For those who have not see the new movie yet, Paranormal Activity 3 is a prequel, in a sense, to the first two films and tells the story of a young Katie and Kristi, and their first encounters with Toby. Smith plays the girls’ mother’s boyfriend, and is the videographer responsible for this chapter in the franchise’s “found footage.”
Of course, the first topic on everyone’s mind was the recently announced Paranormal Activity 4, which is scheduled to hit theaters on October 19th of this year. While Peli was tightlipped about the project, admitting that he learned his lesson long ago about talking to the press regarding upcoming projects, he did have this to say on the subject of the fourth film in the franchise. "Every time we think, let's figure out a great idea for a sequel. Hopefully it works and the fans embrace it, then we'll think about the next one," Peli explained. "As we've done in the second and third one, we do have this mythology that's emerging, and it's kind of cool that we were able to go back in time and explore more of it.”
“So we do have quite a few directions that we can go in, and we probably have material for more than one movie, but we're always looking at it as one at a time,” he continued. “So now we're concentrating on the fourth one, and hopefully it will turn out great. If people like it, then we'll think about the next one, but I think it's greedy to think beyond the one you're working on."
Peli also explained that a franchise was never in the cards, and that when they were making the first movie, all they were concentrating on was getting that film made. But now that a trilogy has emerged, the filmmakers realize that they have created their own rich mythology within the Paranormal Activity world and Peli discussed how that was developed throughout the process of making the first three films. “Usually we work on them one at a time, but as we were doing the second one, we saw that there was a mythology emerging so we figured let's kind of build on that and plant some seeds,” Peli explained. “Then, depending on whichever direction we decide to go in for a third one, if we were lucky to get to do a third one, we have options to go forward in time, go backward in time or really go any direction we wanted to. All of those choices allowed us to expand or explore the mythology more."
When the first film in the series was released, many believed that it was really “found footage” and the filmmakers went out of their way to protect the mystery of the film. In fact, their desire to be secretive even led to actor Micah Sloat not being allowed to attend the premiere because in the context of the film he was dead. "I remember watching it from across the street, hiding behind a mailbox and watching everything; it was very surreal," he explained.
Like Sloat before him, actor Chris Smith’s Dennis is operating an old VHS camera through most of Paranormal Activity 3 and discussed the special camera that was created for him to use in the film. “They built this camera that they put into the body of an old VHS camera. I would look into the viewfinder, and I couldn't really see anything. So what they had to do was put in a little monitor in the viewfinder that was transmitting the video it was recording in the body of this old VHS tape. So I was basically watching a little monitor in the viewfinder, which was really cool. If we were shooting anything that required that VHS system they had set up, it would just be blind. The DP would be hiding behind me, and we had this system where if I was too far crooked, she would turn a knob so that I would straighten out, without her saying anything."
Actress Katie Featherston, who has appeared in all three films as Katie could only stay briefly for tea but before leaving talked about her experience working on the franchise. "The whole thing was sort of unbelievable. I still have people who come up to me daily and congratulate me and talk about how much they like the movie. It never gets old. I think Micah and I are both so unbelievably thankful for the people who were excited about it from the very beginning, who paid attention to it. It's overwhelming, the amount of excitement and I was shocked that there was a sequel. I still remember sitting at California Pizza Kitchen with these two guys (Micah and Oren), brainstorming about the first one. To have as much success as we've had, and to be here for the third round, it’s still mind-blowing. I still haven't really come to terms with it and I don't know if I ever will."
Chloe Csengery and Jessica Brown, who play young Katie and Kristi, respectively, were understandably a bit shy but extremely well behaved. In fact, I was sitting across from Jessica who was placed right next to "Toby’s seat" and seemed fascinated by the “presence” of the film’s demonic entity. She even went as far as to speak to him and say to her mother who was on hand, “Look mom, Toby’s here.” We asked Brown if “Toby” scared her while shooting the movie, or if she got nightmares from anything that she had to do in the film. “No,” she replied. “Once you get involved with everyone and start to get comfortable, then you start to feel like a real family.”
The eleven year-old Csengery went on to admit that she hasn’t
seen all of Paranormal Activity 3 yet and that her family would not allow her
to see the first two films before shooting the third. "I have seen parts
of the movie, but I haven't seen the last fifteen minutes,” she explained. “I wasn't
allowed to see the first two, but my mom told me how the other movies were.”
Since Csengery plays a younger version of Featherston in the movie, we asked
how she was able to prepare for the role without watching the previous films.
“I watched clips on YouTube, of how my character was,” she replied.
While Peli only directed the first film in the series, he has been very heavily involved as a producer on the last two movies and even hand picked Catfish directors Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman to direct Paranormal Activity 3. Since Catfish was sort of a “found footage” film, and even took criticism for marketing itself as a horror film when it was in fact about the dangers of online dating, Joost and Schulman seem like the perfect choices to direct a Paranormal Activity movie and I asked Peli about working with the two directors on the film. “I have to say, Henry and Ariel were absolutely fantastic with the way they worked with the crew in general. They kept an amazingly great atmosphere, and they worked so great with the cast. They did a fantastic job."
Finally, our “Tea with Toby” had come to an end and the cast and filmmakers were gracious enough to allow us to snap a few photos before we left. Sadly, Toby never made an appearance at the event…. or did he?
Paranormal Activity 3 is now available on Blu-ray and DVD!
