I love talking to filmmakers about what it takes to see the movie we get on screen, but I rarely have the chance to talk to an entire crew.
Well, luck for all of us, it’s Horror Week here at No Film School, and I’m delighted to share that I got to chat with a lot of the crew of Curse of the Sin Eater, who unveiled a lot of information about what it takes to make a great horror movie on every facet of production.
Let’s dive in.
Our Interview with the ‘Curse of the Sin Eater’ Crew
No Film School: Where did the concept for Curse of the Sin Eater come from?
Adam Davis (Co-Writer/Co-Producer): The inspiration for the film came from my dad, who is interested in quirky, offbeat stories and rituals. He read about the concept of sin eating, which was a real thing people did in Wales and the surrounding countries in the seventeenth century and told me about it.
The concept of a sin eater in modern day was something I felt I could sink my teeth into, as I’m attracted to writing stories about power imbalances, especially between the rich and poor, and the forms sins could take resonated with my Catholic upbringing. I took the idea to my writing partner Will Corona-Pilgrim, and we cooked up the story about a struggling construction worker who gets the deal of a lifetime with some seriously terrifying consequences—it’s not a one-to-one, but I always thought of this a bit like a horror movie version of Blank Check or a Tales from the Crypt-style morality tale.
We wanted the film to examine what the pitfalls and dangers are of extreme wealth and how that changes you as a person, your relationships with others and your relationship with society. Also, how messed up it would be to have the physical embodiments of horrifying sins haunting and torturing you for eternity. Because that’s just fun horror. The biggest excitement I felt going into production was seeing how Justin and the talented crew would bring to life these sins, and how Carter Shimp would portray Rick the construction worker’s unraveling.
NFS: How did you decide what gear to use while shooting the film?
Justin Denton (Director): During PrePro, our DP Robert Patrick Stern and I decided early on to shoot on Alexa, but our real experimentation came with the lens package. There is a raw Chicago quality we wanted to capture between the color palette, handheld movement style, and a gritty frame. To find this look, we booked a day in our primary location and shot out five different lens sets. While on location, we loaded the footage into Resolve on my laptop to test some power grades I had created.
We were looking to see how the camera/lens combination behaved in an environment dominated by hard geometric lines and lots of dark brown wood paneling. This quickly pushed us towards lenses with a lot of eccentricities. We very nearly went with a set of Lomo lenses, but the 50mm lens was very inconsistent with the other lenses and felt a little muddy. I love the warped circular bokeh of those lenses though! Ultimately, we decided to go with the Zeiss C/Y PL rehoused lens set. They took the power grades so well and loved the heavy 16mm style grain we added to them.
Also, they have this beautiful soft halation effect with practical lighting.
Robert Patrick Stern (Cinematographer): For me, the story in combination with the director, locations, and schedule helps narrow the gear options to choose from. Our director Justin really wanted to have something with grit along the lines of 16mm. That was not in the cards for this film, so we decided to digitally find a way to ‘beat up’ the film via a cinevized set of photo lenses that had tons of that same character.
Justin and I tested tons of lens sets that would allow us to go without filtration and have a look built in from the beginning. I’ve never been a huge fan of super clean anything, really—I love to custom tailor a vibe or feel that would take a lot to unpack how it was accomplished. With something vintage in front of the sensor and an amazing artist receiving it like Ryan Croft in DI, you can really attempt to do some new things.
NFS: How was the cloud utilized to sync crew members in different places?
Valerian Zamel (Editor): My first objective as Editor was to set up a workflow as fast as possible, without an assistant, and hit the ground running. With Justin in Chicago, and me in Los Angeles, we used the cloud to share media, review work-in-progress cuts, and mock up VFX looks for our most visually demanding sequences. Early on in the process, Director Justin Denton and I decided that working in DaVinci Resolve and utilizing their Cloud Collaboration feature will allow us to create a streamlined workflow and ensure we work in a creative, and efficient way.
Justin Denton (Director): As Val stated, with us in different locations, we wanted to figure out a workflow that still felt like we were in the room together as best we could. Resolve’s Cloud Collaboration was a big enough factor that we both switched from our usual editing in Premiere to try it out. It worked pretty flawlessly for us, but there was still the challenge of us always being synced up with footage. (This was before the full Resolve Cloud implementation). We ended up using Sync to share all our footage, audio, renders, etc. It allowed us to always have the same set of “local” files and Sync charges the same price for unlimited data storage. This kept us running in realtime in both locations without having to set up anything more complex or pricey.
For reviews with the other members of the team, Val and I would post renders on Syncsketch. Syncsketch is an amazing online review tool that lets reviewers draw on the frame, make comments, respond to other comments, and also has synced playback for live meetings. We’d hold reviews with four or five people sometimes in 3 different countries, and any one of us could hit play or pause.
