- Narrator: The following program is a PBS Wisconsin original production.

[upbeat music] - Oh my God, why are there balloons in your car?

- Goddamn it, Ash.

- Wait, you think this is my fault?

- You drove, it's your car.

You probably left the doors unlocked.

- #### you, I locked the car, I know I did!

- Yeah, I bet you did.

- Besides, you're the one who had to go make a friend tonight.

You just had to go find him, didn't ya?

Now look.

- How did he get in?

How did he get in?

- He broke in, genius.

And he probably stole all my stuff too.

- Like what?

- Jesus ####!

- You didn't have anything in-- - Shut up!

- Guys?

- Shut up!

- He's following us.

[suspenseful music] - Welcome to Director's Cut .

I'm Pete Schwaba and I have one question.

Are you scared of clowns?

If you're not now, you might be after this special Halloween episode of Director's Cut .

The clip we just saw is from the film Gags the Clown , a creepy story about a mysterious clown that roams the nighttime streets of Green Bay, terrorizing its citizens.

It's eerie, at times gory, and at times funny.

Joining me tonight here in the studio is the film's writer and director, Adam Krause.

Adam, welcome.

- Thank you, thank you for having me.

- You made the drive down from Green Bay, so congratulations and you got here just fine.

- Yep, this evening.

- Okay.

So I have to ask, this is such a fun film, where did the inspiration come from to make this film?

- Yeah, real life, 2013, I think.

I caught wind of a viral story on social media of, it's called the Berkshire clown.

And it was a guy dressing up like a creepy clown in Berkshire, England.

Kind of just baiting people to take pictures of him.

And then another one popped up in Wasco, California, and they were getting tons of shares and I was just like, "God, that is creepy."

And I just assumed, it's just this creepy idea.

I assumed it would be a Hollywood movie made, exploring this idea and nothing happened, nothing happened.

And I was looking to make another short film and the idea always just kind of stayed in my head.

So I wrote Gags the Clown , and at the short it was just called Gags .

And we made that in 2016.

And because of the nature of the story and how I found out about these roaming clowns, I knew right away that I was going to try and convince the city of Green Bay that they had a roaming clown.

So we kept everything under wraps.

It was a very small production, but yeah, it all came from real life, real people doing it.

- Very successful.

- Yeah.

- Why do so many people find clowns creepy?

- I don't know.

I mean, I think for my generation, the It miniseries in 1990 played a big part of that.

I was just seven years old.

There's no reason why I should have been watching it, but I was.

[Pete laughs] And you know, Tim Curry as the iconic Pennywise, I mean, that, I know that has a big part of it, but I mean, you could probably also do a deep dive in the psychology of it.

They cover their faces, they express emotions they're not necessarily feeling.

There's a lot of creepy elements to a clown.

- So lack of supervision is why we have this film, that's fantastic.

- Correct.

[laughing] - Let's see another clip from Gags the Clown .

[upbeat music] - Anchor: It is something I never thought I would say in my 22 years of broadcast journalism, but here it goes.

There's an evil clown roaming the streets of Green Bay.

This frightening video and many other images of a mysterious person in a dingy clown suit roaming the streets with black balloons have been flooding social media all week.

While police and city officials are still determining the proper recourse for this bizarre situation, we sent WGRB's very own Heather Duprey out on location to where it all began just eight days ago.

Heather, take it away.

- Thanks, Tom.

I'm standing under the Mason Bridge, a quiet little area in downtown Green Bay that no one ever paid attention to, until now.

As you can see, there's a frenzy of action behind me, as people gather hoping to catch a glimpse of Green Bay's very own Gags the Clown.

It was here that the clown was first spotted one week ago.

A passerby stopped to take pictures in awe of what he saw and posted them on social media.

The pictures quickly went viral, intriguing millions around the world, but some are suspicious about the clown's intentions.

While some find it to be harmless, good-natured fun, others are troubled, even frightened and wish that whoever was responsible would quit their clowning around.

- The last thing I need to worry about is some unstable person dressed in a clown suit.

I mean, how is this not illegal?

- Children are scared, parents are scared, heck, I'm scared.

- What are people really scared of, a killer clown from outer space?

Come on.

It's just a guy looking to have some fun and I'm all for it.

