Movies You Made: “Turn It Off”
March is Movies You Made month at Go Into The Story where we feature the work of independent filmmakers.
Today: Turn It Off.
Production notes from writer-director Dominic DeJoseph:
Cast & Crew list:
Actors: Robyn Rikoon, Jared Warner
Story by: Dominic DeJoseph
Written by: Dominic DeJoseph & Jared Warner
Produced by: Dominic DeJoseph & Ron Egozi
Director: Dominic DeJoseph
Cinematography: Ron Egozi
Music: Sean Eden with Matthew Buzzell
After Effects Artist: Anthony Masorro
Location Sound: Lana T. Yang
Key Hair & Make-up: Erica Pearce
AC/Gaffer: Samuel Seeger
Logline: A couple escapes for the weekend on a no-tech camping trip, only to encounter an otherworldly device that leads them through a night of dread, calling into question the overuse of technology in modern life.
Here is the 10 minute short film Turn If Off, which was an official selection of the 2012 Sarasota Film Festival.
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? Here is Dominic’s response:
The initial idea of an otherworldly intelligence taking over a piece of technology initially came from a dream, but the plot details were worked out over the course of hashing out a few drafts and making an amorphous idea into a tangible one in the form of a tossed away cell phone being usurped by an evil alien consciousness.
I was interested in making a 10-minute short that would work as a stand-alone film that I could submit to festivals, but could also be part of a web series if there was enough interest and if a funding opportunity presented itself. I chose the science fiction genre because I was thinking along the lines of an updated Twilight Zone-style series for the web with an emphasis on the technology now ubiquitous in our lives. A series would continue the idea in an episodic way within the sci-fi genre, but with different actors and storylines that may at some point interweave or converge.
Almost immediately after finishing “Turn It Off,” I found out about the British TV series, Black Mirror, which has essentially the same concept, but in an hour-long format. I realized that a web series along those lines would simply be seen as a rip-off and would make it much more difficult to pursue funding.
Website: Black Shoes Films
Drop by Comments to give some feedback on Turn It Off.
Tomorrow: Another Movie You Made.
If you have been involved in the creation of a film and want to participate, please email me with details. Note: Need an embeddable trailer or movie.
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