Attention my freak-a-zoids, bleeders, and blood babies!!! Here is the wondrous words of Blood Drive’s very own creator, James Roland. Read this or become fuel!!
How did Midnight Grindhouse come to be, as a production company? Who’s idea was it?
JR: Midnight Grindhouse is officially part of the title. “Midnight Grindhouse presents Blood Drive” was on the very first script, but isn’t actually a production company. The idea was that if the show is successful it could expand into other things and use the brand Midnight Grindhouse to connect it all. I really miss event TV like TGIF and Disney Afternoon when I was a kid. Thought it would be amazing to tune in to Syfy for a full night of Grindhouse programming. Might not happen but you gotta dream big, right?
How much have ya’ll been influenced by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, of “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof?” Or the original “Death Race 2000,” with David Carradine?
JR: For me, in terms of Planet Terror and Death Proof, a lot. But not as much as you might think. The original double bill Grindhouse was freaking awesome, but it cost 40 million dollars. Our entire season was the entire budget of ONE of those movies so we had a lot less to work with, which oddly made us a lot more genuine in terms of exploitation cinema. We had to pull all the cheap tricks the old timers used. In terms of Death Race 2000, never referenced it intentionally, believe it or not, but definitely subconsciously. When people started making the comparison it really clicked and I was like “yeah, that sounds about right.” Love that original movie. David Straiton used parts of it as a sort-of tone reel to help pitch the first season.
Did casting play a big role in the writing of the characters, or was it the other way round?
JR: Midnight Grindhouse is officially part of the title. “Midnight Grindhouse presents Blood Drive” was on the very first script, but isn’t actually a production company. The idea was that if the show is successful it could expand into other things and use the brand Midnight Grindhouse to connect it all. I really miss event TV like TGIF and Disney Afternoon when I was a kid. Thought it would be amazing to tune in to Syfy for a full night of Grindhouse programming. Might not happen but you gotta dream big, right?
How much have ya’ll been influenced by Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, of “Planet Terror” and “Death Proof?” Or the original “Death Race 2000,” with David Carradine?
JR: For me, in terms of Planet Terror and Death Proof, a lot. But not as much as you might think. The original double bill Grindhouse was freaking awesome, but it cost 40 million dollars. Our entire season was the entire budget of ONE of those movies so we had a lot less to work with, which oddly made us a lot more genuine in terms of exploitation cinema. We had to pull all the cheap tricks the old timers used. In terms of Death Race 2000, never referenced it intentionally, believe it or not, but definitely subconsciously. When people started making the comparison it really clicked and I was like “yeah, that sounds about right.” Love that original movie. David Straiton used parts of it as a sort-of tone reel to help pitch the first season.
Did casting play a big role in the writing of the characters, or was it the other way round?
The first twelve scripts were written before the the show was cast, so they were REALLY fleshed out. Which made casting exciting and daunting. We weren’t casting one person and then evolving the character to the actor’s strengths over time, we were creating big changes and arcs for characters then trying to find actors who could already play all facets of them. A few of the key roles I thought we were screwed. They were so specific and we couldn’t find anyone that was just right, but I think we did okay in the end. Very proud of all our actors, they had to do bizarre things and treat it as real and with as much seriousness as Masterpiece Theater.
What gave you the idea of a pure, honest Grindhouse series and how did you sell SyFy on it?JR: I pitched the concept of Blood Drive to my manager, Mark Wheeler, who is a producer on the show. That was the first time I actually said the words “grindhouse for TV” out loud and his eyes lit up. He said “write that, I can sell that” and he was correct, he sold the shit out of it. Once I hit on the idea it was a road race through grindhouse genres, the world just opened up. It kind of “wrote itself” as the cliche goes, which means it was a lot of hard work but even from the first rough draft it felt like it was going to turn out well. The script made its way to David Straiton who signed on as an EP and to direct four of the episodes. His peeps got us in the door at Syfy, where an awesome up and coming executive named Nick Zigler (watch for his bloody cameo in episode 7) kept the project alive through all the red-tape hurdles that go on inside the mysterious walls of corporate Hollywood. David and I went in and pitched together, me talking about all my crazy ideas and David explaining how he would actually manage to make it all work. The next day they optioned the material, and once showrunner John Hlavin signed on to executive produce/supervise/write/generally be awesome they bought the show outright.
Will “Blood Drive” be hitting any of comic cons in the near future?
JR: We’re still waiting to hear, don’t know for sure. But hope so!
How did you three blood drops (James, John Hlavin, and David Straiton) meet? I know James worked on “Shooter” as asst producer and John wrote *alot* of the episodes, but how does David fit in?
