A Chat with Jerry Smith, Director of the New Joanna Angel/Small Hands Starring Indie Film “LOVE IS DEAD”

Check Out Joanna and Small in This Great New Indie Short!

Director Jerry Smith recently released "Love Is Dead" through Sickening Pictures and the indie short stars alt porn married power couple Joanna Angel and Small Hands as a doomed pair that faces issues that many of us unfortunately end up dealing with in at least one relationship in our lives. Give this a look, for sure.

Congrats on the release of "Love Is Dead"! How did the production come to be?

"Thank you! 'Love Is Dead' was a long time coming, actually. I wrote it in a much different form, a few years back. I had gone through a pretty dark period in my life, one that saw me self-medicating myself and that really turned me into a very different person from who I was before and who I am now. I was fighting depression every day and wasn't concerned how that would affect my marriage at the time. Instead of getting help, I just went down the rabbit hole into a bunch of stuff that ultimately led to the beginning of the end of my marriage. I drove someone very close to me to the brink and she attempted to take her own life and the guilt that came from that fact never went away; it's something I still suffer from, the fact that I could push somebody to that low of a point.

I wanted to make a film about what happened and decided to make it as real and true to what had happened and began to write the film. I sent the script to a few friends who were fellow filmmakers and their input was to change a small thing here or there, which I thought was a good idea and while it's a bit different than what actually happened, it's very close to the real events, minus a tweak here and there. I write about horror films professionally, but with 'Love is Dead', I thought it would be the perfect way to finally step behind the camera as a director, to make something very personal and close to my heart. I brought the project to my great friends and fellow filmmakers, Zach Shildwachter and BJ Colangelo (co-founders of Sickening Pictures) and they came on board to help produce the film. Before they came on board, there were a couple of false starts, so Zach and BJ really pushed me to make it finally happen."

Crowdfunding a movie is challenging as fuck. What did you learn most from that effort?

"Goddamn, is it a pain in the ass. We originally had about FOUR times the budget mapped out for the film, which would have allowed us more wiggle room, a bigger crew and so on, and we went with Kickstarter to get that going. We raised 95 percent of that before the campaign ended, barely missing it, which meant we obviously didn't get a dime from that campaign and made us go back and reassess things. It was a big blow, because I figured Small Hands would have walked at that point but he's seriously been the most supportive person in all of this and someone I consider a friend. We figured out how to do the film on a smaller scale, with Zach and BJ flying into California to be part of the crew. We had a different actress cast to play the role of Mara, the wife of Small Hands. A few days before filming, things didn't work out with the actress, not in a dramatic way or even a negative one - there was just a misunderstanding, so we weren't able to do the film with her. Thankfully, at quite literally the same exact time, I received a text from BJ and an e-mail from Small Hands mentioning that we should cast Joanna. I've always loved Joanna in everything I had seen of hers and truthfully didn't think she would do it, but I was both shocked and pleasantly surprised when she took a look at the script and wanted to do it.

So, long story short I guess, it taught me that it would be a headache to do (crowdfunding) and to think outside the box when it came to the planning of everything. We had great backers and are in the process of giving the perks to those backers, but it was great to see support from both the horror community and the adult film industry as well."

How did the choice to cast Joanna Angel and Small Hands happen? What do you think that they brought to their roles?

"Small Hands was the first person cast in the film and he was so supportive in the long road to get it made. I was familiar with his work with Burning Angel and even saw him play when he was in the band Fenix TX. He fit the exterior of the character and for some reason I just had a great feeling about the guy. I was doing a signing for an issue of a magazine I wrote for and he stopped by to say hi and we hit it off - the guy is extremely down to Earth and is punk as fuck so he seemed like a kindred spirit. Like I said in the previous question, Joanna came into the project late, but when she agreed to do the film, I was very excited to see what she would do with the character because the whole thing kind of relies on her performance.

Here's the thing: I thought both of them would be good, but when we started filming, by the end of the first long take, Joanna broke our fucking hearts. She has such a natural talent for acting and the performances she and Small Hands gave me were more than I could have ever imagined. She brought an honesty and rawness to it and Small Hands brought something really intense yet human about his performance. I left the experience feeling more content than I every thought I would."

There are some people who look at porn stars and assume that they have less acting talent because they also happen to fuck on video for a living. What would you say to those people?

"To those people, I would say: FUCK YOU. I wanted to prove those motherfuckers wrong and trust me, I heard people say that kind of shit. It's ridiculous really and with 'Love Is Dead', I wanted to prove those kind of people wrong, which I did. They're both fucking wonderful in the film and Joanna gives one of the best performances I've seen all year, period. The talent they both possess in infinite and I fucking love the hell out of both of them. She breaks your heart in the film and Small Hands really brings his character, as much of a piece of shit as the character is, a human quality. We've all known that kind of person, the type of person his character is and I think he tapped into that."

What did you enjoy most about working with Angel and Hands?

"They threw the 'star' attitudes out the door and were down to Earth, REAL, and welcoming people. They're both such wonderful people and I owe this whole thing to them both. It was so incredibly easy to work with them and they added so much to the whole experience, each having their own idea of who their characters were and it was fun to mold those characters around that. They weren't afraid to tweak the lines a bit and do their own thing and every single suggestion they had worked out even better than I had planned."

Do you have any favorite Burning Angel titles? What if anything in their porn work inspired what is in the final cut of 'Love Is Dead'?

"I've been watching Burning Angel's stuff for years so there's so much. Being a horror guy, I like the horror-themed films they've done. 'Cindy: Queen of Hell' is fucking perfection as far as I'm concerned. I fucking love that one, it's quickly become my favorite because let's be honest, it doesn't get better than the foursome scene. Wow."

Do you feel that anything of Angel/Hands work in the film mirrors their actual relationship or is it all part of the fictional fun of the story?

"Oh, they're COMPLETELY different than their characters. In real life, they adore the hell out of each other and it really shows. Being the jaded fucker I am, I'm envious of a relationship like theirs. They're really great together, but as soon as the camera was rolling, they turned on the hate and the anger and became something entirely different, it was quite impressive. I don't think there was any "fun" to their roles and it showed. It was emotionally exhausting to us all, but that was what it called for and they fucking went there time a million. Once we wrapped filming though, they were back to being adorable."

So where is the film headed from here?

"We had our online premiere on October 28th and hopefully we'll hit some festivals from here on. It plays well on a big screen so I'd like to see how it fares."

Is there anything that you would like to say to the new "Love Is Dead" fans here at Fleshbot?

"I hope you enjoyed the film and there's definitely more to come. We're cooking up something new with some other faces you will most likely recognize, so be ready for that."

Check out the short below!

Love Is Dead from Sickening Pictures on Vimeo.