The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
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The Dumb Cool Weird Podcast
Alex Javo's Ambrogio: The First Vampire - Indie Film Speak - Episode 64
Alex Javo transforms Greek mythology into modern vampire romance in his remarkable debut feature "Ambrogio: The First Vampire." After years of facing typecasting as an actor in Atlanta's film industry, Javo decided to create his own breakthrough opportunity by writing, directing, and starring in a completely fresh take on vampire lore.
What separates this indie production from countless other vampire tales is its foundation in ancient Greek mythology and Javo's extraordinary commitment to embodying his character. He underwent a dramatic physical transformation, losing 40 pounds in just two months through an extreme diet where he only ate three days per week. "I wanted to not only look the part but feel what a starving vampire might feel," he explains, drawing on his Stanislavski training. Working with an Italian dialect coach added another layer of authenticity, as Javo mastered not just the language but subtle mannerisms that brought historical depth to his character.
Perhaps most impressive is how Javo leveraged his eight years of industry relationships to assemble a dream team of collaborators. This strategic approach allowed the entire feature to be shot in just seven and a half days—a testament to the chemistry and professionalism of the cast and crew. When inevitable challenges arose, from sudden rainstorms to equipment failures, Javo's steady leadership kept the production on track. "I knew if I broke down or got angry, it wouldn't do any good for the environment," he reflects, highlighting the importance of directorial temperament on independent sets.
Drawing inspiration from filmmakers like Scorsese and Tarantino, Javo has created something that honors cinematic traditions while establishing his unique voice. "Ambrogio: The First Vampire" arrives on Amazon, Walmart, Fandango, and Voodoo beginning March 11th. Don't miss this debut from an emerging filmmaker who's already planning his next feature—a gangster drama that promises to blend elements of "The Godfather" with "Rocky" for a fresh take on classic genres.
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dumb cool weird podcast. Welcome to the dumb cool, weird podcast here with alex jabo, and we're doing a new segment where we talk about independent films and especially here in atlanta, which you know, a lot of people around here making movies. Now, usually I do a podcast episode where I talk about different things, mainly crappy movies from the 20th century, and now we're going to be talking about modern movies, especially the independent ones, because the independent film industry is coming back. I can definitely confirm, sure is. I mean, look at those Oscars, so exactly. So, alex, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I was born and raised here in Atlanta. In atlanta always had the, you know, dream of being an actor and stuff watching, you know, nickelodeon and all those uh kid shows growing up and then those, yeah, and then when you grow up older, you know you get into some of the classics. You know my grandfather showed me scarface when I was 12 years old, six and you know Godfather Taxi Driver, all those Scorsese stuff, and then Forrest Gump and you know those classics and, naturally, seeing you know, leo DiCaprio, christian Bale, tom Hanks, denzel Washington, I wanted to be one of those guys, you know, and I started acting, uh, almost eight years ago now and, uh, the first year was uh, a lot of uh kind of like typecast stuff going on where I like kind of got uh predominantly, uh, hispanic guys and uh, and and you know I'm not Hispanic, I'm Greek and Korean on my mother's side, and it's on paper now, yeah, it's on paper. And, being Greek, you come across some of these Greek mythology stories and because I was booking a lot of day player stuff and you know, or a couple of days, you know, in and out of films and TV, wherever, began to write and, uh, and and, and, you know, wanted to direct my own films, and so I came across this uh, greek myth about the first vampire in brogio and uh, yeah, I saw it, you know, online, and read it and thought, wow, this is pretty cool.
Speaker 2:And you know, at the time I was auditioning for vampire shows and uh, and and independent stuff as vampires, and could never get a break. So then I was like I'll just, uh, I'll just break through myself, you know. So then I started to write the screenplay and um, here we are today. Ambrosia the firstire is a feature film that'll be available next week, march 11th. It'll be available on Amazon Walmart Online for DVD release, digital DVD on Amazon, fandango, voodoo, and yeah, so make sure you guys check it out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what would you say was one of the biggest challenges making this movie? Check it out. Yeah, what would you say it was one of the biggest challenges making this movie.
Speaker 2:The biggest challenge um for me, uh, well, dirty pre-production it was. It was pretty smooth uh. As a director um, on the directing side, you know I tried to prepare myself best possible. I got a lot of the crew um and cast. You know they were all direct offers because I had I worked with all of them before on previous sets. As you know, I've worked in uh in atlanta as an actor for almost eight years, so I've met a lot of great people um, producers, dp and editors and composers, all all that. So I kind of try to set up for myself easy as possible by getting guys that uh not only do I trust but I know how they know how they vibe, you know, and I know how they work and uh yeah, and so as a director, it was, it was easy, you know, getting the uh crew together. All my cast um uh were all friends of mine that I met over the years on set uh, so I knew what they were made of uh. The challenge would be, as the actor, getting into ambrosio.
