{"id":481820,"date":"2026-10-01T18:00:19","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481820\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T18:00:19","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T18:00:19","slug":"making-fantasy-reality-san-diego-reader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/481820\/","title":{"rendered":"Making fantasy reality | San Diego Reader"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The<\/p>\n

The men behind Infernal: left to right, Brandon Self, Darien Andreas Brown, Adrian Ross<\/p>\n

The story is famous enough that it still shows up on cinephile social media, over 25 years later. Peter Jackson was a minor director whose resume included some cult spatter-horror, a well-regarded indie drama, and a big-budget flop. So he did what any crazy dreamer would do and started pitching a two-picture film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. New Line\u2019s Bob Shaye heard his pitch and asked: why only two movies when there are three books? Crazy, meet crazier. The rest is fantasy movie history.<\/p>\n

It feels like San Diego filmmakers Darien Andreas Brown, Adrian Ross, and Brandon Self heard that story and said, \u201cHold our beers.\u201d They had put out one short film together, so they did what any trio of crazy dreamers would do and made Infernal, the 135-minute first chapter of a multi-film fantasy saga that has so far enjoyed two sold-out screenings in San Diego, won an award for Best San Diego Feature Film, and gotten FilmThreat\u00a0critic Bobby LePire to write that \u201canother visit to this world and these characters would be most welcome.\u201d And they did it by without formal training, filming on weekends for five months, on a budget south of $10,000 \u2014 because, as Brown puts it, \u201cNo one told us no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brown, who wrote the original screenplay and also stars, co-directed, co-produced, and worked the boom mic, says that \u201cIt started with Adrian coming up with the idea for the short film The Endless, and him getting the ball roll ing.\u201d Explains Ross, who plays the reluctant warrior Hiram in Infernal and also co-wrote and edited, \u201cI was auditioning for a ton of things, and you know how it is: you get some stuff, and you get rejected a lot. We were just like, \u2018Let\u2019s make our own stuff, and let that be our audition.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

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“Let’s make our own stuff, and let that be our audition.”<\/p>\n

\u201cIt inspired all of us,\u201d continues Brown. \u201cWe\u2019re three people who don\u2019t really like to wait for an opportunity. It inspired me to be like, \u2018Let me try writing a script.\u2019 It came out of a personal experience. I was in debt, and I was facing a decision: either go to my mom\u2019s in Arizona, get a job, and lose my fi lm life and the community I\u2019ve built here, or stay and fight and not allow certain things happening in my life to control my destiny. That\u2019s essentially where the story and themes of Infernal\u00a0came from. So I ended up writing this big old script, and I brought it to Adrian, and all he said was, \u2018Let\u2019s do it.\u2019 We\u2019ve always had the confidence that we could do it. We just needed The Endless\u00a0to kind of prove it to ourselves that we had what it takes to make a film.\u201d<\/p>\n

Infernal\u00a0tells the story of Azrael, a man troubled by portentous dreams who is captured by the forces of the wicked King Herod and separated from his wife Rheiya, who becomes the prisoner of the King\u2019s Blade, Cain. Azrael escapes with the aid of the charming rogue Ephraim and sets out to find his wife, but both he and she find themselves caught up in something larger and more complicated \u2014 something hinted at in the opening monologue\u2019s description of a prophecy regarding a wolf and a falcon.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The prophecy at the outset tells of a wolf and a falcon<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always loved romance,\u201d says Brown. \u201cAnd then betrayal becomes a theme, because how do you make romance inter esting? You add more elements. And then in the editing room, we came to realize that was the crux of our story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had almost five hours\u2019 worth of footage,\u201d laments Self. \u201cTrying to trim it down was some of the hardest stuff. But we had a test screening, and there was one piece of criticism that stuck with me: \u2018You should really just stick to the core story of what Infernal\u00a0really is.\u2019 And that was Azrael trying to find his wife. But there\u2019s so much more to the story that we had to cut out. We definitely want this to be part of a bigger world.\u201d He mentions Game of Thrones\u00a0\u2014 with its multiple houses competing for power \u2014 as an influence. There are many others. Shakespeare shows in the occasional fl ights of high flown dialogue. The talk between Cain and Rheiya veers into psychological territory, with its talk of broken chains and becoming who you really are. And as the names suggest, says Brown, \u201cthe stories in the Bible definitely played a part in crafting the story.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Azrael is no saint; he\u2019s not even a pure soul like Luke Skywalker \u2014 even if Star Wars\u00a0clearly informs his relationship with Ephraim. (\u201cI love Star Wars,\u201d grants Ross.) Brown cites Lord of the Rings\u00a0and Dune as inspirations, but also the video games Elden Ring, Bloodborne, and Dark Souls. \u201cI think that\u2019s what inspired the grittiness of the world, the murky tone.\u201d Self notes that video games even helped shape the story: \u201cAt the film\u2019s end, he has an item that he can\u2019t use, because he\u2019s not yet at the level for it. He needs time to build up his skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Darien Andreas Brown as Azrael in Infernal<\/p>\n

