This episode continues the roundtable discussion with four Stephen King Dollar Baby filmmakers: Bill Hansen (Survivor Type), James Cole and Daniel Thron (Last Rung on the Ladder), and James Cox (Gray Matter). Part 2 focuses on casting, production logistics, post-production challenges, Stephen King’s response, and the lasting impact of their films.
Casting and Performances
Survivor Type – Gideon Emery
Hansen faced the daunting task of finding an actor capable of carrying an entire 30-minute film essentially as a one-man show talking to a camera. They hired casting directors for a full day of auditions where actors “pretended to cut their feet off all day.”
The British Secret: Gideon Emery has a thick British accent, completely undetectable in the film. His flawless American accent sparked murmurs of surprise at the premiere Q&A when audiences heard him speak naturally. This led to a tangential discussion about why British actors (Hugh Laurie, Alan Cumming) excel at American accents while Americans struggle with the reverse—”because we fought a whole war so we wouldn’t have to.”
Method Acting: Emery told Hansen after shooting that he hadn’t eaten anything during the entire four-day shoot to authentically portray starvation. He also watched YouTube videos of heroin addicts to capture realistic mannerisms for the drug-addicted surgeon character. Hansen found himself directing very little on set—mostly just blocking and practical matters—because Emery “really had it from the beginning.”
Physical Appearance: They specifically cast someone thin who could convincingly appear to be wasting away. Emery’s facial structure was ideal—”you just put a little bit of makeup underneath his cheeks, and he looks like he’d lost 10 pounds.”
Gray Matter – The Casting Crisis
Cox had to recast the crucial father role the day before shooting began when the original actor took a paying job elsewhere—a constant risk with unpaid/deferred payment projects. This turned into a blessing: replacement Rob Pattinson had pre-existing chemistry with young lead Tyler Chase from improv work, creating an authentic father-son dynamic that had “less to do with me as a director and more to do with them as actors.”
Tyler Chase: Found through producer Andy Hamamoto from a previous short film, Chase was 17 but legally 18 with special work arrangements, avoiding extensive paperwork and on-set teacher requirements. He was simultaneously working on a Nickelodeon show and later appeared on The Walking Dead (where “he got eaten”).
The Principal: Cox cast Alan Troutman because he looked exactly like Cox’s hated elementary school gym teacher—”I don’t even care if you can act.” During a lunch break, Cox embarrassingly discovered that Troutman was the iconic “tar man” zombie from Return of the Living Dead (1985)—the first zombie in cinema history to specifically say it wanted to eat brains. Cox had been discussing the character as if talking about someone else: “Wait, you know I was that guy, right?”
Last Rung on the Ladder – The Kids
Cole and Thron cast Adam and Melissa (the little sister of Cole’s friend Glenn) from their small high school in Chatham (Cole’s graduating class had only 52 students). They met Adam during the senior play Once Upon a Mattress. Remarkably, the kids were more durable than the teenage filmmakers and wanted to shoot longer despite the oppressive heat and hay dust in the barn. Cole emphasizes that despite all technical limitations, “I wouldn’t touch one part of that movie in terms of the kids’ performances because they were perfect.”
Production Details and Budgets
Makeup Effects Budget (Survivor Type)
The makeup was the one significant expense Hansen knew was necessary: approximately $4,500, which he considers “honestly, a great deal for what we got.” Makeup artist Doug Murphy spent six weeks in prep, building prosthetic body parts with each hair hand-punched—a painstaking process. Murphy created a detailed chart mapping the character’s degradation for every day on the island, with progressively more gaunt makeup, rotting teeth, wrinkles, and sunburn.
The Fake Hand: A photo of Emery’s real hand next to the prosthetic shows them as “ridiculously identical”—every vein and knuckle wrinkle perfectly matched.
One-Take-Only: Due to the expense, they had only one take for each major amputation scene. The leg amputation setup took four hours to ensure everything worked perfectly. “With the leg, we only had one take. With the second leg amputation, we only had one take. With the ear, we really only had one take.” Only the off-screen hand scene allowed multiple takes.
Overall Budgets and Funding
Gray Matter: Approximately $18,000, sourced through “beg, borrow, and steal”—basically family, friends, and leaving “no stone unturned.” They benefited from the 2009 housing crisis, securing a vacant rental house in Long Beach for the week. They built the doctor’s office and various interior sets within the house, plus shot at Chapman University (professor’s office doubled as principal’s office, bathroom sets built there). Filming in L.A. meant every location came with a price tag.
