Milwaukee-area filmmakers Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews have been making videos together since they were 14-years-old at Whitefish Bay High School. Over the decades, they’ve made about 50 videos together, but the film Hundreds of Beavers is the pair’s second feature.
The film follows a drunken applejack salesman named Jean Kayak, who must go from zero to hero and become the land’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers. Except in this movie, all of the animals are played by humans in mascot costumes. If that plot doesn’t intrigue you enough, it’s also a silent film shot in black and white, making for a bizarre yet entertaining comedic mix of influences such as Buster Keaton, Looney Tunes, and the Mario video games.
Mike Cheslik is the director, editor and producer of Hundreds of Beavers and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews is the lead actor, writer and producer. Tews explains how he came up with the supernatural winter epic: "Mike and I wanted to make something that was completely and utterly different than anything else anyone would ever try to pull off, and to do that you must do something like 'Hundreds of Beavers.'"
"[We] wanted to make something that was completely and utterly different than anything else anyone would ever try to pull off."Ryland Brickson Cole Tews
In the beginning stages of the film, there was no script. Instead, Tews and Cheslik started by drawing the character Jean Kayak or the beavers getting hurt in different ways on note cards. Next, they would lay them out following the classic hero's journey and incorporated callbacks with physical jokes.
"We're holding [those notecards] out in the woods and we're trying to replicate what I drew on set, which is what I call the woods," explains Cheslik.
The pair took inspiration from a variety of classic films, directing styles, and paying homage to different genres and scenes. For Tews, his biggest inspiration for the look of the film and the action elements for it was old Jackie Chan Hong Kong movies from the 80s.
"I love Buster Keaton and I love Super Mario, and I think they share a camera philosophy of a long lens in a very wide space with a flattened image where you can see the character and the obstacle in the same frame and it's a physical obstacle," notes Cheslik, who also did 1,500 special effects shots for "Hundreds of Beavers."
Even though you see hundreds of beavers, there were only used six beaver costumes that were filmed and repeated in after effects. All of the scenes you see play out on screen were also only based on things Cheslik believes he could do in post production and everything Tews could achieve physically in the real world.
"For after effects, if you pick a lame style or a low-fi style such as grainy black and white ... you're responsible for less detail, then you can create a crazier image." Cheslik explains.
Tews put in plenty of sweat and snow equity, shooting the film over 12 weeks in subzero temperatures of Wisconsin and Michigan tundras.
"Believe it or not I've never fought in The Crusades, but it felt like we were fighting a crusade because it took so long and it was just a lot of back-breaking labor," he recalls. "But you know, it was a lot of fun too though because we were working with our buddies who work so hard for no money."
"This movie, it could've only have happened with the people that we brought on. The conditions that we were shooting in were pretty terrible somedays ... so these guys are the salt of the Earth," Tews adds.
"It was friends in the woods with a DSLR camera," says Cheslik.
"It was friends in the woods with a DSLR camera."Mike Cheslik, "Hundreds of Beavers" director & editor
Hundreds of Beavers was labor of love had to be executed extremely well in order to hold the audience's attention. Since you have no dialogue, the filmmakers says that its crucial to keep the comedic pace both in filming and editing.
"There’s no talking in the movie, so we constantly have to be entertaining and like kind of hitting the audience with a truckload of bricks. You know just like, 'You don’t like that? How about this?'... You know, it’s just like constant ideas bombardment," says Tews.
While the premise may appear simple at first glance, Cheslik considers themselves experimental filmmakers with their film straying away from the classic montage of a hero's journey.
"The experimental part of Hundreds of Beavers is that we tried to show him improving at fur trapping step-by-step," he notes. "You watch him play the whole video game, you watch him level up every step of the RPG, you watch him get a hundred beavers and learn everything in real time instead of elliptical editing where everything's better now."
"We had to plug an actual, real world thing into this Looney Tunes movie," jokes Tews.
The pair is currently taking "Hundreds of Beavers" on a Midwest Roadshow, and the silent, slapstick, supernatural film about hunting mascot-sized beavers film is resonating with audiences.
"These are very classic themes and simple ideas," notes Cheslik. "To improve as filmmakers we're trying to just pick some classic subject matter, a classic spine, and then be experimental on top of something rock-solid."
"And again, there's not talking, so everyone from any walk of life can watch it and understand what's going on, too," adds Tews. "And at the end of the day it's just like a live-action cartoon, so it's just fun."
"It's this great American tradition [of slapstick comedies] that we just kind of didn't make for a couple of decades for whatever reason. And so I think people are just happy to see it back, whether or not it was us doing it," says Cheslik.
You can see “Hundreds of Beavers” at the Oriental Theatre tonight for its Milwaukee theatrical premiere. Mike Cheslik and Ryland Brickson Cole Tews will be in attendance along with all of their furry friends for a film and Q&A experience you’ll never forget. There will also be additional showings of the film on Feb. 2nd, 3rd, and 8th.
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