First, let me say I would have had this interview up sooner, unfortunately I had a computer failure and had to wait for a new system. Now I’m back up and running so here is my interview with the wonders David M. Latt.

I had the opportunity to speak with Mr. Latt. You may know him as the force behind Sharknado and producer of ZNation, but as I found out, his company reaches far and wide in this industry.

We, at The Nerdy Girl Express,  wanted to know how you got into your profession?

I assume you’re not talking about the porn career (laughs) um let me go back, you know I’m a very boring person, I’ve always been making movies. I was the Nerdy kid that had a super 8 camera at the age of 8, just making short films. You know this was before the smart cameras and all that stuff, smart phones. Um, so, it’s just been a passion of mine from a child, as a child. And I made it into a career, which is really bizarre and very rare and I understand that. And surprisingly enough, I partnered up with a gentleman that had a very similar background with making movies when they were kids. We grew up in very different states and had very different lives and also had the same passion so it’s fun and we kinda hang out with people with the same passion and so it’s a very passionate company and that’s really the bottom line here, so we’re all driven to make movies and have fun.

Why off the wall horror movies? The horror genre, horror comedy?

Well, I would say you need to get out more because we produced about 200 movies as a company. And we do all kinds of genres and to a certain segment of people we are definitely known as the horror film company because that’s what they grew up with and  our first  incarnation was a distributor for Art House film, so we worked for many many years as an Art House distributor then we were a b-movie horror company, then we were blockbusters (not sure about this, there was a weird beep during the phone call right at that second, go figure), then we were um, creature features, night creatures and sharks and all that stuff. And to a whole group of different people we do Lifetime movies, women in peril, thrillers, we do Christmas movies and talking dog films and you name it we do it but if you’re into certain types of genres then you’re only gonna know us for one particular type of genre (laughs) Well that’s good, we got all these other films to watch now because that’s what we do, love our movies.
We have fun doing that too when we get a new assignment to do new shows in different genres it’s always a great new experience so we do enjoy what we do. And to get to have the opportunity to do more than one genre is very exciting.

How did you get involved with the SyFy Channel?

Well we were distributing movies and we were producing movies at the same time for probably like once a year and as a distributor we went to the film markets and one of the more popular ones was the American Film Market, and we were selling in the basements of this particular market and  Syfy dropped by and they saw the films we are producing and and films we were inspiring and at the time, this was 15- 16 years ago, they said we get what you’re doing, we love what you’re doing, but you’re just not there yet but when we see that you’re there we’re going to ya know we’ll be a parnter, we think we have a home but we don’t think your  quality wise there and context wise for us. And so over a few years we kind of grew as a production company and started producing better and hired better people I guess, or more experienced people, away from me because I did a lot of the work, and they would come in every year and they would give us some advice and at one point they picked up one of our movies and then they picked up another movie and then another movie and we probably released for them at the time 30 films over the course of next like three years, but always had the conversation of hey let’s release some original content for Syfy and they were interested in it and we were interested in it but they said we weren’t there yet and it took a little bit more convincing but we finally produced our first film which was MegaFault and we put a lot of effort into that and made it into something really special and that film I directed and it starred Brittany Murphy, one of her last films, Eric LaSalle, Bruce Davison and it was one of the highest rated shows, so you can’t deny after you produce something that’s a highly rated, well reviewed show not to give us another opportunity so we produced another film for them then another one then another one then another and sometimes the ratings are phenomenal and sometimes they suck (laughs). We’re pretty consistent, they know the product by now and we had dinner a few years ago at AFM and they wanted to know what we were doing and we told them we have this project that were kind of kicking around its called SharkStorm and they said well what’s it about, we said well its about these kinda tornadoes that pick up sharks in the ocean and then dump them on these coastal cities then these people battle the Sharks and they said oh my gosh we have the greatest title that we didn’t know how to make a film for and the title is Sharknado, they said we’ve always loved that title but we didn’t know what the story was, what if you could use our title but we want that story (laughs) we were like Great that title’s better than SharkStorm (laughs) and Sharknado was born from there, and that’s a whole different beast, a shark beast, but a whole different beast.

That’s funny and leads to my next question, are there any hints about April?

