thechainsawmafia.com - Even Dante says "Chainsaws Are A Girls Best Friend!"

Written by Necromagickal

Welcome to the world of Hollowviolin. What is that you may be asking? Well it's not a musical instrument lacking internal organs that's for sure. Hollowviolin is where you may find the dark art of Dante Sapienza, a man who describes himself as “professional bum, i.e. full time artist”. Dante is a photographer, artist, writer and all around creative individual. He is the mastermind for Gloom Machine, a world where cyborg zombies run wild.

Dante is also a Featured Artist for the Chainsaw Mafia. He is the creator of the “Chainsaws are a girls best friend” T-shirts.

Dante has taken time out from seducing women with his creative genius to sit down and discuss the madness of his world with me here on my infamous intestine lined crimson couch. So read on my chainsaw aficionados and as always, learn...

TCM_Necromagickal: What can you tell us about Gloom Machine?

Dante: Well, there is a short version and a not so short version. The short version: Gloom Machine is... Pretty Girls, Evil Zombies and Big Guns.

The not so short version: Gloom Machine is a post-apocalyptic world over run by zombies and at the brink of extinction. But humanity has hope in the form of an eccentric scientist called Dr Gloom who created a machine called the Gloom Machine. The machine is the key to fighting back, by transforming frightened and fragile girls who have lost everything, into tough zombie killing 'machines'. Amongst the carnage and bloodbaths of zombie killing, we have an influential cult controlling what is left of the world, a very powerful witch and her 7 gifted children with a hidden agenda, the badly organized human resistance and the token big evil that can make everyone’s life that little bit simpler by destroying the world in an instant...if only 'it' could get it's hands on that one thing... In terms of look and mood, I describe it as the 4 U's

UBER violent.
UBER sexy.
UBER gritty.
UBER twisted

TCM_Necromagickal: Hollow Violin, does the name keep any significance?

Dante: Not really, but it's a cool name. It was a combination of words that I found interesting, had a 'gothic' (for a lack of a better word) feel to it, and hadn't been used in any context at all by anyone as far as I knew. It has been my online presence for some 6 years now, and will be the parent company for all my diverse projects.

TCM_Necromagickal: What do you find sexy about Cyborg Zombies?

Dante: Hehe, well as sexy as a zombie can be, Cyborg Zombies are not only sexy but cool. Cyborg zombies are part of the bad guys in the Gloom Machine world. See it's not enough for our pretty zombie-killing girls to fight slow moving hordes of zombies, we need intelligent and fast moving zombies. Hence the menacing and much more dangerous Cyborg Zombies. But just like any good hollywood story, there is always someone bigger and badder, so the pretty girls can look forward to even greater menace then the Cyborg Zombies..

TCM_Necromagickal: What can you tell us about Violin Girl?

Dante: Violin Girl is one of my very early graphic novel projects. It's the story of a young girl who is very alone and living on the streets of a fictitious big city. We follow her on her quest to find 'the violin', and on the way we get an intimate glimpse of the world, humanity, and life through her eyes. But Violin Girl is no ordinary girl, she has what I call 'the gift', of which I wont spoil the details here. As a result of this 'gift' Violin Girl has immense emphatic power, stronger then human strength and will power and a very special power that only comes into play when she is by a dieing person. There are horrendous side effects to her power that only because of her stronger willpower, she manages to keep it at bay and live. Among following Violin Girl in her adventures we have sup-plots involving very evil people, underground cults, uber strong mercenaries, demons and very powerful entities bent on world domination and killing Violin Girl. All the fun stuff that should be mandatory in any cool epic comic book world.
Violin Girl was a very early concept for a graphic novel which I started scripting years back, and managed to release a short run prequel story. As is the case with self publishing, the funny books tend to take a back seat when one has to pretend to be a grown up and try to make a living. It's one of my very early stories I've spent many, many years developing. I do hope it will see the light of day sooner rather then later.

TCM_Necromagickal: What inspires you most creatively?

Dante: I'll be honest and put down the first thing that came to mind when I read the question.

Creativity inspires me the most...

Let me explain. Creativity in its most general term tends to inspire me. When I see something creative, be it art, film, sculpture, a novel, music, and it get my attention, it makes me want to get off my butt and create. I'll write, or sketch, or plan out my next photo shoot. I have a house full of journals I just pick up and write and sketch in. Some times i think I spend more time sketching and writing down ideas rather then actually doing them.
That said, I tend to gravitate towards the darker 'gothicy/horror' works, in music, film, art, and stories. It's what I find the most interesting, 'colourful' and imaginative.
Tool, Tim Burton, John Carpenter, Brom, Frank Frazetta, Guglielmo Del'Toro, Terry Giliam, just a few of a very long list that always inspire me.

TCM_Necromagickal: What kind of artistic training do you have or do you perceive that art cannot be taught and is an innate talent?

