It’s been a few years now since Gore and I started working on this endeavor.
But our friendship goes back even further. We both met on the set of Hell House LLC. What a ride that has been, and continues to be. None of us had any idea the film would take off like it has. But like any professional, we gave it our all and Gore and I recognized that in each other. That we had a passion around filmmaking - whether it was acting or writing, or producing, or any of it. We both recognized that love in each other. Our favorite scenes in Hell House are when we get to shout at each other. There’s nothing more fun than that. And we remained friends ever since.
We’ve always been one step away from collaborating with each other on a film or a traveling stage show or a writing project, but none of it really took until 2020 when the entire world shut down.
We were a few blocks from each other but isolated in our homes and we grabbed a drink, saw a movie, talked, and our friendship reached that next level. We remembered what we saw in each other. We remembered that passion.
So we started writing.
He had ideas. I had ideas. But the one that really stuck with us came from his personal experience. An othering he felt when meeting his wife’s family for the first time. They live in Northern France and often stay inside a small house on the beach inside the beautiful town of Saint Malo. They had decades of history there, they had roots dug into the culture there, and they had a very strong family bond there. These were all elements Gore envied but felt he personally lacked. You add a language barrier to that and suddenly you can’t connect with the people who will soon be your family (they were about to get married and have a child).
Couple that with the never-ending fear of raising a child, of becoming a father, of having your responsibility multiply ten-fold for every consecutive following year of your life until the end… and you’ve got a fear that borders on being ubiquitous.
So we took that angst, that othering, that fear of responsibility and that imposter syndrome and we expounded upon it.
We turned it into a full blown horror story.
Which is where I came in. I’m a huge horror fan, I love the medium and I find it to be a perfect way to tell a personal story punched up with plot.
So we made some creative choices about the history of Saint Malo and we created a story where a character who started off in Gore’s situation would end up in a very very bad situation by the end of the film.
It took us years.
He eventually moved to France, and so for those years we wrote together we were oceans apart. We would call each other up and talk for hours about the characters, the world, the possibilities.
We had draft after draft after draft until we felt satisfied and we started submitting to screenplay festivals.
And we did really well! No first place winnings but some top spots and high accolades, and some really great feedback. We felt content with it until we thought… now how the hell are we going to make this thing? Without getting into it, I’m sure you can assume that making a film is hard fucking work.
It’s a miracle anyone finishes one. It’s a miracle anyone has the money to start one.
But a script isn’t enough. You need more.
So we built a show deck. Wonderful art, wonderful words, (some of which is on the website), wonderful references to other wonderful works. But a show deck and a script aren’t enough.
So we decided to film something.
We wanted to test this thing out, after all. Do these characters translate to screen? Does this tension exist off the page? Does the landscape have the ability to look as terrifying as we hope it will? Can Gore and I work together as directors?
I flew into France for the first time and we spent a week together assembling what we needed. We met Nicolas Fouques, who is an excellent cinematographer with an impressive knowledge of film - and I mean all film, from Cable Guy to Dogville. He’s a true cinephile. And we started doing what we called test shoots.
And we also connected Filmantique, a film equipment rental house based in Rennes. We were in touch with Fabrice, one of the managers who has been greatly supportive of our ideas over the last couple of years.
But test footage isn’t enough.
We needed more. So I flew back to France, we hired some actors, including the wonderful Sophie Mourousi, the impeccable Sophie Porzier, the indomitable Loïc Baylacq, and the penetrating eyes of Clotilde Denis; and we made a movie! Gore and I knew we had very tight resources and an even tighter window of time. It would take all of our own money to do this and we knew that so we wrote small.
We fashioned a few scenes from the screenplay that we thought perfectly captured the tension of the film and its lead characters and we wrote a brand new scene - one that can live on its own.
We shot for 14 hours - give or take. We had an entirely French crew with entirely French actors (save for the two of us) and we made something so special. It was something I hadn’t done in years.
This was 16mm film.
This wasn’t some digital camera shooting around the city streets. This was planning, shot composition, storyboarding, real lighting. This was a true undertaking. And we did it!
I flew back to America the very next day, I didn’t sleep for two days! And when it came time to edit, Gore flew into New York and the two of us sat down for a full weekend to assemble this magnificent 15 minute film and we were so happy!
But an edited film isn’t enough. We needed a score. We needed sound design. So we reached out to a friend of Gore’s with a unique sound - Ori Dvir. He and his musical partner Benjamin Esterlis have a wicked vibe to their music and when you hear it you automatically think, Oh they should make a soundtrack.
So that’s what they did. We sent them a cut of the film with all our temp tracks removed and we said, act on how you feel. Pull from the film and create something individual. The two of them gave us some of the most incredible sounds I’ve ever heard, and every track had this desolate beach vibe like The Beach Boys on Acid inside a war zone.
Then we tapped my friend James Oliva to do some sound design for us and he and we spend days building out the room’s virtual space, creating an entire landscape out of nothing and delivering a near tangible world. He brought so much creativity and depth to the sound that I wasn’t aware was even possible.
And then we had it! Our world - Locations! It was here. A fully fleshed out 15 minute film that got to the heart of our feature script. It had planned camera work, transcendent performances, a weary atmosphere and at the hear of it all a theme that cuts deep into anyone who’s ever felt isolated by the opportunity of a new life with a new family and a new child on the way.
But a short film isn’t enough.
You need something bite size. Something that gets to the point in under thirty seconds. So we made a trailer. And we brought back all those creative juices together again to cut together a trailer that is not only advertising the short film, but the feature screenplay as a whole.
And we let the rest of the world inside.
Because we could not continue to create this inside of a vacuum. If we ever hope to make this into a feature film, which we will, we needed the world to see it. We needed to build a fanbase, build an excitement, make the case for it. So now we have a Twitter account, we have an instagram account, we have a website, we have a short film and we have a trailer.
Most importantly we have the will.
The will to bring this vision to life.
So if you’re reading this, if you’ve made it to the end of this blog, then please, spread the word. Tell us you want to see this movie made.
Tell us you’re interested in the journey we want to take you on.
Because to us, it is real. To Gore, and now to me as I embark on a marriage into a family that is strikingly different than mine, it is very real.
This is our lives, and we choose to tell our stories in a medium we love.
Film.
In a genre we love.
Horror.
To an audience we love.
You.