Directors statement on making DOA

why you decided to make DOA?

We thought that it has been a while since a good Noir film has been made and we were very much attracted to the concept of a man being poisoned with less than 24 hours to live!  The idea of what you would do if you are caught in a small town where you cannot trust anyone and your clock is ticking was pretty intriguing.  This concept was very exciting for me as a director.   

Our film is inspired by the 1950 DOA, but it is certainly not a remake by any means!   I created a story for the film by creating characters that were memorable with a plot that put them all together in a small town in Louisiana .   When I first started writing the screenplay, my producing partner and I were scouting for another film that is on our slate to make. The more locations we saw, the more DEAD ON ARRIVAL became dominant.  So we decided to make this film instead.  It was really the locations that told the story.  The environment is just breathtaking in the film.  We captured the habitat of a winter Louisiana pretty well.  I have actually never seen a film that has been focused near a city by the swamps in the cold winter.   The colors in the film are magnificent.  We used G series anamorphic lenses with Arri Alexa Cameras which gave us a great cinematic look the the film.   My film colorist spent close to 140 hours coloring the film.  The result is a vibrant colorful wold that really sucks you in.   In sound design we actually created a character as a sound for the poison inside Sam Collins, our lead.  It is pretty freaky to hear a substance inside your body on film.  The music was done by James Edward Barker and Tim Despic, the same composers that did my film HEIST with Robert De Niro.  They really added a whole other layer to the film that is pretty captivating.