DVD Review - Detroit Rock City Interview


	“By Kiss-fans - For Kiss-fans” should be the tagline that accompanies New Line Home Video’s latest offering, “Detroit Rock City”. As most of you certainly know by now, “Detroit Rock City” is not so much an actual Kiss movie, but a film celebrating being a Kiss fan. As we can certainly all agree upon, Kiss fans are not your ordinary fan community, but an army that goes to Hell and back again, if need be. Everyone who knows a little about Kiss, knows that throughout their over 25 year-spanning career, the band has always managed to maintain a close relationship to their fans and has always praised the fans for their support, giving

back some in return. The ultimate honor to the fans came in the form of “Detroit Rock City” this year, a movie that pays tribute to Kiss fans around the world and shows what it really means to be a member of the “Kiss Army”.

At the same time, a number of Kiss fans may have been disappointed by the movie, ultimately having hoped to see a real Kiss movie, prominently featuring Gene, Paul, Ace and Peter. After all, it has been over 20 years since they last graced the silver screen in “Kiss Meets The Phantom In The Park”. But still, the filmmakers were never really afraid to present a film that focuses on the band’s fans rather than the band itself. “We look at his movie much like the ‘Wizard of Oz’” director Adam Rifkin explains to me. “It’s a movie about following the Yellow Brick Road. While we are watching, we are learning something valuable, and we as the audience audience learn a little about ourselves as well.” The comparison is a very



		Director Adam Rifkin on the set of “Detroit Rock City”

interesting one. After all “The Wizard Of Oz” is not really about the wizard himself, although he permeates the entire film. “He drives the characters to their actions,” Rifkin observes, and the same is true with the band in “Detroit Rock City”.



	Tim Sullivan and Gene Simmons lick it up!


		‘Detroit Rock City’ is a labor of love! Associate producer Tim Sullivan

	“This film is inspired by being a lifelong fan of Kiss and their music,” he continues. “And the people involved and the characters all reflect that. It is about hoping to see their favorite band. It is Kiss that is the motor that drives the film, while the story itself is about Kiss fans.” “The entire movie is a labor of love, made for the fans by the fans”, associate producer and official “Kiss freak” Tim Sullivan adds. Nonetheless, it would be wrong to type “Detroit Rock City” as a movie that caters to fan audiences only. Much of the story and the humor is rather universal, which makes the film very entertaining and appealing for practically anybody. Gene Simmons, the band’s tongue-wiggling and fire-breathing singer and bassist, was actually the one who decided it was time to pay tribute to the many fans of the band, by making this movie about them, rather than exposing the band, and he had his reasons. “You know if everything is too conveniently planned in the beginning,” he tells me, “it can really become its own worst enemy. Here we have a solid script and it is about four fans of the band. If we had increased the time of Kiss on screen and the dynamics of the movie, it would have gotten in the way of the story. I often

like to compare it to Christianity and the stories about it. No one ever really wonders about God, that’s not the story of Christianity. The real story is that of the guy born on Christmas Night.”


		We wouldn’t be here without the fans Gene Simmons

	Simmons feels that in terms of the success-story of Kiss, the fans are almost more important than the band itself and the film reflects that appropriately. “If there is any story to Kiss at all, it has to be that 50% of it all is about the fans. We wouldn’t be here without them,” he says fondly. Gene Simmons actually had two separate film projects about the band he wanted to pursue. One of them was “Detroit Rock City”, while the other one was what you would call a “real” Kiss movie. While “Detroit Rock City”



	Ace Frehley, Paul Stanley, Gene Simmons and Peter Criss

was the first choice to make it, the second project is not forgotten. Wesley Strick, the writer of movies like “Cape Fear”, “Final Analysis” among others, is currently preparing for this ominous project. “Wesley started off doing interviews with all Kiss members for a magazine called ‘Circus’some time ago,” Gene Simmons confides. “He has agreed to write a Kiss motion picture. But that will all happen somewhen in the future.”



	Associate producer and “Kiss freak” Tim Sullivan

When starting the production on “Detroit Rock City”, Simmons was facing one big problem, especially since he decided to produce the movie. The band’s “Psycho Circus” tour was about to take off, which meant the project would have to be put on a really fast track in order to get under way before the band started touring the world. “Most movies take years to get up and running, but we all experienced a bit of a phenomenon on ‘Detroit Rock City’,” director Adam Rifkin explains excitedly. “June was the first time we sat down with New Line in their offices and literally two short months later we had a production office set up, and by early October we were shooting. It was phenomenal, and although it was all very tight, it really worked in our favor.”

