Sale: “Viral” [short film]

Here’s the trailer for another short film [“Viral”] that sold as a feature film:

Backstory from THR:

The pickup is a coup for Tim Shechmeister, a recent UCLA film school grad who directed the short and co-wrote it with his brother, Matt, as part of a thesis project. The Shechmeisters will co-write the feature and Tim would direct the big-screen version.

The roughly 11-minute short is set in the world of cyberbullying and eventually includes supernatural elements. In fact, the story could be described as being reminiscent of The Grudge or The Ring, but primed for the current generation that uses smart phones and Facebook as extensions of themselves.

The Grudge reference is apt because that movie’s writer, Stephen Susco, discovered the short at a screenwriting event this past summer. Tim Shechmeister, who is also a fan of Japanese horror (AKA J-Horror), gave Susco his business card with a link to the short, which the scribe checked out and loved.

“I see a lot of student films and like to see what’s going on,” says Susco. “I rarely see something as polished as this one.”

Create content? Check. Find right set of eyeballs? Check. Sell to movie studio? Check.

For more of the THR article, go here.