An Industry Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: he Madness Within
Genre: Thriller
Date: the completion date for the film 2018
Director: Hunter G Williams
Producer: Hunter G Williams
Budget: NA
Financing: In House
Production: Shot mainly in Los Angeles
Screening Format: 4k
World Premiere: Dec 6th via VOD, Theatrical, etc.
Awards: NA
Website: bustedknuckleproductions.com
The Official Trailer for The Madness Within
Watch The Trailer for The Madness Within directed by Hunter G Williams
A Short Biography of Hunter G Williams
Hunter G Williams is a writer, director, producer, and actor. He has directed and produced The Whispering Dead (2013), and a short film titled The Riverside Shuffle (2011). Today Busted Knuckle Productions is a fully functioning production company, with complete top of the line camera and lighting departments, and a wide range of talents. Their projects are The Madness Within (2019) released theatrically December 2019, their first animated feature, The Grundles has begun filming, and pre-production has begun on The Road Home (2019), and Killing Angels (2020).
The Hunter G Williams Interview
indieactivity: What is your film about?
Hunter G Williams (HGW): The Madness Within tells the story of Russ Washington, a successful businessman on top of the world who seems to have it all. He also has an unhealthy obsession with sex and drugs, and generally being a complete asshole. But his addictions, secrets, and faulty relationships send him spiraling down the rabbit hole, into the madness within.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Hunter G Williams (HGW): Luckily, we didn’t end up having to do a festival run with it. Distribution companies and sales agents had already started approaching us before we finished principal photography. It’s drummed up quite a bit of press so far, with articles being written by over two dozen film sites, and the first review, which was just released by Nerdly.co.uk gave it 4/5 stars, called it “a brilliant film” and said it was “like The Wolf of Wall Street for the Hollywood crowd”.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Hunter G Williams (HGW): Russ Washington is a successful businessman on top of the world. But when Addiction, secrets, and faulty relationships send him spiraling down the rabbit hole, will he continue to plummet or find the strength to carry on?
Development & Financing?
Hunter G Williams (HGW): The idea for The Madness Within actually came to me after the financial collapse of another one of our features, The Road Home, which had been greenlit by a studio. After we had gone through all of the legal, performed the re-writes they had asked for, and were just waiting to sign the long form, they brought on a new CFO who decided they weren’t going to do anymore comedies, and abruptly scrapped five different projects they had greenlit, including ours. After that is when the story really started taking shape. Since we wanted to move fast, we decided to do it all in house, and finance the film ourselves.
Production?
Hunter G Williams (HGW): We first started with aerial photography. We shot eighteen days of aerials starting in Cancun, Mexico, then came back to the states and shot all over California. Principal photography began shortly after. First, we shot matching close ups to our Aerials here in L.A., then started the dialogue heavy scenes. Unfortunately, after the first two weeks of shooting I broke my back, which forced a yearlong hiatus on the film. During that hiatus, the decision was made to recast our lead female due to concerns of a lack of chemistry.
We picked back up in fall of 2017, and after bringing on a new lead actress started over again. We were only able to use about thirty percent of the principle photography we had previously shot. After a grueling, twenty eight day shooting schedule that was filmed all over Los Angeles and California in general, we wrapped principle photography and began post production. As can be the case with independent films, the first phase of post was riddled with problems. Our first Editor just wasn’t able to get it where we needed it to be, which resulted in us bringing on a new editor.
What at first seemed like a blessing turned out to be a curse as our second editor, who was given four months to turn in their first cut, had been lying about his progress the entire time, and when the deadline came he hadn’t completed more than one scene. After him single handedly setting the films completion back months, strangling him with my bare hands seemed like the thing to do. Cooler heads prevailed however, and we then brought on our third, and final editor. As they say, third times a charm, and that was definitely the case here.
After doing a marathon of eighteen hrs. editing days, we finally completed our first, second and final cut of the film. It then immediately was passed to our composer in Vancouver, Canada, our Foley artist/Mixer in the UK and our colorist here in the states. While they began their process, we also booked a studio here in L.A. to do all of the voiceover work. About six weeks later, once all of the different departments had wrapped up their work, we finally started letting some of the distribution companies who approached us see a screener of the film.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
HGW: Luckily, due to a significant amount of interest in the film, we were able to skip doing a festival run, instead signing a seven year, worldwide distribution deal out the gate.
The Release?
HGW: This is a placeholder text, that indicates that the content for this template must be placed between this block, to allow the article to hold a firm structure and also kill time for the writer or editor.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
HGW: First and foremost, never give up! This is the hardest industry in the world to break into, and I hear people all the time say things like “Well, I’ve been trying for a year now, and things just aren’t working out”. NO CAREER in the world is made in one year, especially one in the most competitive industry there is. So you have to stick with it, and take the ups and downs in stride.
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