Tim Sullivan agrees, “Everything came together so quickly once the lights turned green, it was really amazing. Much faster than any other production I have seen.”


	It would be easy to dismiss the fact that “Detroit Rock City” made the light of day seemingly so easy, as being the result of Gene Simmons’ connections around Hollywood. But it would be wrong to assume that a multi-million dollar movie is produced simply because of the involvement of a music heavyweight. At the end of the day, you will still need to convince studio executives that you have something in your hands that they should do, because it is beneficial and profitable for them. “Celebrityhood gets you a meeting and a free cup of coffee,” Gene Simmons says laughingly. “Other than that, it doesn’t really account for much. Once you come in the room you have to prove that you have something important and interesting to show. The studios make movies they

	think will be profitable. At the core of ‘Detroit Rock City’ is a script by Carl V. Dupré. They liked that script, and they thought it was a commercially viable idea. On top of that they were rightfully convinced that Adam would make a great movie out of it, and that’s when the project started rolling. There are lots of bands out there that are household names, but that doesn’t guarantee there’s a movie coming out.”

		The film is inspired by being a lifelong Kiss fan Director Adam Rifkin


	Adam Rifkin also adds that dedication was a very important element in the mix. “When Tim was working at New Line he helped immensely to get people all fired up about the project”, he says, and Tim Sullivan remembers, “They all knew that I was a complete Kiss fan. When I was selling the project to New Line people, they all knew were I came from. Ultimately it was the combination of all these things that got the project started.”


	Although running to create a moderate success at the box office, New Line committed to make “Detroit Rock City” one of their showcase DVD releases. Loaded to the rim with extras and at the same time pushing technological boundaries with multi-angle presentations, the DVD seems almost more important than the film’s theatrical run. It is a perfect example how the rise of the



	Adam Rifkin and Gene have a talk

video industry in general has helped studios survive box office droughts, and how video can not only extend a movie’s life span but instead create an entire life of its own. The video industry has reached a size where there is so much money to be made that it has a direct effect on movie budgets.

“You notice that on every movie,” director Rifkin explains. “These days there are a number of avenues to resell assets to different markets and outlets to make more money. There are foreign marketplaces, the broadcast rights, video releases and so much more. All of these are taken into consideration and attribute to healthier budgets.”

But nonetheless, the box office success of a movie is still what gets the most attention every Monday, being scrutinized by studio executives. As we know today however, these numbers can be very misleading and do not necessarily say anything about the overall success of a movie. They are overrated, as Gene Simmons correctly observes. “The success of movies is often a live-or-die perception for people within the industry, but in reality it doesn’t work that way necessarily. Most people just go to movies they want to go, because it is a movie they want to see. Behind that process is the idea that at any given weekend, most people can go to see one movie only. Inevitably you come out at a time when other pictures come out as well, and you compete for viewers. Sometimes that movie wins, the other time, it’s another one.”


	Again, Simmons offers an eloquent and compelling comparison. “You can compare it to horse races for example,” he starts. “By nature, all participants are champion horses in those races. But, depending on whether it’s a good day, whether it’s cold or whatever it is, ONE horse is the winner. At the same time you can take the last-place horse of one day, in another weekend, and chances are it can just as well turn out to be the number one horse on that day.” This limitation and the fact that competition at the box office can be tough, depending on which weekend of the year you open, and which movie you go head to head with, often breaks even the best movies. The list of underrated and underexposed films is long, and fortunately they all find a new life on video. A life in fact that is more enduring, significant and lasting than any box office run will ever be.

There can be no doubt that “Detroit Rock City” will shine on home video, and especially the DVD will attract many fans of the format for a number of reasons. Obviously there is the film, but the many supplements that are found on the release are diverse enough to also appeal to die-hard DVD fans, even if they are not particularly interested in the movie - at first! Being trailered on one of New Line’s hottest video releases of the year certainly also helps a little to increase the movie’s recognition.


	We all worked together with the DVD team Director Adam Rifkin

“It has its due on DVD,” Tim Sullivan enthuses. “There’s a trailer for ‘Detroit Rock City’ on ‘Austin Powers 2’, and many people call me, telling me that they saw the film on Austin Powers. There is quite a bit of additional recognition we get out of that.”

