Life & Work with Elko Weaver of Los Angeles

Today we’d like to introduce you to Elko Weaver.

Hi Elko, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I started writing ‘The Henchman’ from a long-gestating thought of: why does every action film, whether high brow or low, have henchmen? Why do you never know anything about them? What the hell kind of job security do they even have if they’re always being shot at? I wanted to make an action film, but told from the perspective of the least important henchman on a crew. He’s just the door guy (which I was for one of my first ever paid production gigs after thinking I was gonna be hot sh*t right after film school). The concept could have lent itself very easily to parody, but I wanted to try and make people actually FEEL for the henchman. If you think about what kind of life these characters would actually have—it’d be insanely sad! So with all that as a story concept, I kept the thematic through-line: that everyone is the hero of their own story.

While I was finishing, the SAG and WGA strikes happened. So many people I care about lost work for months, and it was arduous for all of us. Many even had to move out of LA. That’s when the concept became a lot more personal. It’s an action-comedy that’s meant to be a fun ride, but it’s really about below-the-line workers who are just trying to make end’s meet. They always go under-appreciated, while the glory goes to the stars. But without the crew working their asses off—movies can’t exist.

It’s also a completely contained story from beginning to end, which lends itself to be made into a full feature. Hopefully we pulled it all off.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Oh man, this was an incredibly hard film to make. Anything with action presents a ton of difficulties, but we were also extremely limited with our budget. If push came to shove though, I would’ve filmed it on my phone. THANK GOD it didn’t come to that.

I wanted to make something that was fun to watch, but also had a large scale–which short films for the most part don’t have, because of budgetary/time reasons. But Tim (the DP) and I made a pact that we would pull out every stop to make this a BIG film, and wouldn’t finish shooting until we were both satisfied. The first four shooting days we had a large crew, which ate the entirety of the budget I raised. The other 13 or so days were often just the DP and myself filling in the gaps. It only took…(gulp) 7 months. We even re-shot some action moments that we knew we could improve upon. When you watch the film, just know that it starts to hurt after running across a bridge twenty takes in a row–for four separate shooting days!

Also during production, my father died and a few months later so did a very close personal friend. They both donated to the fundraiser for the film, and it breaks my heart that I’ll never be able to show it to them. It was during the editing process, so they got to at least see a trailer I hastily put together. I still fight to hold back tears when I see their names in the credits.

It was certainly the hardest thing I’ve ever done personally, but also the most rewarding. I got to work with unbelievably talented people like David Robson, Tim Nagasawa, Joey Kramer, Vanessa Fiddler, Colin Trevino-Odell, Justin Garcia, Alex Wolf, John Clisham, Jared Wilson, Jerry Hudgens, Tia Greenfield, Michael Frisk, Alyssa Rodriguez and soooo many more. Without their effort, the film wouldn’t have been worth watching. The film eventually cost around $28,000—but LOOKS as if we had spent $150k.That’s how brilliant this crew was. Oh yeah, the cast was also pretty great 🙂

I REALLY must also thank Sony Cine, Otto Nemenz, MBS and Cinelease for their contributions to the production.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My goal is to bring back the mid-budget blockbuster. Remember those? Films from the 1960s to the 2010s that didn’t have to be obscenely expensive to strike a chord in audiences. ‘North By Northwest,’ ‘Star Wars,’ and ’Raiders of the Lost Ark’ were CHEAP! But they still had a big scale and were absolutely thrilling. All I want to do is make audiences laugh, scream, jump, and cheer without spending $200 million. Easy, right?

I hope to be known as someone who will throw their entire being into a production, whether it be as the writer/director or actor, and stop at nothing to make the end result memorable.

At this moment, I’m most proud of all the sleepless nights making ‘The Henchman’ as exciting as we could, having an abundance of extremely smart and talented friends, and despite having lived a very strange life—always looking for more.

What quality or characteristic do you feel is most important to your success?
I will never, ever, ever give up.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://instagram.com/elkoespino
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/thehenchmanmovie
• Other: https://vimeo.com/elkoweaver