"I Love What I Do": Mark Twitchell's First Police Interview, Edmonton, 2008 (Part 1)

Name: "I Love What I Do": Mark Twitchell's First Police Interview, Edmonton, 2008 (Part 1)
Uploaded: 2018-02-23
Duration: 29 min 58 s
Description: Questioned as the renter of the garage where a missing man had been heading, Mark Twitchell talked about his film career, pointed to a padlock he did not recognise, and explained his cleaning supplies by the fake blood used in his films.

Questioned as the renter of the garage where a missing man had been heading, Mark Twitchell talked about his film career, pointed to a padlock he did not recognise, and explained his cleaning supplies by the fake blood used in his films.

Subject: Mark Twitchell
Recorded: October 19, 2008
Runtime: 29:58

Content warning: Concerns the murder and dismemberment of a man; Twitchell describes fake-blood effects, a kit of knives and duct tape used in his film.

The Interview

In the early hours of Sunday, October 19, 2008, Detective Mike Tabler of the Edmonton Police Service sat down with Mark Twitchell, a 29-year-old aspiring filmmaker from St. Albert. Twitchell was not under arrest. He rented a garage at 5712 40th Avenue in south Edmonton, and a missing man, Johnny Altinger, had told friends that was where he was going. Twitchell had driven in from St. Albert to meet officers at the garage that night. In this first half of the interview he gives his details, describes the garage and its locks, and talks at length about his film company, Xpress Entertainment, and a comedy he was developing, Day Players. "I love what I do," he tells the detective.

Historical Context

Johnny Altinger, 38, a quality-control inspector, went to the garage on October 10, 2008, expecting to meet a woman he had met through an online dating site. He had sent friends the address. The woman did not exist: prosecutors said Twitchell had posed as her on Plenty of Fish. Altinger was killed in the garage and his body dismembered. Days earlier, another man, Gilles Tetreault, had been lured to the same garage in the same way, attacked, and had escaped. Twitchell was arrested on October 31, 2008, and charged with first-degree murder.

Circumstances of the Interview

Altinger's friends had reported him missing, and police went to the garage he had named. Constable Christopher Maxwell called Twitchell, the renter, who came down to let officers in. He was then interviewed at the Southwest Division station as a witness, and he did not leave until well after 4 a.m. The next day he emailed Tabler a story about a stranger who had offered him a car for $40; police later found the car was Altinger's. A second, harder interview with another detective followed.

What the Interview Covers

Twitchell says he began renting the garage on September 1, 2008, from Kirkside Real Estate, that one of two keys was with a production assistant, and that the only full day of filming there was the last weekend of September. He says that when he arrived that night the padlock on the door was not his. He describes his films, his investors and a provincial film grant, and his past sales jobs. Asked about cleaning supplies at the garage, he says he dropped them off for the next shoot, and explains the need for them by the corn-syrup "blood" used in suspense films. He describes the kit of knives, the duct tape and the swords used or planned for a staged killing in his short film.

What Makes the Recording Significant

This is Twitchell's first police interview, recorded about nine days after Altinger was killed, while he was still presenting himself as a helpful filmmaker. At his trial the prosecution set what he said here against the other evidence. On a laptop, police found a deleted document titled "SKConfessions" describing the luring, killing and dismemberment of a man. At trial Twitchell admitted killing Altinger but claimed self-defence, and called the document fiction. The jury convicted him of first-degree murder on April 12, 2011. He was sentenced to life in prison with no parole for 25 years.

Archival Importance

The tape was played to the jury in March 2011. The police transcript of this interview is published separately as text; this page adds the video and its sound. Part 2 (a separate page) continues the interview without a break.

Important Caveats

Everything Twitchell says here about his movements and the garage is his own account, given before he was arrested or charged; the court rejected his version of events. He has one murder conviction. The label "serial killer" sometimes applied to him rests on his own writings and the prosecution's case, not on more than one conviction. YouTube provides no captions for this video, so the transcript rests on two machine passes and some lines are marked unclear until a human listening check. His home address and telephone number, given at the start, are withheld.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay, Mark. Now, just to go through things, like I mentioned to you, that I'm going to do a taped interview with you and stuff. There's my ID. Okay, so I'm Detective Mike Tabler, Police Service. And, uh, I'm here to talk to you tonight because of the fact that you happen to be the renter of a garage that has come to our attention due to a missing person. Okay. Now, first of all, can you please state your name for me?

