Emperor Interview – Mark Amin (Director)

Producer MARK AMIN, arrived from Iran to the USA at seventeen and has since had a massive career in the film industry starting out distributing VHS-Beta home video releases to making his directing debut on the inspirational, historical civil war tale inspired adventure, Emperor. Talking with him about the origin of Shields Green, an escaped slave in a time of horrible incarceration on plantations, I was fascinated with his enthusiasm including indulging me about 1994 film Love and a 45, he exec-produced.

EMPEROR, has top notch action and a grandiose cast. Available now to rent or buy.

I didn’t know the story of Shields, when did you first learn of the history and why did you choose his story as your feature directing debut.
MA – I’m a history buff, always fascinated by the civil war part of American history, something I knew nothing about until after arriving in the country.

I then began seeing movies about slavery, which until recently they all focus suffering, misery, torture and I thought to myself what about if some escaped and as it turned out over one hundred thousand succeeded.

I wanted it to be like a western when coming up with my story, but as I did research, we came across Sheilds’ story, he met significant historical figures in his journey and came from African royal ancestry. All these iconic characters merged in history and there was my movie. I wanted engaging action, not a slow drama.

The horse and cart chase was an exciting scene.
MA – thank you, we did our best on a very tight schedule and low budget.

Editing is sharp, was there much footage on the cutting room floor.
MA – original running time about 140min down to 99min. The bounty hunter story was much more complicated but it didn’t fit the pacing we wanted. I’m working on a director’s cut.

I recognised some of the locations and the plantations, I’d say they have been used in movies before, they’re so amazingly cinematic.
MA – my vision was to make a beautiful looking movie with glorious use of American South locales. I wanted it as a contrast to the ugliness of the era. Savannah Georgia was our spot, there’s hundreds of plantations south, most destroyed or converted into bed/breakfast or hotels.

One of two plantations we used already had slave shacks built in the back, the property was used as other movie sets. We stayed within our budget contingency’s but that saved a few dollars on construction.

There’re animals in the film, horses, a snake, how were they to wrangle.
MA – Children and animals always slow you down (laughs) so that scene with a baby crying took half a day to shoot. Horses not too difficult due to professional trainers on hand. The snake was a last-minute addition. Trying to figure out how to wake Shields from his sleep we decided to have it slide across Dayo (Okeniyi). The lady with snakes brought five in of different colours and sizes to choose from. The one that was native to that area was greyish/black but smaller, but the big one I chose had yellow and popped off the screen looking amazing, it was well behaved too.

We found out the day of shooting that Dayo, had a frightfully huge fear of snakes; to his credit, even with a phobia he gave it an attempt.

Let’s just say it took a while to shoot that day.

I’m happy you didn’t use a CGI snake, Dayo probably wasn’t.
MA – (laughs) there’s some CGI in the movie in terms of adding extras, but mostly I wanted authenticity. At the church on the cliff, we did execute a real explosion but ultimately had to replace it with CGI on that occasion.

How many actors did you audition for the lead, or was Dayo handpicked.
MA – being a first-time director everyone suggested I should get big stars, but there was no traction, many choose not to work with debut directors unfortunately. We decided to go with the best possible actor we could get auditioning thirty. Dayo, was head and shoulders above all we saw, but also his understanding in script reading was perfect for the character. It will be a career changing movie for him, I hope.

The support cast is legendary, including ex-president James Le Gros (Point Break) one of my favourite actors.
MA – James had his character so ideal. We did research on Robert E. Lee and James knew how to deliver him immediately. We had Bruce Dern, James Cromwell, Mykelti Williamson of Forrest Gump and Kat Graham, they all loved the script, performed extremely well and worked for lower rates which is something I admire.

Tell me a little about Kat Graham, I quite enjoy her work and she fits in so well here, a prominent female part in a largely male orientated film.
MA – due to not having a big budget, I just wanted to see the best actors who had interest in the production. Honestly, I didn’t know her, hadn’t heard of her, actually she flew down to see us in Savannah through pre-production. I knew straight away that she’s really good.

With so many outstanding movies as producer covering decades, what took you so long to direct. Love and a 45 (1994) is a personal favourite and the Ken Russell oddity, Whore (1991) I’ll never forget seeing in a cinema.
MA – When I had production company, Trimark, we were proud of so many unusual and popular movies developing and releasing, it was a good time. Frida (2002) Eve’s Bayou (1997) Crossworlds (1996). It was never part of a career goal, just something which was likely. I hope to direct again on projects in current development. I’m not in love with directing, it’s the results in line with your vision. I must be passionate on a story to direct.

If, Emperor receives more award nominations there’s a better chance to packaging finance to a series of upcoming projects I may direct.

Related: Film Review – Emperor (2020)

Having been associated with award nominations, is that on your mind.
MA – not really, it comes after submission of content. When I’m making a movie, as a storyteller myself, I concentrate on engaging entertainment.

How did you come to be in America and was cinema a huge thing in Iran.
MA – when I was a kid in the 1960s, number one interest was movies, two blocks up from school was a cinema. It would show the same films on rotation every two hours, they never checked tickets so I watched the same movie up to five times (laughs). Arriving in America after the revolution in Iran, it gave me a fresh start. That’s the one thing about revolutions, a new start is imminent. Moving to Los Angeles starting from scratch I started a very small distribution company in 1984 as VHS & Beta were taking off. Movies are my life

EMPEROR is available now on DVD and  Digital HD

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