Movies You Made: “Annabel Lee”

Scott Myers

05 Mar 2014 • 2 min read

March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of some independent filmmakers.

Today: Annabel Lee.

Production notes from writer-director-narrator Carl T. Rogers:

Thank you for being such a wealth of knowledge! Your blog is one of my main sources of writing wisdom. For this year’s Movies you Made Month, I’m submitting my short film adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe’s haunting romance poem named Annabel Lee.

Being a huge fan of Poe, I wanted to tell the rich romance story which many people are familiar with in a unique way. Seeing how the poem has some supernatural elements, I decided to adapt the poem with fantasy in mind.

Thankfully, many die-hard Poe fans who’ve seen the film tell me they love it, and Annabel Lee even won “Best Director” at the 2013 Otis Film Festival, and was an Official Selection at the 2013 Orlando Film Festival.

Here are some fun facts about the making of Annabel Lee:

Leading up to principal photography, I (Carl) posted on the film’s Facebook page every day in rhyming couplets.
Best Boy Electric (and Editor) Blake made sure he wore his tux to set so that he could play the “Best Man” during the wedding scene.
Filming was interrupted by the arrival of a grumpy location manager named Hurricane Sandy.
Director Carl and DP Zach had an ongoing “pun war” throughout filming, much to the chagrin of the crew.
The song at the end of Annabel Lee is a traditional Jewish song called “The Mourner’s Kaddish,” and is usually sung at funerals. However, the song is not for the dead, but rather to glorify the One who rules over life and death.

Cast & Crew Info:

Starring: Austin Fitzhugh, Natalie Roy, Tim Stanlake
Writer, Director, & Narrator: Carl T. Rogers (myself)
Director of Photography: Zach Yokum
Composer: Justin Michael Brittain
Editor & Colorist: Blake Cortright

Here is the 12 minute film Annabel Lee:

I asked each of the filmmakers in this month’s series to answer this question: What inspired you about this particular story to make it a movie? Carl’s answer:

What inspired me? Poe’s poetry, of course! I was a fan of Edgar Allan Poe growing up, but wasn’t familiar with much of his work beyond a few short stories and this romance poem about a girl named Annabel Lee. So, the summer before my senior year of film school I decided to get more familiar with Poe’s prose and I bought his collected works. First thing I looked up in that big ol’ book: Annabel Lee.

As I began re-reading the poem, one line stood out to me like lightning: “For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams of the beautiful Annabel Lee. The stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes of the beautiful Annabel Lee.” Then it occurred to me: Instead of a morose metaphor, what if the dead woman Annabel literally came back to life every night to be with her mourning husband? That image inspired the short’s aesthetic, and gave me the fantasy springboard which launched all of the supernatural elements of the film.

So, when it came time to write and direct my Senior Thesis for school, I knew what I wanted to do: adapt Annabel Lee. And the rest is history! Or rather, the rest is fantasy.

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