It’s the most wonderful time of the year—Halloween, which always presents a platform for some of the indie film community’s most unique and fun projects. Just a week ago, the Austin Horror Film Festival came through town with a great lineup, including one fun and colorful short, “When Shadows Lay Darkest.”
Written and directed by Jacob Leighton Burns, the short is a contained story about a character who arrives home just in time to catch a low-budget scary movie on TV, which features your new favorite slasher villain. What would happen if that killer were able to escape the screen and hunt down the viewer?
“When Shadows Lay Darkest” premiered at the Chattanooga Film Festival, and was later nominated for Best Thriller Short at NoHo CineFest, won Best Actress (Leah N.H. Philpott) at Red Brick Film Festival, and most recently won Audience Choice at the Austin Horror Film Festival.
We chatted with Burns about the project just in time for Halloween to get some insight on the team’s process and learned that he and his crew hope to film a feature-length version of the project soon.
When Shadows Lay DarkestPlanet Thunder
No Film School: How did you approach this story, knowing it would be a proof-of-concept?
Jacob Burns: It was a process to figure out exactly what shape this film was going to take. Since we were designing it as a fundraising tool, we wanted to create something that captured the overall aesthetic and vibe of the feature-length version, but in a short, easily digestible way.
Originally, it was going to be almost like a teaser trailer, where we would offer some striking visual snippets of scenes and moments from the full-length film, which is how we’ve approached proofs-of-concept in the past.
But then we started exploring the idea of creating something standalone, a short film with a beginning, middle, and end, and something that would allow us to showcase some skills we haven’t been able to showcase before. My previous films as a writer/director (
Electric Nostalgia and Shifter) were both sci-fi dramas with some horror elements, but I wanted to lean into horror on this one, and wanted to prove to myself and others that I could create something unique, scary, and most importantly, fun.
We looked to the feature-length script and decided that the opening scene of the film could be tweaked and modified to be its own standalone short film, and we took off from there. Once we wrote it, we needed someone who could carry the film on her shoulders and give us someone to root for, so we cast Leah N.H. Philpott, who we worked with previously on
Hell Hath No Fury. She’s an actor that can do anything you throw her way and elevate the overall film with her ability to mine the small moments and convey emotion/information just with her eyes.
And then we needed to find our Killer. We brought on our friend Clinton Joseph, who we’ve worked with many times over the years. When we did the wardrobe screen test, Clint put the Killer’s attire on for the first time and almost immediately transformed into something truly unique and terrifying as he inhabited the character. We all cheered with excitement because we knew we had something special.
“When Shadows Lay Darkest”Planet Thunder
NFS: How did you prepare for the shoot?
Burns: The house is such an important element of the story, we really wanted to make sure that we got a feel for the space on screen. And we also didn’t want the cast to be sitting around waiting on us to figure out the next shot on the day, so we did that all in pre-production.
Zachary (the producer) and I spent a lot of time at the house location in the weeks leading up to the shoot. We walked through every scene and planned out every single shot. I brought a camera and we’d make video storyboards, with Zachary playing every character.
I then took that footage and edited together an extremely rough version of the film, just to see it in action. And then I showed it to everybody as a reference so that we were all on the same page. I watched it over and over and over again, and it helped me internalize everything, so that on set I didn’t need to think things through, I could just jump right in and get things done.
It also helped us figure out some problem areas, things that needed to be addressed. Because nobody was waiting on us, we could spend our time looking at the various options, the different ways to shoot things and experiment with different angles and play until we found what felt the most right. It was like a rehearsal for the shoot and it made everything so, so so much easier once we got to set.
“When Shadows Lay Darkest”Planet Thunder
NFS: Your lighting is super rich and colorful. What was your basic lighting setup for your key shots?
Burns:I saw Dario Argento’s Suspiria a few years ago, and was completely blown away by the sheer audacity in their approach to camera and lighting. I’ve always wanted the opportunity to create something heavily influenced by that film and other films in the giallo genre, and attempt to play in that world.
Our film starts with a more naturalistic-style lighting, but as the movie world and reality begin to blend, the bolder, more dramatic colors begin to shine. Due to our low budget, we didn’t have the ability for huge light rigs or anything like that, so it was all about preparation, precision, and experimentation.
For everything inside the house, we had a mixture of LED Panel lights and some Arri tungsten fresnels set up outside of every window. At the beginning of the film, we dialed in those lights to give us a muted moonlight dimly emanating from outside, but the primary light source for that sequence was the warm light inside that was motivated by practical lamps on dimmers that we strategically placed around the house and accented with an Aputure MC mini LED as needed.
But when the Killer arrives, everything changes. The indoor warm lights went dimmer and the outdoor moonlight got stronger and bluer and became the primary light source, transitioning us from the “real world” to the world of the Killer.
NFS: What did you shoot on and why?
Burns: We shot on a Sony FX3. I’d recently used it on some other projects and was really impressed with its overall image quality and versatility in all different kinds of scenarios. It gave us a lot of the perks of a cinema camera but in a smaller package, which for our small crew and small location was extremely useful.
I wanted to be able to move quickly and get a lot of shots with little time in between setups. A smaller camera helped keep us moving quickly, while also making it easy to get the camera where I wanted it without a lot of hassle.
When Shadows Lay DarkestPlanet Thunder
NFS: Was there a sequence that was the most difficult for the team to capture?
Burns: Going into the shoot, I had thought the chase scene through the house would be the most difficult and daunting, but thanks to J. Alan Davidson’s coordination and Leah’s talent, we knocked that sequence out in two amazing takes.
The real challenge came when we moved to the woods. Everything in the woods where the killer stalks an unsuspecting victim (J. Alan Davidson) was filmed on one of the coldest nights of the year. Weather had already given us trouble with that sequence because we’d already had to reschedule it due to an incoming thunderstorm, so the fact that it was
freezing on the rescheduled night was extremely frustrating. Everything is so much harder to do when it’s cold.
Our location was great because we were right next to a house and weren’t actually in the middle of nowhere like it appears on screen, so we were able to get warmth inside periodically. But we had so much to shoot and so little time to shoot it, so there just wasn’t much time for warmth, unfortunately.
But we survived! As difficult as it was, it was such a fun night and everybody gave their all and contributed so much to make it happen, despite the unfortunate weather circumstances.
When Shadows Lay DarkestPlanet Thunder
NFS: What advice do you have for others who want to make a proof-of-concept short?
Burns: Proofs-of-concept are a great way to showcase what you can do and what you plan to do, so you’ve got to make it count. Put in the work and treat it as seriously as you would the feature-length version. You might only get one chance to impress, so plan accordingly.
That said, a proof-of-concept can also be a great learning tool for you, the filmmaker. I’m so grateful that we produced this, because it’s almost like a trial run for the feature-length. In the process, we learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t work. How long or not long some things take. Which things are difficult and which ones are easy. It totally changed our perspective on the feature-length version, and I have even done some rewrites on the full-length script based on lessons I learned from directing the short.
Now I feel way more confident going into the feature, and therefore, even more excited to bring it to life!
Author: Jo Light
This article comes from No Film School and can be read on the original site.
