Kansas Clarity. Those were the words that popped into my mind about an hour into my conversation with movie director Steve Balderson. Mr. Balderson is the writer/director of the sardonic black comedy "Pep Squad." I spoke with Mr. Balderson as he was in the middle of pre-production on his up-coming crime-thriller/character study/murder mystery/ "Firecracker." What label you use to describe "Firecracker" will depend on your own perceptions. Steve Balderson has a lot to say about perceptions. His work is work of vision. Steve Balderson realizes that others will bring their own perceptions to his work. He doesn't make his movies to fit anyone's preconceived notions. Balderson stays true to his vision. Part of his vision is working full time as a motion picture director while living in Kansas. Some may call him foolish, but when you consider the fact that Dennis Hopper, Edward Furlong, Karen Black, James Russo, Sally Kirkland and Deborah Harry all signed on for "Firecracker" based on personal conversations with Mr. Balderson, he might not be so crazy after all. In fact, Steve Balderson may just be the point man on the future path of movie making.

EI: Give our readers a little background info on yourself.

SB: I was born in Wamego Kansas. This part of Kansas is really pretty. It has a lot of hills and the prairies. I was raised here. We moved to a nearby city, Manhattan when I was in high school. I went to Cal Arts in Valencia, California for film school. I left after three and a half years to come back to Kansas to make "Pep Squad."

I think the first time I started working with videos, I was under 10. We had a video camera and I would always make my family be the characters in them. My sister, Brooke (EI Note: the bitch high priestess in "Pep Squad") would be a part of them at whatever age she was, 2 or 3. My brother Scott who was a year younger than her would always be the "dead body" or the villain. My mom really loved "Dynasty" so I was raised actually watching "Dynasty" and re-enacting the wedding massacre repeatedly.

EI: You parents didn't think to get you any psychological help from that?

SB: Hell no!

EI: That's good to hear.

SB: Instead of playing house or doctor like the normal kids, we had the epic saga of this family we invented that was full of murder and intrigue and blackmail. Of course we were so young that we didn't know that that was absolutely insane. But, damnit, it was a lot of fun, I think.

I think confrontation and dialogue are much more powerful than a gun.

EI: I got the impression from the commentary track of the "Pep Squad" DVD that you had a lot of family support for your artistic inclinations while growing up. You father was on the track with you. He was the executive producer of "Pep Squad."

SB: Yes, when I dropped out of film school and needed to figure out how to actually make a film, I did hire a consultant who had experience. That was Eric Sherman who played the principal in "Pep Squad." He and my father were the ones who led the process, for the business plan and things like that. My dad has done a lot of really great things in his business, and knew very little about the film industry. Though now, through working with me, and guiding me, I think he knows more about what's going on than a lot of people in Hollywood. Just because he comes at it from a business stance instead of as someone involved creatively. I knew I needed his help in raising money for the film. I didn't know how one goes about it, but I knew that he knew because he had done it before in a variety of projects: museums and art houses and things like that. He was extremely important in raising the funds to renovate the Columbia Theater here in town. So, raising funds for a film, while a little different, because the community can't really participate in, or is fleeting, or is there later on. It's really strange. I don't know why anyone would want to invest in a film, which is strange, because those are the very people I need to support me. For whatever reason it worked. We were able to approach a lot of local business men. They were a collection of really interesting people. None of them had ever invested in a motion picture before, or seen any part of the making of one. Since this was one of the first features shot in this part of Kansas, all these people got to come by and be involved in it. The local support was one of the best parts. We would set up catering in the neighbors yard and they would say "Just patch into our electricity and use our plumbing. We don't care." It was so neat because everyone was working together.

EI: Speaking of budget, the film has a very expensive look. It is very well shot and looks better than many Hollywood films. There's not a bad shot in the movie. It is very stylish. What was the budget?

SB: Thank you very much. I think you can do that with no money. I think all it takes is, I think it would seem pointless for me to say 'a vision.' I think a lot of people who look at things forget about color and things like that because there are so many other things going on in the film that you have to worry about at that exact moment. I, personally, am so anal that I have to completely organize things repeatedly. So when I sketch the storyboards for the film, I not only sketch them, I put them in an editing layout. I retold my storyboards in every way you could. And now, for "FIRECRACKER" I've got maybe five inches thick of notes of how I want it to look. Because I understand that somebody reading it may not understand what I'm saying here, might understand it better if I said it a different way. I do all of this before hand, so by the time I get to the set I can really concentrate on the texture of the image, and where to put the red bulb, and separations of color and stuff like that.

