Making It Big: Still

In this next installment of Making It Big, we enter the horrors of the mind & witness our lead Alice Weldon survive her increasingly disturbing dreams following her recent hospitalization as well as understand who & why a mysterious strange figure is following her. Welcome to writer/director Jason Coffman’s fascinating project looking for your interest/support. Welcome to Still.

As Coffman admits in his Kickstarter opening, the idea of Still “has been kicking around writer/director Jason Coffman’s head for the better part of a decade, and it is finally coming together on the page and– hopefully before too long!– in front of the cameras.”

Courtesy of Argos Films/Paramount Pictures

So before we go any further – let’s add some clarity to the matter and understand what Still is. In the writer/director’s words, it’s “sort of like La Jetée meets Let’s Scare Jessica to Death.” A tantalizing prospect for sure but what about those who are uninitiated into the works of Chris Marker & John D. Hancock?

In layman terms, the story of Still follows the story of a young woman called Alice, living in Chicago with her cousin & girlfriend, who witnesses a robbery in progress and is attacked with her co-worker upon being spotted. Upon awakening, Alice is diagnosed with akinetopsia (motion blindness) and must attempt to reconstruct her life post-hospital suffering from her new condition, her memory and the voices from within her own mind.

Courtesy of Jason Coffman

From this, it seems to me as if there are nods to the work of John Carpenter’s Hallowe’en via Lady On A Train. This is never a bad thing and can only endear people further to the project. However with all these references there is the worry with this project, as with many other modern horror films that are trying to break free from the commercialization of the horror genre by Hollywood, may go too far the other way. They’ll attempt to avoid appealing to the Every Man in the ideal of creating a niche project full of nods to films that many may not have heard of.

However, this is not the case – in my opinion – with Still. The production company is  independent film collective based out of Chicago who’ve have gone out and made short horror productions in tune with their mantra of ‘true psychological horror’. For example, their previous short film TAPE is great. It basically follows the story of Jim Carsten who is facing the grim reality of his wife leaving him. So in anger & frustration, he enlists the services of the mysterious Mr Lake, a decision that could leave him worse off than he could’ve possibly imagined. Have a look at the trailer below, and the full Vimeo link is HERE. Apologies for not embedding it – WordPress was not playing ball.

There’s real invigorating and exciting potential to be seen, and thus this film should continue to prove their honest credentials of making good psychological horrors without massive sell-outs/sparkling vampires.

So what do they need you for? Well they’re half way to raising their goal of $6000 but they need some extra support to push themselves over the finish line. The money will go directly to the production, mainly focusing on the need to pay for the renting of locations and studio space for a few key scenes as well as to fund the need to get software to help them perform color grading and correction. In terms of what you get out of it, the perks look pretty good actually. With a lot of Kickstarters, I’ve seen the best you get is a big thank you after putting in $50. I know Kickstarter is not all about getting stuff but a little appreciation of our efforts goes a long way. For pledging $15 you get: early streaming access to the movie, a hand-made DVD copy of Still as well as their previous short films and a cute little thanks on their site. If they do get their full funding, they’ll be finished principal photography by late December and aim to have a copy of the film in backers hands by March 2014.

Anyhow, I’ll let you decide as always. However, from what I’ve seen – I’m genuinely impressed with their back catalogue of work and I look forward to seeing the final product. Go check out their Kickstarter here and thanks for dropping by.

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