Filmmaker turns camera on Grants
Coppola preparing to shoot 'Big Bad Voodoo Momma'
By Bill Donovan-Staff Writer

GALLUP — After visiting New Mexico several times during the past few years, Christopher Coppola knew that this was the area he wanted to make movies.

Which is why he is in the process of filming two movies in the Grants area in the next few months.

Coppola the nephew of Frances Ford Coppola, director for the "Godfather" movies and older brother of actor Nicholas Cage is now in pre-production of the first feature-length film scheduled for Grants, "Big Bad Voodoo Momma."

With a title like that, it's got to be far from the mainstream, and Coppola said it's a blending of several different genres.

This is how his production company describes the movie:

"Take one part 70s exploitation action flick, another part wrestling gone wild, blend in some gothic voodoo horror and shake it all together to get the sweet cocktail called "Big Bad Voodoo Momma," a modern-day wrestling remake of the classic opera "Turnandot."

This makes a lot more sense if you know a little about Coppola, whose college background is in music and who has spent the last 20 years doing all kinds of film and television, from children's shows to "America's Most Wanted."

In between, he has also done eight features and became a pioneer in the use of digital technology in the making of films.

That may come from his uncle who embraced digital technology more than 15 years ago when he filmed "One From the Heart" with his own money and nearly went bankrupt when the film failed to find an audience.

Christopher Coppola, in his way, is betting his future on developing a way to film that not only is cheap, but also is geared to reach people who may not be targeted by more mainstream films.

He's created what he calls EarsXXI, which is a state of the art digital studio.

Coppola said he and his friends wrote the script for "Big Bad Voodoo Momma" in three straight days, inviting a whole range of people wrestlers, opera singers, and experts in voodoo to their room to give them advice and inspiration.

Operating on a very modest budget substantially less than $500,000 Coppola plans to bring his crew to Grants at the end of May and shoot the film over the next 17 or 18 days.

With that kind of budget, it's not a film with any big-name stars. What also helps is that many of the people in production will be doing it for school credits and not money.

He said that the main department directors will be experienced movie makers and will train the students during the course of filming. Many of the students will also be bringing experience from their film classes from schools throughout New Mexico.

"These students will not be around to just go on coffee runs," Coppola said. "They will get actual hands-on training."

Which brings up a question that many people are probably asking: Why Grants?

Coppola said that over the past few years he has visited New Mexico several times and has grown to love the landscape here and the people. When he was deciding where he would do his filming, New Mexico was the top choice and Grants was selected because he wanted to use rural areas.

"I'm planning to do another film in Grants in the fall using the abandoned uranium mines," Coppola said. "After that, I may go to Gallup or Las Cruces."

Coppola said he has backers, but with a budget as modest as his movies are, it probably won't take many DVD sales to begin showing a profit.

But whatever profits he makes, he said, will be reinvested into the company and the making of more films, all using digital technology and all made in New Mexico.

This is a great opportunity, he added, for New Mexico to get on the cusp of the new technology and create a film industry that not only will give work to people in the state, but also will make the state the "Mecca" for anyone interested in exploring what digital technology can do to change the film industry.

"We will be using very small crews," he said. "It will be less about the filming and more about the training."

But, he promises, the movies will be entertaining.

With the title "Big Bad Voodoo Momma," how can it not be?