But our budget for "PEP SQUAD," getting back to your original question was including marketing, travel, advertising and food and housing was less than $500,000.

EI: That's impressive. I watched the 30th Anniversary DVD of Easy Rider this weekend. Dennis Hopper did the commentary track. He talked about the budget of that film being $350,000. You look at the quality of that film and ask "How could somebody make film like that today for that amount?" Well, you've done it.

SB: Well I think you can based on preparation and planning. Kansas is a right to work state, so the crew didn't have to be union. That certainly helped us because we couldn't have afforded it otherwise. The actors worked for hardly anything. In fact my sister, who would have made about $800.00 for the entire shoot, waived her salary. Little things like that really helped us. Now, doing "FIRECRACKER" though, it would be pretty damn impossible to do it for that amount. Unless I convinced everybody to do a deferred payment or something like that. But once I get into the SAG rules, it totally changes the spectrum. It could be made for a $1,000,000 perhaps, but that is pushing it. There are so many luxuries that people spend money on when they are making a film. I believe that the money you spend in the movie, should be money you see on the screen when you are sitting in the theater. If you can't see it, if an audience member can't see it, then why spend the money. Certainly it is important for everyone to be fed and housed properly, and make sure they are safe, and healthy and comfortable, but you don't need 17 trailers or these luxuries.

THEY tell Me that I have to live there in order to do it. That I have to play the games, and do what is expected of me in order to have success. I say that you don't have to do that anymore. I can live in Ohio, I can live in Canada, I can live in Kansas, or Florida or Texas and still make films. The only thing that makes me not able to make films is simply not making them.

EI: Have you set a date to start rolling on "FIRECRACKER"?

SB: We were looking at Spring. Edward Furlong is supposed to be in "Terminator 3," though now, he's been dropped from that project, for whatever reason, I'm not sure. So that schedule has opened up, but we have Debbie Harry to consider. "Blondie" is getting back together for their first world tour since their reunion album. If she goes on tour, then I really want to wait until Debbie can do it, or do it before. I really don't know what their schedule is.

EI: You stated in an e-mail that you signed all of these people, with one exception by meeting with them personally. You didn't go through agents. Give us your philosophy of working in Kansas vs. LA. It sounds like you have to have balls to buck the system.

SB: It takes them. On one hand, working here and not living there allows me absolute clarity. Because I can sit here, and I'm the only person that is making a film here. There is nobody else around who is obsessed with the culture of Hollywood, and the stars and people with names. Nobody here is driven by that, so on the one hand it allows me to work all day long, and at the end of the day, I stop working, no matter what I'm doing. At 7 o'clock I put everything away that has anything to do with movies or creativity and I go and I live. I have life, so I can spend time with my family, or make dinner and I the quality of life I really want in order to focus on what I need to do during the day and do what I'm supposed to do on this earth. If I lived in LA, I think I wouldn't be able to focus as well, because a lot of the game playing and back-stabbing, the typical stuff people think of when they see "Project Green Light" on TV, that is actually how it is. I don't know if I would like that very much. It certainly wouldn't make me very happy. In fact, the longest time I spent there since I left school was when we were doing post on "PEP SQUAD" For the life of me I didn't understand why we weren't doing it in Vancouver. There are other places in the world that make films. It's not just centered in Hollywood. Part of the problem with me and them is that, THEY tell Me that I have to live there in order to do it. That I have to play the games, and do what is expected of me in order to have success. I say that you don't have to do that anymore. I can live in Ohio, I can live in Canada, I can live in Kansas, or Florida or Texas and still make films. The only thing that makes me not able to make films is simply not making them. You can do that anywhere now.

EI: Do you think Hollywood is afraid that others will get the message?

SB: I think if the industry, I think a lot of the people who move to LA with the hopes and dreams of becoming whatever it is they want to become, buy into the myth that you have to move there to do it. I talk top a lot of kids and young adults who say they want to become an actor, but they say "I can't move to LA because blah, blah, blah" I look at them and say, "You know, they make a lot of movies in Austin Texas. They've mad a lot of movies there lately. Have you ever considered going to Austin Texas instead of LA. Or Chicago or New York. Anyplace that has some kind of community where you could do this and enjoy it?" My second question is "Why are you doing this? Are you doing it to be famous, or are you doing it because you have to?" A lot of times people say "truthfully, I just want to be famous, then there motivations are completely different.