Survivor Type: Hansen doesn’t specify the total budget, but the four-day Malibu shoot at Leo Carrillo State Park with the $4,500 makeup budget suggests a modest overall cost. The minimal crew (under 10 people) and no lighting setup kept costs down.
Last Rung on the Ladder: Shot on Super 8mm over approximately nine days in summer 1986, Cole and Thron worked with virtually no budget—just two kids, a barn, and their own equipment and labor.
Crew Sizes
- Survivor Type: Under 10 people (Hansen as DP, Emery, three makeup people, two producers, a few helpers)
- Gray Matter: Maximum of 15 at any given time, fluctuating based on scenes and locations
- Last Rung: Just Cole, Thron, and the two young actors—they doubled in every crew role themselves
Post-Production Challenges
Last Rung on the Ladder – Super 8mm Editing Hell
Cole edited alone in his UMass dorm using borrowed equipment—a Super 8 sound projector that was later stolen from the school. The technical limitations were severe:
The Magnetic Stripe Problem: Super 8 film has two magnetic stripes glued directly to the film—one for ambient sound recorded during shooting, one for music/sound effects. Sound effects, re-dubbed lines, and music had to be recorded by pushing the record button on the projector.
The 13-Frame Delay: The magnetic heads sit 13 frames behind the lens, meaning any cut creates almost three-quarters of a second of silence before dialogue can resume—”a really strange” effect if not carefully managed. Thron marveled at how Cole found ways around this limitation, making the film flow naturally despite the inherent technical hiccup.
Cole’s Solution: Watch the opening field scene carefully—the camera cuts to the next person three-quarters of a second before they begin speaking. “That’s how they made it work.”
The Test Screening Disaster: Cole held a test screening in his dorm in April 1987. After some complimentary feedback, “some wise ass who doesn’t like it starts speaking up, and everybody is so sheepish that they all jump on board.” The breaking point came when someone said, “It didn’t do a thing for me.” Cole “finally kind of just ran away from the room.”
The Score: Composer Ann Livermore wrote an original piano score and recorded the entire thing in just one hour on a scoring stage—”an extraordinarily high-pressure recording with no room for mistakes”—onto a standard Maxell 90-minute cassette tape. The film was completed around May 1987.
Gray Matter – The Editing Learning Curve
Cox admits editing his own work was “probably the most challenging aspect” because of emotional attachment. “You get so attached to what you write and you get so attached to what you spent so much time on set.” His first cut was “really terrible,” requiring feedback from multiple people to recognize issues.
The Digital Curse/Blessing: Unlike film shooters limited by stock, digital filmmakers face “the embarrassment of riches of shooting too much.” Cox shot excessive footage with many takes, not fully knowing what the film would be until editing. The movie changed significantly from script to shoot to edit—”to its benefit, I would say.”
Casualties: An actress from The Office had to be cut entirely because her scene didn’t work and the story needed to start after she’d already left. Cox notes this was “kind of a little bit of embarrassment.”
Timeline: Shooting in 2009, the film wasn’t finished until 2011, with the gap due to color correction and securing the right people for visual effects (the opening credits and big ending).
The Score: Composer John W. Snyder found Cox through social media, read the script, and “just knew” what the movie needed. Cox credits Snyder’s score as one of two elements (along with Tyler Chase’s performance) that make the film “something special and not just another short film.”
Survivor Type – Streamlined Post
Hansen’s post-production was “pretty smooth” due to the found-footage format—essentially “plopping in these huge three-minute takes one after the other” with jump cuts for pacing. He handled cutting, color correction, and sound design himself, leveraging his post-production background.
The Sound Challenge: The entire film was shot in the ocean with constant waves and wind. Hansen expected to do extensive ADR (automated dialogue replacement), which would compromise performance quality. However, his music producer friend who also does sound mixing “flicked a couple of switches and it was gone. And the dialogue was clean.” Not a single line required ADR—remarkable given ocean filming conditions and found-footage acceptance of rougher audio.
The Score and Song: Composers Charles Hondurik and Noah Pollock (from the band Hamptons) created subtle horror-style score with creepy sound effects and “very seventies horror” aesthetic. They also wrote and recorded an original song, “Eat Your Heart Out,” specifically for the end credits (lyric: “I don’t take care of myself like I should”).
The Found Footage Music Debate: Hansen wrestled with whether to include score in found footage, ultimately deciding the jump cuts already broke “purity” of the format, and they weren’t trying to sell it as “we found this tape.” The music “really highlighted the sad moments and the really screwed up and darkly funny stuff.”
