Nicole is your average High School girl. She goes to class, hangs out with her best friend, and misses her Dad when he's gone on business. Today, she's going to find that her life is no longer... average...
Darien Davis produced this ten minute short zombie film with Sam Toller in a span of two days. They covered a total of 220 shots, with Toller coordinating and directing the movement of 27 extras, five make-up artists, spread over six different locations.
And Toller did it all at the age of 16 years of age. And he did it well.
When I was approached by Davis to watch and review this short film, I was VERY interested to see what someone of Toller's age would- and could, do with the project. I have to say I was impressed.
Visually, "We Are What We Eat" displays some very impressive skill at using the medium to visually tell a story. There are some cool angles and camera movements, all enhanced by pretty polished cutting and editing. While, some of the closer shots of the zombie crowd DOES show mild make-up problems, the general feeling of the shots are still nicely tense, and crowded. Toller gave a good sense of being swarmed by the zombies quite well in many of the shots- especially the Teacher's POV shot.
The story is interesting too, and I wanted to see more of it. I really liked the non-linear nature of it. By the end of the film, you're not sure how much was memory, and how much was dream. I liked the characters (even the grumpy Teacher), and liked how the actors portrayed them. I would love to see this expanded into a longer film one day.
I can see how this film would be accepted to appear at the Seattle NFFTY 2012 this past April, as well as being shown on DreadCentral.com for a ten day run. They're also going to be shown at the 2012 Zombie Voodoo Festival this summer with appearances in four cities across the United States.
With the advent of film editing software people can use at home, and digital video cameras, anybody has the opportunity to be able to produce their own film. Some of them, like "We Are What We Eat" rises above the average, to show that you don't HAVE to have age and technical training to produce a quality piece of cinema. I'm placing this short film in "The Good," and I will be keeping my eyes open for more work from Sam Toller and Darien Davis.
Check out the trailer below:
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