SHARK:The Jaws inspired movie and the story behind it!

Many of you have probably not heard of SHARK aka Great White.It was directed by Zac Reeder who is now a writer/producer/director and works at Circus Road House (Films).

This movie is about Steven Miller.He is a summer school teacher who lives an ordinary live.But one day,one of his students is found dead on the beach.The local sheriff thinks a mountain lion killed the student but Steven knows something else killed him...

So from there on,Steven tries to put all the evidence together as more people are killed..

Here is my interview with Zac Reeder (Director)

Brannon Carty February 25 at 8:22pm
Hello Zac Reeder,
I hope you dont mind me contacting you through here as I couldnt find a contact email anywhere else...if you do mind,Sorry..
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But what I was going to ask you about was your film Great White aka SHARK..
I own the movie and would like to say it is superb!But how was the film made?Do you have any behind the scenes info you could share?
The link is a wikipedia page I made for the film,any info you would like to share about the film would be helpful for the page.

Thanks for your time
-Brannon
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Zac Reeder February 25 at 9:44pm Report
Brannon,

Thanks for your note. I appreciate your interest in the film. It was made back in 95 or so and we made it because we had a japanese buyer interested in shark movies, so we told them we could make them one. We had a really low budget and shot the film in 12 days. I wrote the script in about a week and we all just worked really hard and did the best we could with what we had to work with. I'm proud of most of the film, though the sound turned out really bad and we didn't have the time or money to really fix it. But it was a good experience for me, as I had never directed a feature before. It was one of the toughest jobs I've ever had, but also the most interesting and fun. If there's anything else you want to know, just ask.
Best regards,

Zac
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Thanks for the reply.Did you just have a Shark fin or was there an actual shark prop in the movie?In a screenshot from the movie I saw,It looks like the top of a sharks body...

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Zac Reeder February 26 at 12:47am Report
We had a shark fin that we pulled behind a jet ski. We also had the giant fiberglass shark head that didn't look real, but i kept a couple frames of it in that nighttime shot that you pulled. It floated too much on the top of the water, so it was hard to get it to look like it was coming up out of the water. And then we cut in a bunch of stock footage of sharks from South Africa, from a guy i found on the internet.
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I liked the stock footage that was used..it fit very well in some scenes.About the sound problem,on the DVD Version I have,it has A AWFUL ECHO and CHOPPINESS to it..Im guessing the DVD Distributor was trying to raise the volume of the voices but just messed up...?
One thing that puzzled me was a this one shot in the photo..Many people I showed this shot to thought it was unrealistic...I however thought it was quite interesting...how did you do that shot?

-Brannon

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Zac Reeder February 26 at 5:25pm Report
Yeah, we had lots of sound problems because the guy who did th location sound was not very experienced. Though it's funny because the scene of dialogue on the doc was one of the hardest in terms of getting good production sound, and yet that scene is flawless in terms of audio. They used some poor sound settings to try to improve the sound, but what it really needed was another two weeks of sound work and ADR, but we just didn't have the time or money to fix it.

As for the shot you picked out, i believe we had some guys pull the shark fin through the water while they were standing on shore. Glad you enjoyed it.
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Also,what about the music for the film..on the DVD it says GiGi Meroni composed the music...?I loved the music cue for the shark ..bone chillling!

Also,I noticed in the credits that you made a cameo in the film...the picture I posted in the message,Im guessing that was you...?

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Zac Reeder February 26 at 6:34pm Report
Yeah, Gigi was a composer we hired and he did a great job. And yes, that's me in the cameo..good guess!
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Plus,do you know about any VHS releases of Shark?I know there is a Japanese Release but I dont know of any other..
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Zac Reeder March 1 at 12:01am Report
I think Leo released it on VHS along with DVD, but don't think it's available anymore. I think it was released as "Jaws 2000" in Japan on VHS. And there is also a German version out there somewhere.
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Thanks to Zac Reeder for his time to answer my questions!

Also,if you want to buy Shark,you can purchase it off Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Shark-Richar-Keats/dp/B00004U9Q0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1261973646&sr=1-1