On the set of "Dreams of Murder." Photo by Carter James, editor in chief. By Skye Anderson, Lifestyles editor
Throughout the spring semester, members of the University of Montevallo’s chapter of the Broadcast Education Association, BEA, have been developing a surrealist murder mystery about a detective.
The short film “Dreams of Murder” follows detective Richard Morrison, who is on the search for a notorious murderer when he finds himself in a dreamlike coma state. Morrison is played by Aubrey O’Bryant, a frequent collaborator with BEA and the mass communication program.
“[Morrison] doesn’t have the perfect memory of the case. He’s kind of lost it,” said Emily Billings, who wrote the script and directed the project. “He is kind of re-experiencing the case as ithappens to him and rediscovering what made it important.”
Billings said the idea for the project was based on a dream she had two years ago, which she revisited for an assignment in Professor Freeman’s screenwriting class. She revealed that the script originally had four different endings.
“It was really fun to write,” said Billings. “Noah Love, who acted in it, was also a script supervisor… He looked over it a lot, made some changes, kind of gave me some feedback. I’m reallyappreciative of him doing that.”
Roxanna Gail, the film’s director of photography, also worked on storyboarding and crafting the shot list. For the storyboard, they used photos instead of drawings, with assistant director Jude Copeland posing as Detective Morrison. “It was super fun… We only had the storyboard for three scenes, but it did help us with those scenes significantly,” said Gail.
Billings said one of the most challenging parts of pre-production was location scouting. “There were a couple locations that were almost impossible to find,” she said, citing the cabin as the most difficult. “We ended up finding alternatives, and I think it worked out. I’m very happy with the locations we shot in.”
For Billings and Gail, working on “Dreams of Murder” meant stepping out of their comfort zones and taking on different roles than they had been used to.
“It was a very interesting process,” said Billings. “I’m more of a cinematographer. I’m not really a director person most of the time, so it was interesting to go through that and see the process from a different perspective.”
This was Gail’s first project as director of photography. “It was a lot of responsibility, and I was very excited to do it. Very nervous about it,” said Gail. “I had a lot of imposter syndrome about it, but I think over the course of the project, working with my peers, getting feedback from them… I grew a lot of confidence in what I was doing. I felt like I was actually creating something that looked good and something we could be proud of.”
“Filming is a very, very big undertaking,” said Billings. “All stages of filming: pre-production, production, post-production. It’s a lot. And so I’m kind of glad to be done with that, but I’ve also had a lot of fun with it.”
Billings, along with several other crew and executive cabinet members of BEA, will be graduating in May. “I’m going to be really sad to see most of this crew graduate,” said Gail. “But I hope next year, those of us that are still here are able to make projects that they’re proud of.”
Updates on the upcoming “Dreams of Murder” premiere and future BEA productions can be found on their Instagram.