EI: In the "GEN X Dictionary" there is a term "Fame Induced Apathy" which means that everything you do is centered around becoming famous, so in fact you end up doing nothing, because there is nothing about you that would make you famous.

SB: Exactly. Then there is the whole fear of success vs. fear of failure, and a lot of people who are really talented end up never doing anything because they are so afraid of it. I think that for the people who buy into the myth of the Hollywood dream, whatever makes them choose what they choose isn't necessarily true most of the time. I think maybe ten years ago, or twenty years ago, it would be nearly impossible for me to live in Kansas and be a film director. Because we didn't have the technology and the Internet and the way of communication that seems to be instantaneously available now. SO now, I can live here. But back then, I think that is where the myth started. You had to go there, you had to be within…I mean, shit, it takes as long to drive across LA as it does for me to get on a plane and fly there. So, that I can't understand. How someone could drive two and a half hours to go see someone at a meeting when they live there, but…I need to finish a point before I get into that. I think that those people are very frightened when they are dealing with people who don't buy into the myth, and tell them that the myth is just a myth. I've done that a couple of times when I'm talking to agents and I tell them, look for example, originally I wrote the character in "FIRECRACKER" for Edward Furlong, and I called his agent. He said that he wouldn't even read it unless I offered him money. I said "That's like going to buy a car and having to put money down before you can even have a test drive. Number one, how will I even know that he even fits? What if I'm to big for the car? That doesn't even make any sense." So when I tell people some of these things, and I say, "No I'm not going to play the game, we're going to play by my rules." These people get really upset. I'm not doing what I'm supposed to. I challenge their fundamental beliefs. Of course, if you challenge anyone's fundamental beliefs they will always react. So I've learned lately, just to keep it to myself, and sometime in my life I'll write a nice book about it. I think that within the next five years everything will change. A lot of people who are stuck behind their desks in LA and are miserable and unhappy will start to question the fact that they are there and why they came there, and perhaps maybe they'll make alterations in their life to be happier. Who knows.

EI: You may have what happened with "Easy Rider." If "FIRECRACKER" turns out to exceed your wildest expectations, which leaves the people in the board rooms shaking their heads and asking "How did this movie make so much money? And how can we make lightning strike twice." We ended up with a bunch of studio produced films that tried to capture the magic of "Easy Rider."

SB: I think that the people in the industry who are business men, who think like business men, want to look back on their life when they are 85 years old and say "Damn, I made $100,000,000!" I want to look back when I'm 85 and say "Damn, "FIRECRACKER" was an amazing piece of work, I really liked doing it, or "PEP SQUAD" was really fun, what a great way to start this out." But I think once you tell the business men they can make those millions of dollars, then they will do whatever you want. Unfortunately, I have to get to that point. I can't really call up my friends at MGM and say, "No really! Believe me." Because I have to show them first.

I think that within the next five years everything will change. A lot of people who are stuck behind their desks in LA and are miserable and unhappy will start to question the fact that they are there and why they came there, and perhaps maybe they'll make alterations in their life to be happier. Who knows.

EI: Yeah, you have to prove yourself.

SB: Once you get past the idea that you can actually do anything, anywhere as long as you are in a place where you can do these things, figuratively speaking, I think the biggest thing is choice of mind. If I told myself "One day, I want to be a director." I'm telling myself at the same time, "well, I'm not one right now." Instead, I choose to say "I am one." It is much easier to say "I am a film director living in Kansas, than 'I want to be one.'" Even when I was working on Videos I said I was a film director, even though I wasn't working on film. Because the frame of mind is completely different, and then it allows someone to do things. It's like you start at step 5 instead of step 1 and it makes more sense I think, that way. But I think it's hard for people to get to that frame of mind, because for a while I would think, "Maybe Hollywood is right. Maybe I am nothing. Maybe I do have to move there, and who am I to think I can do these things? Especially when I would approach agents and they would tell me "Oh, you have to give us $10,000.00 before we read anything or forget it!" I would think, "Maybe I do." Then I would say "No, no, no" I'm just going to have to do this personably." Because artists relate to one another in a certain way, and I don't need to talk to someone who only understands money. Instead I just need to get to the artists. So I did cast "FIRECRACKER" completely by friendships. The limitations that I had were based on who knew who, and that was pretty much it. How far was I willing to go to get them. In this case it just snowballed. I had Karen Black and then she said "Oh, call James Russo." I called him and he is sitting there having dinner with Debby Harry. Debby, I had originally tried to approach in the beginning, and her manager was a complete asshole. [He] pretty much said, "Oh, Debby doesn't do movies like "FIRECRACKER." And so I told her this when she called. She said "I want to do this," and she hasn't even read the script. I said "I tried to get you this script a year ago and this is what happened." She made him call and apologize.