Talking of which: nobody here went to film school. \u201cOur school was being on sets and making the film,\u201d says Self. \u201cYou learn terms very quickly when you\u2019re on a set and you get told what something is. It\u2019s better than any flashcards you could make.\u201d On set is where the three came together: Self was the cinematographer (and more) on the micro-budget epic Heroes of Pacific City, in which Ross was acting.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve known Darien for 15 years or so,\u201d adds Ross. \u201cShout out to Roosevelt Middle School. We\u2019ve always talked about wanting to make movies, and we\u2019ve made silly things just for fun.\u201d After they hooked up with Self, \u201cThe Endless\u00a0was our first step toward making a legit film: telling an entertaining narrative, finding the crew that were able to bring skills we didn\u2019t have, doing the best we could with the resources we had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ah, resources. Much has been made of the astonishing look of The Lord of the Rings, thanks in no small part to Weta Workshop\u2019s meticulous costume and prop work. The Infernal\u00a0team had Temu and Etsy, and even that \u201cwas a lot of the cost\u201d of the film, says Brown. \u201cIn the early stages, we tried making stuff out of cardboard and cans. That wasn\u2019t really getting the job done. But we saved on costs by building our own sets, making our own costumes. Adrian took up sewing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lord of the Rings had Weta Workshop; Infernal had Temu and Etsy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe bought all this fabric,\u201d says Ross, \u201cand I just made all these tunics, and they worked. And we realized pretty quickly that it would cost a ton of money to have a set that looked like an actual set. So we shot 90% of the interior stuff in Darien’s garage. We just hung these bolts of fabric around the interior of the garage to have it feel like the inside of a tent, and used different colors to signify the different camps.\u201d They pulled a similar trick for the standoff between opposing battalions at the end: it\u2019s the same group of actors in different costumes, with scarves covering the bad guys\u2019 faces to hide the double-up.<\/p>\n

Self continues: \u201cThe budget forced us to think creatively about every single decision. I feel like it helped us create some thing that\u2019s never been told in exactly this way.\u201d Where, say, House of the Dragon\u00a0puts millions into the spectacle of, well, dragons, Infernal relies heavily on \u201ckeeping it close, forced perspective, making sure that 180-degree line was not being crossed\u201d \u2014 camera techniques that help the viewer believe spaces are larger than they are. Especially when those spaces are mostly drenched in shadow, the way they would be if torches provided your only source of light.<\/p>\n

King Herod\u2019s throne room was perhaps the biggest challenge. \u201cWe could do tents and we could do forests,\u201d says Ross. \u201cBut we didn\u2019t have a throne room. When we started production, we didn\u2019t know how we were going to do it.\u201d As they neared the end of fi lming, they still didn\u2019t. \u201cWe were fortunate enough to use the Actors Workshop Studios space in Sorrento Valley. We built a box, and we found some cardboard pillars. And we had walls, so we bought some stone-patterned wallpaper. Looking back, I think we could have gotten some better wallpaper, but the funds were running out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Video:Trailer: INFERNAL<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Actors Workshop Studios provided more than just space: it provided key members of the cast. (Notably, instructor Mark Coulter plays Herod, and fellow student Adam Wallace plays Cain.) \u201cWe were very fortunate to have that connection,\u201d says Ross. \u201cThey were really helpful in finding actors we could pay with screen time, people who wanted to show what they could do. The project just took on a life of its own.\u201d Ricardo Concepcion, who found a dream role in the warrior Kodger, knew Connor McCluskey, who owned lots of swords and spent weeks training the cast to use them. Travis Brock, who worked with the trio on The Endless\u00a0and plays Ephraim, was engaged to a girl whose family owned a piece of property in Potrero that was varied enough to stand in for a whole world.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were really fortunate to find that,\u201d says Self. \u201cBut you want to talk about where the budget went? Food and water. The land didn\u2019t have electricity or water or anything like that. I had to coordinate with somebody to bring a port-a-potty out. These are people with bodies you\u2019re dealing with, and these are things you have to think about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d spend the whole week preparing,\u201d adds Ross. \u201cAll of our gear, our props, our costumes, the set design, what we were going to be shooting. That was, Saturday morning would come around and everybody could just get into character and go through their lines while we were getting all the technical stuff set. We\u2019d shoot any where from six to thirteen hours. It really became a family affair, people putting in everything they had.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two years after giving themselves the green light, Brown, Ross, and Self have their movie, and they didn\u2019t even need help from Bob Shaye at New Line. Now they\u2019re submitting to festivals \u2014 Beverly Hills, Los Angeles Fantasy Festival, etc. \u2014 and waiting to see who notices their 135-minute audition for the next thing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The men behind Infernal: left to right, Brandon Self, Darien Andreas Brown, Adrian Ross The story is famous…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481821,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-481820","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481820","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481820"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481820\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481820"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481820"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481820"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}