Western Mail
May 3rd 2007
By Rin Simpson

Made for a laugh podcast makes it to DVD after rise to fame on internet

An independent Welsh film which started out as a podcast and cost less than $1,000 to make, is to be released on DVD for UK-wide distribution.
Legalize Murder is thought to be the first feature-length film to make the crossover from internet to major DVD release. Written, produced and directed by Pembrokeshire-based trio Joseph Salerno, Nick Warden, and Phillip Adams, who also star in the spoof documentary that satirises the black metal music genre. The storey follows pop culture journalist Dominic Dalrymple (Warden) as he spends a week with Welsh black metal artists Vic Norseman (Salerno) and Jack Norseman (Adams).

The serialised podcast was originally aired on video sharing websites such as You Tube, but fan reaction was positive that the creators, who are all 26 years old, decided to edit it together to create a feature-length film.
After being placed on Google Video it received 66, 548 views in the space of three months and entered the sites top 100 list.
Now the films fan site has over 7,000 members and subscribers. Despite its low budget, within the film industry it has gathered critical acclaim at festivals including this years Flat Pack Festival, and even has even featured in a Sky TV documentary.
And now, having had a limited print run with Magma Books, Legalize Murder has been signed by Code 7 distribution, who will be released in June.
“It was a complete fluke, none of this was planned whatsoever. The film was planned The film was made for a laugh” Said Salerno, who set up media company Design Confederacy with Warden.
“Magma Books were the first people to contact us and that was such a shock because they’re so highbrow and our film is not so highbrow.
“We haven’t really talked about it between ourselves. I think we’re all a bit superstitious that if we go on about how good it is it will fall over.
“But all the festivals it’s been at, people have contacted us, it’s worked backwards.
“It started off just as little bits and bobs here and there on You Tube an stuff, and then we had over 60,000 downloads and someone made a fan site and I thought “Wow! We have fans!” Legalize Murder is set in the early ‘90’s when black metal was a feared genre with a sombre ideology, linked to reports of murders, suicides and church burnings. But the film has been described as “hilarious” and Salerno and Warden as “the new Gervais and Merchant, by with a tighter budget” by various music magazines.
TrakMARX magazine went so far as to say “Legalize Murder does for black metal what Spinal Tap did for heavy metal
But Salerno is quick to point out that it was never their intention to seriously mock black metal and that he himself is a fan of the genre. He said “We were in a band at the time and we thought wouldn’t it be funny to take the mickey out of some the metal bands that we liked. Even though we liked them we could see the ridiculous side of the black metal and heavy metal regalia.
“It can look fantastic, it ca really work if the band’s got the direction and intent but when they don’t it can just look a bit silly.
“Any kind of subculture or genre has their ridiculous elements. Black metal seems to be a scene that prides itself on not being a scene, it prides itself on not following a trend but by doing that it sets a trend, which we thought was funny”