On a recent episode of Dead Talk Live, Viz sat down with Joseph and Vanessa Winter, co-writers and co-directors of Deadstream. Joseph stars as a self-proclaimed coward who live-streams his life, uncaring who gets offended or hurt along the way. Some important aspects of Shawn the Winters wanted to highlight in the film was a controversy he was attempting to bounce back from. 

“We wanted to make sure that the audience really bought into how important his reputation on the internet was and just how far he was willing to go. We really wanted to pull off that believability that even though he’s a larger than life character, you still believe he’s put so much work into his channels and his followers that he really is willing to get pummeled by ghosts…”

The Winters discuss the line between adding typical influencer comedic style with the more terrifying screams. They cover the nuances between Joseph’s vast range of “25 different screams”, and when to use which during the post-production editing. 

Regarding cameras, on set and in the scenes. “We were very committed to the universe of making it feel like a livestream and some believability that this could happen even though we took some liberties.”

Joseph states, “I was not expecting what it took to pull this off… It was very difficult to be in Shawn’s head at the same time as being the camera operator and thinking I have to pan this speed across here while I’m saying [Shawn’s lines]. It was such a challenge.”