Self-described redneck Tate Steinsiek made it to the FACE OFF final challenge with consistent work and an ability to navigate both sides of the room while others were stirring up drama around him. We caught up with Steinsiek a few days after the finale aired…to find him in Hawaii working for Roger Corman.

FANGORIA: You’re in Hawaii right now for a gig, right? Not a bad deal.

TATE STEINSIEK: I’m working on a picture called PIRANHACONDA. I’m not the effects artist. They had an artist on set already. They brought me on as the creature designer, and I built the creature. I built the big, massive, piranhaconda puppet head. And I shipped it out not expecting to go to set. They got the head and they loved it. But with the tsunami warning after the Japanese earthquake, they lost a couple days of filming. What that resulted in is they called me up, they’d seen my films before, and they asked me, “Tate, we’re so far behind schedule in our shooting, would you be interested in coming out and directing a B-unit for us so we can catch up on our footage?” And I was, like, “Hell, yeah!” They flew me out, and I’ve been here for two days directing B-unit and it’s going awesome.

FANG: I do find it hard to believe Roger Corman would allow a tsunami warning to stop production.

STEINSIEK: Yeah, you know what? I wouldn’t be surprised—they made everyone go to high ground. They made them go to this high school. And I know for a fact they took the head with them. So I wouldn’t be surprised if we see some footage that looks oddly like there’s a high school in the background [laughs]. There’s no stop to him. There’s just kind of a pump of the brakes.

FANG: That gig came from the show, right? Isn’t that a direct connection to being on FACE OFF.

STEINSIEK: That’s a pretty fair assessment. It’s not a direct connection, but this is a Syfy film, yes. But how it relates to the show is… It’s funny. I’m starting to see a lot of productions feel like they know me because they’ve had an opportunity to see what my personality is about for the past eight weeks. A lot of times in indie film, that’s one of the hardest hurdles to overcome—getting someone to trust you, to get them to treat you like a person. You always have weeks of the butt-sniffing stage [laughs], for lack of a better term, before you can get anyone to really treat you like a person. And these guys were calling me up like they were my homies the first time we talked. The show was basically just an eight-week business card for me. It was awesome. They called me right up, they already trusted me, they believed what I said. They gave me a ridiculous five-day deadline to build this enormous, beautiful head, and I delivered. They were obviously a little nervous about someone giving them something cool in five days time, but obviously they really, really loved it because they flew me out and let me direct the B-unit [laughs]. FACE OFF has definitely helped me out.

FANG: Has there been any other work or potential work that’s come out of the show?

STEINSIEK: The coolest thing on the horizon is an indie company, Dolphin Bay Films, and producer Joel Hulett greenlit a budget for the HIM feature based on the character I created for the villains episode. We go into preproduction in November. After the villain episode, there was such an outcry for that, and so many people hitting me up saying, “This is the most creepy thing I’ve ever seen.” I’ve had multiple people hitting me up telling me they had nightmares about this creature, even as recently as a week ago. “I had a nightmare about ‘Him’ last night—he was attacking me in my sleep.” That’s one of my goals—to be making my own films. So I decided to call in a few favors on this one. I got a cast attached, some really well known actors. I got sponsored for my gear from a production house in New York. I’ve got locations set up. It’s just amazing. I’m basically able to step over hurdles that I know would have been in my way had I not been on FACE OFF.

I’ve had the concept for a number of years. He’s a background character in a feature script I wrote a long time ago about a traveling sideshow. But he was never focused on, and I never elaborated on him. In this sideshow story, I’ve got probably 20 to 25 freaks and characters that populate this circus and roam around in the background. And me being an attention-to-detail freak, I sat down one day and I created an entire character list, and just for my own benefit of understanding them I went into detail for each character. And “Him” was one of the characters I briefly touched on.

I’ve talked to Syfy, and they’re very behind me on this. They actually want to see this happen. It’s a great, validating aspect of the show. I go on [the show] an unknown artist and come out of it a feature director as a direct result of FACE OFF. They’ve been very supportive.

FANG: There have been a couple contestants from the show I’ve interviewed who have said you were one of the messiest people in the house.

STEINSIEK: [Laughs] They worked so much out of us, day to day, that I didn’t really have a reserve of house cleaning energy [laughs]. When I got home, first step into the room the shoes come off. Second step, there go the pants. Third step, shirt on the floor. Fourth step, jump into bed and eat dinner off my bedside table. Let’s just say—I left it all on the stage. It was all I could do to climb three flights of stairs each night.

FANG: What were you doing before you applied for FACE OFF?

STEINSIEK: I was at a festival with a couple of my films. I actually won Audience Choice at the International Horror Film Festival, and that’s where I was when I got the call [to audition for FACE OFF]. I’d been doing a lot of TV for History Channel. I did have a feature lined up, called POSSESSED, that was lined up for the time line during FACE OFF. As soon as I got [the call to audition], I instantly called the production and told them that I wouldn’t be able to do the film. I really took a leap of faith because I hadn’t even made it through the casting process yet. Just as soon as I knew there was an opportunity, I canceled the film just so I could be sure to give them some advance notice as well as give myself this opportunity.

FANG: Do you see yourself more as an FX artist, or as a director? Both? Where do you fall?

STEINSIEK: I tell you what—[FACE OFF judge] Patrick Tatopoulos has the best job in the world. Way before the show, he’s been one of my hugest inspirations. The guy is not only able to create the monsters he wants to with his own hands, but he conceptualizes these worlds, and these creatures, and these mythos that translate into these amazing storytelling adventures. That’s what I want to do. I love special effects. I love creating. It’s been a passion of mine since I was a child. But instead of just creating the monster, I want to create the world. And in that idea, I want to establish myself further as a special effects artist, to the point that my company, Ill Willed Productions actually has a full-time staff so I can conceptualize, I can go in and make sure things are going in the direction I want. But I can concentrate more on the bigger picture of the universe that I want to create.

FANG: When I interviewed your fellow contestant Tom Devlin and asked him who from the show he would work with again, he said something to the effect of “When I get money, I want to get Tate out here.” He thinks the two of you have the same mindset. Do you agree with that?

STEINSIEK: I tell you what, man. Tom and I could start a business together, and we could run it very successfully. We see horror under the same light. We have the same aesthetic concepts with horror. And not to mention we just hit it off. I’m a little bit more approachable than Tom is [laughs], but we’re both hard to win over in a real, long-term friendship kind of way. But he and I hit it off, and we’re going to be friends forever. But on the opposite note of that, and the funny thing is in my life I always seem to be the middle man in between feuding parties, Conor [McCullagh] and I really got along. We formed a really strong bond on the show as well. They didn’t really show that a lot, but we did. We kind of fantasized about what could we have done had we been able to actually team up on the show. I would not be surprised if very soon you see Conor and I on a film set somewhere together. I walked away learning more from him that I learned from anyone else on the show. He was very open, he was a wealth of knowledge. I think my creativity with his execution would be a pretty ridiculous team. I could see me having Part A FX with Tom and Tate, and Part B FX with Tate and Conor, and both being very successful companies.

TO BE CONTINUED

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features