Mark Twitchell: Mark Twitchell.

Det. Mike Tabler: And it's T-W-I-T-C-H-E-L-L?

Mark Twitchell: Correct.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. Your date of birth, sir?

Mark Twitchell: July 4th, '79.

Det. Mike Tabler: 4th of July, '79?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And your address at home?

Mark Twitchell: Is [home address withheld].

Det. Mike Tabler: [Home address withheld]?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah, [spelling withheld].

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And?

Mark Twitchell: St. Albert.

Det. Mike Tabler: St. Albert. Okay. And postal code there?

Mark Twitchell: [Postal code withheld.]

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. [unclear: "Phone number at home?" / "4 numbers only?"]

Mark Twitchell: [Telephone number withheld.]

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. [unclear: "Your cell?" / "Yourself?"]

Mark Twitchell: Same thing.

Det. Mike Tabler: Pardon me?

Mark Twitchell: The same number.

Det. Mike Tabler: Same number?

Mark Twitchell: Mm-hmm.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. All right. No landline at all?

Mark Twitchell: No. I use [unclear: "cell in favour of" / "some paper"] landlines for cost and convenience, basically.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: And, okay. Now, the garage in question that we're talking about tonight, can you tell me the address of that place?

Mark Twitchell: 5712 40th Avenue.

Det. Mike Tabler: 5712 40th Avenue. And when did you rent that garage?

Mark Twitchell: I began renting it on September 1st.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And you rented it September 1st?

Mark Twitchell: Mm-hmm.

Det. Mike Tabler: And who did you rent it from?

Mark Twitchell: A company called Kirkside Real Estate.

Det. Mike Tabler: Kirkside?

Mark Twitchell: Kirkside, all one word, yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And you got the only key, too, or was it one or two keys?

Mark Twitchell: Two keys.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So you got two keys?

Mark Twitchell: Mm-hmm.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And where are those keys now?

Mark Twitchell: You guys have the one that I had.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay.

Mark Twitchell: And the other one, the last I heard of, is with one of my production assistants, Mike Young.

Det. Mike Tabler: Mike Young?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: One of your production assistants?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And he is an assistant to you, but he didn't rent the garage. It's yours.

Mark Twitchell: Right.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And you pay for it?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: For the rental?

Mark Twitchell: Mm-hmm.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. Now, I understand that you're doing this with a company, and you're doing some other things.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: So you personally rented it on behalf of the [unclear: "garage," corrected to] company.

Mark Twitchell: Right.

Det. Mike Tabler: And what do you call your company?

Mark Twitchell: Express Entertainment.

Det. Mike Tabler: Express Entertainment, okay. And I understand you're filming and stuff like that there.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And that was the purpose of getting the facility?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Mike Young is one of your assistants, and he has the other key?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: And there are no other keys out for that garage anywhere?

Mark Twitchell: None that I know.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. Now, the locks on the garage. Can you describe them? I know there's two overhead doors and one pedestrian door on this garage. The two overhead doors face, I believe it's north, into the alley. And the pedestrian door faces the house at that address. And that would be south. Now, the house is rented by people separate from you, who have no access to the garage?

Mark Twitchell: Correct.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And the windows are all blocked, and the doors are metal, and nobody can see in there. Nobody's business what goes on in there, that's yours.

Mark Twitchell: We block out the lights so that during the day, when we're filming and we're trying to create a nighttime atmosphere, the sunlight doesn't get in our way.

Det. Mike Tabler: Of course.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Things you have to do with the production.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah. We try to control light as much as possible.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So, you rented this on the first of September, and then you're doing some filming there. Okay. Now, what have you been filming there? Have you been filming every day, or what's been going on there?

Mark Twitchell: No. Well, most of my stuff is all pre-production. I knew that I was going to use it as a location for filming, so I started... I mean, basically, I began looking for something that's suitable in, like, late August.

Det. Mike Tabler: Yeah.

Mark Twitchell: So, found that garage, found that it was an ideal location. It worked great for what our purposes were, and rented it. The only time that we actually spent shooting in that place was the last weekend of September.

Det. Mike Tabler: The last weekend of September?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay.

