“Small Town Monsters” is an American production company that just announced the premiere of their debut miniseries titled "On the Trail of Bigfoot." The six-episode series was filmed in 2018 in fourteen different states and features nearly two dozen interviews with researchers, historians, investigators, and—most importantly—witnesses who claim to have seen the legendary beast roaming the woods.
Seth Breedlove served as the writer, director, and producer of the series and throughout the shoot he experienced strange incidents first-hand. As the three-hour series dives into the history of Bigfoot, viewers will be left wondering if the creatures of lore might actually be lurking in the dense forests of North America.
Recently writer, director, and producer Seth Breedlove discussed this series and more via an exclusive interview.
Movies, television, and Big Foot
Meagan Meehan (MM): How did you start making movies and how did you come up with the concept for a TV series?
Seth Breedlove (SB): In 2015 myself and some friends made this extremely low-budget documentary about a series of monster sightings in Minerva Ohio. The movie (“Minerva Monster”) went on to become sort of a local sensation with 1200 people attending the premiere and a festival in the town where it was set being thrown in its honor and all sorts of craziness. So, I took the money we made off that first movie, formed a production company called Small Town Monsters and started making more movies about similar cases spread out around the United States.
We've now released seven films, a web-series and two, episodic miniseries. At some point during the process of making all these projects, I knew I wanted to branch into episodic storytelling, and I hit upon the idea of a series that would be investigating local legends but much more true-to-life than what you see in the most network, reality tv focused on the paranormal.
So last year we produced the first season of "ON THE TRAIL OF..." Which was all about a lake monster called Champ, and then also last year I began working on shooting the Bigfoot season. It's basically one big, indie response to what is happening on the major networks these days.
MM: What were the similarities and differences in making a movie versus making a television series?
SB: The biggest thing was just the scope of the project. I was used to traveling to out-of-the-way places to shoot our films, but then you're typically just locked to that one location for the duration of filming. On the Trail of Bigfoot was shot in 14 different states over the course of 2018 and featured over 20 interviewees. So just the enormity of a project this huge and trying to wrangle all of the logistics of the travel and convincing people to talk to me about their experiences was way beyond anything I'd attempted before. Then, add to that the fact that I made the series alone as a sort of solo project.
MM: Had you believed in Big Foot prior to taking on this project?
SB: I'd always been fascinated by the subject, but in the five years I've been making these films I'd come to find myself growing increasingly skeptical about there being such a creature.
MM: How did speaking to the people you interviewed change your perspective of the situation?
SB: Well, I think just the breadth of personality types and how much dedication and patience that goes into looking for something that everyone else claims doesn't exist was eye-opening for me. Some of these people have spent years of their life in the forest just waiting for another glimpse of something that most academics scoff at. But, many of them are really rational, normal individuals with good jobs and families and they all have a very diverse selection of reasons for why they go out looking for Bigfoot. That was eye-opening to me because I think, typically, we picture a "Bigfooter" as a middle-aged, bearded dude in camo with nothing better to do on the weekend than look for Sasquatch.
That's certainly one subset of people, but it isn't indicative of everyone I met during my time making this series.
MM: What did you experience first-hand while you were filming deep in the woods?
SB: Well, I shot in multiple locations that are considered "hot spots"; places with Bigfoot activity. But, until last June, I didn't experience much more than taking in some bizarre stories or hearing a few strange sounds in the woods. Then in June, while in the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma myself and a friend (Adam Duggan) experienced a multitude of increasingly bewildering activity including strange eye-shine in a place with no light, wood knocks, rock throws and hearing what sounded like a Gibbon yelling at us from a mountainside at 2:30 am.
We also captured some audio in Adams County, Ohio that was analyzed by an audio expert who claims the sounds we recorded don't come from any known animals.
Favorite scenes and other projects
MM: What has the process of finding distribution been like?
SB: “Small Town Monsters” handles our own distribution, so we don't typically seek out companies to do it for us. We've been approached by a number of distributors, particularly since the project came out last week, that want to be involved, but thus far we've maintained our hold on the property. Currently, “On the Trail of Bigfoot” is one of the best-selling films on Amazon's new release charts. I tend to encourage indie filmmakers, particularly those working in the paranormal genre, to self-distribute.
The audience for these subjects is massive, and if you work hard and promote it, you can find a large following.
MM: What’s your favorite scene from the series and why did that scene stand out so much to you?
SB: Actually, my favorite scene is probably the eye-shine sequence in episode 5. We actually managed to get video of the eyes that we witnessed watching us in Oklahoma, and I hadn't realized it until I was into the actual editing of the episode. It was a huge surprise, and very exciting, to get to see the eyes again and to be able to show that sequence to an audience. We did a premiere last weekend at a large theater in Canton, Ohio and when that scene came on, there were audible gasps around the room.
MM: What other projects are you working on and might you be up to doing a second season of searching for Big Foot?
SB: We're putting the finishing touches on our eighth film titled “Terror in the Skies” which is a look at the state of Illinois' long history of winged cryptid sightings; including the Chicago Mothman. Then we start filming our ninth film, “MOMO: The Missouri Monster” in May. That film is a loving homage to 1970s horror movies and simultaneously an investigative look at the Bigfoot sightings that took place in Louisiana, MO during 1972. As far as “On the Trail of…” goes, we start filming the third season later this Spring; this time we go “On the Trail of UFOs.” We like to stay busy!
