By FilmInk Staff
Inspired by Black Mirror, The Twilight Zone, and their own childhood exposure to horror films, the duo serve up a new slice of terror every month on YouTube. Born out of necessity during the pandemic, their bite-size format has seen them tackle everything from serial killers to spectres.
Their can-do approach has resulted in a new collective, with over 150 collaborators working on the projects so far. Starting in October 2020 with Masterpiece, the team has delivered a new short, on time, every month. As they enter their 2023 season, Noel and Abel sat down with FilmInk to discuss their inspirations behind Axmo Deus and their ambitions for the future.
First things first: how did you guys partner up?
Noel Vinson: I was doing a short film that was a western, and it was quite elaborate for a short film. The first thing we had to do was drive out to Silverton, NSW to film for two days, then we had to come back and film the rest in Cedar Brush Creek. I had a mutual friend who was a producer on that film, and he introduced me to Abel. Only a day after meeting him, Abel said: ‘I’ll jump in the car, and I’ll help with whatever.’ He jumped behind the camera and became the first AD after two shots, so it just built from there.
Abel Robinson: We had a similar vibe when it came to narratives as well. We liked the same content, and also the same sort of horror films, so that really became the basis of our wanting to create stuff together.
Where did your interest in horror start?
Noel Vinson: I think for both of us, probably childhood. I can’t answer for Abel, but I think there’s a truth to it too. For me, it was all films, period. For me, it was Weird Science when I was younger, that started the entire thing for me. But when you go to the video store, for me, the horror section was scary. What is this? What’s going on there? It was almost taboo. As I got older, my stepfather made me watch the first Nightmare On Elm Street. I think I was seven, and that ruined me. Then when I hit ten, I decided that I’m going to watch all the horror movies. That way I have power over them. And just by doing that, it made me a fan.
Abel Robinson: I had a similar vibe, actually. Just going through the VHS stores and looking at the covers and just not knowing what the story’s going to be, just piecing it together based on the artwork that they had. At seven, my mum made me watch The Exorcist, which was possibly the worst idea ever – it scarred me for life. I’ve seen it probably five times. That’s the only film that actually scares me. I decided that you can’t get scared by what you create yourself, so that’s how we just delved into making horror films as well.
We’ve just gone through two and a half years of our own little horror story with the pandemic. There seems to be a resurgence of people embracing the horror genre, but there seems to be a lot less slashing, and more of a focus on the themes.
Noel Vinson: Yes, elevated horror. I think when it comes to horror, it was the bastard child of cinema for a period of time. It seemed like you didn’t want to do a horror movie if you were a serious actor or a movie star. But, I guess, because of people like Abel and I, who have grown up with horror, we now seem to make up the majority of the audience, and horror is accepted as viable. Obviously, it’s one of the easiest things to pull off with a lower budget and time constraints, and you don’t need a star – all you need is a good pitch. I think with this pandemic, we now have people starving for content, and we knew that we needed to keep content coming and not be silent. That’s where the whole Axmo Deus one-minute shorts idea came from.
Was the one-minute format a challenge that you set for yourself?
Abel Robinson: It’s still a challenge. I think it was, to be honest, a budgetary concern when we first started. It was early 2020 and we’d both lost a lot of commercial work. And we were like, ‘We can’t stay silent. We’ve got to continue to make things because we’re creatives. But we can’t be out here throwing thousands of dollars away.’ Initially, we’d done Dusters for a fair budget, which was Noel’s western. The time constraint element wasn’t as much of a problem because people were getting into watching short-form content on TikTok and Instagram, but it was a challenge as creators to tell a contained narrative within one minute. So, the format solved a lot of problems while also creating numerous problems narratively, and we also were trying to piece this all together.
Noel Vinson: It’s been trial-by-fire. For instance, the first thing we did and released was Masterpiece. This was when the lockdown was still going, and we could only have a certain amount of people on set at any one time. Sometimes we’d be like ‘yes, we got those 20 extras that we need, but how do we make our COVID protocols as well?’ We’d have so many people coming in and we are trying to be responsible, but also just trying to figure out what the hell are we even trying to do.