Mark Twitchell: We had an evening shoot on the Friday, and that was for a couple of hours, actually, at someone else's house. It was downtown; it was shot in our condo. And then all day Saturday is when we used the garage to film. [brief aside, inaudible] So all day Saturday we used to shoot in that garage area, and then on Sunday in the evening we filmed somewhere else. So, yeah, for that purpose, it's actually just the one day that we were there for actual shooting. Before that, we were in and out throughout the month for production design purposes, which was building our set pieces, getting things set up in there, power, and that kind of thing, getting everything ready.

Det. Mike Tabler: So what type of film is it, that you're shooting at this particular time that you're talking about, shooting at this, like, what sort of film is it?

Mark Twitchell: It's a suspense thriller. Actually, it's a short film; the total run time's only going to be about eight or nine minutes. So, yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Suspense thriller?

Mark Twitchell: Right.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And what would you do with a film like this, once you've filmed eight or nine minutes?

Mark Twitchell: Go through the editing process. I tried to organize it so that it didn't have a lot of effects work to do, so it wouldn't take forever in post-production. But we edit the film together, and then submit it to film festivals, try to get it picked up by a distributor. Hopefully somebody will grab it and use it in some way. Or it's also used as pitch material, in order to develop a television series or a feature film out of it, to convince someone that, you know, we know what we're doing as filmmakers, and that we deserve to get money, basically, to make more material. So it's all interest in developing everyone's career that way.

Det. Mike Tabler: Oh, okay. Yeah, I just don't understand [inaudible].

Mark Twitchell: [unclear: "Well, you have to" / "We're ashamed. We have to"] start from scratch your own way, because in our industry there's really only two ways to get in and actually do that kind of work. And one of them is to either pay to go to a film school, and then graduate and come out and do it. But usually that path doesn't take you very far. It's kind of like more of the lower-end kind of jobs. I'm more interested in writing, producing and directing. And I've only noticed, for the three or four years that I've been trying to get into the industry, that the only way to do it is to make your own stuff, prove that you know what you're doing, and then people start to take it seriously.

Mark Twitchell: So I started making... my first film was a feature, a sci-fi fantasy film based on Star Wars content, which is all completely 100% shot now and in post-production. I'm working on a comedy right now, which is a, it's actually a full-blown feature. It's actually gonna have a decent budget, in the neighbourhood of about three and a half million. And just closing the first round of financing for that at the end of this month, and then we're moving into pre-production, so we can finish off, like, casting A-list actors, getting all that stuff set up, and then preparing to film that sometime in May or April of next year.

Det. Mike Tabler: Really?

Mark Twitchell: So, yeah, it's been a long process. I started developing Day Players, which is the name of the comedy, back in December of last year. And just, I kind of put myself through business school, in a way, to figure out what investors would want to see in order to invest in that kind of project, and built up all my blocks, put all my ducks in a row. And I've just been, I mean, even though working full-time, and a lot of times during the year, in order to pay bills, I still put in full-time hours into the film to develop it, because I'm just like, you know, [unclear: "tunnel vision" / "tunneling" / "totally"]. I want to get a career going. So I got that whole thing developed and going, and pitched it to countless people, playing one side against the other to get talent and money to agree and come to the middle. And now, with economic turbulence in the US, it's a little bit tougher, but I've been assured that, you know, it's not going to affect our deal or anything like that.

Mark Twitchell: So the first round is supposed to be finished at the end of this month. And then sometime within the next three or four weeks after that, we're [unclear: "given" / "even" / "in"] the full budget, so that we can actually move forward in making this thing. And we, like, my co-producer works out of Los Angeles, and he's done things like Ocean's Eleven and Old School, and worked on these things, and uses his connections to help us out. And hopefully, along those lines, we can try to get a distribution deal with Warner Brothers and skip some of the red tape that usually comes along with trying to go in their front door and get hit by all their gatekeepers, which are designed to keep people out, basically. So it's tough. It's really hard, but it's very worth it. I love what I do. And, you know...

Det. Mike Tabler: You're very passionate about it.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah, I love it. I love filmmaking. I figured that out back in 2005, when I first [unclear: "threw away" / "threw, right" / "started writing"] my first script. And from the first day that I stepped on the set, in August of '06, that was when I knew. And then I was just like, oh, there's no going back. Anything else is crap. Nothing else would make me feel fulfilled in what I was doing. And I love what I do, so I just chased it with everything I had.