EI: Really!

SB: Yeah. It was really nice, but now he won't talk to me and that whole agency hates me, because they were made to look stupid in front of their client. So, I think that is another step. Anyone who is young and trying to make their way, or older and trying to make their way is going to have a lot more bumpy ride if they go the way people in Hollywood tell you to go. I think it is far easier to just do it non-conventionally.

EI: Was Karen Black the first one to come on board?

SB: Yes. I had always loved her work, but I never even thought of her for the part. I was talking to my friend Eric Sherman, who is my film consultant, and he said "My wife is good friends with Karen Black. Why don't we get her on the phone?" So, we talked and originally she turned me down. She read it and she said, "Oh, this is too much, this is too emotionally draining." She said her character in "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean" was so emotionally draining for her, and so imprisoning in her body, and the character in "FIRECRACKER" is just about imprisonment of the soul in the body. She said, "I don't know if I can live through it." So I met with her and we would repeatedly go through it, and I really wanted her to know that it wasn't as dark and dreary as it read. I needed some life force in there to make it what it is, and she said "Oh, all right." I think once she met me and really understood who I was and what I was about it changed the whole thing. Because the perception of the story is really, really dark and gut-wrenching if you read it. I want to tell it in a beautiful way. I love dichotomy. I love using the violent image with the beautiful music. So I really want to photography it really pretty. So, upon hearing these things and seeing my storyboards she said "OK, great, I'll do it." So then I said, "OK, help me figure out who else we can get in it!" And that is where it started.

Debby Harry. Debby, I had originally tried to approach in the beginning, and her manager was a complete asshole. [He] pretty much said, "Oh, Debby doesn't do movies like "FIRECRACKER." And so I told her this when she called. She said "I want to do this," and she hasn't even read the script. I said "I tried to get you this script a year ago and this is what happened." She made him call and apologize.

EI: How did you hook up with Dennis Hopper?

SB: Karen had his FAX number. I sent a FAX. Apparently, my dad sent a letter. Or a series of letters about Kansas. He [Dennis Hopper] actually grew up down the street from my grandmother in Dodge City, Kansas. So we knew he would remember them, because they ran the general store. We said "You know Kansas is insane, you were there. Here's the story, here's the true story. Here's the people we have in the film, and here's the script. So, we sent it to him. Well, we Faxed him and he called and said "Send me the script." And we did. He read it that Friday. He went to the East Coast to see one of his kids. He said he read it back to back twice on that plane. He said it was one of the best things he had ever read. On that Monday or Tuesday when he got back, he wanted us to meet him at his house for morning tea. We were in LA that week, so we went down to his house. The first thing he said was "I want to do this part." That was it. I didn't even have to ask. It was amazing.

EI: What did that feel like?

SB: The feeling was…it was nerve wracking at first, only because I named the character that is based on a true incident "Frank" because of the similarities with his character in "Blue Velvet." It was the most evil name I could think of at the time. I thought, "Oh, he's going to notice that immediately and he's going to be turned off or say 'I'm not going to do Frank again.' " It's a different Frank, but it is a crazy Frank. When he didn't react negatively, I more relieved and then really calm. I was there with my Dad. My Dad is really funny when he gets into those situations. But Dennis' wife was there, and it was really down to earth. It was like being at home and talking to someone from Kansas.

EI: I knew Mr. Hopper was from Kansas. I wondered if that had something to do with your contacting him.

SB: There is something I feel about taking Kansan talent, or writing stories about Kansas. I'm obsessed with this place. I think it is amazingly haunting and gorgeous at the same time. When I first sat down and said, "OK, what actors are from Kansas, of course he was on the list." And thought, who else is. There are some weird people from Kansas. There's Elvira. She went to Kansas State. There's Don Johnson and Kirsty Alley from Wichita. I don't remember who else, but there are some weird people from Kansas. Actually, Lou Grant. Who played Lou Grant?

EI: Ed Asner.

