Behind The Scenes of D-Railed with Actor and Co-Producer David Douglas

David Douglas started acting as a supplement to working in the banking world in New York City when a friend suggested that he take an acting class to get more in touch with his emotions. He fell in love with the process and quickly booked roles in non-Equity theater as well as small roles on long-running soap operas including, “Days of Our Lives,” and “One Life to Live.”

After several years of acting, he finally joined the Actor’s Equity union and was cast in a production of the play “Speaking in Tongues,” where a well-respected theater critic singled out his performance as having “the charming snarkiness of Jason Bateman and the affability of Jon Hamm.” Because of his background in construction, he also was cast as the host of an HGTV show that renovated houses.

When he finally moved to Los Angeles, he met veteran producer Suzanne DeLaurentiis and he was brought on board to co-produce the fantasy thriller, “D-Railed,” and was also invited to audition for the movie. He took part in the chemistry auditions and director Dale Fabrigar gave him the role of “Simon,” a travelling biographer for the train passengers.

“Dale gave us several redirections in the audition, and I just tried to take the intentionality of the character — a level headed, studious person who absorbs information from the things that were happening around him because he is a biographer,” Douglas recalls. He goes more in depth about his character: “Simon is a heartfelt person who tries to care for the bigger picture of the story and really wants the best for the group. He tells Daniel O’Reilly’s character (Marcus) to get everyone to safety, even though he is injured himself.”

“Being a part of this film was a really great learning curve for me to know that the most important part of what you do in film is what is captured in the frame. I realized that it is a very small fraction of the many hours that you are actually on set. It taught me that you have to be extremely focused so that when those moments come, you have to be aware of your pacing and not let anything distract you.” Douglas concludes, “Filmmaking is all about image, people, and locations, and if you can pull all three together, with the right chemistry, you will have a good film. It’s even better if you can do it within the budget.”

“D-Railed” is currently on the film festival circuit and has won many awards including five Platinum awards from the International Independent Film Awards in the following categories: Concept, Costumes, Sound Design/Editing, Cinematography and Directing. It has been nominated for Best Practical FX at the PDXtreme film festival in January.

What was the most challenging aspect of the shoot?

“Independent filmmaking is a very difficult venture because you are trying to get the most production value and stay on budget. We shot this film in two separate locations, Los Angeles and the greater Philadelphia area. In Philly, we had the set of the crash scene. When I saw the set, I realized that the train compartment, which was sticking out of the water at a 35-degree angle, should have some changes. I am a general contractor by trade, so I threw in my hand and gave my advice so that we could get this train piece into the pond safely. I was glad that we were able to handle that because the set was the movie’s bread and butter.

As an actor, the most challenging part was trying to believably be pulled underwater. It was cold and it was three in the morning. They put me in a harness with a rope around my ankles and a professional stunt crew pulled me under the water. I didn’t want it to come across as cheesy or over-indicated. I was very pleased that we were able to pull it off.”

What do you hope for the film?

“It’s a well-shot, well-directed movie for the genre that it belongs to. This movie has three twists in it…it first starts out as a murder mystery, then it becomes a survival movie with a creature, and then it becomes (spoiler not included)… so to have the viewers understand the path was something that I think Dale did a really good job doing. I’m confident that the film will do well in the sci-fi and horror market.