Q&A: Alum, former UCLA baseball player talks directorial debut

After spending four years pitching on the mound for UCLA baseball, alumnus Bobby Roe finally completed a pitch of a different kind – one that landed him his directorial debut for the movie “The Houses October Built.” Roe’s film blurs the line between what’s real and fiction by splicing real footage of the actors’ visiting actual haunted houses with enacted scenes. His story follows five protagonists as they begin to question their own perceptions of reality while on a quest to find the “most extreme haunted house in the world.”

This 2014 version, which saw limited release in theaters on Oct. 10, is a remake of the original self-funded 2011 version. In addition, “The Houses October Built” will also be available on video on demand and iTunes. The Daily Bruin’s Aubrey Yeo spoke with Roe about the director’s background at UCLA with film and baseball, his filmmaking process and his inspiration behind the movie.

Daily Bruin: You were enrolled in the School of Theater, Film and Television while simultaneously playing baseball at UCLA. What was your experience like being involved in both programs?

Bobby Roe: That was my main goal and the reason I even picked UCLA was to kill two birds, and why I picked film even over baseball. It was very tough doing both at the same time, but I did my best with my four years at UCLA to try to do both.

DB: You’ve had prior experience as an actor, but “The Houses October Built” is your directorial debut. What was it like making that transition to the director’s chair?

BR: It’s funny, I think a lot of my experience on the field (with) baseball – such a team-oriented sport – and movies kind of work the same way. I know people see different things in the lights, but, the fact is, it takes an army to make a movie and trying to balance that, having a hundred people working (and) doing several different jobs is very tough, but it’s not unlike a lot of things with sports. It’s that you need everybody to be on point for the movie or your team to succeed.

DB: Could you talk about how the film got into production?

BR: The initial idea is there’s never been a movie on screen about Halloween houses. … And the fact is there’s 30 million (Americans) that go a year to these haunted houses. It just seems to be a film that gives them the cinematic experience to a fan base that already is very passionate about Halloween in general, but more importantly haunted houses. So building a story around that was tough in the beginning because having asked about funding. … It can take something bold to get people to believe in your story or the story you want to tell. You have to take it into your own hands because a lot of people don’t care on paper what an idea is; you have to prove it to them. So that’s what we did and basically put down our credit cards ourselves to make the original (version).

DB: You worked with producer Steven Schneider, who has worked on “Paranormal Activity” and “Insidious,” for this movie. How did that connection come about?

BR: He saw the original, and what was really cool was we got a call from him late one night. And my favorite thing was his quote that “the movie was real until it isn’t, and I dare you to tell me what part was fake.” And that was probably the (biggest) compliment to us because we wanted to separate our film from the rest of a very watered-down genre. … We used all real people in all real places. So all those scared actors, all those interviews, it’s 100 percent real. And I felt that was the only way to tackle the subject matter.

DB: Are there any other upcoming projects that you’re working on right now?

BR: We received actually a lot of scripts the past month, and we’re narrowing some things down. This has been such a big part of our lives; it’s been five years. I’m looking forward to tackling a new subject, new story.

Compiled by Aubrey Yeo, Daily Bruin senior staff.