This October, we spent two days on an exciting whirlwind shoot for our upcoming spooky short film, The Custodian. Here's a teaser poster for it:
The Custodian is part of a creative experiment we are calling "48 Hour Plus."
We've learned a lot from our annual experiences with the 48 Hour Film Project —having to write, shoot and produce a finished short over a weekend is like a pop quiz, testing our current mastery of all the skills that go into filmmaking. It's also a kick in the pants to push us past the "infinite planning" phase of filmmaking and actually spit out something finished—there have been a few Decembers when we looked up from the firehose of client work and realized our 48 hour film was the only self-made creative project we'd released that year.
So now we're trying a new twist. We like the part where we finish films quickly (like the award-winning Black Box, a short film we did for the 48 Hour Film Project that was later picked up by DUST) but we don't love the nagging frustration of living with all the cut corners that rushing a film in a weekend inevitably requires. So we 're easing up a bit on the schedule: pull together all the awesome professionals we work with to do the actual shoot in 48 hours, sure, but give ourselves a little breathing room to prep properly before and polish things a little longer after.
Last month, that meant we had time to do another draft punching up our Halloween-themed script, time to recruit some great actors from all over the country, and time to hunt up the perfect location in a sprawling decommissioned factory deep in the Shenandoah Valley . . .
. . . which is where we all converged for this shoot. Armed with a script by Mirandum co-owner Mike Powell, we were beyond excited to include such a well rounded and experienced cast for this film, which stars Taylor Alden, Maggie Gough, Joshua Michael Payne, Baakari Wilder, and Bria Roberts. In the director's chair was Mirandum's Colin J. Mason, and we were excited to include Jacqui Ris as director of photography.
Photo courtesy of Jessica Siegert Photography
The Custodian draws on an older generation of horror, creating atmosphere with practical environments, so the shoot involved a lot of fog-spewing and blood-slathering.
But we also paired these analog crafts with the digital skills of Jacob Schwartz and Anthony Pilon at Digicore FX for some of the more exciting moments of the film (including one we won't spoil that required bringing in a professional contortionist).
Photo courtesy of Jessica Siegert Photography
What's exciting is that this new system looks to be giving us results - we actually played another completed short film earlier this fall at the fabulous Lost Weekend film festival, and have completed principal photography on multiple shorts that should wrap after The Custodian is complete.
Expect more updates and BTS images on these short films right here in the weeks ahead! In the meantime, feel free to get as excited as we are about The Custodian.