Det. Mike Tabler: Neat. Now, so getting back here, the only person that would have had access is Mike Young or yourself, to that place.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, tonight you were asked to go down there and meet our constables at the garage, and that's because they were looking for a missing person.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And you were contacted. You were apparently at home in St. Albert, which is quite a distance from this, and yet you readily responded down to help the police, and we certainly appreciate that. Now, you arrived at the garage, and you noted something immediately on your arrival, when you went up to the door to show the police the garage.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: And what was that?

Mark Twitchell: Well, the first thing that happened, I drove in, I parked in the back, where I usually parked. Actually, the constable was calling me when I was about a minute out to get there, and I talked to him and said, yeah, so, like, where are you? And he's in the back, so I went to meet him, and, [unclear: "one second, that might be my wife" / "what was that going to be? My wife" / "one second, I'll be my wife"]. She's [unclear: "sort of..." / "I mean, she turned up to me"].

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Oh." / "Roll."]

Mark Twitchell: Yeah, that's [unclear: "her, I'll let her leave a voicemail" / "a roll early roll" / "a role early voice"], so...

Det. Mike Tabler: It's all right.

Mark Twitchell: She's going to be up anyway, so... Anyway, yeah, so I get into the back, and I'm like, okay, well, let's go check it out. So I get to the actual gate, side gate there, and they mentioned that it had been blocked off somehow. I didn't know what that was about. I opened it; there was nothing there. So they said, okay, well, [unclear: "guess it's not" / "yes it's not"]. It was a little odd. But went down the side of the garage, came back around, looked at the door itself, and the first thing that I noticed, upon looking a little closer at it, [unclear: "the light wasn't that great" / "so like it wasn't that great" / "so like with an angry foot"], but I could see what was going on: the padlock didn't look familiar to me. And I was the one that actually put the latch on the door, and I had a padlock previously. It wasn't the same one. The one that I had was, like, silver on the outside, with a black plastic dial in the centre. And this one was just all metal. So...

Det. Mike Tabler: So you noticed a different padlock?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: And then on the door.

Mark Twitchell: Right.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, what other locks are there on that door? Can you [unclear: "describe them" / "just relax"]?

Mark Twitchell: There's also a deadbolt.

Det. Mike Tabler: A deadbolt?

Mark Twitchell: Yep. Pretty standard lock.

Det. Mike Tabler: Yeah. And is there another type of lock or handle, or...?

Mark Twitchell: No, it's the doorknob, but I don't think the doorknob locks. I've never tried it, but I don't think it does.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So, regular doorknob, deadbolt, and then a padlock. Okay. And the padlock was, the padlock through, it was through a latch of some sort, that [unclear: "would hold the door closed" / "rolled the door, pulled the door"]. And that was the same, but the lock itself was different.

Mark Twitchell: Correct.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, okay, you said that you were there the week, last weekend of September, and that was the only time you were shooting there?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah, that was the only time we had a full crew and cast and [unclear: "filming" / "the filmmaker"].

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So that's the last weekend of September. And then we're up to the 19th of October here, so that's just about three weeks. Yeah, because you were filming through the weekend, I think. And we're in the weekend now, so just about three weeks since you... And that's the only filming that you've done. Have you been back there since that filming?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah, a couple times.

Det. Mike Tabler: Yeah. When was that?

Mark Twitchell: I went back, I don't remember the exact date, but I went back one time because we had, like, a table saw, a bunch of tools that were there, and my dad stores that stuff in his garage. So I told him, you know what, come meet me, we'll load it up and get rid of it. So went over there and met him after work one day, and he loaded that stuff up and took it home. The next time was when I was taking delivery of a steel drum, using it as a garbage can, basically. So, had some issues with them in terms of delivering it. The company kept missing the day, or saying that they were going to be there at a certain time and weren't. And so I was just, like, frustrated. I called them and said, okay, well, call me like an hour before you get there, we'll meet. So they did. We went to the location, dropped the drum off. So that was that part. And then last Friday...

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Last Friday?" / "That's right."]

Mark Twitchell: Was when I went there to just clean everything up, get the basic garbage out of there and stuff like that. There's still, like, a box of bottles and stuff like that, things that had been there previous to me renting the place, that I just never got around to getting rid of. But just getting some stuff out of there. That was...