Speaker 2:Um, you know this was my first uh time directing a feature length. I had I had done one other feature film where I was the lead um malcolm. That's on 2b and Amazon, but for this one he was a totally different guy. I mean, this was when you look at vampire films you see a lot of the chiseled jawlines of Robert Pattinson and all those guys. And so I at the time was 215. And I was like I got to get down, you know, I got to lose some weight, you know, to betray one of these guys, and so I lost 40 pounds in two months. I don't recommend this at home, doing it this way, but I basically only ate three days a week, so it was I only ate Wednesdays and the weekend, even Saturday, sunday, and so because I wanted to not only look the park, I also wanted to like kind of feel what a starving vampire could, could feel like. I mean, cause, you know, vampires, they're always starving for blood, right, that's why they go out and kill and whatever. And as human beings we operate off of food. So it was like, if I could, and that's. You know, I don't claim myself as a, you know, daniel day lewis type of guy, but um, but I have trained in stanislavski, which is where method acting originated from, and one of the and you know, naturally you can never be your character, but striving to be the character any way you can, just to understand them and find the empathy with the character, that's what I would strive for. So that was hard to do.
Speaker 2:He is an Italian vampire. The italian dialect was important to me so I hired a dialect coach joseph's for gola, from, uh, south italy. Uh, he was, um, he was great, great to work with, really helped me out with all the uh, especially the italian lines where I do speak italian, um, and you know, and, and just well, I had some dinners with him. He really helped me out with just kind of understanding. You know what it's like to be, you know an italian, you know kind of guy and like some things that I may you know, because when you think of stereotypically, you think of kind of like mario, like you know it's kind of like a babble piece, how you doing and so there was a certain elegance that he had when when talking to him, he totally wasn't that, he was very stoic, the way he kind of held his shoulders and stuff, and this is because he's been around for a long time.
Speaker 1:Because he's been around so long, he kind of makes a guy right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah and uh, and joseph was like this, so I kind of modeled a little bit of ambrosio's um mannerisms a little bit after Joseph and of course other inspirations for the film, you know, Interview with a Vampire and Vampire Diaries and the Notebook, because it's a romance vampire film, so it's not like a Nosferatu horror kind of thing.
Speaker 1:The ladies are going to eat it up.
Speaker 2:Hope so, I hope so, and so, yeah, I would say, getting into the character was you know that work? Um, but once, once we've started shooting, I never felt more, uh, confident, and now, with the film being finished and released, I couldn't be more satisfied with the uh, with the picture.
Speaker 1:That's good. Uh, you know, one of the things I noticed about making the piece it is you know, sometimes you have an expectation right Before you step on set, and then we step on set and then something bad happens. And it's always those moments where something really bad happens that get a thick, quick limb on your feet, solve the problem, and I think that's what really separates the, the amateurs, from the pros. And yeah, did y'all ever have a moment like that?
Speaker 2:yes, absolutely we um, we had, so we shot the film in seven and a half days. Um, we were shooting, I mean, when, when, when you got a crew and a cast that's in sync and I tried to write the screenplay so it wouldn't require so much. You know, we had five locations, predominantly one. The other cast was, I mean, the main cast was five characters, and you know so. So a lot of scenes were two to three people talking. So it was like so, when the crew and everybody, we were, all you know, getting, you know, really in sync and we shot 19 pages in one day, you know, and then 32 in a weekend. It was yeah, and so it was. So you know, it was really great.
Speaker 2:But towards the end, on there there was some, there were some scenes outside and, and you know the the weather, you know, like, you like like it is in georgia, just, you just never know, and it uh, yeah, I mean rain came in and out at one moment. We had, on this particular day, we had some fight scenes going on. We had, uh, some visual effects stuff all crammed into. Like one day, um, and you know it was like I don't know what plague it was or something, but it was like batteries weren't charging, all those things. And and I, I knew in that moment, as the director on the set, you are, you know your, you know your vibe and your energy. People you know thrive off of right and I knew if I at that moment would have broken down or gotten pissed off or something that you know you, you wouldn't, you know, do any any any good for the environment. And so I knew people were looking at me and depending on me, so I just, you, just held my composure and was like it's okay, guys, we'll push through.
Speaker 2:And we did. Eventually, the rain did stop and eventually we got. We were, we had to pivot some, some of those scenes. Thankfully we had, we had a big location, so there was a lot of different sections of the location that I don't want to spoil anything, but basically we had sections of the location that I don't want to spoil anything, but basically we had sections of the location where we didn't expect to film at, but we ended up doing it. It actually worked out better. Um, so some of those uh moments may come in and you and you may look back and those films are actually, or those scenes actually come out better than what you had planned. So I think being um, open and uh, and trying to just stay as optimistic as possible in those moments will definitely carry you and your crew through the storm Gotcha.