JR: Actually IMDB might be misinformed. John would not let me work on Shooter after I pitched him “Bob Lee Swagger makes a shot … from the moon.” I actually met John in a coffee shop in beautiful — not at all a boring place people move to when they get married — Encino, CA. Syfy set it up to see if we liked each other, which is code for they sent John to meet me to make sure I wasn’t a crazy person. We absolutely did not have sex.
As for David, he was one of the first directors to read the script. He was in Columbia working on a show and got injured. He flew back to LA for a surgery then I met him the next day, hopped up on pain killers. My first thought was “this guy is WAY more rock and roll than I am … that’s a good thing for the show.” And I was right, he was a part of Blood Drive on the ground floor and really shaped the tone and feel of the show, even being in the writers room. He’s the reason for the badass opening of episode 6, that was his idea.
Will “Blood Drive” be hitting any of comic cons in the near future?
JR: We’re still waiting to hear, don’t know for sure. But hope so!
How did you three blood drops (James, John Hlavin, and David Straiton) meet? I know James worked on “Shooter” as asst producer and John wrote *alot* of the episodes, but how does David fit in?
JR: Actually IMDB might be misinformed. John would not let me work on Shooter after I pitched him “Bob Lee Swagger makes a shot … from the moon.” I actually met John in a coffee shop in beautiful — not at all a boring place people move to when they get married — Encino, CA. Syfy set it up to see if we liked each other, which is code for they sent John to meet me to make sure I wasn’t a crazy person. We absolutely did not have sex.
As for David, he was one of the first directors to read the script. He was in Columbia working on a show and got injured. He flew back to LA for a surgery then I met him the next day, hopped up on pain killers. My first thought was “this guy is WAY more rock and roll than I am … that’s a good thing for the show.” And I was right, he was a part of Blood Drive on the ground floor and really shaped the tone and feel of the show, even being in the writers room. He’s the reason for the badass opening of episode 6, that was his idea.
Ya’ll have cast a lot of South African actors, and even filmed in Capetown. Why not Toronto or England or America? How did these particular actors come on ya’lls radar?JR: UCP (the studio that makes the show) has a relationship with this great company called Film Afrika in Capetown. One of our producers, Terry Gould, had done a lot of shows there. I think at first is was a dollars decision, we could get more for our buck. But I can’t imagine making it anywhere else. We found the most amazing crew. Our production designer Andrew Orlando was head props on Fury Road. Our costume designer Danielle Knox was a genius who had her team hand make a bunch of the costumes, including all of AKI’s leather dominatrix outfits and Slink’s coats and hats. Our make-up department stepped up when we had some issues with SFX make-up and took over an entire episode, basically saving our ass. Our stunts team worked every single day for six months without a break probably (I think Human Resources is calling me right now for writing that). Every department from accounting to our office PAs … so great. But holy shit was it a long way to travel for work.
Did ya’ll really expect “Blood Drive” to be so insanely popular? Or that the actors would get the love they’re getting?
JR: Regarding the show, with genre niche fans, absolutely.
Regarding the actors, hell yes. Alan Ritchson was Arthur Bailey from his first audition, he just walked into the room and it was a given. Christina Ochoa was relatively unknown other than Animal Kingdom and now she basically runs Hollywood and will have THREE TV shows going at the same time because, holy crap, she’s talented. Thomas Dominique and Marama Corlett (Christopher and Aki) are going to blow people away. Fearless. The shit they did for the show and the honesty they brought to every weird moment was amazing. And of course Colin Cunningham. No joke, a year after watching his audition tape I still pull it out to show people, it’s that good.
Did ya’ll really expect “Blood Drive” to be so insanely popular? Or that the actors would get the love they’re getting?
JR: Regarding the show, with genre niche fans, absolutely.
Regarding the actors, hell yes. Alan Ritchson was Arthur Bailey from his first audition, he just walked into the room and it was a given. Christina Ochoa was relatively unknown other than Animal Kingdom and now she basically runs Hollywood and will have THREE TV shows going at the same time because, holy crap, she’s talented. Thomas Dominique and Marama Corlett (Christopher and Aki) are going to blow people away. Fearless. The shit they did for the show and the honesty they brought to every weird moment was amazing. And of course Colin Cunningham. No joke, a year after watching his audition tape I still pull it out to show people, it’s that good.
I could go on and on. All the actors rocked it and the talent pool from South Africa was pretty amazing. Brandon Auret as Rib Bone was actually the first actor we cast for the entire show. I saw his tape, called John, and begged to just hire him before we lost him. Perfect Rib Bone. He practiced for like a month for the audition, even grew his hair out, it was intense.
I wrote the characters Domi and Cliff for two of my friends in Los Angeles who obviously couldn’t move to South Africa, but now that I’ve seen Jenny Stead and Craig Jackson in those roles … who ELSE could play them?! No one.
