so i decided, for some reason, in a moment of creative unfufillment while on vacation this past summer that the best way for me to occupy my eleventh grade year was to write, cast, direct and edit my own horror movie. (i posted the script earlier, you can find the script here if you're interested) the film is called hazel's house, and although we don't start shooting until november and haven't quite finished casting, pre-production and coordinating things has been keeping me very busy and i'd imagine that will continue and i won't be writing much here or on my other projects. so i thought that maybe i would keep track of what's up with the film. how much progress i've made and how it's coming along and all since it's kind of a huge endeavour.
so, the idea for the screenplay comes from a story that i've been working on for several years--it started out as a novel, then several different types of screenplays and at the beginning of the summer i decided to learn a little bit about the conventions of horror writing and rewrite it as a proper horror show. i had a lot of fun and killed a lot of characters but then this past august when i was on vacation, i suddenly got that familiar itch to write and shoot a movie that always comes on when i'm bored and this time i thought: why the hell not? i've been blocked in writing, may as well give it all a direction. i didn't feel like coming up with an original idea so it was just a matter of which existing project i wanted to adapt. i already knew that horror was the easiest supernatural thing to do on a low budget (and i pretty much only do supernatural things) so i decided to adapt my television series. i made a number of huge changes and the end result had one character with a similar name and origin story as the equivalent in the original, one character who had taken the name of one character and was a competely different one, and that was it for similarities. i simplified the plot down, repurposed characters, melded two into one, turned a villain into a hero and added a new villain and ended up with a script that was somewhat terrifying and would be easy to shoot. at the end of august, i finished the screenplay and it was time to start thinking about putting the pieces together.
so today, having almost all of our cast nailed down and a few tentative shooting locations, my friend maggie and i decided to go costume shopping. knowing who was going to play the female lead meant that we could buy clothes for her that could safely be covered in blood, and i needed some as well, so we went around all the thrift stores in town. we managed to find some interesting pieces--a floor length white night gown, some bright yellow courduroys, a 1940s silk slip and several fuzzy sweaters being among the highlights--for almost all of the characters. i got home and designated a section of my closet to props, labeled each hanger with 'character's name' and the day they wore it, chronologically, and hung it all up. it was very basic and most of the costumes lacked pants, but i still felt like a real pro. i'm still waiting for the whole project to go horribly awry but at the moment i'm getting properly excited.
so, the idea for the screenplay comes from a story that i've been working on for several years--it started out as a novel, then several different types of screenplays and at the beginning of the summer i decided to learn a little bit about the conventions of horror writing and rewrite it as a proper horror show. i had a lot of fun and killed a lot of characters but then this past august when i was on vacation, i suddenly got that familiar itch to write and shoot a movie that always comes on when i'm bored and this time i thought: why the hell not? i've been blocked in writing, may as well give it all a direction. i didn't feel like coming up with an original idea so it was just a matter of which existing project i wanted to adapt. i already knew that horror was the easiest supernatural thing to do on a low budget (and i pretty much only do supernatural things) so i decided to adapt my television series. i made a number of huge changes and the end result had one character with a similar name and origin story as the equivalent in the original, one character who had taken the name of one character and was a competely different one, and that was it for similarities. i simplified the plot down, repurposed characters, melded two into one, turned a villain into a hero and added a new villain and ended up with a script that was somewhat terrifying and would be easy to shoot. at the end of august, i finished the screenplay and it was time to start thinking about putting the pieces together.
so today, having almost all of our cast nailed down and a few tentative shooting locations, my friend maggie and i decided to go costume shopping. knowing who was going to play the female lead meant that we could buy clothes for her that could safely be covered in blood, and i needed some as well, so we went around all the thrift stores in town. we managed to find some interesting pieces--a floor length white night gown, some bright yellow courduroys, a 1940s silk slip and several fuzzy sweaters being among the highlights--for almost all of the characters. i got home and designated a section of my closet to props, labeled each hanger with 'character's name' and the day they wore it, chronologically, and hung it all up. it was very basic and most of the costumes lacked pants, but i still felt like a real pro. i'm still waiting for the whole project to go horribly awry but at the moment i'm getting properly excited.
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