Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke, 68min., USA

Directed by Vincent J. Roth, Jeff Rector, Mario DeAngelis
Enjoy the latest installment of the “Surge of Power” indie superhero movie franchise known for having lots of celebrities from the sci-fi and superhero genres! “Where There’s Smoke” follows Surge as he teams up with guest superhero, The Smoke (former pro wrestler Eric Moran), as they uncover a mysterious plot of the villain group called The Council. Who is Falling Apple, struggling with childhood trauma and abuse, out for revenge over her father’s murder, and what is her role in The Council’s evil scheme?

Get to know filmmaker Vincent J. Roth:

1. What motivated you to make this film?

“Surge of Power: Where There’s Smoke” is our 5th movie. We started screening it in film festivals on the 20th anniversary of the film festival screening start of our first movie, “Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes.” The movies in between have been building out the Surge of Power world with new characters and subplots. The immediately preceding movie, “Surge of Dawn,” was a collaboration with a fellow filmmaker to crossover our worlds where one of his flagship characters, Dawn, a vampire witch, teams up with Surge and Mavis to take on a new threat. This trio of Dawn, Mavis and Surge indicated it is time for Surge to form a superhero team. I have had a few new characters in mind for some time, Kid Dynamo, Falling Apple and Grok. This natural evolution in Surge’s development to start teaming up with other heroes was an ideal progression to introduce these new characters and bring them into the fold. “Where There’s Smoke” was our “Avengers assemble” moment where a team forms. We are excited to reach this point where the stage is set for bigger adventures with our team of superheroes.

2. From the idea to the finished product, how long did it take for you to make this film?

“Where There’s Smoke” was probably the most planned out Surge of Power movie to date. We were very careful laying out the story, making props and costumes, and filming in phases to allow us to focus on groups of scenes at a time. It took almost 4 years since “Surge of Dawn” for us to be ready to exhibit “Where There’s Smoke.”

3. How would you describe your film in two words!?

Avengers assemble.

4. What was the biggest obstacle you faced in completing this film?

I find indie film crew members often don’t have a lot of experience shooting visual effect intensive movies. It takes a lot of planning, explaining, storyboarding and demonstrating for me to convey what’s needed. “Where There’s Smoke” is a very VFX heavy – almost 500 VFX shots. Even with all the planning we did for this movie, errors were made during filming, causing us to go back to do reshoots. Reshooting is expensive and time consuming. Even after reshoots, some shots were still not quite right, which was very frustrating. Fortunately, we have some clever VFX designers who were able to fix and work with the footage. This also caused extra work plus added time and cost to production. Thankfully, in the end we arrived at a product that was appealing and satisfying and has won 33 awards so far in film festivals. So, we got something right.

5. What were your initial reactions when watching the audience talking about your film in the feedback video?

I was very pleased with the reviewer comments. I think they were very honest. I’m glad the reviewers appreciated what we accomplished with a low budget. They picked up on deeper elements and appreciated the complexity and heart that when into it, which sounded genuine. I’m glad the audience members enjoyed the humor woven in with dramatic stakes. It was also heartwarming to hear viewers notice the meta aspects of the story that touched on social themes as well as paying tribute to the superhero genre that they noticed from comics, TV shows, and movies.

6. When did you realize that you wanted to make films?

For years I made costumes for myself of other properties’ characters before “cosplay” was a common word. Then there was a time when I was working in my second job as a corporate attorney where the company I was working for was promoting a new device with a marketing campaign that had a dark haired, muscular superhero character, they named Commander X. One of the marketing staff knew I liked superheroes and asked me if I’d make a costume, which I did. I really wanted this to turn out good. It was my pièce de resistance at the time. Management liked it so much, they would transfer me out of the legal department into the marketing department when they had trade shows and took me with them to be Commander X. I generated a lot of activity and sales opportunities. Having a company make me its mascot made me things that I should do something with characters of my own. That’s when the ideas of bringing Surge to the screen and making Surge of Power movies started.

7. What film have you seen the most in your life?

When I was young, in the early days of HBO, my family and I watched many movies repeatedly. Also back then a movie could last in theaters for quite some time. I think Steve Spielberg’s “ET” lasted 11 months in our local theater. ET, Star Wars (A New Hope), and 9-to-5 were movies I saw many times. In more recent years, I went to see the first “Avengers” movie 4 times in theaters. I also saw the last Avengers movie, “Endgame” 3 times in theaters.

8. What other elements of the festival experience can we and other festivals implement to satisfy you and help you further your filmmaking career?

We enjoyed the festival experience and appreciated the collaboration and communication with staff to coordinate.

9. You submitted to the festival via FilmFreeway. How has your experiences been working on the festival platform site?

FilmFreeway is the standard for film festivals. We have been using it for quite some time. It’s very user-friendly.

10. What is your favorite meal?

I love sushi and Brazilian steak houses.

11. What is next for you? A new film?

We have an ongoing web series, Surge of Power: Big City Chronicles,” that is about to start its 8th season. We also make ongoing, short motivational videos with Surge called “Surge of Power: Code of Heroes.” On the film side, we have one more movie adventure for Surge that picks up after “Where There’s Smoke” that is designed to wrap up the story we’ve been building since the first Surge of Power movie, “The Stuff of Heroes.” This will essentially be our Surge “Endgame.” We hope to be going into production on that soon.