Death Stone
An unscrupulous couple dig up a relatives grave for profit but an ulterior motive could spoil the plan.
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Margina SissonDirectorTable Read Cinema, The Doll
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Margina SissonWriter
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Gary SissonProducer
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Mitch BechtoldKey Cast"Jimmy McFarley"
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Hannah FalknerKey Cast"Abigale Tweed"
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Project Type:Short, Web / New Media
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Genres:Dark Comedy, comedy, horror, Dramedy, Web
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Runtime:3 minutes 45 seconds
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Completion Date:June 27, 2020
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Production Budget:2,500 USD
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Country of Origin:United States
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Country of Filming:United States
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Language:English
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:No
Margina Sisson is an Independent Filmmaker from Southern California. Even with a late start it hasn’t slowed her down. While working full time for a company (almost 30 years) she attended UCLA Extension night classes and received the Feature Film Writing Certificate. After that, she joined the South Bay Screenwriters, a MeetUp group that has been instrumental in her growth as a screenwriter. With currently 19 screenplays (6 features and 13 shorts), several have been selected by film festivals as an Official Selection or Award Winner, including one red carpet event. From writer to indie filmmaker her Directing debut was her short film, Hot Spot (A Wi-Fi love story). Now with 3 short films, she sets her sights on Directing future content and creating a Web Series platform to debut short films of the horror genre. She directed episode one this past January 2020 and hopes to resume filming after Covid 19. Her ultimate goal…to have a major actor say her written words on the big screen.
Death Stone was inspired by our screenwriting groups yearly Halloween log line challenge where we write up to 10 pages, something on the darker side.
When writing Death Stone, I imagined how horrible it would be to dig up a grave for profit and even worse, the grave of a recently past relative. Well, that’s exactly what Abigail and Jimmy do. They are after the priceless stone around Aunt Bitty’s neck and they don’t see a problem getting it. Except one of them may have an ulterior motive which could spoil the plan. Or not. This story deals with greed, revenge and just plain stupidity.
I also had the idea to create (bookends) to this story, showing the screenwriters arriving, setting up and beginning the cold read of Death Stone. A few moments in, the actors morph into the characters they are portraying and the story plays out. At the end of the short film they return back to the table read, looking as if they just stepped out from the film. I call this, Table Read Cinema and Death Stone is the pilot to the Web Series I hope to launch, debuting other short films with a Horror or Dark Comedy vibe.
But back to Death Stone...I hadn’t planned on filming it so soon until an opportunity arose that I just couldn’t resist. See, we were in the midst of our backyard renovation this past January 2020 when I realized we had one weekend where it was all dirt and no contractors. And I thought, “What better time to film the graveyard scene, right?” Plus, I had recently purchased a 10 x 12 green screen and was anxious to use it so it was a win win!
I whipped together a cast and crew (14) mostly from my screenwriting group. My DP was able to get the camera equipment at no charge. We stuck closely to our schedule and shot all interior scenes and remaining exterior shots in the back yard in front of the green screen, all in one day and just slightly over budget which mostly was due to the stock media I ended up buying for establishing shots etc…
Luckily we finished filming before Covid 19 hit but it did present challenges in the editing process and with our ultimate premiere which we ended up doing via Zoom and it was still great!
With every project I learn something new that will be helpful going forward. With this project I didn't budget enough for stock media which took our budget slightly over but all in all it really was a win win.