The DVD itself was spearheaded by two people who have made New Line’s Platinum Series a highly reputable brand among DVD owners. New Line’s Michael Mulvihil, director of DVD development, has contributed a lot to this stellar release, and of course Mark Rance, the guru who put it all together. Still, in order to create a great DVD with meaningful supplements, the involvement of the filmmakers is essential. As such it is hardly surprising that Tim Sullivan and director Adam Rifkin both tried to help out as good



	Gene Simmons, Adam Rifkin and Tim Sullivan

as possible. “We all worked together with the DVD team,” Rifkin remembers. “Of course, Mark did all the practical work. He put it all together. In terms of the creative side, from the beginning we all discussed all the ideas that came up and the options we had. We discussed how we could assemble things, and what edited material we could use on the DVD.”

“We were at New Line many times,” Tim Sullivan remembers, “putting it together as a team effort. The thing about Mark is that he is completely absorbed in these projects. Once the project got green lit by New Line - long before we even talked about the DVD - he actually went to a Kiss press conference, when the band was announcing their “Psycho Circus” tour. He videotaped the whole event in case we wanted to use it on the DVD.”

The multi-angle presentation of “Detroit Rock City”, one of the band’s best known and most acclaimed songs, is without a doubt one of the presentation and technical highlights of the DVD. Presenting a live performance of the song from four different video streams, the viewer has the chance to select any of these streams on the fly.

“To shoot this sequence we had about 8 cameras,” Adam Rifkin remembers. “Although they were all filming the entire time, none of them really stayed on any one member of the band. All of them were moving. We created 4 different edited video streams, and each one used the best of any particular shot, at any given time. So now, if you cut back and forth then between the angles you will always see some of the best shots these 8 cameras took at the time.”


		I tried to buy back the rights at one point Gene Simmons about “Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park”

	To record the audio track for this multi-angle segment, Kiss actually took time from their “Psycho Circus” tour and went into a recording studio where they played “Detroit Rock City” as if it were live while the tape was running. “For the recording of the song, we simply went into an small analog recording studio and played the song live,” Gene explains. “We wanted it really authentic to the 70s sound”, which meant no digital



		Gene Simmons on a serious note

recording or digital equipment to enhance the track was used. To create the 5.1 surround feel for the track on the DVD, it was then mixed to the surround speakers with some delay to fatten up the sound. Then the explosions were added with spatial placement to enhance the surround feel, as Rifkin explains.

After having seen “Detroit Rock City”, I am sure most Kiss fans will feel a new hunger for the band’s earlier movie attempt, the 1978 TV production “Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park”. Unfortunately the rights situation on the movie is a little tricky, as Gene Simmons tells me, and only God knows when it may make an appearance on DVD. “I tried buying back the rights at one point,” Simmons comments. “The film was originally co-produced by Kiss and the Hanna-Barbera Studios. It was then handed to Avco Embassy, and eventually it was bought by Warner Brothers, so now we have very little input.” From his words I gather that if it were within his power, he would release the movie on home video to make sure fans around the world could behold and remember the band’s first foray into motion pictures.


	While we were talking, Gene Simmons was already busy preparing the next big event in Kiss history - or Kisstory to use the term he coined many years ago. On New Year’s Eve, the band is playing a show at Vancouver, BC to rock in the new year for and with their fans. The show will have historic proportions in more ways than one. Not only is it a spectacular way to begin the next

Millenium, it will also be recorded for use on Kiss’ upcoming “Alive IV” album. For all fans of 5.1 sound productions, it can be assumed that the sound engineers will record this event in full surround and hopefully release the album, as well as a video that way, to reproduce the full bombastic glory of a Kiss live show. “Yes, the show will be ‘Alive IV’,” Simmons offers me some insight. “But the album will also contain other tracks from previous shows.” He is not overly concerned about technical issues like 5.1 recordings however, that’s what other people are responsible for. “I usually talk about the production in terms of the creative process. When I go on tour with Kiss, I try to stick my nose into everything to make sure it goes right, but I can’t tell you the exact EQ settings and stuff. Look at Adam here, as the director of the movie, he has to have the big picture in his mind at all times. I am the artist, and that’s why we’ve got all these guys looking at all those knobs 24 hours a day. If Adam were distracted by little things, the acting wouldn’t be up to snuff and the movie would suffer.”



		Kiss - celebrating 25 years of rock history


	Fortunately for all of us, Adam Rifkin did not get distracted, delivering a memorable movie. One thing becomes obvious when talking to all three of them. They are proud as hell of “Detroit Rock City”, and deservedly so. The film is a grandiose and fun-filled comedy with plenty of cool rock music, and of course as the icing on the cake, Kiss as we have come to love them. Fully dressed in make-up, with plenty of pyros and theatrics, and their trademark sound. Kiss is always an experience, and so is this film so don’t miss it when it hits DVD.



	Guido Henkel December 14, 1999


	Please also take a look at our in-depth review of “Detroit Rock City” on DVD


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