A crazed psychotic killer
Posted by Robert T. Chambers
on May 31, 2016
Members had fun listening to actor, musician and radio personality Bill Dablow discuss the regional motion picture industry at their regular noon meeting at Prante’s on Tuesday, May 31st. Better known to most in the Wahpeton-Breckenridge community as an on-the-air personality for KBMW Bill is primarily a theater actor with forty-eight years of experience. His start was doing a soliloquy from Shakespeare’s Hamlet at the age of seven. About ten years ago he was enticed into motion pictures through a Minnesota State University Moorhead (MSUM) student film project. MSUM has a four year film degree not just a two year focus and with the Fargo Film Festival is the anchor to the industry in the immediate region. However, there are layers as Bill described the ‘region” as encompassing Fargo-Moorhead as well as Minneapolis-St. Paul and then the nationwide industry based in Los Angeles.
From being seen on the student’s film he moved to independents and has made over sixty films. He is a bit cautious that he was, at one point, being type cast as a crazed psychotic killer. The aim of independent producers and their investors is to be recognized by a major studio-distribution system and appear in cinemas nationwide. With the advent of Netflix and Amazon.com that has been less of an issue one of the film’s he was in, “Efficiency” appearing in those venues. More recently he was cast in a film likely going to major distribution through Sony. The motion picture “Valley of Bones” is set in the Balkan oil patch and Bill plays an oil rig foreman. It was shot in Bowman, N.D. Currently he is in an independent motion picture being shot in Minneapolis “Nudist of the Living Dead” in which he assures us he kept his clothes on and which he describes as “Zombie Apocalypse” meets “Fargo”.
Lamenting that he did not have the opportunity as a child he discussed the quality of film currently being produced by 4-H children, not only as to content but technical quality due to the advent of small high quality cameras. That change in technology has allowed many to think “I could do that”. In the past one needed access to big expensive cameras. This is allowing the industry to blossom at a grass roots level and he foresees many good things coming.
Big names are assisting this. Stephen King has promoted “film shorts”, a short film based on a short story he has written. Provided the film is not commercial he will sell the rights for one dollar to the producer and then he uses the final product. Bill‘s third film was one of these “Everything Eventual” which was also released in Europe resulting in fan mail from Germany and Portugal.
As a theater actor he discussed how much alike yet different the acting requirements are in film. Accustomed to projecting his voice and maximizing his expressions and gestures he had directors threaten to tie his hands behind him and ask him to moderate his voice. In film everything is around the eyes, that is, in close thus no need to project. He is a proponent of method acting saying that when one understands the emotion the dialogue follows naturally. This he learned on stage when he played a judge in “The Nuremburg Trials.”
Following his presentation there was a lively question and answer period including his being asked to “do a small bit”. He started by explaining “getting into character" all the time gradually taking on the persona of one of the characters he has played.