Behind the Edits (BONUS): Crafting the Horror Comedy Magic of Deer Camp 86 with Editor Scott McCambridge

Get ready for an exclusive behind-the-scenes peek at the making of Deer Camp 86, the horror comedy hitting theaters on May 31st! Our guest, accomplished editor Scott McCambridge, takes us through the thrilling journey from initial edit to final release, sharing highlights like working with scriptwriter Eric Mishila and director Harold Cronk. You'll hear about the fun camaraderie, the challenges of balancing crude humor with suspense, and how excellent acting performances made this project a dream come true.

We'll treat you to a sneak peek of the trailer and a firsthand account of what it’s like to edit a film that's equal parts hilarious and terrifying. Learn how the team’s strong collaboration brought Deer Camp 86 to life, creating a unique blend of humor and horror that promises to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. Whether you’re a film buff or just curious about the movie-making magic, this episode is packed with insights and entertaining stories you won’t want to miss.

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Okay, so now let's get into the more recent project you've been working on, and that is Deer Camp 86, which releases a full feature-length film kind of horror comedy genre releases tomorrow as the date of this recording, so that'd be May 31st in 150 theaters around the country, which is pretty exciting. Um, my daughter actually went to the screening here a week ago and I realized it was the film that you had shared with me a while back, that you were editing and working on. So I'm excited to go see it and I think we're going to just share the trailer for people here on youtube and then maybe we'll talk a little bit about the editing process and if you'd like?

Speaker 1: 0:43

definitely cool, let's roll it. Evan, the buck stops here. Come on, let's get to camp before dark buck. Tough titties, my liver's itching. Let's get those drinks in the air and make it tough To the hood. Whoo, all right, we're going. Pulled one deer tag before we even got out of the truck. They smell that we got protection. Oh, you boys were at the Peace Pipe last night, weren't you? Dude the bartender was found murdered this morning. Too many of our girls go missing. Outsiders come up here and take more than venison. We did not come up here to get in any trouble, your Honor, nope, there's no hiding from the sins committed on these lands. It's playing with us. Words, pray. Where are you going? I'm going back to Detroit where it's safe.

Speaker 2: 2:22

It definitely has a very yeah, unique brand of humor humor you don't even know how, some crude humor, you know definitely. But then it's got, uh, some great, you know, moments of suspense, a couple jump scares and like that kind of stuff too well, I look at it and I'm like this looks like fun.

Speaker 1: 2:39

I mean this is. I grew up there, I mean not that far away from there, and this is the same culture, though I mean we weren't from Detroit going up there, but those guys from what I've seen in the clip could actually be from there, maybe not even Detroit, but just kind of guy humor. You know, smell my finger. I don't know what happened before that. And then the deer hanging and dang dangling. Oh yeah, um yeah, it's definitely.

Speaker 2: 3:08

Uh, yeah, it's definitely that kind of movie. Yes, liver zitching like it's just you know I mean this is.

Speaker 1: 3:14

It looks entertaining to me so I'm excited to go see it yeah, I definitely think it is.

Speaker 2: 3:19

Uh, it was a really fun movie to work on, for sure. I mean it had. It's kind of like my younger self's dream to have worked on something like this. You know what I mean, definitely. So, um, yeah, the acting is really good, uh, which makes my job as an editor even more fun, because it's like you, you know you're the, you're the actor that people don't see. You know what I mean. Like you're helping. Uh, you know you're the, you're the actor that people don't see. You know what I mean. Like you're helping. Uh, you know whatever, like craft this thing into the most. You know the thing that works, the best sort of thing. So, um, yeah, I don't know, I feel, uh, yeah, I feel very grateful to have had the opportunity to work on it, but also I had a lot of fun to uh the process itself. I just got to make a movie with my buddies. Basically, you know so, uh, so how'd that process work?

Speaker 2: 4:09

let's get into that a little bit. Yeah, so, if I recall. Um, well, so my friend eric mishila is the one that wrote the script. Yeah, this, um, and uh, he, you know, he's kind of the one that I think really poured a lot of himself into it.

Speaker 1: 4:28

Okay.

Speaker 2: 4:29

In that sense, and our other friend, harold Cronk was, is the director of the film and he also. Those two guys together, like you know, are, you know, sure Great like collaborators and just good friends and all that kind of stuff, and then, yeah, edit it together. You know, I've read a I think I read a draft of the script at one point and gave some thoughts on it as well. But um, we uh, yeah, basically we're at the filming location. I uh had a room set up, so I actually went to set, okay, nice, and I was editing, um, in proximity to the set.

Speaker 2: 5:08

I wasn't actually on the set, but I was at, uh, like a house on a lake not too far away, and so at the end of each day, you know, they'd get their scenes shot and then I would get the footage, but I'd be working on the previous day footage just editing the scenes together. And so by the time we got done filming, you know we had a bunch of scenes put together already and it also, I think, was helpful for the guys um filming it as well, because they could come and watch. Oh yeah, and sort of like created, um, you know, even a rough cut form. You know, um, I did my best to put some like sound effects and even some music. You know, I think a big uh inspiration for this film is, uh, the movie predator, oh yeah, arnold schwarzenegger. Um, and so I would just, even in the editing, I just like use that music.

