By: James Morley III
If necessity is the mother of invention, then perhaps the father is desperation. In the spring of 2020, after many years of unsuccessful attempts to rejuvenate a floundering writing career, I had finally landed what was supposed to be the project of a lifetime.
A three month around-the-world tour creating video content for a global brand with my longtime image maestro Francisco Aliwalas. Having spent years as a writer and producer of reality television I knew the creative was well in hand.
All I needed to do was upgrade my post credentials. New hardware, new software and I’d be ready to manipulate the hundreds of hours of 4k footage coming my way.
Then something peculiar happened. First it was two weeks to flatten the curve. Then it was another two weeks just to be sure.
Soon the planes stopped flying and the last thing anyone wanted to be part of was a global tour mingling with thousands of strangers. Yet, this did nothing to ease the five-thousand dollar plus investment I had made into a project that was never going to happen.
Not this year, and likely not ever. Weeks turned into months, contracts were cancelled or never arrived at all and still this shiny powerful workstation and creative software lay dormant.
Hey Mom, I sold a movie! Oh wait, theaters are closed
Depression and dwindling confidence lay waste to any material concerns by a long shot. Both can be paralyzing. In thought, word and deed as the verse goes. The brushed chrome look and monthly CS updates mocking my lack of production. Here goes another $50 to Adobe for no reason.
Then, almost as curious, I came across a trailer for a horror film I had written close to ten years prior. Some company had purchased the rights, then another, and another and somehow or other it ended up being made. And was to be released on streaming services in the fall of 2020 (of course, it was my luck that I finally get a screenplay produced when all theaters are shuttered).
This was the sign I needed. Although the film scarcely resembled the script my partner Ari and I wrote in 2009, it was still a produced credit that people will see. But I needed something else. Something all mine that right or wrong I could receive credit or blame.
I had floated the idea of making a short for about as long as I floated the idea of writing a novel. I eventually did. But that took 14 years. I needed to create something within this very short window.
What can I get for free?
Every indie film I know is hatched in large measure based on these words: “What can I get for free?” The idea was to back myself into a story and production that I could realistically make with the locations I had, the actors I had, and the crew I could potentially get. No car chases, no messy physical contact, no crowd scenes. Nothing that I couldn’t pull off and have it look ridiculous.
Dolly moves? Out of the question. They take too long to set up and break down. I needed a nice, clean locked-down style of filmmaking with subdued dialogue.
Oh, and since this needed to happen mid-pandemic it needed to all be outside. ‘Just as well’, I figured – since I couldn’t afford a set designer anyway.
Sergio Leone, meet William Friedkin
The Western is uniquely American. No other genre can claim that. But the western is. So I would mimic that style on my friend Travis’ farm.
Precise framing of the 2:35 aspect ratio and virtually no movement. But of course, it had to have a horror twist. I had grown up on 80’s horror and still long, perhaps foolishly, to make a career of writing and directing the kind of genre pictures I memorized as a youth. The Thing, Re-Animator, Return of the Living Dead, Evil Dead 2. Cleverly written and dark with a healthy dose of practical FX and social commentary.
And actors that are all in for the absurdity that they’re being asked to say and do. That’s what interests me. Not models who can’t get hurt throwing each other through walls for two hours.
So then it had to look and sound like a real movie. My friends and collaborators from my days of making travel-based reality tv would be perfect.
I’d sent Francisco Aliwalas and Douglas Bachman around the world many times over the years and we always spoke about one day doing something in the fiction realm. They are masters of their craft and this would be our time to explore.
My brother Scott stepped up to help split the cost and Jeremy Little, the composer from my indie effort Black Days would write the original score. Long-time hockey buddy Kyle Owen-West and my daughter’s classmate Paige Spriggs would round out my cast. Erik Todd Dellums of The Wire and Homicide would be a late addition to add some class and professional street-cred to the whole mix.
The lost art of praying for something you don’t want
The weeks leading up to the principal photography were agonizing. Ever minuscule step of the way I questioned what I was doing.
It’s too hard.
It’s a goofy idea.
Too many things can go wrong.
What if the weather is awful?
What if someone gets sick?
I can’t get these people back.
Incessant anxiety renders humans petrified wood. And the only way to cure it is to jump into the ice cold pond and see what happens. At least if I fall on my face, I can’t be accused of not jumping.
When the two days in October finally arrived and Kyle and I drove out deep into farm country to begin this journey, it felt right. Good Hope Farmstead was awash in a thick layer of morning fog. Putting us all in the mood for our dark, esoteric tale.
One is always fighting time (in the form of a setting sun) and money (in the form of everything else) when doing no-budget films. But the upside is that the people are there because they want to be. It’s not a job. Having no clock to punch means everyone is dialed into the task.
As the film started to come together, me finally making use of Premiere Pro in the comfort of my dining room, I noticed that I had written and shot myself into a few untenable corners.
There is one last savior of the film I need mention. Todd Allen, whom I was introduced by our mutual friend Rob Pralgo, saved the film on more than one occasion. The visual effects he created, both seen and unseen throughout our little short corrected and enhanced The Spoiled beyond anything I could have imagined. I am in his debt as I am all of my creative collaborators.
If nothing else, raise your expectations of life
Now that the completed film has been published and achieved close to 4,000 views in two weeks’ time on a no-name channel with zero promotion, I can say it served its purpose. No, we have not received that agent, studio or financier call asking, “What’s next, oh talented ones?”
What we did was elevate our expectations of ourselves in a uniquely depressing time. We brought creative types of all disciplines together for a few days to craft something that will live forever. We toiled and laughed and sweat for a few crazed hours and then all scattered back to our own lives.
I can look back on these images and know they were willed into existence from a dark place but did not remain there. For those of you with a creative itch to scratch, no matter what your chosen medium, you know of what I speak. Now go forth and scratch it.
About the author
James Morley III is the author of “Sweetness Followed”, and co-writer of the feature films “Death of Me”, “Black Days” and some b-movies which we won’t talk about.
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