Interview: Doug Sakmann


Doug, during his time in Tromaville.


With the Backseat Conceptions bus (previously the Tromaville on Tour Bus)

 1. When did you first get into Troma?

I first got exposed to Troma when I was about 14 years old, at a NYC Film Street Fair. They had a booth and were handing out those crazy one sheets for films like “Class Of Nuke Em High” and “Femme Fontaine: Killer Babe for the CIA”. I thought it was more interesting than anything else at the fair, so I tried to find the Troma movies. I found Class of Nuke Em High for $4 in one of those half used videos/half porno stores that they have in NYC, and thought it was genius! I found the Toxic Avenger and that it was connected to Toxic Crusaders, which I used to watch, but after that, I didn’t really see any Troma movies around.  For years, Troma was in the back of in the back of my mind until years later when I saw a casting call for “Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger 4”.

2. How did you begin working for Troma?

Well, I went in for an audition for Citizen Toxie, and when I got there, I met Lloyd, Trent and Will, and they sent me into the audition room in front of a video camera. A man by the name of Geoff Mosher (who plays Noxie’s gay manservant and was script supervisor for the film) was the only one in the room and he said “Oh, I guess they didn’t tell you on the phone, but you were supposed to have a monolouge or something prepared to say into the camera. Ok, well just say your name and number and do something”. I decided to tell them about one of the craziest things I had ever done (up to that point), which was destroy a nursing home that had went bankrupt and shut down. It was a four story Nursing Home that was boarded up, but all the equipment and everything was left as if they had just walked out the day before. I went into detail about destroying every single thing in the building with two of my friends. A few months later, we went back to the place and they had re-opened it, which meant they had to replace everything in the building. Not knowing how I did, thinking I blew it, I left the audition. I got a call a from Troma a few days later that I had been cast as a “special student”. I went in for some rehersals during pre-production, and got so immersed in Tromaville and the spirit of the production that I offered to do anything and everything that needed to be done for the film. The “special student” scene was the first scene shot for the film, which was in Poughkeepsie two hours upstate out of NYC. Even though my scene was done, I kept coming back to help out with whatever, on my own dime, basically becoming a PA. I did this for the entire month shoot, and Lloyd liked my attitude and perservance, so he hired me to work in the Troma office. I didn’t have an official title when I started, but within a month’s time, I became the head of production.
3. What was one of the best experiences you had working with Troma?

There were so many experiences I had with the Troma Team, it’s hard to say which were my favorites. Every day was something different and new. One that definetly ranks up there is working with Lloyd on a daily basis as his right hand man. Besides dealing with almost every aspect of his life and daily schedule (outside of wiping his ass, which occasionaly came up), I got to see how he operated his company and kept it going for 30 years. I basically got a crash course in filmmaking from ALL angles. Before I worked for Troma, the only time I used a camera, which was an 8mm my Mom bought, I broke it.  I grew accustom to his unique personality (which is a lot like my own, except for the underlying homosexual thing) and really got to view the world through Lloyd’s eyes. He was my mentor. Since there are so many amazing moments, the first few that come to mind are; assastant directing at the Playboy Mansion two weeks into my offical Troma employment, seeing Julie Strain naked in person for the first time (very humbling), and heading the Troma Team at Cannes three years in a row. There are many many more, but I’ll save those for my memoirs. For some live action memories, you can check out the Troma documenatary “All The Love You Cannes”. Good times.

4. Can you tell a little bit about what your new company, Backseat Conceptions, is all about?

Backseat Conceptions is a promotions and distribution entity that provides a venue for projects and products that would otherwise go unseen, unheard, and unwanted in the mainstream, family friendly media outlets that exist today. Our company focuses on a generation (18-30) that casts a bored cynical eye on the mainstream, on the safe. People looking for edgy and extreme entertainment, from the surreal world of French Hardcore Music to the recreational drinking magazine, Modern Drunkard Magazine, we provide professional services for edgy companies that want to find an audience but get denied a voice on “Safe” media outlets. Of course, we share similar beliefs with the Troma Team, as many of the Backseat Conceptions partners came together through Tromatic conncetions. However, we are very careful not to use the term “independent” when we can, as it’s been bandied around so much. The term “independent” at least in the film world, has no real meaning anymore. In essence, everyone is independent of everyone else.

