A crew putting together a promotional short film spent a day shooting in the Jell-O Factory in Le Roy and another day in an old trailer in East Bethany last week.
The short horror film is expected to lead to a feature-length horror called, “As I Lie Awake.”
“It’s intended for presentation to investors, as well as for fundraising,” writer-director Ben Tomson said of the short film. “That being said, it’s also a standalone short that will be sent to a variety of festivals, as well as shown locally and placed on the feature film website.”
Le Roy native Andy Rich said he was an extra in the film and was the location manager. He said Tomson contacted him after Rich’s friend, Buffalo-area actress Rosanna Pfeifer, suggested Tomson get in touch with him.
“Benjamin reached out to me because he was looking for an office-type set. I just said, ‘If you want to come and look at the location, that’s fine,’” Rich said.
Rich said the crew filmed at the Jell-O Factory on Friday and was there earlier in the week dressing the set. Tomson and the crew were there with the permission of the property’s owner, Earl Funderburk.
“We shot from about 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. (Friday),” Rich said. “They shot there for one day, but we had to dress the set a couple of days earlier and then we’ll go back there to clean up. It wasn’t a small crew. There were a lot of people, There’s a lot of stuff that goes into this type of thing.”
Rich said as location manager, his job is to watch the production and make sure everyone is safe and that the factory is not damaged.
“A lot of the factory is still abandoned. We’ve just been using the small area up front where the office is. It’s an old factory,” he said.
Rich posted a “thank you” to Sweet Betty’s ice cream shop, 15 Main St., on the Le Roy N.Y. Then and Now Facebook site in which Tomson thanked Sweet Betty’s for delivering lunch to the crew.
“They went out of their way to deliver to us,” Rich said. “These are local businesses in town. I’m a local business in town. We all have to support each other.”
Tomson said Rich was incredibly helpful.
“I shot an office scene in the Jell-O Factory because one of the rooms could be made into a convincing social worker’s office, which was a scene we needed for the short,” he said. “The room is large enough to accommodate equipment and people,” Tomson said. “We spent a few days scouting and preparing the location, and then just one full-day shoot. We had a shoot in an old trailer in East Bethany the following day (Saturday).”
Tomson said he used the trailer for a nightmare scene involving the film’s protagonist. He said the trailer’s owner allowed him to do whatever he needed to do there to set the scene.
“The trailer took months of preparation to get it ready. It was an old, dilapidated trailer. They offered it to us and I jumped at it because I could do anything to it,” Tomson said. “They gave us freedom to make it into what we needed to make it into.”
The summary for “As I Lie Awake,” Tomson said, is “An outcast turns violent when nightmares begin seeping into his daily life.”
“The protagonist has a condition that renders him unable to distinguish his nightmares from reality, causing him to lash out at people who try to help him, because he presumes they are part of that nightmare. He must accept that ‘his truth’ and ‘the truth’ are not always the same, before his nightmare and reality become permanently fused together,” Tomson said. “The short film is a distillation of the core concepts in the feature.”
The writer-director said aside from Sweet Betty’s delivering, the crew ate at the Smokin’ Eagle BBQ & Brew in Le Roy while scouting.
“Great experiences with both businesses,” he said “I don’t think Sweet Betty’s normally delivers, so it was extremely helpful that they did. We were able to keep on schedule, which was a huge help. And the food was great too.”
For the short film, Tomson said the crew may still get some establishing shots in downtown Buffalo, but that’s not confirmed.
The “As I Lie Awake” writer-director said he hopes to enter the short film in the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, something the film’s local actors and crew members would probably appreciate. He said he would like to enter it in larger festivals as well. The writer-director said the production is raising money for marketing and development via a GoFundMe page on the movie’s webpage, https://asilieawake.com/funding/.
Tomson said he’s written the feature to be filmed entirely in Rochester and Buffalo.
Rich said there have been other productions to use the Jell-O Factory, such as a three-part film, “The Halloween Inferno” and another film called “Unusual Attraction.” The other one, “Silent Hill Echoes,” didn’t make it out of production.
The owner/financial advisor at Cornerstone Financial Strategies and a Le Roy firefighter, said Le Roy is a special place.
“It’s like quintessential small-town America. “It’s not just the Jell-O Factory. It’s Main Street. If you drive down Main St. you have all these houses,” Rich said. “I’ve been trying my best to get these locations out there so more films will come.
“There’s a lot of filming in the area ..,. because of the New York State Film Credit. That’s why there are so many productions not necessary coming to Le Roy, but coming to Buffalo. I think Buffalo is trying to become the next hub for film.”
"film" - Google News
April 13, 2021 at 11:15AM
https://ift.tt/3mFZ9V8
Short stay in Le Roy, East Bethany for horror film crew - The Daily News Online
"film" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2qM7hdT
https://ift.tt/3fb7bBl
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Short stay in Le Roy, East Bethany for horror film crew - The Daily News Online"
Post a Comment