- Now, as reported earlier this week, the Green Bay police department has issued a statement saying that they will not be pursuing this individual, unless they have reason to believe that he or she has broken the law.

However, due to the commotion that Gags the Clown has created, the police department will be increasing its patrols and questioning anyone for suspicious behavior.

- So take me back if you would.

You did this short, you had this viral video campaign and everybody says, "Oh, you just gotta get something to go viral.

Just get something to go viral."

That's hard to do.

You did it with Gags .

This was on all over the world.

I was hosting a radio show in Milwaukee, I had you on there to talk about it.

Describe what you felt when something you did actually was shown all around the country, and did that help push you toward making a feature?

- It was the primary reason why we got to make a feature.

- Okay.

- Was that the pictures went viral, but no, it was...

It's hard to explain, it was such an insane feeling.

I honestly didn't think when we released the pictures on August 4th, I posted them on a dummy Facebook account.

And then I had five people lined up to share it.

Five people that I knew, that I knew had big networks.

And I told 'em like, "Hey, this is for a movie I'm making.

Can you just post it and pretend it's real?"

And five people just shared that original post I made.

And I remember telling my cast, I'm like, "Let's give it a day, if like no one cares, we'll just call it a day and we'll just announce the short."

But after that first day, it created such a commotion.

I think we had 9,000 shares on the post the first day.

- Wow.

- And then by the end of the week, the Facebook page that I had made had 55,000 followers.

- Whoa.

- And Alice Cooper shared the pictures, and Stephen King commented on it, and it was just absolutely crazy.

I mean, it's really hard to explain six years later.

- So you had the movie, the short, anyway, shot already when you did the campaign.

So then you rolled the campaign out and then followed up with the movie, wow.

- Yep.

- Well done.

- Yep, yep.

So we shot the film in May of 2016 and then released the pictures on August 4th, when I was 80% done with post-production.

- So I was looking up some of your cast on IMDB afterwards.

I was thinking, oh, he probably casted the film with Green Bay actors and your cast is from all over the place, L.A., Texas, the UK.

Can you talk a little bit about how you brought this cast together?

And it sounds like it was a ton of work.

- Yeah, no, so, Lauren Ashley Carter, our lead, which was cool because I was a big fan of her even before I made the short.

She had done Jug Face and Darling , and these movies, these indie horror films that I really, really liked.

And she was on my list, my short list that I provided my producers of people that I wanted to play the part of Heather Duprey.

And she read the script and she loved it.

And I was actually on my way to Madison, to the Wisconsin Film Festival, because the short was playing there and she called me on my cell phone.

And she's like, "I'm doing this movie.

- Wow.

- "I love the script, I wanna play a comedic part, "I wanna have like a comedic role like this.

I've never done anything like this, I'm in."

And I was like...

I was floored.

And then just through the producers, we did all the other casting.

We had two...

The roles for the police officers, we had cast and we were doing rehearsals, they were doing drives with actual police officers in Austin, Texas to like, get a feel for it.

Like they were really invested in the part.

- Wow.

- They were doing a television show at the time and there's something that just we missed or they missed.

But we found out three days before shooting that they couldn't be in the film due to their contractual obligations to the television show.

- Oh, wow.

- So we had to recast the parts of the police officers three days before we roll cameras.

And we got Evan Gamble and Tracy Perez.

And I'll tell you what, for throwing two actors into those roles last second, they were absolutely wonderful.

- They were very natural.

- Yeah.

They were so great.

And it was crazy, but you know, it's an indie film, but yeah, it was really great.

And then a lot of other local talent as well.

- It's so funny that that's the day and age we live in.

Even the cops were booked on another project.

[Adam laughing] This cracks me up.

Let's take another look here on our Halloween special of Gags the Clown .

Here's another clip.

- Dispatcher: Four, two, one.

[car door opens and closes] - Officer: 1-13, approaching blue Impala.

- Dispatcher: Plates are registered to a Doug Van Heron, address 542 Skylight Terrace, and appears valid on a blue Chevy Impala.

[suspenseful music] [knocking on window] - Officer: I need you to shut off the engine and exit the vehicle.

[knocking on window] Sir, take off the mask and exit the vehicle, now!

