Sometimes dreams really do come true, as the team behind the wildly successful short film REMOTE learned weeks ago. The Ontario-based group, consisting of director Marc Roussel, Ron Basch (who stars, co-produced and is partners with Roussel in Red Sneakers Media) and editor/co-producer Mark Sanders exclusively shared the news with Fango that REMOTE has been greenlighted to be expanded into a feature, and Roussel and Basch discussed the project with us.

The go-ahead came after what Roussel says was “a lot of hard work and hustle,” doing everything they could to generate exposure for REMOTE without having to put the short on-line. Finally, Sanders’ Berkshire Axis Media (BAM) saw the feature’s potential and optioned the screenplay. According to Basch, distribution is also in the offing, but it’s too early to reveal the details.

So, what is all the hoopla about? One day back in 2009, REMOTE arrived at the Fango office, and this writer was so excited about it, it was immediately programmed into our short-film lineup at FANGORIA’s Weekend of Horrors in Los Angeles that year, followed by a screening at our New York convention. The film deals with a man who turns on his TV one stormy night and sees a young woman looking back at him; as they communicate through their screens, he discovers she’s from the past—and is in terrible danger…

FANGORIA: What was your inspiration for REMOTE?

MARC ROUSSEL: The desire to make a horror film set primarily in one location. I’m a big fan of Roman Polanski’s apartment trilogy—REPULSION, ROSEMARY’S BABY and THE TENANT—and I thought it would be an exciting challenge to create a suspenseful chamber piece. To heighten the sense of isolation, I set the film during a severe snowstorm. Then I got the idea of the TV’s satellite signal going out, and with that in mind, I set out to tell a familiar story about a young woman being stalked by a faceless killer, but with a genre-bending twist.

FANG: What was the first festival where it was screened?

ROUSSEL: We finished postproduction in late 2008 and began submitting it to as many fests as possible. Our very first public screening was at the Great River Film Festival in Granville, Ohio on April 4, 2009. It wasn’t long after that when you contacted me about screening REMOTE at the Weekend of Horrors.

FANG: How many festivals has REMOTE played at altogether, and how many awards has it garnered?

ROUSSEL: We’ve played over 40 fests around the world, and picked up 11 awards. We were also nominated for a Director’s Guild of Canada Award for Best Short Film.

FANG: Do you recall how you felt the first time you watched it with a live audience?

ROUSSEL: Nervous. Sick to my stomach. You never really know what you have until you see it with a live audience. As the film played, all I could do was watch the backs of all these heads, trying to determine if they were into it or not—so when the first “Holy shit” moment happened and I saw all these heads lean back suddenly and heard the collective gasp…well, it was then that I knew we had done our job right. I spent the rest of the screening enjoying the crowd react the way I had hoped they would, and walked away from it extremely proud of all our hard work.

FANG: Is it still on the festival circuit, or are things cooling off now?

ROUSSEL: The film has had a good three-year run. There is still plenty of interest in REMOTE—festivals still contact us about screening it—but we’ve taken it off the circuit as we work toward getting the feature version before the camera this spring.

FANG: When was the moment you realized you had to make REMOTE into a full-length film?

ROUSSEL: Pretty much right after that first public screening. Ron and I quickly came to that decision simultaneously. The film is 20 minutes long and plays like a minifeature. The feedback from the crowd made us realize there was so much more to be explored with the concept and characters. We knew we had something special that deserved a revisit.

RON BASCH: I would have to agree with Marc on this one. Clearly, once we attended the first screening and heard the initial response, it was evident that we put together a film that we could be proud of. I remember when I was in Palm Springs, I was inundated with questions about it and whether we had plans to turn it into a feature. As both one of the actors and producers, this was exhilarating, not to mention all the invites we got to play at other festivals after that screening.

FANG: Have you had to put other projects aside when it hit you that you just had to make the longer REMOTE?

