Screen play writer, director, producer and actor Rob Jankowski has just released his supernatural sensation “Attached Paranormal,” examining the strange death of what was regarded as a suicide. The film is available on-demand via Amazon Prime, VUDU, Fandango, Google Play, iTunes, Apple Plus, Microsoft, and the Dish Network.
Based in Pennsylvania, Rob was interested in film since childhood. He wasn’t only interested in watching them but also producing them in the behind the scenes work that goes on in making a movie. He’s also a triple threat as an actor and director in his own screen plays.
I was fortunate to speak with Rob regarding the behind the scenes efforts in making a film in the midst of a pandemic…..
First of all do you believe in the paranormal?
I’ve always been questionable on it.
What inspired your new film “Attached: Paranormal?”
To be honest with you, this movie was inspired from Covid. When Covid hit everything in the film industry pretty much shut down. I didn’t want to be sitting around doing nothing, so I used the time to go back and look at several screenplays that I wrote myself. I went back and looked at what I could realistically shoot and produce when Covid shut everything down with a minimal crew and cast. So I went to the script that I wrote “Attached Paranormal” and obviously I had to simplify things, rewrite some things in order to do it during shut down. That’s pretty much what it stemmed from.
What challenges did you face during lock down aside from isolation?
That was the biggest challenge. The biggest challenge was casting a cast where several of them had to basically tape their scenes from their own location and then send me the footage where I was able to edit it at a later date. That was the hardest challenge because we weren’t supposed to be around anyone, there was social distancing as requirements for production shut down. So just basically finding the cast.
Briefly tell us about the movie without giving too much away.
So the film is a paranormal horror film. Basically, a wife is away on vacation and she comes home to find her husband dead on the floor and then calls the cops. The cops dismiss it right away and say its suicide, no big deal. They did find a camera, but they just put it in the evidence locker and locked it away. They never really watched the footage. So, years later a detective that works on cold cases gets the footage and watches it for the first time. While he has it at his home to review, his high school son gets a hold of it, watches it, and thinks it would be a cool idea to edit the footage into somewhat of a movie format and upload to the Internet for the world to watch and decide what they think.
Does your film have a message?
There is no real message other than there are a lot of unexplained deaths that occur every year. That’s one of the premises of this film, that things like this do happen all the time and they get dismissed all the time for no real actual rhyme or reason as to why the person died. It could be an unknown death or one in which they determined as a suicide, but no one really knew exactly why or how it happened. A lot of it leads back to the paranormal. If you believe in the paranormal it can be such things as where they possessed, were they being tormented, or was it someone seeing things beyond the realm that they didn’t want to be seeing? So, it kind of falls into that.
Tell me about Rob?
My background is, I’m from Reading, Pennsylvania and I was born in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. At a young age I loved watching movies, films, TV but not just on the level, “OK it’s cool“. I was always fascinated with all of the elements of it. How it was made. From raising the financing to the production and the shooting of it, to editing it and distributing it. I was always in to all the aspects of it from a young age. There was a time during my early teenage years where I had some difficult times. I was kind of like a troubled teen at a point. There were a bunch of movies at that time that actually got me through that time period. So what I like and am fascinated by regarding films and TV shows as well, is that they can touch people on a personal note to make a difference. Some people don’t even realize that it’s happening. But it is. It can uplift people, and it can change their mind on an opinion. There is a lot of value in film and the entertainment business in general. I had my first play in 6th Grade where I got to act and fell in love with it. During junior high and high school, when I was kind of a bad boy…. I always wanted to be in my drama class and do plays but I was always getting in trouble and thinking that it wouldn’t be a cool thing. So, what I did as an alternative was, when I was 13 I bought myself an old 8 mm video recorder. From that point on and all of my teenage years, myself and a group of my friends started making tons of our own short films and feature films for our own friends and enjoyment to watch. When I was 17 I landed my first agent out of Philly and then when I was 19 I started going to New York. I met a boutique manager that was bi-coastal. They wanted to take me on. Basically, the whole thing was in alignment but at the last minute I chickened out. I had no support system at that time, and I only had a couple of hundred bucks in my pocket so I chickened out from taking that leap. Long story short from then till now I’ve still been doing my own thing, but it wasn’t up until 2 or 3 years ago that I decided that I was going to jump back in full-time and really pursue this.
Do you have a favorite influence?
Someone that influenced me especially with film and that I watched as a teenager and loved was Al Pacino, and Denzel Washington. The two of them are big ones that kind of pulled me into the intrigue of filmmaking.
Where do you hope your career takes you in five years?
I’d like to be doing this full-time, being an actor and filmmaker. I started my own production company recently which is the company that made this film as well. I have several original screen plays as soon as this movie releases I’ll start pushing preproduction on one of those. So, five years from now I hope to be a full-time working actor not only in my own productions but movies from all over the place.
Watch the trailer for “Attached: Paranormal” here:
Check out “Attached: Paranormal” on IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11855826/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_3
Actor/Director/Writer Rob Jankowski on IMDB:
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm5225695/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0