to craft services. All of it.

Through post-production, Paulina Ivy utilized an editing style involving jump cuts, time
distortion, and rich color palettes, to help create a dream-like, graphic novel feel.

In the course of this film, the producers worked for years. And when fatigue became a heavy
burden, they would stop for a moment and remember. Remember what this film is really
about. And the labor would resume with renewed hope and renewed purpose.

Production Notes
(contains spoilers)

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