My first live-action short film project…
Yes, that’s true. All the small videos I did before with my brother don’t count. This is the real deal, with real actors, costumes, props, sets, and an entirely exterior shoot… sounds like a headache.
An Old Shack will be shot whenever COVID finally kicks rocks – so we may be waiting a while. It’s the story of two cowboys – one of them, a dark, conspicuous man, and the other, his sidekick and pack-mule.
They stumble across an old, blind man sitting around a smoking campfire, along with a sporadic, twitchy young man who seems to be bound in reverence to his elderly companion. Some ways away is a small, wooden shack, no bigger than an outhouse or tool shed. It’s eventually revealed that the old man and his partner are waiting around to catch a glimpse of The Violin Player – a being that they claim lives inside the shack.
During the course of the evening, paranoia starts to set in, and the group starts to lose themselves. The old man displays more and more strange behaviors that set the dark cowboy and his pack mule on edge. They all eventually fall asleep for the night, and wake up to see things are not as they left them…
I made a small preview script that can be downloaded either here, or on the Old Shack page on my website. Feel free to have a read.
The film will feature four Calgary actors who are yet to be cast, as well as any crew and behind-the-camera help that I may need. Ideally, it’ll premiere at CIFF, but if I can’t manage that (and I will try with all my being), then some other festivals will be tried before the film is put up somewhere to watch – maybe YouTube, but likely somewhere a little more formal and high-brow.