Was it hard to get the talent during the lockdown?
Noel Vinson: Yeah. Shout out to StarNow.
Abel Robinson: It was definitely tricky. We had to pull a lot of favours when it came to even calling on our friends. But it was definitely a mission. Just doing one minute alone made us delusional. The first two that we did, Scorn and Masterpiece, required 30 people at a minimum. And I’m like, ‘Did we think about this at all?’ We didn’t plan this at all, so we went in head-first and we figured out the solutions as we went. But thankfully we have a really strong team of friends and family that just came together around us.
Noel Vinson: And as we have gone on, more people have gravitated towards us. We started in our own circles, and people just kept extending that circle. I think people were impressed by our tenacity, we keep contacting them every month, I think this endeared people to us.
Abel Robinson: We went through the second phase of lockdown last year, and we were about seven months in, and it was really hard. We said, ‘No, we started this because we were in lockdowns, and now we’ve got to figure out an option to continue.’ And I think the creative team really came together. We made our first desktop film called Birthday, and that was all done remotely. Even the acting was done remotely through Zoom calls. I think the first challenge was setting up through COVID, and now the second challenge was about staying consistent.
Noel Vinson: We pulled it off. But it’s another one of those things where it is a trial-by-fire. We trust ourselves enough to know we’ll pull it off, but it takes a few years off your life each time.
Your series has developed a cult following and has racked up some decent hits on YouTube. Were you surprised that there was an audience for these micro shorts?
Noel Vinson: Yeah. I think there’s a niche for everything, but sometimes you just don’t realise how loud your voice is or how far your voice can spread online. I think the pandemic probably plays into that a little bit more.
Abel Robinson: For sure. I feel that we have an audience because of our consistency – people can expect on the first of every month a new horror film from us. I think they don’t want to miss an instalment either. I think over time, that has grown our audience. The cast has been sharing it a lot as well. We can get viewers through curiosity too, the films are only a minute, what’s the worst that could happen?
How’s the future looking? Do you want to continue the project?
Noel Vinson: Yes. My thought process is that we started because we wanted the content to keep coming up, but there was always a goal towards some longer form stuff. I think as long as we don’t lose sight of what our ultimate goals are, we can still continue, mainly because there is a constantly growing fan base for it, and I don’t think we will let them down. I don’t know if there will be a format change, but we will continue doing what we’ve started.
Where does the Axmo Deus name come from?
Noel Vinson: This is an interesting story. It was September 2019, and I was on holiday in Paris. I was at this bookstore called Shakespeare and Company, and I was working on this idea for this baroque, dark Parisian film. I was looking for books that I could find to help me visualise it better. I asked a clerk for advice, and he said, ‘For what you want, just go check that section.’ Then this random gentleman approaches me and says, ‘I overheard you, and I would recommend this book.’ And it happened to be this book called Medical Muses, it was about hysteria, and how this doctor was putting women on ether and then making them act hysterical for all these people. It was really dark. I was like, ‘Oh, that’s great.’
We had a coffee, and he said his name was Axmo Deus. I’m like, ‘Okay, a pen name.’ I thought it was quite clever. He tells me that he writes one-pagers and things like that. I was like, ‘Hey man, send me a few. I make films, yada, yada, yada.’ I didn’t really think anything would ever come of it.
Flash forward to January and Axmo sends me some stuff, which I then bring to Abel. I say, ‘This guy sends me stuff and it’s pretty crazy, but when you think about it, it’s just really quick stuff.’ And then Abel was like, ‘In the era that we live in with social media, this can actually really lend itself to becoming content in these new formats.’ We wrote Axmo back, ‘Hey Axmo, are you okay if we take these ideas and continue on?’ He was like, ‘Yes, you have my blessing. Go ahead.’ It’s been that way ever since. Sometimes we’ll change things to make them fit, but it’s essentially Axmo who comes up with the base ideas.