Technical Shooting Details
Cameras Used:
- Survivor Type: Nikon D3100 (comparable to Canon 70D)—chosen because it was full HD and appropriate for what a stranded person might have
- Gray Matter: RED One camera—had overheating issues requiring fans between takes; could shut down mid-take
- Last Rung: Super 8mm film—you can still hear the camera motor in the soundtrack, particularly in outdoor scenes
Stephen King’s Response
Survivor Type – Direct Approval
A radio DJ in Bangor, Maine contacted Hansen about screening the film at a fundraiser. The DJ worked for WZON, a radio station owned by Stephen King. When Hansen explained the Dollar Baby restrictions, the DJ approached King directly. King’s response: “It sounds good. I just want to see the movie and approve it first.”
Hansen sent an earlier rough cut directly to King’s Dollar Baby representatives. “A couple of weeks later, I heard that… he loved it” and approved the screening. This is the only film in the roundtable with confirmed direct King approval.
Last Rung on the Ladder – Published Recognition
Cole never received direct communication from King despite persistent inquiries to his Bangor office over about a year. The assistants eventually sent a polite letter essentially saying, “We know he got it. We don’t know if he’s watched it. Go away.”
The Breakthrough: In June 1996, when Frank Darabont’s The Shawshank Redemption: The Shooting Script book was published, King wrote an introduction publicly explaining the Dollar Baby program for the first time. He listed several adapted stories including The Woman in the Room, The Boogeyman, and Last Rung on the Ladder. Cole’s assumption: “If he’s going to list Last Rung as one of them, he had to have at least thought it was okay.”
The Missed Meeting: In fall 2004, there was a Dollar Baby festival in Bangor that King was supposed to attend. Cole and Holben flew back for it, but King was in Boston watching the Red Sox winning streak. They never met.
Gray Matter – Radio Silence
Cox hasn’t heard anything from King and admits being “afraid to hear” given the liberties he took with the story. He jokingly worries about “falling into the company of Stanley Kubrick” (King famously disliked The Shining).
The Dollar Baby Process Evolution
1987 (Cole and Thron)
It was “actually a dream”—send a buck, no contract, no script approval, nothing. Cole still has his canceled check with King’s hand-signed endorsement on the back.
2008 (Cox)
No website form existed. Cox spent six months stalking message boards to find the right contact person, then had to email every couple of weeks asking “still interested, who do I talk to?” before finally connecting with Margaret (who handles Dollar Baby inquiries).
2012 (Hansen)
Nearly automated. King’s website had a message form: “Write us here, send us a message here, and we’ll send you a contract.” Margaret responded shortly after with the contract. Simple process: sign it, send it back with a dollar check, provide a copy of the final film. Hansen may have gotten King’s signature on his canceled check but hadn’t verified at the time of the interview.
Available Stories
The list changes based on which stories are currently under option or have been purchased outright. For example, Milton Subotsky bought rights to various King stories years ago (including The Lawnmower Man after Jeffrey C. Schiro’s Dollar Baby version, before directing Cat’s Eye, which Cole considers “a very underrated film”).
Cole doesn’t know the current selection process—whether King hand-selects stories or simply makes available anything not currently optioned/sold.
Published Recognition and Community Building
Cole’s Media Success
In September 1988, Castle Rock newsletter (the same publication that informed them about the Dollar Baby program) published Cole’s “making of” article as their lead story: “The Good and Bad of Film Adaptation.” It’s been republished in several books.
Cole met both Jeffrey C. Schiro (first Dollar Baby, The Lawnmower Man) and Stephen Spignesi (the preeminent King expert) through Last Rung. Cole contributed essays to three of Spignesi’s acclaimed King books because of the film.
The film was reviewed in Castle Rock newsletter with a memorable line that encapsulates its legacy: “Basically been the most acclaimed movie that was never a success”—meaning it did tremendous things for Cole without commercial success.
The 2004 Connection
At a signing for Stephen Jones’s book Creep Shows (about all King adaptations) at Dark Delicacies bookstore in Burbank, Cole met Jay Holben (who directed Paranoid, a Dollar Baby based on King’s poem). Holben was signing because he’d contributed to the book, which also covered Last Rung.
Cole asked what Holben was working on next. Holben: “I want to do another short movie, but I don’t have a script.” Cole had a short story (not a screenplay). Three months later, they were shooting The Night Before, Cole’s autobiographical story about his childhood hospitalization. It screened at four festivals, won two awards, and has 4,000 YouTube views—”for a 20-minute movie, that’s pretty good.”
Cole concludes: “Through The Dollar Baby and through Last Run, that is what finally got me produced. And Hollywood had nothing to do with it.”