I wrote the characters Domi and Cliff for two of my friends in Los Angeles who obviously couldn’t move to South Africa, but now that I’ve seen Jenny Stead and Craig Jackson in those roles … who ELSE could play them?! No one.
Ya’ll do understand that if “Blood Drive” doesn’t get a second season, people will riot?JR: We do not condone violence, but we love violence.
I love the way ya’ll introduce the drivers. When will ya’ll start assigning points to people?
JR: There were a lot of side-rules we created for the race, like Carnage Points and “Pop Chases” where the racers had to achieve mini goals along a certain leg of the race, but all of that fell by the wayside as the show evolved because we realized it was really more fun to just have them drive, get into trouble, fight their way out, and keep driving. At least for the first half of the season, the second half dives more into character and mythology.
I also love the way ya’ll slide the main storyline in…almost as if it was an after thought. Very slick….Let’s see where Karma takes us.
JR: Can’t wait to show you.
Where did the cars come from? And how many stunt drivers did ya’ll go through?
JR: Surprisingly, we had very few injuries on set and all of them were minor. Every episode had fighting, jumping, fire bursts, car chases … but we had an amazing stunt team lead by Kerry Gregg and an awesome SFX crew that kept us safe. As for our cars, David Straiton had the foresight to fix up two Camaros and bring them to South Africa from the States, along with Clowndick’s car — a Ford Mach 1 I think. Everything else was from Africa so we constantly had to hide the fact the steering wheel was on the wrong side. As for the engines, they were designed by Alex Wheeler who is insane. And a fucking genius.
Who runs the two twitter accounts? Or is that an “I could tell you, but then I’d have to feed you to an engine?”
JR: I run @BloodDriveTV and @heart_a_tech but some mysterious person from Universal runs @BloodDriveSyfy and they do an incredible job with it. We absolutely have not had sex.
Darren Paul Kent is beautiful as the Scholar. Who came up with such a sensitive character, in such a harsh world?
JR: Originally The Scholar was a much darker character. I won’t give away his ending, but it’s not nearly as bleak as our original pitch. As the show evolved he became so much more empathetic, and when we cast Darren who is just like a raw conduit of emotion, there was no other choice. He was so perfect and he shines on screen. All the lead actors do, in my opinion, and so many of the day players from South Africa. We had amazing casting directors.
Favorite characters from the show: who and why?
JR: My wife likes to say that I’m half Arthur, half Slink. We absolutely have not had sex.
When do we get to the Suck Bus?
JR: When you pay your $2.99 (also the Suck Bus gets a LOT of play in episode 5)
I love the way ya’ll introduce the drivers. When will ya’ll start assigning points to people?
JR: There were a lot of side-rules we created for the race, like Carnage Points and “Pop Chases” where the racers had to achieve mini goals along a certain leg of the race, but all of that fell by the wayside as the show evolved because we realized it was really more fun to just have them drive, get into trouble, fight their way out, and keep driving. At least for the first half of the season, the second half dives more into character and mythology.
I also love the way ya’ll slide the main storyline in…almost as if it was an after thought. Very slick….Let’s see where Karma takes us.
JR: Can’t wait to show you.
Where did the cars come from? And how many stunt drivers did ya’ll go through?
JR: Surprisingly, we had very few injuries on set and all of them were minor. Every episode had fighting, jumping, fire bursts, car chases … but we had an amazing stunt team lead by Kerry Gregg and an awesome SFX crew that kept us safe. As for our cars, David Straiton had the foresight to fix up two Camaros and bring them to South Africa from the States, along with Clowndick’s car — a Ford Mach 1 I think. Everything else was from Africa so we constantly had to hide the fact the steering wheel was on the wrong side. As for the engines, they were designed by Alex Wheeler who is insane. And a fucking genius.
Who runs the two twitter accounts? Or is that an “I could tell you, but then I’d have to feed you to an engine?”
JR: I run @BloodDriveTV and @heart_a_tech but some mysterious person from Universal runs @BloodDriveSyfy and they do an incredible job with it. We absolutely have not had sex.
Darren Paul Kent is beautiful as the Scholar. Who came up with such a sensitive character, in such a harsh world?
JR: Originally The Scholar was a much darker character. I won’t give away his ending, but it’s not nearly as bleak as our original pitch. As the show evolved he became so much more empathetic, and when we cast Darren who is just like a raw conduit of emotion, there was no other choice. He was so perfect and he shines on screen. All the lead actors do, in my opinion, and so many of the day players from South Africa. We had amazing casting directors.
Favorite characters from the show: who and why?
JR: My wife likes to say that I’m half Arthur, half Slink. We absolutely have not had sex.
When do we get to the Suck Bus?
JR: When you pay your $2.99 (also the Suck Bus gets a LOT of play in episode 5)