[knocking on window] Hey, I'm not playing games!

You need to take off the mask, show me your hands, and get out of the vehicle!

[eerie music] Christ's sake, what is this kid on?

[eerie music] Driver of Impala plates unresponsive, white male, early twenties, wearing a clown costume.

We're gonna need another unit.

Hey, don't you move!

Stay right there!

- That is a creepy clip.

So can you talk a little bit about, you use humor a lot in this, and it's a horror film.

Is there a danger in using it in certain areas where it will take away from the horror?

Is that a kind of a tap dance you have to do as director?

Can you talk about that a little bit?

- Yeah, I think, absolutely.

The thing with...

So the short that we made, that was much more straightforward horror, like that was just a horror film in my head.

And the feature, it was kind of spawned because of the viral craze of the pictures, and the short, and all the coverage that we got.

And it opened our eyes to a lot of things.

And so the feature was more or less spawned from the sensationalism of the viral marketing campaign.

So I think that's where a lot of the humor comes from, because a lot of it was just ridiculous.

And just like the media coverage, I think at one point the Press Secretary at the White House was asked about the clown craze going on in the nation in October 2016.

So the levels that this reached, it was insane.

So we put a lot of that humor into the script, 'cause the movie itself was social commentary in a sense, on media coverage, sensationalism, all sorts of things.

But to our cast that we ended up going with, they were just all really funny people.

And like for Lauren Ashley Carter, she would just go on tangents while we were rolling and it was just hilarious, you know, none of it was scripted.

She was just shooting from the hip and-- - That's when actors bring more to it than you ever anticipated, right?

Yeah, I think that was part of it.

We did write a funny script, but yeah, I think a lot of it had to do with just like how funny our actors were and how much freedom we kind of gave them when cameras were rolling.

- Yeah.

You gave, I saw a screening of this in Green Bay in 2019, my son and I went to see it.

And during the Q&A afterwards, somebody asked you about using the Packers in the film and how the Packers were noticeably absent in this film in Green Bay.

And I loved your response.

- At first, when we were earliest stages of pre-production for the feature, we had made some calls to see if one of the bigger name Green Bay Packers wanted to make a cameo.

'Cause we knew Aaron Rogers talked about Gags on a podcast and some other players had mentioned him in social media posts.

So we did try, but in the end we were just like, "It's not needed, let's give Green Bay something else "other than the Packers.

Let's just focus on this story."

We were the first feature film to be shot within the city limits of the city of Green Bay.

So that-- - Is that right?

- Yeah.

- No kidding.

- According to the mayor at the time.

- At least full feature.

- Yes.

- For sure, probably.

- Yes, and we shot, 90% of it was downtown Green Bay.

It brought a lot of excitement to the city.

It brought a lot of people, lot of support.

So I was glad to kind of just leave them out of it and give Green Bay something else to hang their hat on, you know?

- It's beautiful shots of the city too, that people haven't seen before, probably, because there hasn't been a full feature shot there.

Beautifully horrific shots, I should say.

- Yeah.

[laughing] - There's some really great locations there.

- Yeah, thank you.

Yeah, there's a lot of... And that's me living in Green Bay as long as I have, I would walk by a alley and I'd be like, "Oh, that's a great alley to shoot a... "If I make a horror movie, I'm gonna shoot a scene in this alley."

And we got to do that with Gags .

So it's a lot of locations that I had in my head that I'm like, "If I ever make a movie here, I'm gonna utilize this location."

And I got to do a lot of that.

- That's so true.

- Yeah.

- Yeah.

- Let's see another clip from Gags the Clown .

- Officer: Good evening, ma'am.

I'm responding to a phone call.

- It's my daughter.

She's, I don't know what's gotten into her, but she's not herself.

Something's wrong.

- The cops are here.

- Okay, ma'am, I'm gonna need you to tell me who's all in the house.

- Oh, it's just me and my two daughters, Jenna and my oldest daughter, Erin, who's locked herself in here and won't come out.

- Okay, just the facts, tell me what's going on.

- Erin, she came home early.

Her and her two friends went out looking for that damn clown.

She wasn't feeling good and she was covered in some sort of white powder.

- It was cocaine.

- Shut up, Jenna.