Yes, she totally lives, I meant dies, I mean totally lives, like like she’s dead, no wait she dies. (Talks to a colleague) what’s the last thing we did with April, was she alive or dead? Um, I’m going under a tunnel, I can’t hear you, what?
so she either lives or dies (laughs)
It’s one of the two. I’m pretty sure, She either lives or dies. You know I don’t know if it’s gonna be that difficult to know any of the secrets to give to social media, what’s gonna be pictured or not. I will say this, put it out there, there are flashbacks in the movie so she will be on set , but I’m not saying she lives or dies but there are moments where you have those connections and so you if you  ever see any kind of pictures on the Internet it could very well be that so don’t get too “Ah she’s lives, there she is” (laughs)
So you’re gonna make sure we don’t know til it’s out, gotcha.
Yes, pretty much, pretty much.

I have a couple ZNation questions for you.

I remember that show, yea.

Do you have any favorite characters?

Ummm, no. I mean I could really…. like, any show that we do hopefully all the characters are extreme enough where you just wanna kinda attach yourself to them and I feel the same way about the ensemble I think every actor ya know, well what’s written on the page is not necessarily what you see on the screen, the actors put so much into the show and so it’s really difficult. I love this esemble so much and that everyone is putting in 100% and so ya know I may not like a choice that the character makes one particular episode but that character may a great choice the following week and so it really, no, there’s no particular character, like Doc’s humor’s great, 10k is so freaking cool, and first Murphy and Warren,  Addy, they’re all really unique people to watch. I really enjoy watching them every week, you know I’m a fanboy of the show. If I wasn’t producing it I would absolutely be watching the show (laughs) ya know and enjoying it like everyone else. Sorry I know it’s a cop out but the writers do a phenomenal job putting together really compelling neat characters and the actors finish it up by giving it that extra something that transcends, takes us away from the page and makes it real and it’s a joy to watch.
It is, I love the show honestly.
Oh good. I just saw the outlines for season 3, it’s pretty intense, I gotta tell you.

(Yes I was a tad embarrassed to ask this question this way but I did it anyhow 😉) Why is Murphy such a dick?

Well ya know he is suppose to be a nice guy but you know Keith damnit he’s just a jerk, no kidding  (laughs) you know, it makes for an interesting character, if he was so nice and warm and fuzzy and wanted to save mankind, what fun is that? You know he’s a very complex character because on one hand he didn’t sign up for this, ya know, he doesn’t want this power he doesn’t want this responsibility, he’s always been a very isolated person ya know this character and ya know he’s a street guy, he’s a guy that’s out for himself and he’s now thrust into this position of ultimate power and it’s really too much for him in the in a lot of ways so he has to really cope with it, there’s a lot of psychology that’s going into this character and how he’s dealing with not only that but his mortality because you know he was infected, he had seen what he’s going to look like at the end of season 1 in the lab, I mean that’s him maybe a year from now, maybe 5 years from now because that’s kind of what was presented to him. I mean he has a lot going on so I’m not saying I wouldn’t be a dick but at the same time I probably wouldn’t be as nasty as he is (laughs) but you know I think he’s probably a very real character. You know a lot of people compare The Walking Dead with ZNation, they go to the obvious stuff, the differences, with the humor, and whatnot, but I would contend that our show is a lot more believable (laughs) than their show because these are characters that would probably end up existing in a zombie apocalypse and ya know you get rid of the melodrama and the crap. I mean I know that’s what theirs is all about, the human connection and whatnot, but you’re gonna be fighting nuclear zombies and fido zombies and ya know cheese wheels and Lincoln zombies because that’s what happens when the whole world suddenly dies and ya know turns on its head. And you’re gonna have characters like Murphy who are jerks but are the only hope for man kind.

Are you working on any new projects that you can share with me?

The answer is yes. I produce two to three films a month. So there’s something always going on. Um in about 5 minutes from now Nick Carter is gonna walk through the door, from the Backstreet Boys, and we’re doing the finishing touches on a film we did together called Dead 7 , it’s a zombie show. Boy, we have a couple thrillers going on, we’re just getting dailys, for  Sharknado week were doing 3 films, Planet of the Sharks, IceSharks, and Sharknado 4. We’ve already shot one of those, we shot that in South Africa. We’re in the process of shooting IceSharks and we’ll be getting into Sharknado 4 in the next week or so.

It was a real honor to talk to David M. Latt. He really worked hard to get where he is. It goes to show you will hard work and a dream anything is possible.
You guys can find David on Twitter @DavidMLatt or take a look at his company @theasylumcc
Drop your thoughts in the comments below or find me on Twitter @thenerdygirlexp or @erinwise82