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The Indie Horror Success Story of Grace and Paul Solet
By Heather Wixson If there is one hard and fast rule in Hollywood, it’s that there are no shortcuts. Just ask up-and-coming horror director Paul Solet who is currently working on finishing up his first full-length thriller, Grace. Grace is the story of Madeline, a young mother who loses her unborn child and decides that she wants to carry the child to term. After giving birth, baby Grace supernaturally comes back to life and Madeline must make a choice no mother would ever want to. Solet worked for over three years to deliver Grace to horror fans (yes, the pun was intended) and it wasn’t as simple as writing a script and sending it out. Solet believed so much in his vision for Grace that he shot his own 6-minute short of the movie and literally hit the ground running to get his story in front of as many people as possible. “I really wanted to make an extreme, gut-punch version of Grace and I had to distill the entire story down to a visceral 6-minute vision,” said Solet. “As a filmmaker, I realized my job wasn’t done once I finished shooting. I had to get out there and promote the hell out of the short.” Solet indeed made an impression. Grace debuted at Fangoria Weekend 2006 and traveled the festival/convention circuit equipped with his movie, a Baby Bjorn strapped to him and a dead baby doll, just to grab some attention. One of the first people to really take notice was Adam Green, director of Hatchet and co-director of Spiral. Green was at Fangoria that weekend to promote his work on Hatchet when a friend of his told him he had to see this short film he worked on, Grace. “I was so busy meeting with fans, which I love, that I wasn’t going to even to leave my table to go see it (the short),” said Green. “But I kept hearing more and more people talking about it and when I realized that Eli Roth was specifically there just to see Grace, I thought I should definitely take a break and go see what everyone was talking about. And there was something about the concept of the film- it just hit me with an unexpected punch.” Solet hit festival after festival and the response was overwhelmingly positive. In fact, the Grace short film won “Best Short Film” at the Rhode Island Film Festival 2006, the “Peer’s Choice Award” at Dragon Con 2006, and was the first ever independent short to be shown on Fangoria TV. “People really respond to something like Grace because we really had a solid script that had a lot of passion behind it,” said Solet, who definitely has some experience in crafting great scripts. Solet earned his BA in Film and Psychology from Emerson College in 2002, and a certificate in screenwriting from the same school in 2003. Right after, Solet collaborated on a feature length script with his long time mentor, Eli Roth. Solet also wrote and put together the 2005 short, Means to an End, which received the title of “Best Short Horror Film” from Fangoria Magazine and also received distribution on Fangoria’s Blood Drive 2 DVD. Means to an End also won “Best Short Film” and the “Audience Choice Award” at the 2005 Rhode Island International Horror Festival, and “Best Extreme Horror Film” at the 2005 Dragon Con International Film Festival. Solet’s screenwriting also garnered a lot of praise through the years as well. His script for Repeater came in Second Place in Hollywood’s First Glance Film Festival, was a Quarter Finalist in the 2006 Screenwriting Expo, and a Finalist in New York’s VisionFest 2006 Screenwriting Contest. His feature length thriller Heartland won Third Place at VisionFest 2005, was a Quarter Finalist in the 2005 Horror Screenplay Contest, finished in the top 25% at the 2006 Screenwriting Expo, and was a Quarter Finalist at the 2006 American Screenwriter’s Association Contest. “When you really believe in your work, it definitely comes across. I also thought about what I would want to see as a fan- what would get me excited? If you show up to these conventions and bring your personality and show that you believe in your project, it will get people talking.” As a producer and co-founder of ArieScope films, the buzz building on Grace was too hard for Green to ignore. However, his ability to get involved with Solet and his film is a rarity these days in the business. “People rarely understand that I am generally not the guy to be able to help them get their movie made,” explained Green. “For Paul, he did most of the legwork himself. He worked hard to get people to pay attention to his work and to Grace. When I was given the script, I gave it to my partner at ArieScope to take a look at just to see if he saw what I saw in the movie. And we both saw an opportunity to make a movie that brings something new to the horror genre.” “Generally, as a director, there isn’t much I can do to get someone’s movie made,” added Green. “But since I’ve developed such a good relationship with Anchor Bay (because of Hatchet and Spiral), I was able to bring Grace to them as a producer and we were able to partner to get the movie made. Generally, I can’t usually ever accept unsolicited material and believe me, I get a lot of hate mail because of it. I just wish I could be that guy, but normally, I can’t. Grace has definitely been the exception to the rule.” Grace was shot up in Saskatchewan, Canada on a 17-day shooting schedule of 9 ½ hour days just to get all 192 scenes onto film. “The schedule forced me to rely on my instincts,” Solet said. “And when you know the story and what your vision is, you are usually sure that you end up making the right decisions. We had such a solid crew and cast and when that happens, it really ends up coming across the screen.” Green himself was able to take a more hands-on producer approach with Grace and was up in Canada during the shoot with Solet and helped serve as a problem solver. “Generally with movies, there’s an ‘Us and Them’ feel when it comes to producers,” said Green. “Since I am a director at heart, I was able to be Paul’s voice to the studio without having to pull him away from getting the movie made the way he wanted. What I really liked was being able to ‘pay it forward’ to someone else in terms of getting the movie made the way he (Solet) envisioned it." “For me, passion always comes across no matter what it is you do for a living,” Solet said. “That passion helps keep the horror genre sacred and what I loved most from touring the conventions and festivals is seeing people show up simply based on their love of the genre. That’s who I made this movie for.” Writer’s Note: This interview is the first in a series based on the movie “Grace” and Paul Solet. In the coming months, we’ll take a deeper look at the filming of the movie as well as my response to the final project, expected to hit theaters in early 2009. As a writer and a horror fan, I felt it was important to take a look at the hard work it takes to get your dream to come to fruition. For me, this was truly a unique story to tell and my ability to tell it makes this job all the more worthwhile. |
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