However, as Backseat Conceptions, we are not afraid to go beyond the bounds of what is considered safe or normal, even by “independent” standards. While our wild events and crazy promotional stunts may seem to be in the key of the Troma Team, it is only because myself and the partners who form Backseat Conceptions learned what we could fromTroma and took it to the extreme. After we did the first Tromapalooza event at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April 2001 (which was BERET!’s first performance), Michael Herz and Lloyd pulled me into their office and told me that I had taken the Troma live performance to the extreme. Michael Herz personally told me “That’s it. You’ve taken all the things we have done fictonally, in our films, and brought them to reality, outside of killing someone. That’s it. You’re done. Right?” Then Lloyd chimes in (Who by the way, was cheering all these activities on while filming them at the event) “He’s right! I think it’s time you took our live promotions in a new direction. You’ve done everything you can do, right?” They did go into detail on the various live shows and promotions we had done, but it’s an extensive list that I’d rather not get into right now. I will mention that it did involve smoking vaginas though. At any rate, I knew there was sooo much more we could do, but of course, to make Michael Herz happy, I told them that I would cease doing the extreme promotion techniques. However, I kept it going, which is evident in the documentary we produced on the 2002 Warped Tour, “Name This Bus”: The Story of Tromaville on Tour”, and continue to do so to this day.

5. What are your favorite Troma movies?

I think all the movies that Lloyd has directed are genius films, my favorite Troma movies by far. They just keep getting better, taking things to the next level. I also think it has something to do with type of cast and crew the Troma ethics attract, they definetly add a certain element to Lloyd’s films that others don’t have. Outside of Lloyd’s films, I’d have to say Superstarlet AD, that is the one Troma movie I’ve seen almost as much as Citizen Toxie. John Michael McCarthy is a genius. Also Angel Negro is an awesome movie….actually, I thought it was so awesome that I set up acquiring it for Troma.


Publicity shot from the upcoming Backseat Conceptions film Punk Rock Holocaust with Tromette Ataria Starling.


Another publicity shot for Punk Rock Holocaust

 6. What are your favorite non-Troma movies?

Some of my favorite films are ones that I got to see while working on Troma acquisitons, like Visitor Q by Takashi Miike….that was the first time I was exposed to his films, but after that I saught out all of them, and they are all amazing. I love the Asian horror/sci-fi film culture, something that Lloyd introduced me to…Battle Royale, Wild Zero….more recently, the new Beyond Re-Animator, and Bubba Ho-Tep, the new film from Don Coscarelli, the guy who directed Phantasm….there’s so many….I could go on for some time….of course though, I cannot forget my boy Jason and the Friday the 13th movies….Freddy VS Jason kicked ass!

7. Favorite music?

listen to a pretty wide selection of music, as I spend a good portion of my time on a bus travelling around the country with 8 guys with different musical tastes, which I’ve grown accustom to, to some extent. These include Hip-hop, Hardcore, Rockabilly, Country (not the line dancing type, the heavy drinking, shotgun toting type), noise-core, and other random stuff. I personally grew up on punk rock and ska music, so I fit right in at the Warped Tour, but lately I’ve been diggin on the girly pop music, like Avril Lavigne, Nelly Furtato, Pink, and No Doubt. I used to listen to a LOT of Avril Lavigne, until my good friend Nick Danger smashed the CD and the stereo it was in with a chair.

8. Anything else you'd like to mention?

Be sure to check out www.backseatconceptions.com to see what I have been up to since leaving Troma, and also, my personal site, www.iamanevilcarrot.com.

As Backseat Conceptions, we are consistantly touring in our tour bus, the SS Dirty Erin, with the Backseat Film Festival and our French Hardcore band BERET. We also promote for our clients, which includes a wonderful product called the Gray Kangaroo Liquor Filter. This device improves your alcohol and your life. We all swear by it…it takes the impurities out of cheap liquor, the hangover and the nastiness, and leaves you feeling, well, damn drunk! But in a nice way. Some of our other clients include Bikini Bandits, and Monster Energy, which are both awesome companies. For those of you who caught any of our live shows, next year we’ll be bringing back the live gameshow element with a new game I’m developing called the Superheroes of Drinking, it’s a bar based gameshow, think American Gladiators meets Win Andy Straub’s Liquor…look for it in 2004!

Also, I’d like to give a shout out to all of our affiliate filmmaker friends, including Dire Wit Films, Cheese Theatre, Team Carl and Neil, Low Budget Pictures, Odessa Filmworks, New Eye Films, Lost Film Festival, Honeymoon Bloodbath Productions, AD&D/Slowkid Productions, and WIP Studios …there are so many more I could go on forever, these are the ones that come to mind at the moment…I am very grateful to know so many talented, like minded individuals…..

And finally, I’d like to plug my first feature film directoral debut, which I also wrote, called Punk Rock Holocaust, a slasher film we produced on the 2003 Vans Warped Tour with a number of the bands and the crew on the tour. It’s coming out great, we are currently editing and doing some additional shooting, it should be out early next year, on Springman Records as a DVD/CD soundtrack combo…we’ll also be touring with it at festivals and theaters when it’s done…..you can see the trailer as well as some clips at http://meurte.com/backseat/bc_index_proj_prh_videoclips.htm. We’ll be showing a half hour teaser on the east coast around Halloween. Everyone who worked with me on it, the bands, Kevin Lyman and the Warped Tour crew, everyone was fucking amazing, and I thank them for it! You can also look for us on the Warped Tour 2004, which will mark our third year with the tour, and the tour’s tenth anniversary!