So where does a story like Dex Dixon come from?
Flashback to 2006...we were working on a 48hr Film. We had selected "Silent Film" as our mystery category and we were having a blast with it. As a director I loved the immediacy of the direction. Since there was no sound, I could shout out suggestions while rolling and the reactions of the actors was so spontaneous that I was instantly in love with the whole silent film process.
I had also been a long time opposed to student Zombie Films...I felt that everyone wanted to make one and that it is rarely done with originality...though I do love Shaun of the Dead....and the remake of Dawn of the Dead is rockin...Okay I love Zombie films! But my point was originality. After the silent film, I envisioned a silent Zombie movie with Buster Keaton acting coupled with true-gore effects...sick and twisted shit, ya know?
I had also been toying around with the thought of doing a Noir film...but again every Tom, Dick, and Film Student made one of those every twenty minutes in America. I wanted to make these types of films...but I didn't want to make a cliche' of any of them....
I had also had an epiphany one evening while watching a film in the beautifully restored Columbia Theatre in Saint Helens...I wondered what had happened to the cool cliff hanger serials they once played prior to the Saturday matinee? Why did they ever go out of style? I even asked the owner of the theatre if he would play a serial like that if they still were being made. He said he would love to and I was all....hummmmmmmmm.
The final piece of the puzzle came together one evening while I was referencing The Next Generation's Captain Picard's fictional detective Dixon Hill...I mistakenly referred to him as Dex Dixon...oops! A slip of the tongue, but it made me laugh and I quickly added the moniker; Paranormal Dick. Which made me laugh even more. What a great character name!
So here I was left with a character name for a detective, a desire to make a monster movie, and an itch to make a gritty film noir piece, and the mission to revive the 10 minute cliff hanger serials of old...Well the answer was simple. Combine the Genre...Play up the Cliche' elements...Add some musical numbers...And make it an Episodic Comedy/Horror/Noir Cliffhanger Serial.
That's right; Dick Tracy meets Scooby-Doo meets Abbot and Costello meets The Wolfman! Place all the elements in an episodic cliffhanger serial and let 'er rip!
Why the hell not? And that is how the idea was born.
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