Schedule of Events

Squash is a short horror comedy film about two college journalists, Elsa and Fritz. Elsa, the on camera personality, is outgoing and curious while Fritz is easily scared and awkward. Together, they are looking for the perfect story that will win a regional journalism competition. Despite Fritz’s concern, Elsa believes their exclusive can be found in a recent murder surrounding a local legend. As they pursue their winning story, an abandoned house with a mysteriously pristine jack-o-lantern proves to be more dangerous than they anticipated. “Squash” gave students an intimate look at what goes into making a low-budget, independent film.
 

The Evil Debt is a horror/comedy set in a small college campus called Wasteland University. There is a total of 19 scenes and 22 pages. Because the setting of the story takes place in a university, all locations scouted have been located at CLU. The script required flickering lights, black vomit, a seizure, and a hell portal. Luckily, we were able to manually produce 4 out of 5 of these necessities. For the black vomit, we used black dye in water to create a “Dark Water” sort of visual. For Ellen’s seizure, I mixed Alka Seltzer with water, and had her bubble it in her mouth until it foamed. The Steadicam was used when wanting to emulate Suzy’s point of view, or when tracking a character getting up from the ground, such as Garrett’s resurrection scene. There were a couple scenes in which we wanted to get the “Evil Dead” fast tracking shot. And so, we mounted a tripod onto the dolly, had the cameraman on the dolly, and then had someone push him extremely fast towards his destination. The result makes it look as though it could have come out the same universe as Ash from Evil Dead. 

Deprivation is a short film about a dystopian future where a dangerously free spirit is pit against a dismal bureaucrat with all the power in the world. The film makes use of a sensory deprivation tank to simulate a futuristic prison where all life experiences can be simulated. The question of what makes real life preferable to a simulated reality is brought into focus, through charecters like the chilling but effecient Pennny Opticon and the experienced but smug Juan Tonimo. Presentation will include a brief summery of challenges and lessons learned during production. Next there will be a showing of the film's trailer, followed by a brief walk through of some of the more involved special effects work done.