That is unexpected.
Noel Vinson: Yes, it was random. Sometimes life is what life is and there you go.
How many ideas get tossed out the window as opposed to actually making it to the screen?
Noel Vinson: I’ll be honest, I haven’t received any batches of ideas lately, but there are still stacks. For instance, with Birthday, it was like we were trying to figure something out. The conversation about that was like, ‘It’s Scream meets Searching.’ We went, ‘Okay, let’s roll with that.’ And then that just put us on the path of doing Birthday. We never know exactly what we’re going to do next. As filmmakers, we are trying to push the envelope visually, and thematically. We just try to find a particular story that we feel we can push in a particular direction.
It’s interesting that this is becoming a bit of a collective. Have you had other filmmakers approach you to be part of what you guys are doing?
Abel Robinson: Yeah, definitely. We probably get one approach every month, both from directors and producers, they often come with their own minutes. Because of the short format, people who don’t traditionally write come to us like, ‘I wrote this, what do you guys think? Is this something you could make?’
I think, for us, concepts are generally easier to come by, but it’s the timeframe that’s an issue because making a one-minute short is no different than making a 10-minute short film – from a production standpoint.
Noel Vinson: Resources and energy.
Abel Robinson: It really comes down to the narrative. We definitely get a lot of people pitching us, for sure.
Noel, you were saying before that you might consider a different platform to go on. I’m assuming that you’re not making a lot of money off how the project is currently delivered. Are you looking to monetise it as a brand?
Noel Vinson: That would be a goal. We do it as a passion project because, at the end of the day, we’re getting better at our craft by doing everything ourselves. We have learnt to deal with so many stresses, but we keep grabbing the burning pan, if you will. It will help us when we go into features. But yeah, monetisation, I would hope for it. What we have to really think about is ‘what is the real market for a one-minute film?’
Dare I say, I believe we would own the space of the one-minute film at this point, but we also have created something that we have to maintain, especially in terms of quality. We may change the format if it turns out that it is easier to monetise. Right now, the YouTube algorithm rewards not only views but the length of viewing, which might already screw us with one-minute films.
Abel Robinson: Talking about monetisation, we’ve recently gotten Axmo onto Vidiverse, so that’s a move in the right direction.
Do you plan to turn any of the shorts into feature films?
Abel Robinson: Yes. Each one serves as a potential sneak peek. We are trying to see which film resonates the most with the audience, and then we can figure out extending the narrative – it is why we are giving the audience so many options. That’s also part of our long-term game when it comes to distribution, bigger projects, and even monetisation of a particular set of one-minutes as well.
Noel Vinson: We’ve had discussions that, if we grow big enough of a fan base, we could even run a contest. ‘What would you like to see us attempt to have a feature version of?’
Do you guys have a favourite short that you’ve produced or is that like picking a favourite child?
Noel Vinson: Everyone in our circle would probably have a different top three. Personally, I like Climax, which is a horror/comedy. We’re even shooting the sequel to it. It began as an April Fool’s thing, to do a horror/comedy.
Abel Robinson: We had a one-minute film called Scorn, which was the second one that we ever released, and we pitched that through a Monster Fest Competition. It made it to the final round, and that alone was enough encouragement to consider a feature version. We’re currently in the works of developing it at this stage, but it is in its infancy.
Noel Vinson: We just riff with each other. We have some ideas that would probably work as a series as well. The world is our oyster at this point regarding what we want to work on. We just want to put energy into everything.
Have you guys had any support with grants or film funding bodies?
Noel Vinson: We’re just starting to begin with that, to be honest with you.
Abel Robinson: We have to think of different ways to make the concept unique beyond the one-minute element. The narrative can be unique, but the format is limiting at a minute. The fact that we’ve done 20 shorts so far without missing a deadline means we are at the point where we can talk to people about expanding to 10 minutes, and the money involved to do that. We have a great body of work, and we feel really surefooted taking the next step.
Check out the world of Axmo Deus here.