Impact and Legacy
Festival Success
- Survivor Type: Screened at almost 40 festivals over two years, far exceeding Hansen’s expectations
- Gray Matter: Won awards at Vail and Big Bear festivals among others
- Last Rung: Featured at the 2004 Bangor Dollar Baby Festival and numerous conventions over the years
The Kamikaze Festival
In 2014, Hansen and Cox organized a screening of eight Dollar Baby films at Stan Lee’s Comikaze (now Los Angeles Comic Con), hosted by Joe Bob Briggs. They showed The Boogeyman, Paranoid, and others. This event exemplifies the community-building aspect of the Dollar Baby program.
Career Doors Opened
Hansen: “It’s gotten me into a few rooms I wouldn’t have gotten into without it… the most successful thing that I’ve done so far.” Post-supervised the TV show Black Jesus and shot his own pilot, No Place to Fall, a “feel-good, light-hearted drama about musicians” with no self-cannibalism. Subsequently crowdfunded his first feature, Control-Alt-Delete, a Michael Crichton-esque techno-thriller about systems administrators battling an awakened AI in a data center.
Cox: “It’s gotten me in some rooms I wouldn’t be in otherwise… the most successful thing I’ve done so far.” The film got him into great festivals and tapped him into the Dollar Baby community: “Some of the most fascinating people I’ve met.” As his first film as writer-director, it was “an exciting way to kick it off.”
Thron: Last Rung was “such a hugely formative experience for me in terms of what I want to do with my life.” He credits Cole with “setting that standard” that propelled him through his creative life. He’s now writing and directing, working on an exorcism-based feature with “lots of pea soup and spinning heads.” His 2014 breakthrough: commissioned by 20th Century Fox to create one of three promotional films for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (Cole considers his the best of the three).
Cole: While Last Rung “never got me a single meeting” in Hollywood (being Super 8 and not actively promoted to executives), it got him published and eventually produced through the community connections described above. He’s now writing his memoir (halfway through the manuscript) and reverse-engineering two rejected screenplays into young adult novels.
The Scarcity Factor
All four filmmakers agree the inability to post films online creates valuable scarcity. Hansen: “I think what would happen if we were allowed to put it online is that a lot of people would shoot these over a weekend and they’d put them up on YouTube and that would be it.”
Articles about Survivor Type emphasize “it’s really hard to see this movie.” People told Hansen at festivals: “I drove six hours to come see this because there’s nowhere else to see it.”
Cox: “There is something special about that theatrical exclusive type experience” that’s lost in new media’s “if you can’t put it on the internet, it doesn’t exist” mentality.
Philosophy and Advice
Thron’s Observation: Despite fantastic new affordable technology, “it’s sort of shocking to me how few people still make short films.” The Dollar Baby program succeeds because it provides community support that gets films actually made. “Groups like the dollar babies, which really focus on having a community to support people to do this, that get the stuff done in the first place.”
Cole’s Wisdom: “I think King’s Dollar Baby program is a wonderful thing, because you’re too young, you’re too stupid, and you’re too inexperienced to realize it can’t be done, so you do it.”
Cox on Producing: You have to “pick which aspect of it you’re going to put the time and money into.” For Last Rung, it was locations. For Survivor Type, it was makeup and the lead actor. For Gray Matter, it was casting and production design. “There’s one thing that’s really, really hard, and then everything else sort of falls into place.”
Dream Dollar Baby Projects
- Cole: Ballad of the Flexible Bullet (he wrote a play adaptation in the 1980s and received a cease and desist from King’s lawyer)
- Hansen: All That You Love Will Be Carried Away (but there’s already a great Dollar Baby with Joe Bob Briggs)
- Cox: Willa from King’s recent collection—resonates with his experiences on public transit when “suddenly you’re not” in your safe capsule and must interact with strangers
- Consensus pick: One for the Road (though one filmmaker already attempted it with insufficient budget to make the blizzard look adequately terrifying)
The episode concludes with all four filmmakers expressing gratitude for the Dollar Baby program, the community it created, and the profound impact it had on their careers—all without Hollywood’s involvement.
- Season Finale: Field Guide to SPIRITED AWAY, GILLIGAN’S ISLAND Real?, BBC Spaghetti Tree Hoax, EXORCIST-CIA Connection, Hollywood Star Secrets, 13 WOMEN - October 28, 2025
- THE EXORCIST: Faith, Fear, and the True Story Behind Hollywood’s Most Haunted Film - October 21, 2025
- THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE and The REAL Possession of Anneliese Michel - October 14, 2025
