5 Questions with Luciana Faulhaber, Producer of “Don’t Look”
Friday, March 15th, 2013
"Don't Look" Producers, Photo by Leslie Hassler
One of the really great things about SXSW is the chance encounters one has while attending. One of those happened for me yesterday when I sat next to Luciana Faulhaber at a screening of “Awful Nice”.
Faulhaber introduced herself as an actress, but mentioned she is producing a horror Film titled “Don’t Look” and is running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funding. After reading the campaign page (which has 11 days left) we interviewed her via email.
1. What inspired the basic plot?
The plot was inspired by my own experience as an immigrant living in NYC and going to friend’s houses for “friendsgiving”, an old Dutch family tale and a true murder that was on the news a few years ago. The story was tailored for our amazing location Plow Farms in Morgantown, PA. The Eshelman family has been amazingly kind to us and made our trailer shoot such a blast we cannot wait to come back and shoot our feature with them.2. Interesting to use crowdsourcing for the film, what drove that decision?
The decision came from wanting to just make a movie. We are lucky enough to have location and some materials donated to us and we continue to look for sponsors. Kickstarter is the way we found to raise the minimum we need to pay our cast and crew minimum fees and have ownership over our creative process. This was we share not only the experience of watching a movie with our audience but we also share the experience of making it. We have honestly been surprised over the reaction of the people in our lives. Some have been kind and supportive above our imagination and their means and others made us question the reason we even keep them in our lives. Regardless, this has been a humbling experience for all of us and made us realize we wouldn’t wanna make a film with anybody else. Javier E. Gomez, Adam Lim, Lindsay DiFulvio and I feel reassured of this everyday. Like Jodi Foster said: “There is nothing more intimate than making movies together.”
3. How far along are you with the project?
We have been working on script development, legal papers and kickstarter campaign since November. Our screenwriter Jessica Boucher has been not only dedicated to making the story as accurate as possible we also want it to keep as real as possible. The fear is on what you don’t see, on the expectation of what’s coming and the possibility that this story could happen. Jess has been a true asset to the team. We are looking at a summer of pre production and shooting early fall.4. We’d love to see it at SXSW 2014, will it be done in time for submission?
We would love that to happen too! We are planning to make sure we at least get a rough cut in. This is my first SXSW festival experience and I certainly want to come back with this film. Not only SXSW is fun and more eclectic than other festivals, but it also has an educated and enthusiastic audience and a filmmaker cannot wish for anything better.5. What challenges have you faced as Producer?
Producing is so hard! I keep telling people that I am learning and as such I maintain my title as actress and raise it to producing students. I have friends who are producers and while I watch them talk about it while working on their movies I see how much I have to learn. Not only did I respect them before but now I have a newfound admiration. I can say though that the biggest challenge has been being a woman producer in a man dominated world. You would think that it would allow me to get away with some things but its quite the opposite. I have learn awful things I haven’t heard from men since the time I worked as a bartender in NYC. But that is the great thing about collaborating with people you trust. You stick together and raise above it. Love does and we are doing it together with the support of our friends, family and believers. That kind of positive energy is priceless.
Their Kickerstarter can be found at http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/928998307/dont-look-a-new-horror-feature-film