Det. Mike Tabler: When you say last Friday, do you mean the one just passed? And I mean, we're now, it's Sunday morning.

Mark Twitchell: Right. No, it was a week ago.

Det. Mike Tabler: A week ago?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: So today being the 19th, it would have been, like, probably...

Mark Twitchell: 12th.

Mark Twitchell: Today's the 19th. Today's Sunday, right?

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Oh, yeah." / "Way out."]

Mark Twitchell: So, the Friday before this Friday...

Det. Mike Tabler: So probably about the 10th.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah. [inaudible]

Det. Mike Tabler: I don't have a calendar [unclear: "here" / "to do that with"].

Mark Twitchell: Calendar. [inaudible]

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "with the 10th, so I'll just go right" / "But the 10th sounds about right"].

Mark Twitchell: [inaudible] That's what it was.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So Friday the 10th, you [unclear: "go down" / "get out"] there and clean the place up. And that's the last time you were there?

Mark Twitchell: [inaudible]

Det. Mike Tabler: Because I'm wondering if that's when you last saw your padlock on the door.

Mark Twitchell: [inaudible] One of my problems is, I have issues with this, I have also issues with remembering tasks to do, so I live on lists. I try to formulate lists. As long as I have a list and I can check things off as I'm doing them, I'm okay. But, I mean, so I need to stay organized, and I'm [unclear: "a procrastinator" / "going to procrastinate"], or stuff like that. So, I think I did drop off... And, honestly, I don't remember if it was this past week or the week before it, but I remember dropping off some cleaning materials, just for the next time when we were going to go in there. Because my intention, again, was to pitch this thing and get it into a TV series or a movie. And the place is so inexpensive to rent. I figured, you know what? For future episodes, that'd be great to have.

Det. Mike Tabler: What does it cost you?

Mark Twitchell: $175 a month. It's not bad.

Det. Mike Tabler: $175 a month?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: For the garage?

Mark Twitchell: Mm-hmm. I was looking around prior to that. I was looking at prices of $225, $250 for something similar. So I thought, wow, it's not bad. It's plenty of space. It has power, so we can run all of our cameras and lights and everything off of it. Last time we were there, we had such nightmares. Oh, man, like, renting really bad [unclear: "lighting kits" / "in case it"] that would burn out bulbs all the time and stuff like that. But we never had any issues with the breakers or the power in that place. Everything worked fine.

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Well, that's all right." / "So a little less, a little bit."]

Mark Twitchell: And it's a great workshop, too. It's better than trying to borrow other people's places to do stuff. So, yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: So you're saying that you've worked sometimes full-time and then geared yourself for this. Where do you work when you're working full-time?

Mark Twitchell: I was working basically corporate sales jobs, for the most part. It's the kind of thing like, oh, when I do work full-time, I work for someone else, I try to find something that I'll enjoy, usually technology-related, like I worked for Telus, selling wireless gear for them. That was fun. So did that stuff. But, yeah, something where I can have a passion for that, and actually feel like what I'm contributing is what I'm getting out of it. So usually why I work on commission, because I feel like the more work I put in, the more reward I'll get out of it. That's usually what I do. So I kind of, like, I've got a really good natural flair for it.

Mark Twitchell: I do that kind of thing if I need to be working or paying bills and that kind of thing. I'm a little bit more discerning when it comes to that stuff. I try not to get involved in something that I'm only going to be in for a short period of time. Jobs in the last couple of years, that anything where I had to leave or anything like that, it was always just because there wasn't the right fit. I think you usually find that out pretty early on.

Det. Mike Tabler: Yeah, so you've been working in that type of thing. When was the last time you worked at a job like that?

Mark Twitchell: [unclear: "When was the last time?" / "Last time was"] The end of May.

Det. Mike Tabler: So since then, you've been working to get your production going?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And your wife, I understand, is employed, [unclear: "but on maternity leave" / "by a documentary" / "my inventory"]?

Mark Twitchell: Correct.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. So you've got some income there, as a supplement. And where do you get money from, for the production and for the rental and all that sort of stuff?

Mark Twitchell: It's investors.

