The digital picture taking shape near Mountain Lake harks back to the sci-fi classics of the 1950s.
The aliens have landed and they came from the ’50s. But we will not get to see them until Halloween.
That’s when “River of Dread,” the first movie produced by the newly-formed Fried Squid Productions (whose logo is a confused-looking squid holding up a movie camera) is scheduled for release on DVD. It is being filmed digitally.
The movie is a deliberate throwback to science fiction screen classics from the 1950s, such as “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” “It Came from Outer Space,” “Them!” and “The Day the Earth Stood Still.”
It is even being done in glorious black and white, which allows chocolate syrup to substitute for blood as Alfred Hitchcock is purported to have done for the shower scene in “Psycho.”
At a shoot Thursday near Wind Rock, a popular national forest site in Giles County, the chocolate syrup had the added benefit of attracting flies, adding an extra layer of gruesomeness to the actors sprawled in the undergrowth.
The movie will have some stop-motion animation with clay models, created by local artist Ed Gendron. It’s a process that dates back to the original “King Kong” before the technique gave way to today’s computer-generated effects.
And the movie-makers are building a theremin, a box-like instrument played by moving one’s hands near two metal antennae to produce the wavering high-pitched vibrato musical effects that became almost a trademark for ’50s sci-fi movies.
“The project started probably about a year ago,” said Seneca Haynes, a Virginia Tech graduate who has been involved in Blacksburg theater productions in ways ranging from acting to building sets.
For the science fiction movie, he wrote the script and is directing. He has been recruiting his actors and crew for about two months. This week, they shot about half the picture in the woods above Mountain Lake.
Other scenes will be filmed in Blacksburg, and some footage will be shot at the University of Virginia, where one of the movie’s characters, a scientist played by Dave Deshler, is supposed to be giving a lecture.
Haynes had seen Deshler around Blacksburg, sporting costumes like the one from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean” and wanted him for his leading role. But for a while, he could not find him.
“He approached me in a bar,” Deshler said. “He said, ‘Hey, weren’t you the guy who was playing Jack Sparrow?'” Deshler’s reaction was to ask if the Jack Sparrow impersonator had offended him in some way.
When he learned otherwise, he admitted sporting the costume and Haynes recruited him for his movie.
“What do I have to do?” Deshler asked.
“Act crazy.”
“Ohhh-kay.”
Other leading roles are played by Deanna Nairns, Patrick Turner and Jack Bennett. Everyone is doing double or triple duty. Turner, a Virginia Tech graduate with a music studio in Richmond, is also composing the music soundtrack. Bennett, himself an aspiring movie-maker, is co-producing with Haynes and editing.
The budget, raised from those putting it together and other investors, will be about $5,000 at the most, Haynes said.
It’s a labor of love for participants, he said, adding that eventually, “My goal is to be able to support small independent teams of filmmakers.”
“One thing that amazed me is Seneca figured out a way to set up lights in the woods without electricity,” said Turner.
“We use car batteries,” for the night scenes, Hayes explained.
Bennett said there are structural differences between today’s films, which emphasize action and special effects, and those of the ’50s with more dialogue and slower pacing.
But he said “River of Dread” is not a parody of ’50s films.
“It’s not a satire,” he said. “It’s kind of interesting to see how story-telling has changed.”
But there might be some humor injected, said Haynes, whose early exposure to ’50s films came from watching them on TV’s “Mystery Science Theatre 3000,” where a tiny audience hurls comic remarks back at the screen.
“The characters, they’re all playing it very seriously. That’s the humor of it,” he said.
Virginia Tech graduate student Nat Gaertner is the cameraman. Clay Scheib will play a 7-foot robot alien, with a costume built out of metal pieces from various sources. “He’s going to be this hulking junk pile,” Haynes said.
Tech students working on the film include Adam Breske, Mark Williams, Christina Gardner and Ali Sherbiny.
“Every day, there’s like a new crew person,” Haynes said. Some show up and work for a day, while others remain longer .”Any time we can get somebody to hold a boom mike or carry stuff for us, it’s totally cool.”
The plot involves scientists tracing mysterious emanations of radiation, which turn out to come from a crashed spaceship. William Morva plays the character who makes the first — and for him, the last — contact with it. Artists have been recruited for ’50s-style movie posters.
People will be able to buy the movie on DVD for probably $12 to $14, Haynes said, complete with a director and cast commentary track.
But despite those modern touches, it will have ’50s sensibilities and is even set vaguely in the 1950s, complete with a borrowed 1959 Volvo.
“This is the only movie that has been made by someone of Seneca’s generation that has not been influenced by ‘Star Wars,’ ” Bennett claimed.
“It’s not over yet,” Haynes replied.
Source: Roanoke.com, Guest Writer: Paul Dellinger (New River Current)