The Manor

I moved to the British countryside from living in Los Angeles, California my whole life in 2018. I had no local friends, no car, all my work was back in the States and my husband was on location for a film for the first few months. I spent a lot of time alone in a very old house. I often would FaceTime one of my best friends, Becca Buckalew, who is a fellow actress. One day Becca came to me with an idea for a short film she had thought of because of our facetimes and the backdrop of my sometimes very creepy house.

We brought in our other close friend and actress, Kit Reeve, and over the course of a few months wrote a script. When writing this short we set out to create a horror film without any real gore or creature effects - to see if we could create enough tension without a real ‘pay off’ of blood or monsters.

We decided it would be a fun challenge to shoot this short with the 3 of us taking on the majority of the roles, in front of and behind the camera. We had all been in the entertainment business for quite some time but had little to no experience behind the camera. As a first-time Director, I thought it would be a great experiment with shooting a short film without any ‘crew’, to see if this was possible and what effect, if any, it would have on the final product. What better way to learn about all the positions on a film set than to take on those roles myself.

We shot The Manor entirely on an iPhone using only natural daylight, fire or candle light, or the light from the prop phones. With myself Directing, we had one person in charge of camera & lighting and one further crew member in charge of recording all the sound. Becca and Kit (who also wrote and produced this with me) pitched in on everything else, including set dressing, catering, continuity, clapper boards, costume, make up, you name it, everything else!

Post production was handled almost entirely by myself, the cameraman and sound recordist.

We had the location to ourselves for a long weekend, prepped during daytime and shot during the nights. With just the 5 of us at all times on set we had a lot of fun shooting The Manor and I believe the lack of other crew had a very positive effect on the shooting environment and consequently our performances. We were able to effortlessly adapt the script to the shooting location and make quick decisions which benefitted the film. Whilst I would rather shoot with a full crew, I feel this was a great experiment and worked well for this project. It also gave me a greater appreciation for every position on a film set. It’s such a beautiful, collaborative medium and I can’t wait to take all that I’ve learned from The Manor into my future work.