It’s finally finished!  This little short was a nightmare to complete, but it looks great in a home theater now that it’s all done.  Panacea is my final project for TMA 185, “Visual Storytelling”. 

Everyone in the class wrote a 3 page screenplay and turned it in.  We then  chose a script out of the pile to shoot.  Spencer picked my little story, and I picked Jared Moench’s zombie script Hidden One.  In the original apocryphal story, hungry Ammon (greek for ‘hidden one’) breaks his can opener and ventures from his shelter into the undead night, seeking a replacement.  He gets chased by tons of zombies and makes it back safely... he thinks. 

This, of course, was the most challenging script, but the other ones were lame and new ideas are always so fun to me.  Jared really sold it.  So thanks to Jared I had a sweet story, which went through a dozen revisions (mostly paring down) as I took some creative liberty and made the story my own.  You don’t even know all the sweet stuff I put in there.  But, simplifying things is always a good choice, and it ended up with just two characters and one creature. 

We filmed 4 crazy nights, usually beginning at midnight.  Joe was so cooperative with me, running all round Provo while I filmed him from my scooter.  Aaron flipped the light switches in that dollar store a million times as I commanded him over the walkie.  Cambell had my back with details and ideas and cops.  Cornett sat patiently upside down with theater blood on his face for a few hours (and went straight home, stumbling in and telling his brother he was in a car crash).  But the true Commitment Award goes to my best friend Adam Dyal, who endured 4 hours of makeup, and 6 more of shooting on a cold night wearing only paint.

Despite my all-nighters, I only had a rough cut of the film completed on the day of the class final.  It had to be only 3 mins to get an A, so I cut out whatever I could with the story still somewhat coherent.  It had no sound mix.

One month later, I reassembled the story (now 7 mins long), and spent 20 hours cutting the foley and audio tracks.  It’s time to become a story teller.  I had a lot of personal goals on this project, with cinematography, writing, audio, and acting.  Thanks to my classmates and their great feedback.  My screenplay fit on three pages, but it was no 2 7/8 story!

A panacea is a cure-all, a solution to everything.  This movie is short of profound, but maybe smarter than the average film among students.  It feels good to finally finish another short.  Now I want to make a Bigfoot movie...