Dante: To be honest, I would have to say I didn't really have much in the form of artistic training. It's all pretty much self-taught. I attended several schools/university courses in art, but never completed any; either left early or got kicked out. I did complete an advance diploma of mechanical engineering, but only just... it bored the hell out of me.
I'm a firm believer that anyone can be creative, it's just finding that form of creativity they excel in. But yes I do believe that great creative skill in any particular form is something you are born with. Some excel in music, but can't draw to save their lives. Then there are the freaks that can do the lot, the true artists, that have creativity flowing in their veins instead of blood. These 'freaks' can pick up any art form and just create. These tend to be my idols.

TCM_Necromagickal: Tell us about Chainsaws are a girls best friend?

Dante: It's a t-shirt design I currently have available for sale. Incorporating an image of a pretty girl holding a chainsaw, and clearly ready to kill some zombies. I don't recall where I first heard/read the phrase (so I'm not going to proclaim it as my own).
I created some concept art (girl with said chainsaw) a while back for a feature film, and later thought of turning the image into a t-shirt and adding the 'chainsaws are a girls best friend' tag line. It's certainly my most popular t-shirt design. I'd love to wear it myself, but it really is more of a girls shirt... for some reason most of the t-shirt designs I create tend to be only suitable for girls, no idea why.

TCM_Necromagickal: Do you have a favorite genre (horror, sci-fi, ect) that you always find your art straying towards?

Dante: I would keep it quite general and say 'dark'. It varies from gothic, to horror, to steampunk. Of late I would say it's very horror influenced, after working on two horror feature films, it tends to rub off on your art and story telling. Gloom Machine is very horror focused and most of the film projects we have in the pipeline are all horror films.

TCM_Necromagickal: What projects would you like to discuss?

Dante: I guess the most relevant is my Gloom Machine project, which I described briefly in the first question. It's what I'll be dedicating most of my energy too (well until we start work on the next feature film, then there is no energy left for anything at all when your working on a film 16 hours a day).
I'm currently in writing stage and hope to release Gloom Machine in comic book format some time this year. All depends on how distribution and publishing works out. At this stage I'm looking at self-publishing, but would be good to be picked up by a comic publishing company. The project is an amalgam of many thing I love. Film, art, pretty girls, comic books, epic tales of apocalypses, zombies and utterly twisted characters. It's a concept that can so easly be translated to many different formats, but graphic novel is my first focus. I love to draw and most of all I love to tell a story. As much as the brief synopses doesn't stand out as anything highly original (hot girls fighting zombies in the desert has been done a million times), I'm hoping to bring some originality through my own personal style in both art and storytelling. I'm a huge fan of the tough chick character based films and shows (buffy, resident evil, etc) And essentially that is what Gloom Machine, but just like Nigel from Spinal Tap, I like to turn it up to 11 and put that extra bit of gritty and sexiness into the book. I have further plans for Gloom Machine outside of the graphic novel format, which seems to be the trend with most creations... all the importance these days seems to be on the IP (intellectual property) rather then the story itself. So it's something I need to consider as well.
I've put most of my other projects (other then feature films.. when finance comes along you don't tell it to wait a few months), on hold to concentrate on Gloom Machine. But I do still tend to work on them a little in the background, so new things are always popping up at hollowviolin.com

TCM_Necromagickal: What five films do you wish to be buried or burned with?

Dante: Evil Dead 2 (the perfect film. gore, humor and Bruce Campbell)
The Crow (stunning in every way possible)
The Great Race (old tony curtis film. epic, fantastic story and damn funny)
Dellamorte Dellamore (the coolest looking zombie film ever)
The Cell (not a J-Lo fan at all, but an immensely visually stunning film and one of my biggest influences)

TCM_Necromagickal: Where may we find your work?

Dante: http://www.hollowviolin.com it's the central hub for all my projects. It's the place I update all my current graphic novel, photography and film projects. And where you can purchase some of my ts and prints. Obviously you can purchase some of my work at the thechainsawmafia website, of which I have put some exclusive prints, not for sale through my site.

TCM_Necromagickal: What’s next for Dante and Hollow Violin?

Dante: Next for me, is to get Gloom machine going, build some regular content and hopefully find a market that will help sustain and expand the concept to several different mediums. Planning some illustrated/photography mini comics titled Beautiful Gloom Machine which is a spin-off of Gloom Machine. BGM is series of photo stories using pretty models I find off the street, dress them up in post-apocalyptic outfits holding big guns looking tough and sexy, and then write and illustrate a short story around it. Hope to release a mini comic of this very soon.
On not hollowviolin/gloom machine related projects, just finished work on a feature film 'From Parts Unknown" as production designer. We are in advanced post and at the selling stage. And while we wait... as part of the production company Strongman Pictures, we are in very early stages of planning for our next feature film, yes it's a horror.

TCM_Necromagickal: Any last words for our readers?

Dante: A thank you to Shannon for inviting me to thechainsawmafia and to yourself for the interview. But for some closing words, from a creativity and artistic point of view there are no truer words spoken then Steven Soderbergh 2001 Oscar winning speech, in which he said. "I want to thank anyone who spends part of their day creating. I don't care if it's a book, a film, a painting, a dance, a piece of theatre, a piece of music. Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experience with us. I think the world would be unlivable without art". The moral of the story? Go out and create, the fate of the world depends on you.