Speaker 2: 5:56

Sometimes it's like temp music, just to kind of like give it yeah, give the feel life a little bit, you know, um, yeah, and then once we wrapped shooting, I think, uh, eric and I just kind of like got together in our editing suite and just kind of put the rest of it together in just a few weeks, basically to get it to a rough cut, um, and then I guess one of the challenges with that is that, uh, being that it's like a lower budget film and stuff like that, we, uh, we actually had less, like the movie was too short, basically, you know. So, um, and I think we were a little surprised by that, because we literally only cut one scene out of the movie, which was that's got to be unusual, I would think it is.

Speaker 2: 6:44

Yeah, it wasn't even really a scene.

Speaker 2: 6:46

It was like there's just a part in the movie where the guys are all at separate parts in the woods and then they all have to kind of run back together and they it's just one shot of them running through and the.

Speaker 2: 6:57

It just wasn't necessary for like the story, you know, and we're like, oh well, let's cut that. That's the only thing we cut. We used everything else and I think our first edit was somewhere I think it was like 77 minutes or something like that, which we were told is just too short to be like a sellable um feature length film, right, uh, so we had to get creative and find ways to make it a little bit longer, to get to that length. But with, even without, you know, it doesn't really hurt the story, it's still a fun movie to watch and like um, it's a great length, you know it's not too long, it's not too short kind of thing. It just feels like um, that yeah, good throwback to the those kind of like b movie, horror film kind of things you know where it's just a good, fun ride, you know, with some good action and suspense and all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 1: 7:45

So yeah, entertaining, like every movie doesn't have to be like this big grand titanic type thing, right? Um, it can. Just you know it's a great genre. Yeah, just a fun night out yeah with friends, yep yeah, definitely so.

Speaker 2: 8:01

Um, and the the yeah, the font looks cool. You know it's got the throwback kind of.

Speaker 1: 8:05

I love the throwback aspects of it.

Speaker 2: 8:07

I was like man the movie poster is cool, and then the yeah, like I said, the acting is really great. Um and uh, yeah, the music score is awesome. Uh, the direction is great. Yeah, it really came together nicely.

Speaker 1: 8:20

So I think we're all proud of it and excited to see you know what, what can happen with it, obviously but I'm just shocked at how efficient you were able to do it and to edit that quickly, at least for your rough draft. I mean, it's probably got to be helpful, like you said, for those actors to kind of see their work right away and inspiring a little bit.

Speaker 2: 8:37

Yeah, I think it'd keep momentum rolling in some sense, I think yeah, there were definitely scenes that were very difficult to edit, you know, but when the acting is good and like the camera work was great, I mean, yeah, what they did with just the camera work was crazy in this movie, but it really, from my perspective as an editor, a lot of the incidental stuff I didn't have to worry about as much because they did a good job on that stuff, and so for me it's more about the pacing, the, you know, just the overall timing of things, how the music's going to kind of like fit together with the performances and the sound effects, and you know, I could just kind of focus my attention more on that instead of cutting around, like you know mistakes.

Speaker 1: 9:26

Yeah, exactly, I mean or things yeah.

Speaker 2: 9:29

Awesome. So, um, yeah, we were able to edit it quickly. Um, it still took a long time for the film to get finished and then go through the whole. You know there's a whole process that goes on after you've. You know I say finished, but it's not. You know it has to go through whole. You know there's a whole process that goes on after you've. You know I say finished, but it's not. You know it has to go through.

Speaker 2: 9:49

Uh, you know, like a whole sound mix and color correction and all these things that take quite a bit of time as well. And then, you know, finding the right distribution partner I think took a while. So we actually we filmed this, I think, in 2020, october of 2020. Okay, scary year. Yeah right, oh yeah, it was definitely a COVID production. Everyone yeah it was crazy had like masks and stuff which you know that was a different time of life obviously for everybody.

Speaker 1: 10:17

But to pull stuff off at that time was impressive on its own, you know yeah yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:26

And it was, you know, an excuse to get out and do, yeah, something, you know, yeah, exactly right so, um, yeah, I think, uh, I don't know if there's much else to say about it other than it's yeah, gonna be in theaters and so now it looks like from what I saw the other day.

Speaker 1: 10:39

Uh, I know they have a link in their Facebook page and maybe the website actually where it's playing. I think it's down from a Grand Rapids, west Michigan standpoint. I think it's downtown at Studio Park. Yeah, I'm not sure if it's in any other local theaters, it might be. They might be updating that because this was a few days ago, so I don't know what that release schedule is, but that's probably where I'm going to go see it. Actually, one more thing. I think I read that this won an award at one of the film festivals.

Speaker 2: 11:10

It did. It won the Best Special Effects at the Screamfest Horror Film Festival in Los Angeles.

Speaker 1: 11:17

Cool, yeah, well, I look forward to seeing those also. Well, thanks for joining us, scott. Anything else you'd like to share before we leave?

Speaker 2: 11:25

Oh man, I don't think so.

Speaker 1: 11:26

Okay.

Speaker 2: 11:27

No, I just appreciate you taking the time to have me on and yeah.

Speaker 1: 11:31

Great having you from the audience. You know, go check out the film. Hurry up, because we're not sure how long it'll be there. Also some of these other docs and stuff. We'll link them. But also some of these other docs and stuff. We'll link them. But a lot of fun stuff that you get to explore. So thanks again, see you next time.