ROUSSEL: Oh yeah, definitely. Ron and I were averaging about two short films a year, but when it was decided to concentrate on the REMOTE feature, our output ceased. I didn’t want to split my focus from that script. The last thing we wanted to do was just whip something together quickly. I took my time writing it, figuring it out. It’s an intricate story with multiple timelines that had to be handled carefully. Expanding the story meant rethinking the rules of those timelines. It needed to be sophisticated enough for a feature without being so convoluted that we would lose our audience.

BASCH: It was definitely a “good” setback. Marc has always been the creative force behind our work, and I knew it was for the better to leave him to do what he does best. Fortunately, I was still working as a represented actor, so my thespian life wasn’t put on complete hold.

FANG: Have you had any feedback directly from the fans asking for a full-length version of the story? Or was it a combo of the fans and the reviewers over the years?

ROUSSEL: Sure; almost always after a screening, someone will come up to us and say how he or she wished it were longer. The on-line bloggers and critics have been great to us, some even going so far as to say they thought the short would make for a good feature. Those comments gave us the incentive to move forward.

BASCH: I have yet to attend a festival where I wasn’t approached as to whether or not REMOTE was in development for a feature, and if this was just a prelude to what to expect.

FANG: The fact that REMOTE is making this leap is rare, and something short filmmakers dream about. How do you feel about this?

ROUSSEL: Lucky, but it didn’t come without a lot of hard work and hustle. Ron and I have been promoting the short for years, doing everything we can to get it seen, to build up a fan base without resorting to putting it on-line. One of the producers, Mark Sanders, and Berkshire Axis Media, the Canadian production company he works for, saw the potential in the short becoming a 90-minute movie too, and optioned the screenplay. Now we are greenlighted, financed and moving into preproduction. I think that says a lot about the quality of our work, and that we can create something that’s entertaining, thought-provoking and, dare I say, commercial, on a budget.

FANG: Tell us about the process of taking a successful short and expanding it into a full-length feature. How does one begin? What does it take to get a green light?

ROUSSEL: With a short, you have a small window of time to tell your story. You really have to cut to the chase, so there is very little room for character development. So with the feature version, I saw a chance to expand on them. I also wanted to play with the theme of redemption and second chances and take it further than I did in the short. Thankfully, our producers felt the same way.

FANG: What were some of the greatest obstacles you had in developing the feature?

ROUSSEL: Keeping the essence of the short while expanding it, making it less self-contained. It was important to open it up, give it some breathing room with richer characters and additional storylines. We wanted to preserve the elements of the short that really worked while also creating new and exciting surprises.

FANG: Do you have distribution lined up, or are you just in the early stages of planning that?

BASCH: In today’s economic times, in order to get a film of this magnitude to camera, with all its technical complexities, we realized we needed strong producers on board with a proven track record and established relationships with distributors. Thankfully, we were fortunate in more ways then one. Mark Sanders is not only one of the producers of the feature, but also a colleague. We have produced many shorts together, and have forged a common bond and goal of making the best product possible. Various territories must be sold in advance in order to ensure investment requirements are met. We’re in talks with several at the moment, but until the logistics of territories are on paper, we can’t say which distributors will be acquiring what. Having said that, REMOTE is fully financed and will go to camera as planned.

FANG: Do you have any advice for other short filmmakers who might want to take their work and create features from them?

ROUSSEL: Make sure your core concept is strong. If you can build on that foundation, then it might be worth expanding. It’s been done before, successfully, with DISTRICT 9, GRACE and HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN, to name a few.

FANG: What is the REMOTE feature’s projected schedule?

BASCH: We’ll be shooting by spring 2012, with a finished film ready for festivals by late summer. Everyone involved feels the movie can easily play the top festivals in Toronto, Berlin and Venice, as well as topnotch genre fests like Fantasia and Fantastic Fest.

FANG: Did you ever imagine way back when you started the short that you would come this far? Is this like a dream come true, or do you just feel the pressure—or is it a combination of both?

ROUSSEL: This is something I’ve been working toward since I was 13, so yeah, it’s a dream come true. With every film, whether it’s a short or a feature, there is always pressure to deliver on time and budget. But Ron and I are always up for the challenge.

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features