It’s kinda like the old Cinesync tool on steroids.
NFS: What’s a way you overcame a big hurdle on set?
Justin Denton (Director): During our testing for our dreamlike sequences that we called “The Black”, we created a large empty space that we filled up with a fog machine so much that you couldn’t see someone if they were more than six feet away from you. Luckily we tested it out before shoot day and learned that the Alexa did not behave well in this heavy fog.
No matter what we tried in Resolve, the sensor didn’t seem to pick up any color and the dynamic range we were used to with the camera just wasn’t there. So, we tested out the C300 Mk2, Sigma FP, iPhone 13 Pro, and the BMPCC 6K. Right out of the camera, the iPhone actually looked the best. But, then when we brought the footage into Resolve, the BMPCC blew us away. We were shocked at how much color and contrast we were safely able to pull out of the footage.
Those scenes wouldn’t have worked without us having that camera on set.
NFS: Do you have any advice for indie filmmakers trying to make their own horror movies?
Robert Patrick Stern (Cinematographer): For any filmmaker of any genre, I would push for you to put as much time into prep as possible even if the money is not there for it. Sometimes you hear whispers of a project that could land in the next six to 12 months—I start then. I’m not necessarily breaking the script down, but I am ingesting it mentally and sleeping on it for ideas. I feel the more you can marinate and dream about it, the more you will have for every scene when solutions are needed or problems arise.
Make the movie before you get there!
Valerian Zamel (Editor): My advice for indie filmmakers trying to make their own horror movies, is learn the tools and use the resources that are out there—as well as endless resources out there for you to be able to start the journey of making a film, and bring your vision to life. If you have an idea, and you’re trying to figure out how to do it, there’s usually a Youtube video for that, use the free resources that are out there and start making your film as soon as possible.
Justin Denton (Director): Test early, test often, and try things you aren’t sure you will like. You’ll be surprised by a technique or a piece of gear you didn’t think would work. It’s so much fun to try things during development or pre-production.
Read through your script again, only this time, try to think about what that scene means for the actors, DP, editor, vfx artists, sound, wardrobe, safety and make sure you know exactly how you are going to solve those issues. Of course you won’t have all the answers, but now you know the right questions for your team. Now you can solve them together before the shoot begins. Even if that team is just you and a couple of friends, now you know where the scary bits are Once that first shoot day arrives, and the train leaves the station, I promise you won’t have the time to solve all of the problems on the fly.
As for horror specifically, making a scary moment successful on screen can be very difficult. It’s easy to think about that certain scene in your script and be convinced that it’s scary. By imagining it in your own head, you’re already willing to be frightened by the moment. The problem is, the audience doesn’t live in your head. The audience is ultra smart and expecting you to “try” to scare them. So, they are resistant to the scare before they even started watching. It’s your job to convince them to let their guard down enough to allow themselves to be frightened.
Once you have put them on that ride with a good story, now you have to make sure that your scare actually works. No amount of production budget, name actors, or special effects is going to make a poorly crafted scare work. I recommend that you shoot out a test version of the scene. Do this cheaply, with your phone and some friends, and try shooting and editing the scene multiple ways until it really hits.
Now, you have a scene that will only get better with the final production, editing, and music.
What Else Do You Think We should Know about This Project?
Valerian Zamel (Editor): I am so happy to be a part of this team for Curse of the Sin Eater. It’s been so creatively rewarding to work with a director who’s so encouraging, patient, and knowledgeable about so many aspects of post production. This was my first live-action feature film as editor, and Justin gave me full his trust and support to try anything, and use my voice as a filmmaker to make our film as best as it can be. Working on this film has reaffirmed my love of the editing medium, and given me a technical and storytelling perspective that I am already bringing to my current and future projects.
Ryan Croft CSI (Colorist): The goal for the look of the film was to make the image feel beaten and rough around the edges mimicking the world of our characters, and to progress the intensity as we follow the main character’s descent into a sort of hellish nightmare. We really took inspiration from films shot on 16mm, mimicking the grain profiles, lens aberrations, and saturation limitations with our colors feeling more dense than poppy, to pull away from digital cleanliness. DaVinci Resolve made all this possible to dial in our overall look, and then slowly push the intensity over the course of the film. Since editorial was also done in Resolve, the transition to color on a technical level was seamless, forgoing the XML process in favor of a DRT. This allowed me to bring over all the temp effects such as blurs, flickers, camera shakes, etc. On the creative side, it gave me a jumping off point to iterate, finesse, and tie it into the overall look of the film.
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This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
