For the past four years I've been completely consumed with getting the feature length version of Survival of the Holy Fool off the ground but in June of 2020 I begin writing a short film titled, 24 Frames Lalla. Unlike other screenplays I'd written, there was no daily discipline of sitting at my desk and making a concerted effort to push out the screenplay. I wrote the story sporadically and in between working on Holy Fool. To be honest, I never thought the screenplay would ever be filmed. I simply needed to purge out my angst, anxieties, and fears of 2020 and 2021. But this past October (when the Holy Fool casting director informed me that it could take up to a year to attach a name actor to the film) I decided to shoot 24 Frames Lalla. It took me another month to get the script in shape but by Christmas I’d hired the designers and we were in pre-production.
The shoot was 14 days long and we shot in 9 different locations.
The short is a horror drama influenced by Poetic Realism and German Expressionism. The goal was to capture two distinct visual looks, one in color (shooting all handheld) and the other in black and white (shooting on a dolly). Films like Syd and Nancy and Nosferatu influenced the visual style. I am so proud of the work I did on this film both as a director and a producer. As a producer, I couldn't have asked for a better cast and crew. The aesthetic and vision that each of them brought to the story was spot on.
The main designers were:
Brittany Graham - Costume Designer
Adam Hribar - Director of Photography
Jamie Forslund - Production Designer
The featured photo of this post is of Bruce Baldini who plays the main character, Lalla.