Speaker 1:What would you say is one of your favorite first-time director movies that are big. Now, for instance, you have, uh, you know like, kevin smith did it clerks right, so like. Or you know like, uh. Another good example would be you know, uh, peter jackson. He did a movie called bad taste. You know what would you say what director? Kind of like, real like, like what first time, like first film that a director did that he really enjoyed, that kind of like inspired.
Speaker 2:It won't be a pub maker well, uh, as far as their first film they ever did, um, well, let's see, I mean there's not really first films, I I mean there's films in general that made me want to be yeah, and that's fine, we can get into it with that Cause, you know, sometimes not everybody knows, like you know, that some of these records what their first films are.
Speaker 1:I I tend, I tend to kind of look at those sometimes, but sometimes people have heard of them, you know, I'm like you know, uh, richard Linklater. His first film was a movie called a slacker, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, the Godfather, the Godfather, okay.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, godfather, rocky, scarface, you know, being a kid that looks, you know, like I do in Atlanta of all places, where there's a lot of Hispanic culture and stuff down here and I get mistaken for being Hispanic all the time, and I would kind of look at those movies and see De Niro and pacino and and was in sly and I don't think I really realized at the time growing up, but I was kind of looking like, looking for like a, like a role model in a way, and seeing sly play rocky, almost like this superhero like figure, and seeing the shapeshifter of al pacino, from godfather to scarface, I was like I looked at those two movies and I was like that's the same guy you know, and so really that's what really inspired me to, um, later on, be an actor and to try to be the kind of shapeshifter type of act, because that's just what I've always loved is is seeing what, what actors, um, what actors do and what they can do learning a dialect, you know, losing weight, gaining weight, whatever it is, and uh.
Speaker 2:But as a filmmaker, um, my favorite directors of all time is, uh, scorsese and uh, and tarantino, I mean my, any, I mean you know anything those guys, so reservoir dogs, you like reservoir?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, oh yeah, starentino's like first feature yeah also. Yeah, I wasn't sure if that was his first. I know he was a writer first. He was and he did.
Speaker 2:He did shorts before yeah, exactly so, and um, that was like, but that was like his first big like yes, so yeah, that you did that, like really put him on the map, you know.
Speaker 2:Yes, and it's just. I just got to give a shout out to, um, one of my you know dear friends and filmmakers that I've worked with Phil Blattberger, um, which did a film together that came out in theaters, um, and screaming, called laws of kytel in it, and so it's pretty cool to have a credit with harvey because, uh, you know, loved him and uh, and reservoir dogs and, um, and in lots of bands, so, um, so yeah, tarantino's, you know, up there is one of my favorites you know it's funny.
Speaker 1:Um, you're talking about how, like some people mistake you for different races, right? You know? That kind of reminds me of his rob schneider a little bit, because he's half jewish and like white, and then he the other half is, I think, filipino or something. Yeah, yeah, so in all those adam sandler movies remember, he always plays like an asian guy or, yeah, yeah, hispanic guy, and then the indian guy. Then, like in 51st dates, he played a freaking hawaiian.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I love that. Yeah, it's so great. And even, uh, oscar isaac too. Like talked about how you know the joke about a rabbi, a priest and whatever he's like. I can play any of them, because that's what ethnically ambiguous means. Oh, my and um, yeah, it's pretty cool. I mean, my dream was always to be, though, I mean to be the lead and be the leading man and romantic interest and all those kind of roles on top of being, um, able to shape shift and uh, having that presence.
Speaker 1:You have that presence. I'll say, yes, that's like, that's like you know, like I'm not like you know, I know we shot that one short like many years ago. Yes, and you know, I didn't even have to give you a ton of direction. You were just like automatically. Just I was like, hey, I need you to come out of the ocean and I need you to. You know, I need you to like look like you know. You, it was like the best swim you ever had. And then he just like came out of the ocean. So, like you know, like all suave and shit, I was like, damn, I was pretty good, yeah west.
Speaker 2:West cast me my first ever film like to the like as an actor like. I got into it in 17 as an extra and taking classes and all that stuff. But west was like you know, come do this short film with me and in pcb and it was just, it was just so great to be an actor on camera because at that time you're in the I mean, I was in the background, I was the stand in on set watching the talent on camera do the thing and just like itching to get front of the camera and Wes gave me that chance. So I really appreciate that dude and, uh, you know I'll never forget that yeah.
Speaker 1:We had oysters after birth.
Speaker 2:He did.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um, but yeah, uh, you know. You know we're talking about your, your current feature. What do you think the next feature is going to be? Because you know they're always going to want to know what's next, because you know, as soon as you do one, you got to do another one. You got to do another one.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes speaking of, you know, gangster films and scorsese and tarantino, and, uh, my next film is gotta be Enzo. I did a short film of it. It's on YouTube, on my YouTube. Enzo, I did it back in 2021.
