Filmmaking // Current

TIRING OF SEQUELS & REMAKES, LOW-BUDGET FILMMAKERS SET OUT TO PRODUCE AN ORIGINAL FEATURE

Mobile, Alabama based independent filmmaking group Fighting Owl Films is set to produce an independent feature in the city utilizing local talent. The feature, titled “The Night Shift”, is based on Fighting Owl Films' short film of the same name which proved an online hit, was positively reviewed in "Fangoria" magazine's online edition earlier in 2009 and has screened in several festivals across the United States.

A supernatural adventure-comedy, “The Night Shift” centers on Rue Morgan, the undead night watchman at Pinewood Oaks Cemetery. Rue, along with his buddy Herb, a limbless corpse, spends his nights trying to keep the cemetery’s cantankerous residents in, and his days dreaming of a date with hard-nosed day-shifter, Claire. It’s an okay afterlife until a scourge of supernatural occurrences leave Rue not only watching the cemetery, but also watching his back!

The short film’s positive reception coupled with the disillusionment with Hollywood’s current output of remakes and reboots encouraged the filmmakers to pursue their dream of turning the original “The Night Shift” into a feature length adventure film. Thomas Smith, the film’s writer/director and co-producer, is hoping to recapture some of the cinematic magic of the 80s Amblin films he grew up with that had a lasting influence.

“Growing up as a child of the 80s, the world depicted on film had a completely different atmosphere,” Smith says. “The films possessed a graininess and lived-in look that added an extra dimension of realism. There also seemed to be a greater emphasis on character and storytelling and less of the headache-inducing flash and sensory overload that’s become so commonplace today. It was the era of ‘Gremlins’, ‘Ghostbusters’ and ‘Indiana Jones’, films everyone could enjoy, not just children or adult audiences. That’s what we’re hoping to recapture with ‘The Night Shift’.”

The independent feature has secured its cast. Returning from the short to reprise their roles of Rue Morgan, Claire Rennfield and Herbie West are Khristian Fulmer, Erin Lilley and Soren Odom, respectively. New additions to the cast include Andrew Crider as Adramalech, the villainous vengence demon with an affinity for western wear, Jordan Woodall as Curly and Jonathan Pruitt as the mysterious Captain Roderick Blake. The film, currently in pre-production, is expected to begin shooting in May 2010.

For more information on Fighting Owl Films and “The Night Shift”, visit them online at www.fightingowlfilms.com and www.thenightshiftmovie.com.

###Mobile, Alabama based independent filmmaking group Fighting Owl Films is set to... more

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The low-budget movie phenomenon

The abundance and affordability of digital video have turned everyone into a potential Spielberg, and zero-budget films are the talk of festivals across the globe.

In 1977 the fanzine Sniffin’ Glue published pictures of three chords: having mastered those, it famously told its readers they could all go out and form their own bands. For film-makers, the punk aesthetic was less affordable; even a shoestring could cost a king’s ransom. Today, though, thanks to digital video, everyone is doing low-budget films. Movie-mad teenagers, ambitious first-timers, seasoned directors crunched by credit or seeking to recharge their creative batteries – all are eager to investigate how low you can go.

The Raindance Film Festival has a low-budget competition whose cut-off point is 50,000 in sterling, US dollars or euros. Bottom – or top – of the pile, is a British movie called Colin, which officially cost £45.

Though it is by no means without merit, Colin’s measly budget is its main selling point. The director, Marc Price, 30, enthuses how he pressed an elderly camcorder into service to shoot this epic of a suburban everyman bitten by a zombie.

Genre films like Colin are relatively saleable. Roger Corman built his empire on them, Robert Rodriguez made his name with the £7,000 Mexican comedy-thriller El Mariachi, while The Blair Witch Project remains the unholy grail for all low-rent wannabes. A recent subset has been the fad for cheap and cheeky remakes of blockbusters, where the joke is the mismatch between their peanut production values and the films that inspired them. Earlier this year, an “adaptation” of Raiders of the Lost Ark shot by three schoolboys achieved a cinema release, with Steven Spielberg’s blessing.

Among the six micro-budget films competing at Raindance is Paul Cotter’s Bomber, a dramedy about a young man who accompanies his elderly parents on a cathartic trip to Germany. The budget, £24,000, came from the director, his friends and his family, and it was edited on an iMac (another technology that has smoothed the way for low-cost film-making).

Cotter is British but worked for seven years in the United States, where he believes the independent film-making scene is far livelier. “There’s much more of a gung-ho, roll-up-your-sleeves attitude,” he says. Films are marginally easier to sell there, he thinks, though Bomber has yet to find a buyer on either side of the Atlantic.

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The DIY films that vanish without trace

For every Morris: A Life with Bells On that enjoy success, there are countless DIY labours of love that will never find an audience. So why are the studios ignoring Britain's burgeoning indie film industry? The paradox here is that a gentle, old-fashioned indie may well be the riskiest indie of them all for the industry – if not the audience.

Here in the UK, the Raindance film festival at least remains something akin to a safe haven. Elliot Grove, who founded the event in 1993, explains that there are 11 homegrown DIY features in this year's line-up, up from six or seven in previous years. The most notable of these is Colin, a British zombie movie reported to have had a budget of just £45. Its director, Marc Price, says he made it in part to inspire other wannabe film-makers; to make them think: "If this arsehole can do it, I can do it."

Grove insists this is actually a good time for DIY cinema. Quality is up, and the cost of making movies is down. Even so, he sees few signs of a commercial breakthrough for any of the movies. "You have to remember that 96% of cinemas are controlled by the studios, and the studios don't want to show films they haven't made. But it works the other way, too. Ask the public to choose between two films – a glossy Hollywood one and an unsung British one – and nine out of 10 will go for the Hollywood one. That culture is not about to change. Independent film is always going to be niche."

The process of making movies is actually getting easier, and there are now so many more platforms to screen them on. Yet there is no overriding strategy, no distribution system to knit it all together. A crucial piece of the jigsaw appears to be missing.

Back in London, Liz Rosenthal runs Power to the Pixel, an organisation that aims to help independent film-makers navigate a changing, digital terrain. The business, she says, is in a mess. "It's the classic best of times/worst of times. There is now an infinite space to show your work, and the film industry is an old business model, desperately trying to catch up. If you are a traditional distributor, it costs a lot to release a movie, so obviously they want to go with what they know and think is low risk. Every film-maker still wants a theatrical release, but there are thousands of films being made. They can't all expect to find a space."

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