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PARANORMAL ACTIVITY’S Oren Peli talks about his boffo bone chiller

October 14th, 2009 by Scott Marks

Filmmaker Oren Peli outside his San Diego area home, where he shot “Paranormal Activity.” (Photo by Dale Robinette/Blumhouse)

One month ago, few in the motion picture industry had ever heard of Oren Peli. Now the 39-year-old San Diego filmmaker and “Paranormal Activity,” his debut feature, are the talk of Hollywood.

The former video game designer had a dream, a high-def Sony video camera, and $15,000 to spend. In his spare time he converted his home into a haunted house and filmed what is being heralded as the next “Blair Witch Project.”

The movie made the festival rounds and before long caught the attention of two executives from DreamWorks. They forwarded a DVD to steven spielberg for his approval and he watched the film in his Pacific Palisades home. Not only did it scare the wits out of Mr. Hollywood, legend has it that when he tried to exit his bedroom screening facility the door was inexplicably locked from the outside and he had to call a locksmith.

On his website, Peli asked fans to “demand” where the film would next be shown by voting on eventful.com, a San Diego-based web service that provides online events listings, among other things. “Paranormal Activity” marked the first time a major motion picture studio had used the service to virally market a film.

I spoke with Peli from his office on the Paramount lot.

Scott Marks: I only have fifteen minutes, so let’s make the best use of the time. You are a San Diegan, right?

Oren Peli: Correct.

Born and raised?

No. I was born and raised in Israel and I’ve lived in San Diego for the last 12 years.

Where in San Diego do you live?

Can we keep this unspecific? I don’t want to draw too much attention to the house or the neighborhood.

Can you give me a broad clue like the name of your neighborhood? Kensington? Pacific Beach? Para-Normal Heights?

Honestly, I would rather not encourage anything like that.

I understand. You don’t want a million gawkers piling up on your front lawn.

Exactly.

Are you married?

No. I’m single.

What scared you growing up?

The one specific thing that scared me more than anything else was “The Exorcist.” I was 10 or 11 when I saw it and it scared me so much that I couldn’t even finish watching the movie. I couldn’t sleep and I had nightmares for weeks after that. It traumatized me from all ghost movies and anything to do with ghosts or possessions or demons. It totally freaked me out.

If it freaked you out so much, why do you turn around and make a movie about the thing that scared you the most?

That probably was the reason. In my twenties I stared watching horror movies again and they would still scare me. When you watch a scary movie it is so enjoyable, like you are going on a wild ride and you get an adrenaline rush. I wanted to make a movie that was tailor made to scare me. I wanted to do something that was a little more psychological, less relying on gore. “Paranormal Activity” is the kind of movie that would work and be effective on me.

Two weeks ago nobody knew your name. Now you are the hottest thing in Hollywood. How does that feel?

I’m a little bit detached from that. It’s crazy, but I’m still the same. It’s been pretty insane.

You are a video game designer by day, correct?

No. I am now a full-time filmmaker.

How did you make the leap from designing video games to becoming a filmmaker?

I created “Paranormal Activity” in my spare time. I had no idea how it was going to turn out. Of course, now that the movie is doing well I’ve decided to become a full-time filmmaker.

Do you watch a lot of movies?

I watch movies all the time. I love movies. I have a DVD library. It’s my favorite pastime.

Aside from being spooked by “The Exorcist,” where did you get the idea of filming a ghost story in one location?

The specific idea came when I moved to my house with my girlfriend at the time. It was the first time I lived in a single family home in a very quiet suburban neighborhood. When you are in that type of environment you are conscious of every little sound that you hear. When the house creaks or anything unusual happens you are very aware of it. When you are living in an apartment you’d think that it’s the neighbors next door walking in the hallway. We had a few weird things happen. I didn’t necessarily say that we had a ghost or a demon, but I started thinking (if that was the case) how you would find out what’s going on. I’m kind of a techno-geek, so one of my first thoughts would be to set up video cameras throughout the house and let them run all night. If something strange happened I could review the footage and see what went on. I didn’t actually go ahead and do that, but once I started thinking about it I thought how cool would it be if the camera did capture something in the middle of the night. That was pretty much the beginning of the idea.

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Wussy spielberg thinks DVD is haunted

September 21st, 2009 by Scott Marks

Yum! Yum! Eat Him Up!

First off, one must congratulate a first time filmmaker who can produce a feature for $15,000 and get it into the hands of a major director, even if they are spielberg’s polluted paws.

Video game designer Oren Peli, 39, grew up with a lifelong dread of spooks. According to the L.A. Times, “Ghostbusters” was too unnerving an experience for Peli to bear. “Paranormal Activity” is Peli’s way of working out his fears on film. In his film, a young couple decide to videotape their unearthly late night encounters to find the source of their excruciation. According to the Times, “The acting is intentionally unpolished, as is the herky-jerky camera work.”

They couldn’t have raised the budget to $15,020 and popped for a tripod?

A screening of the film at the 2007 ScreamFest caught the eye of an assistant at the Creative Arts Agency. CAA signed Peli and began sending out screeners which in turn grabbed the attention of Jason Blum, senior executive at Miramax Films and his producing partner Steven Schneider. Sundance turned it down (always a good sign), but the duo were able to get it to direful DreamWorks Studios where it eventually landed on Lucifer’s desk.

Film personality spielberg brought the DVD to his Pacific Palisade estate in order to determine whether or not to grant Papel dispensation. The Times continues, “not long after he watched it, the door to his empty bedroom inexplicably locked from the inside, forcing him to summon a locksmith.”

Ooooooooooooohhh! Did the big bad DVD lock little Stevie all alone in his bedroom? That’s scary stuff, kids! That demonic disc morphed into a latchkey and briefly turned the “Poltergeist” producer into the world’s wealthiest shut in. Honestly, it was probably Cate Capshaw turning the key in in order to escape his childish musings over Lincoln and Martin Luther King.

Thanks to yellow belly spielberg, Paramount is releasing the film in 13 college towns on Friday, with a wider national rollout planned for mid-October. They are banking on another “Blair Witch” phenomenon and if the trailer is any indication, this looks like another example of all hype and no jitters. I actually bought into the “Blair Witch” hoopla and attended a first day, first show screening. Before the first reel change I was looking at my watch. “Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants” had more shocks.

I watched the trailer and something smells rotten. The preview audience watching the movie knows that their reactions are being recorded and are inevitably bound to act more surprised for the cameras. Second, the shot of the screen from the back of the auditorium is completely bogus. Filming under these conditions that audience would not appear in shades of night vision green while the color tones on the screen are accurately defined. And how in God’s name did they manage to sneak so many cameras into a screening? Jeez, half the time we’re not even allowed to bring our cell phones in the auditorium and these bozos have a three-camera shoot.

A tip of the hat to Kali Heitholt for passing this along to me!

Read John Horn’s L.A. Times story here.

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