Speaker 2:And yeah, it's a classic kind of it's like a classic gangster film. It's like Godfather meets Rocky and like all of my favorite kind of films put together and there's a lot of I draw a lot of inspiration from a lot of different classics, but but ultimately I think it's a. I think it's like like ambrosio being unique and being a vampire film that came from greek mythology and it being like a love story, like no one's you know ever really seen like a greek mythology, like story about vampires. So that's what makes that kind of different. And, uh, with this one in, so it's, um, you know, have having the kind of the worlds of, like you know, professional fighting mixed with the mob, like you know it's, it's, I mean we've, we've got some, you, you know it's, I mean we've got some you know, gangster activity stuff in Rocky, but it's not like a gangster picture, it's a sports picture or it's what Sly would say it's a love story. But, yeah, enzo is definitely its own thing. But that's my next one that I, you know, would love to.
Speaker 1:You want to adapt it. You want to adapt it into a feature here.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. I have the first draft of the feature script ready. Um, but uh, but yeah, I mean with, with, with how great tulsa, king and and penguin have been this year and and uh, watch us the sopranos and stuff. It's like man, you know, I, I think, I think they think the gangster next.
Speaker 1:Sopranos is one of my favorite TV shows. Yeah, oh yeah, it's a really good show. Did you watch the documentary with David Chase? I watched it. It's on my list and I haven't seen the Many Saints of New York, but I've read it. Oh really, I heard Curtis Smart is nowhere near.
Speaker 2:No, I mean it's, you know, I think, Alessandro who plays Uncle Dicky in it. I think he was really great. I think he was great. I love all gangster films, kind of like how I love, obviously, Michael Keaton was the better one, but then Christian Bale came on and then, you know, ben Affleck later. So it's like I still enjoy it and I'm looking forward to the Alto Knights with Robert De Niro playing two roles Vito Genovese and Frank Costello. I can't wait to see that. Zero Spins.
Speaker 2:The Irishman I was just about to say the Irishman is the one that kind of got me inspired to write Enzo. At the time, in 2019, I was doing a lot of research on basically trying to, like you know, mark off every box of like these classic movies. So if I was in a conversation with you know people in the industry, they're like did you see Godfather 2 or did you see this? And that I, you know. So I was watching all of De Niro's films and Scorsese's and and Irishman started my love for gangster stuff again. Um, cause, before that I'd seen godfather and I'd seen scarface and it was. So some of the elements in irishman and in godfather 2 I kind of, like you know, put into, put into enzo as like the catalyst kind of thing. So so that's the movie that kind of got me pen to paper with enzo jack irishman, so I'm good well that's cool.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, as we get into the to the end of the podcast here, uh, you know what? What are some? What are some more cool things you want to tell us about?
Speaker 2:your vampire is coming out, yeah well, what's really cool about it is, um, you know, I've got to give a shout out to all my uh gray um. You know, as you know, as a filmmaker, it takes a village, you know, and uh, and I can't thank my producers enough. Um, angelina boselli, um, who gives an astounding performance, uh, masterfully executed. Uh, playing our female lead, she was just amazing. She, her, her character's uh arc in this film is like a caterpillar that turns into a butterfly. I mean, she just truly blossoms in this. She'll make you laugh, cry and applaud and she's just fantastic.
Speaker 2:She also script supervised, helped me produce. She was the assistant editor on the project, and so the trailer that's out on youtube now, um, she edited, and so she, she's just a a a wonderful, uh force. Uh, you know, in this, in this uh film world we live in, and uh, so she's wonderful. Dwayne bontrager, who was my dp editor and producer on this thing, I can't thank him enough. He did a beautiful job putting everything together for us and, yeah, and Noah Marconi's music is beautiful. It really sets the tone of the film and your emotions and yeah, so I can't thank them. And all the all the actors all did wonderful, um, and uh, yeah, had a great, had a great team you know, and it really took a bit worse.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for coming out and telling us about your film. I uh, I think I'm gonna try to make this a regular thing where I'm talking to different people about their indie films, because I do think it's important that, as a community, we push forward these different voices, because I think one of the biggest tragedies of Hollywood nowadays is they just keep recycling the same garbage over and over.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree, and thank you so much for having me, wes. And yeah, thank you all so much for tuning in and watch my movie, ambrosio First Vampire, available March 11th. Yeah, and for tuning in and, uh, you know, watch my movie, ambrosio first vampire, available March 11th.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm going to have links and stuff, uh, so you can go watch his movie. So awesome. So thanks, guys. Thank you, thanks for watching the dumb, cool, weird podcast where we cover some of your favorite movies in 20 minutes or less.