I didn't put much thought into it, but then she went into this trance, and she was holding scissors in her hand and she looked at me like she wanted to hurt me.

She's been in here ever since.

- May I?

- Yeah.

[knocking on door] Hey, Erin?

It's Officer Jacobs with the Green Bay Police Department.

Why don't you come on out here so we can talk for a bit?

Did she have the scissors with her when she went in?

- Yes.

- Hey, Erin.

Hey, you're worrying your mother.

Hey, I'm gonna come in and check on you, just to make sure everything's okay, all right?

[ominous music] [door slamming] [Mom gasping] Jesus, kid, you're gonna have to let me in.

[door banging] Unit 1-19, I'm gonna need immediate assistance on that 10-16 on Baird Street.

- Mom: [screaming] Oh, God, oh!

- Yikes.

John Pata is your co-writer.

I saw on the credits, he's also the editor of the film.

Does writing with an editor expedite the writing process?

Are you more efficient as a writer, because you're writing with an editor and similar to editing the film, is it easier to edit when the writer has been part of the process?

- Where it was very beneficial, was, I think, more in the production aspect of the film.

When we were running and gunning and shooting an incredible amount of pages in one night, 'cause these were all overnights in May, in Wisconsin.

So we didn't have much time for...

The sun goes down at about 9:00, it starts rising again at like 5:30.

So we had to cram a lot of nights and I think it was more beneficial to have an editor.

He can see things in his head and he's just like, "No, we got this.

"No, I can transition from this to this, it'll be fine.

We'll just need a score cue and we can do this."

And that that's where it benefited.

But the co-writing, that was a lot of fun, 'cause really, when the short blew up, I didn't have plans to make a feature film and I kind of knew it was viral and I knew interest would eventually die down and I knew everything it took to make a feature film.

And it was really John that kind of said like, "No, there's something here."

And he pitched the idea that kind of is the movie of the four stories revolving around Gags, you know?

- You have security cam footage or what looks to be, you have POVs from your access characters and then master shots.

Did you have to have, as a director, separate shot lists for all those?

Or was the effects just added in post?

How did you manage that?

- Yeah, it was, we wrote a lot of it into the script.

It's the found footage is the genre term used, but I've been using assembled footage.

It's footage from all these cameras we find in our daily life just assembled all together.

A lot of it was written in the script, but a lot of it too was just kind of in post, putting some effects on it and making it look like that shot was shot in a parking lot.

- Yeah.

- So, yeah.

- It totally looked legit.

We have about 30 seconds 'til our next clip.

Was it hard to find funding?

Independent films notoriously... - Yeah, no, it's extremely hard, but it wasn't...

It was kind of one of those things where I stayed out of that.

The producers approached me, they told me, "Let's make this happen.

You focus on the directing, we'll focus on everything else."

We didn't have a big budget, don't get me wrong, but it was more than I've ever seen.

And it was more than I was ever able to make a movie with.

So, but no, I mean, it wasn't hard, I think, because the short and the viral campaign acted as kind of like our proof of concept.

- Yeah, it's a nice thing to show people and hopefully your budgets will only get bigger as you keep making films.

It's our Halloween special episode of Director's Cut with Adam Krause, the film is Gags the Clown , here's another clip.

[ominous music] - Chrissy: This is the Green Bay Police Department!

If anyone is here, you need to make yourself known!

[ominous music] - Jake: Oh, goddammit.

[ominous music] - Chrissy: This is the Green Bay Police Department.

Raise your hands and get down on your knees.

Sir, this is the police!

Put your hands in the air and get down on your knees!

- Jake: Do what she says, man!

- Sir?

- Jake: You wanna do this the easy way or the hard way?

- Chrissy: Sir, this is the police!

- Jake: Jesus Christ!

- Chrissy: Drop your weapon and get down on the ground now!

- Don't do it!

Stop!

- I will not-- [gunshot fires] - Jake: Chrissy, you all right?

- Chrissy: I'm fine.

- What the hell is wrong with him?

- He's dead, that's what's wrong with him.

Whoa, what the hell was he doing to himself?

- Jake: I've seen a lot of things in my day, but nothing like that.

- Chrissy: Unit 1-12, shots fired, suspect down.

Paramedics required immediately.