Det. Mike Tabler: Investors?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah. What I basically do is sell equity in the film. So if I have a budget worked out, then I need so much money to make the movie. What they do is put that money forward into the film in exchange for percentage of ownership of the project. So usually we split it 50-50. The production company, that's me making the movie, gets half of ownership of the movie, and investors putting up the money get the other half.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay.

Mark Twitchell: So then, once it gets distributed, goes into theaters, gets on home video, starts making money, we split all that 50-50, once we recover the budget. So, and then, well, in the meantime, you know, stuff like that takes a year or two at least to come through.

Det. Mike Tabler: Yeah.

Mark Twitchell: In the meantime, I'm living off of producer fees, which are about 10% of whatever the project is.

Det. Mike Tabler: Okay. And who do you have for investors on this film?

Mark Twitchell: Oh, let's see. Ones that are involved in Day Players so far: my brother-in-law, Travis [surname unclear]. I got a guy named John [surname unclear], who has his own chartered accounting company here.

Det. Mike Tabler: John [surname unclear]?

Mark Twitchell: Yeah. And he's a member of the [unclear: "Venture Alberta" / "venture onboarding" / "venture operator"] group, which is a big group of guys who just move money around and invest in different deals and stuff like that. And I first got in touch with them going to, actually it was through the internet, found them online, submitted my materials. Didn't really think I'd get anything out of it, but then I got a call back saying, you know, well, [unclear: "it has deal screening" / "I have deal screening"], let's go and present this to, like, [unclear: "four" / "full"] groups of investors in Edmonton and Calgary. And so I made my pitch about the film and put some interest in with it. The deal structure underwent a couple of changes throughout the time that it was floating around within their circle.

Mark Twitchell: And then, when I recently got approved for a gap financing program, I was able to actually offer them a situation where they weren't taking on any risk. It's quite rare for investors. So that looked really good, and that's when everybody was like, oh, okay, I'm in. Because what they're essentially doing is lending us 10% of our budget in the short term, in order to get the full one opened in a line of credit. And then when it comes through, we get our whole budget. Those guys get paid back right away. And then we don't miss the money, because it comes back to us in the form of an Alberta Film Fund [unclear: "government" / "development" / "benefit"] grant.

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Oh, yeah." / "Who has some?"] So you have got these investors, and now you've already got this government grant [unclear: "that's come through" / "this country"]?

Mark Twitchell: The grant's [unclear: "not approved already" / "been approved already"]. We were prime candidates, because the Alberta Film Fund, they really like Alberta projects, Alberta talent, in front and off the screen. They're really getting involved with that kind of stuff. And I actually know a guy who has a business degree and is really good at writing grant proposals and getting approved for them, a really good track record, who's going to write the proposal for us. The fact that we're shooting 80% of it in Alberta, with very tiny [unclear: "legs"] out in LA and New York, it just goes to show them that, yeah, we're keeping it all in province as much as we can, and using as much Alberta talent. In fact, the two leads are [unclear: "of Alberta" / "Albertan"]. So we're looking really good on that front.

Mark Twitchell: It's just a matter of showing them that we're coming to the table with what we need to make the movie and get it distributed. And then they say, okay, we'll reimburse you for up to 20% of everything you spend inside the province, which for us is a little over $400,000. So if the investors put up the $350,000 to open up our gap, get our budget and put it in the bank, we pay them back right away. Alberta Film Fund comes in and fills the hole. A lot of homework, a lot of research to get done, but it's a beautiful deal structure. It works for everybody. I'm only giving up 10% more ownership than I would have been getting out there on my own, with no back-end support that way. So the fact that I can get this done a lot faster and a lot easier by using somebody else's credit rating, that's, why not? You know, that's fine. It's a matter of kind of time versus ownership. I'm not going to [unclear: "sit on" / "sell"] this for five years and wait for it to happen, you know what I mean? These are the goals that are set up.

Mark Twitchell: And everybody who's helped me on Star Wars has been so great. So many people who have donated countless hours of time and energy and resources into that, and they've done it all for free, and I [unclear: "just want to" / "just don't want to"] pay them back. I want to give them a nice, cushy, budgeted project to come in on and work on and get paid on, get career experience, actually get paid for doing what they were doing before. Only a little bit less, because instead of having one person do eight jobs on a no-budget indie, each person can focus on their one thing on the feature, and [unclear: "we're good" / "for good"].

