A Case Study
Narrative | Dramatic Features
Film Name: Narrow
Genre: Horror/Sci-fi
Date: October 7, 2019
Director: Anna Chazelle
Producer: Lovell Holder, Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber, Sophia Kiapos
Writer: Anna Chazelle
Cinematographer: Matt Plaxco
Budget: approx. $18,000
Financing: crowdfunding, and through donors and investors
Shooting Format: Alexa Mini
Screening Format: 16:9
World Premiere: Fantasia Film Festival
Awards: Nominations: Best Writing in a Short – Nightmares Film Festival, and Best Actress – Dead of Night Festival
indieactivity: this is a placeholder text, for the interview question?
Anna Chazelle (AC): Narrow is about a post-apocalyptic world where the only safe place to be is on a very precarious and very thin path, surrounded by desert and silence. There are barely any remaining survivors, most food has been scavenged, and anyone who falls off the path is swallowed by an invisible netherworld, never to return. No one knows what precisely happens to those who step or fall off, only that you may see them walking around still, untethered from the path. But don’t listen to their pleas or promises – they’re mere shadows, no longer whole, and they will do anything to try to lure you off as well.
I’m deeply passionate about horror films, particularly about how they re-mystify the world, humble us as humans, and distil our chaotic psyches down to what is most imperative. I was inspired by recent films such as It Follows, A Quiet Place, Bird Box, It Comes At Night…and I knew I wanted to create something unsettling and eerily quiet. The film has very little dialogue – this wasn’t deliberate, but the story just ended up aligning itself this way through execution. I was very interested in the abject loneliness that can come with survival, how near-impossible it can be to remain imperturbable the second that one key trigger is introduced, and how our own senses play tricks on us.
Tell us about the festival run, marketing and sales?
Anna Chazelle (AC): Narrow premiered at the Fantasia Film Festival and has gone on to play at numerous other festivals, including HorrorHaus, Nightmares Film Festival, Dead of Night, and HollyShorts. It received nominations at the Nightmares Film Festival for Best Writing In A Short, and at the Dead of Night Festival for Best Actress. The film isn’t publicly released just yet as we are still waiting on responses from other festivals.
Give the full Official Synopsis for your film?
Anna Chazelle (AC): Narrow follows a lone survivor in a devastated world: a woman on a mysterious mission who travels along the path, trying to collect food where she can – not easy when sometimes the only edible things for miles are twenty feet away from the safety of the path, far beyond reach. But as she travels, ominous demons follow, some resembling those she knew, trying to lure her off into their world…Her stoicism comes to a head when the man she loved appears in the distance, off the path, begging her to follow him so they can be reunited. But any survivors know that these are just puppets, used to trick us…the question is whether or not we’ll be able to resist.
Development & Financing?
AC: Most of our financing was procured through crowdfunding, mainly through family and friends, via Seed & Spark. I wrote the screenplay and then Lovell Holder came on board to produce, followed by Sophia Kiapos. Elizabeth Hirsch-Tauber joined the team also as a producer (and makes a cameo in the film) and generously financed a portion of the funding as well. It was a rather speedy and stressful crowdfunding campaign, but we ended up raising nearly $4k more than our initial goal, which turned out to be absolutely vital in order to do the film justice.
Production?
AC: The process had to be very quick – the script was written in May of 2019, we raised the funds in June and July, and shot the film in August. Our shoot ended up being 2 and a half days. We shot on La Tuna Locations, located in La Tuna Canyon in Los Angeles. We wanted to maintain practical effects as much as possible, so we had to get creative with materials and shot lists – for example, the path was meant to originally be constructed out of sand, but that would have been a nightmare to remove after we had finished, so instead we used biodegradable ash. There are several POV shots from unseen creatures that have inhuman abilities, so we used drone and helmet cam footage to give these perspectives an otherworldly quality. The location we used has a gorgeous Victorian-style house that was in a fire a few years back but is still standing, which provided the ideal smoke-damaged and haunting setting we needed for interiors. Although it was a tight shoot, we managed to get every shot needed. I feel very fortunate that other than the occasional hiccup, there were no disasters, no unforeseen catastrophes – it was a very smooth process.
Festival Preparation & Strategy?
AC: We knew there was no doubt that Narrow was a horror, and a singular one at that – it’s nearly completely silent, or at least until the very end. It’s also rather subtle in its scares – I was adamant that I didn’t want any loud music or overt jump scares, but rather for the dread to trickle in almost invisibly. The idea was for audiences to not even be aware that the film’s environment was gradually turning on its heroine until it was too late. The Fantasia Film Festival was where our standing as a unique genre short was clinched. Because of the pandemic, we weren’t able to attend in person, but every festival we were accepted to engaged in a plethora of illuminating virtual activities and panels.
The Release?
AC: We haven’t yet released the film to the public. We hope to do so in early 2021.
Advice from the Filmmaker?
AC: It’s easy to get caught in the trap of wanting your first short to be absolutely perfect, an ideal representation of your abilities. While this is what we all aim for, the problem is this can lead to spinning your wheels, where you spend an eternity second-guessing what is or isn’t a good idea for a film. For me, when the idea for this film popped into my head (and it really just popped into my head, almost unprompted), I knew immediately, beyond any doubt, that I wanted it to be my directorial debut and wrote the script in a day. It’s a bit like dating: when it’s the right one, you know.
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