- Jake: You've gotta be kidding me!

You said he was dead!

- His vitals were gone!

[ominous music] - Jake: Where are you going?

- Chrissy: After him!

Meet me out front!

- Jake: ####, ####!

[ominous music] [static hissing] - Hopefully that wasn't the guy that made everybody's soup.

[Adam chuckling] Okay, hey, we are joined here tonight, again, with another special guest, Eric Heuvelman, alias "Gags the Clown," is here with us.

So Eric, welcome.

- Thank you, thanks for having us.

- Tell us about your experience and then tell us how you guys met and how this all... How you guys got together on this project.

- It's been an awesome experience.

My whole life, I always wanted to be in the movies, have a movie out that people go and get to see, and stuff, and just...

So, it's been a blessing to be a part of this, and meeting Adam a few years back, where we've grown and been.

I think we've done five or six things now, but yeah, it's been just a fun ride.

Never expected what we did to go worldwide.

So it's been, been awesome.

- Is it frustrating you don't get to show your face, that all your work is unappreciated, so to speak or?

- Well, not really because I do, if you watch the film, I have a little secret parts in there, your Easter eggs per se, that I'm out of costume in a part.

- Pete: Nice.

- If you see some still frame photos, maybe you might know who that is.

- That's fantastic; how did you guys meet?

- We had a mutual friend.

I was making a zombie short film in 2009 and we were looking for a... Zombie nurse was the character and a mutual friend is like, "Hey, I got this guy."

And Eric showed up and we put makeup on him and turned him into a zombie and he's just...

He had a really great attitude.

He was just all there for the experience.

And I shot another short couple years later, I gave him a bigger part with a speaking role and yeah, we started a friendship.

And then when I had the idea for the short, he was the first person I told about it, 'cause I'm like, "Hey, I have this idea.

You'd be wearing a clown suit, it's the..." - I'm in.

- It is pretty much what it was, he was in.

And he's been very supportive and he's sacrificed a lot of his personal time and family time to come shoot things with me in the film.

So it's been great.

- Very cool.

So without giving away the ending, your last scene is so great.

Who are your influences?

How did you get to that last scene or what was the inspiration for it?

'Cause I've never seen anything like that, I don't think in a horror film.

- Yeah, so there's kind of a theme in the movie where we're using these Green Bay locations and we kind of knew that the clown's lair would be in this abandoned building.

And there's something about an abandoned building, which is eerie, but also kind of interesting, you wanna explore it.

And so we were writing the script and I remember it was me, I was writing just pages and I was just in one of those zones.

So I was just going, going, going.

And I just wrote, like, they would find this big circus tent in the abandoned building.

And I remember, I texted my co-writer and I'm like, "Hey, I just finished up the third act.

"I put a circus tent "in the middle of the abandoned building.

"So we'll probably have to be asked to rewrite it, but it reads really well, so I'm gonna keep it for now."

And the producers loved it, everyone loved it.

And they assured me that they would make it work and they did, so.

- And now not just clowns are creepy, that music, that the characters are hearing in the background while they're in the building is really creepy too.

So now I can't even listen to circus music, because of you guys, because of you clowns.

We just have a few seconds left.

Are you happy with the response and how the film did?

It seemed like it did really well for you guys.

- Yeah, absolutely, it was a lot of fun.

I mean, we were talking about this on the ride down here.

It's just what we got to experience from this project.

I mean, now, including this, a show I've watched quite a bit over the years, it's just been amazing.

So yeah, I'm very happy.

- Nice that you get to relive it too when you do stuff like this, and you get to tell all the stories of production and how great it was too.

- Absolutely.

- Definitely.

You keep my dream going.

- Yeah, I hope you get to, and I hope you see more of your face.

Now that is really creepy.

[Adam laughing] - Yeah.

No, it's been a fun ride, and it's still going so.

- Well, thanks you guys for being here, this has been great.

- Thank you.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

- Good luck with the film's continued success.

And thank you for watching Director's Cut .

For more information on Gags the Clown , please go to pbswisconsin.org and click on Director's Cut .

Also, don't forget to like PBS Wisconsin on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

I'm Pete Schwaba and I still think Ronald McDonald is much scarier.

Just something about him-- [Pete startles] [ominous music]