SB: He's from Kansas. So, I called him [Asner] up and said, "Do you want to do this?" I sent him the script. His response was that he was so "old now that he can't outrun crime, so he wouldn't want to be in a movie where there was any crime going on." It was hysterical.

EI: You know Kansas Has had some notorious crimes?

SB: Oh, I know.

EI: You mentioned growing up in Manhattan. One of the rare African American mass murderers was from you're town. He got up on a Howard Johnson's in New Orleans back in the 70s and started shooting people. They sent an Army helicopter in to shoot him of the roof.

SB: Oh my God! I didn't know that.

EI: It was back in '71.

SB: Well, I was born is '75, so if anything happened before then I don't know because I was so obsessed with "Dynasty" until about '86 that I lost all track of reality.

EI: Yes, well Joan Collins will have that effect on people.

SB: Yes, she really does.

EI: It seems your family has been behind you 100% since childhood.

SB: Well our entire family…there's no one like us. In fact we've just commissioned an author to write a book on our family and they agreed. The emotional make-up and dynamics of our family is …we are so twisted and so nuts that I've got to make a movie about us. But I'm so in to the experience that I need someone else to write the book for us so I can zap that into a movie. We're doing that as we speak, so I can make that movie down the line. We've always been dreamers and doers, not talkers. Even at a young, young, young age I remember my grandfather and dad doing things. They would talk, but then they would put their words into actions immediately. They would never sit around and say "One day we're going to do this or one day we're going to do that." They would say "now we're going to do this, or now we're going to do that." They grew this business that made attachments for Caterpillar Machinery and things like that, that panned out all over the world in just a few decades. So I was raised with this big goal and setting big goals and saying "This is what I want." Instead of saying "I can or can't do that" I've always asked "How can I do it?" So I would say how I would do something. This is how I can get from this place to that. So I start going down the list and then suddenly it's there and it happens. I think that's sort of genetic because even the people in our immediate family that weren't raised in the same household have that drive and determination. They always have. Even down through John Balderston who wrote "Gaslight" and "Dracula." If you watch "Gaslight" you see our family's really dark sense of humor. Not that you wouldn't know that from seeing "Pep Squad." When you see Ingrid Bergman going through the Tower of London you hear the man who is the tour guide talking about a woman who had her head chopped off. They're talking about these things that are completely irrelevant to the plot and it is really, really silent. The humor is so great in our family that it is instantly recognizable. The fmily has always been supportive no matter what we do. Whether it's owning a restaurant or renovating something. We're doers and there's always something else to be done.

EI: Tell me about the book "Issues" you wrote about the experience of making "Pep Squad" with Eric Sherman and your father. I read some excerpts on you're web site, but I stopped to get your take on it. I read enough to know that "here is someone who's is very committed to independent filmmaking..

SB: Well, it was fun because Eric is a Yale grad who is brilliant. His words are brilliant. What he says in a sentence can out do anything I can think of in 10 years. When he would write something about the process (of filmmaking), it would be real analytical. When you compare his experience to mine, which is like this crazy artist who's ordinary life is full of one-liners…it is interesting to go back and forth. And then my dad is writing from the perspective of "Oh my God! Here I am, and my son is doing this and what have I gotten myself into?" So when you read these three perspectives at the same time, it's an amazing combination of stuff. I really wanted to do this for "Firecracker." I started setting the stuff up, but then I thought maybe I should do a documentary and put all of these things up on the screen. I'm still in development, because I personally wouldn't want to do it myself. I don't know who would want to. Who would continually document the process. I don't know what time frame to span. No one lives here who could do it and I don't want to bring someone in to live with me for however long it takes.

EI: Call MTV. Get a "Real World" cast to make the documentary!

SB: That would be good.

EI: How long was the shoot for "Pep Squad"?

SB: "Pep Squad" took 6 weeks.

EI: 6 weeks?

SB: Yeas. The initial script board for "Firecracker" came down to 8 weeks. Though I realized that I had a couple of buffers in there so it could possibly be done in 6 weeks too. Because of the planning I go through.

That was one thing about Kubrick that I could not understand. Because I thought "If he's such a visionary, and he's seriously, this brilliant, why on earth doesn't he know what he wants to use?" I though that didn't make any sense. I mean, anyone can deliver something that matches if they spend two years doing it. Because they'll have absolutely every perception under the sky!

CONTINUE INTERVIEW (Part II)

Rusty White