| Horror has never felt so good. Finally! A spine-tingling, won't-let-you-sleep-with-the-light-off ghost story.
When a tragic murder causes the haunting of an old house it can only be made worse by modern man's need for greed. In order to make more money Keith Lafleur has devised a plan to cut the house in two. Instead of weakening the evil power within, he just pissed it off...x2.
Having a love of the horror genre it was exciting to take on this project. We'd worked with Deborah LeBlanc before on Grave Intent, but this was a much bigger project. The first thing was to find the perfect director.
I'd met with Brenda Urquhart of Antley Drive Productions over a year ago and had hoped to send some work her way. She's won awards and her work is outstanding. This was a big project and I knew she would be able to make it work.
Brenda read the story and worked directly with Deborah to decide what aspects of the story needed to be portrayed. The first time I saw the script for the full Book Trailer® I wasn't sure it could be done. It had a large cast, a lot of locations and an aggressive storyline. I wanted it, though. I could see the video play out as I read the script and I knew that if anyone could make this come to life it would be Brenda.
I spoke with Brenda about the project and how big it was. "This was an ambitious project," shares Urquhart, "When writing the script, we were careful to choose scenes that we knew we could shoot within the budget and time constraints. We were thorough in planning the shoot in pre-production because we only had 2 days to shoot. The crew was small, so we had to be very organized and focused. We did have a large cast, and thanks to their professionalism, the shoot went extremely well." The crew made up of Director Brenda Urquhart, Director of Photography Jennifer Henry, Gaffer Erik Diener, Sound Mixer Reagan Bond, Writer Russell Urquhart, Make up Artist Cara Maccianti and composer John Abella. "I had not done horror before," says Urquhart, "it was exciting to try a new genre. What made this different was focusing on the eerie and creepy aspects of the story. The Director of Photography and I decided to shake the camera when the ghost was around, to create a very disorienting and scary effect. The music was also very different. The music really helped add to the eerie, scary feeling we were going for."
The first time I watched the teaser I was amazed at what they were able to do! The long version was even more amazing and it's certainly one of Circle of Seven Productions biggest ventures to date.
The video was sent out for beta testing, where volunteers of varying ages and living situations reviewed it. The reviews were fantastic! Terry Silver reviewed the short version of the video and shared her opinion, "It gave me chills but I loved it. It sparked my interest in the book where I definitely want to read the book as soon as it comes out!"
The cast was phenomenal and gave outstanding performances. Without a great deal of effects, the "feel" of the book falls to the actors doing their job, and that came across very well. Without a doubt you understand that Keith, played by Ken Wiley, is being driven mad by the ghost and the new renters of the two houses have terrifying encounters.
A ghost story like this is unique and it was important to all of us that the trailer show the would-be-reader what they have in store…late at night…while they're all alone….
Cast:
Sheila Clover English
CEO/Executive Producer
COS PRODUCTIONS
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