Det. Mike Tabler: [unclear: "Well, good." / "So, look good?"]

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: So, interesting how that all comes together.

Mark Twitchell: [unclear: "Can't get me started" / "Okay, you started"] on this stuff, I [unclear: "can go for hours" / "gotta go for an hour"].

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, so back again, so we're talking about back at the garage, and you're saying that the 10th was the last time that you were at the garage.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: And you can say that absolutely, for sure?

Mark Twitchell: No. It was either a couple of days before or a couple of days after, then I dropped off some cleaning stuff. It was like a Tuesday, Wednesday, something like that.

Det. Mike Tabler: Tuesday or Wednesday, you dropped off some cleaning stuff.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, when's your next plan to shoot there?

Mark Twitchell: Oh, it's not decided yet.

Det. Mike Tabler: Not decided yet.

Mark Twitchell: It's still up in the air.

Det. Mike Tabler: So there's no, nothing planned for that garage. You live in St. Albert.

Mark Twitchell: Yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: You'd be concerned about dropping off a few cleaning supplies there at the garage when nobody else was there, sometime between that weekend, and it had to be done right away?

Mark Twitchell: Well, not necessarily right away. The way that I do it, again, is on a list. So I would have had, like, a long list of line items of stuff that I'm getting done that day, and it just happened to be one of them. So it's like a stop-off: drop it off, and then go.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, what sort of cleaning supplies would you have at that place?

Mark Twitchell: Paper towels, like stain cleaner, gloves, the usual stuff. Because we deal with this: when you do anything that's involving, like, suspense thrillers or anything like that, I mean, you want to have something that looks like blood on the screen. We use this mix that's like a corn syrup with food colouring in it, because it looks really good on camera. It has the right consistency and everything, but it's sticky as hell. It gets everywhere, and it's a nightmare. And last time, it got all over the chair, got all over the floor. It's, like, ridiculous. So, and that was really my thing, was just because then everybody's grabbing stuff and moving it over, and every time they do, they rub up against it and get it all over their clothes, and [unclear: "it's sticky and annoying" / "sticking them in the links"]. So it's just a matter of keeping that stuff off of there and clean, and not having to deal with that.

Mark Twitchell: Because we spent [unclear: "the problem" / "a problem"] with an untested effect: this thing where we were [unclear: "achieving a shot" / "being cheap shot"] with running a sword through a guy who was sitting in a chair. And so the way we did it is, we just had, like, the actor sitting in the chair, and then the other actor pretending to hold the sword in him. And then we go back, lock the camera off, it hasn't moved, shoot this, where we take the same colour shirt that the guy in the chair was wearing, put, like, a Ziploc bag full of this corn syrup there, and then just, you know, put the blade through it, so that it comes out with the corn syrup on there, dripping. And then they have to digitally take that, put it onto our original shot, so it looks like it's coming through the guy realistically. And it's this complex setup, and we spent, like, two, three hours on that one thing, because we hadn't actually tested it before or set it up prior. So, I mean, it's kind of like learn trial by fire, and figure it out as you're going along. But it turned out really good. I think it'll look good once it's all done. So, yeah.

Mark Twitchell: But it's a huge mess, too. Like, again, you know, they're dripping stuff everywhere. You kind of try to curb it as much as you can, but it happens. You're walking back and forth, and things get moved around. So, yeah.

Det. Mike Tabler: Now, so you were doing quite a bit of that sort of stuff in the garage, that kind of shooting, where there was, like, blood effect and [inaudible]. So what other, what other supplies would you have there that would be needed for that kind of thing? What...

Mark Twitchell: Well, it depends what you mean by supplies, because there's supplies and props and a lot of other stuff. A lot of that stuff in the garage was there when I rented it. Stuff that I got just for the shoot: there was, like, this, you know, kit full of knives that we were going to do, where we were going to do, like, a reveal shot, show the guy, like, opening [unclear: "this case" / "the skid" / "this cave"]; it looks all menacing and everything, kind of put that into a montage. What else? Like, the usual duct tape for the guy sitting in the chair, duct-taping him up. There's that stuff. The sword, obviously. There's two swords: one that, like, looks all glorious and cute on camera, and then the other one that's just a stunt one, that's more stain-resistant, we used to, like, dump all the syrup on and everything. Some clothes, prop mask, you know, stuff like that.