Avid Employees Debut Horror Film at Full Sail
Jack in the Box uses advanced editing techniques
Rob D'Amico (left) and Michael Phillips
We’re still months away from Halloween, but independent horror film Jack in the Box recently brought some early terror to campus when it premiered at Full Sail this May. The event was hosted producer and editor Michael Phillips, as well as sound designer and mixer Rob D’Amico, who screened the film for students and staff, and later opened the floor for an intimate Q+A session.
Jack in the Box was written and directed by Frank Kerr, and tells the story of a group of aspiring actors locked in a room and forced to play a deadly game of musical chairs. The film’s tension escalates over 89 minutes, as characters are slowly taken out by an unseen villain, and the game is whittled down to one remaining “winner.”
“It’s more suspense horror than true horror – we tried to break ourselves away from the competition,” Phillips explained to a student after the credits rolled. “It’s all about building tension in the room they’re in, which was a creative choice.”
Dimly lit, with a muted color scheme – the room is as much a living, breathing character as any of the actors in the film. Phillip’s attributes much of the effect to the painstaking post-production process. Working as Principal Product Designer at editing innovator Avid, he was keenly aware of how a good editor can add new depth to a film’s look and feel – and in this case dramatically ramp up the tension for an audience.
“The goal was to make it look like it was all lit by one light bulb, so we eliminated highlights from the room in post production,” Phillips explained. “There was a lot of shadowing of corners on the Media Composer (Avid’s flagship editing system) because you really want to lead the eye to where you want it to be. It’s always important that you keep the intensity up. And because it only takes place in one room, once we locked in that look, we were set.”
Likewise, the audio editing was just as important to adding character to the environment – even more so than your typical film, as they made the bold decision not to use a musical score. This approach had D’Amico craft the audio cues to match the visuals, letting the stark noise of the room create an equally threatening atmosphere.
“We decided that the room is the score,” D’Amico shared. “So you focus in on the other areas, like the doors and the ambient noise. When you’re doing a mix like this it’s really challenging, and you hope for the subtleties to translate the environment, and are not masked. That’s your number one priority for a film like this.”
After two years of production, Phillips has recently submitted Jack in the Box to the Toronto Film Festival, and is also shopping it around to different studios for large scale distribution. In the meantime, he and Rob were thrilled by the response they had from their target audience of horror fans. “It’s the first time we’ve seen a complete cut on a big screen,” Michael shared, “and it’s really something.”
Jack in the Box was written and directed by Frank Kerr, and tells the story of a group of aspiring actors locked in a room and forced to play a deadly game of musical chairs. The film’s tension escalates over 89 minutes, as characters are slowly taken out by an unseen villain, and the game is whittled down to one remaining “winner.”
“It’s more suspense horror than true horror – we tried to break ourselves away from the competition,” Phillips explained to a student after the credits rolled. “It’s all about building tension in the room they’re in, which was a creative choice.”
Dimly lit, with a muted color scheme – the room is as much a living, breathing character as any of the actors in the film. Phillip’s attributes much of the effect to the painstaking post-production process. Working as Principal Product Designer at editing innovator Avid, he was keenly aware of how a good editor can add new depth to a film’s look and feel – and in this case dramatically ramp up the tension for an audience.
“The goal was to make it look like it was all lit by one light bulb, so we eliminated highlights from the room in post production,” Phillips explained. “There was a lot of shadowing of corners on the Media Composer (Avid’s flagship editing system) because you really want to lead the eye to where you want it to be. It’s always important that you keep the intensity up. And because it only takes place in one room, once we locked in that look, we were set.”
Likewise, the audio editing was just as important to adding character to the environment – even more so than your typical film, as they made the bold decision not to use a musical score. This approach had D’Amico craft the audio cues to match the visuals, letting the stark noise of the room create an equally threatening atmosphere.
“We decided that the room is the score,” D’Amico shared. “So you focus in on the other areas, like the doors and the ambient noise. When you’re doing a mix like this it’s really challenging, and you hope for the subtleties to translate the environment, and are not masked. That’s your number one priority for a film like this.”
After two years of production, Phillips has recently submitted Jack in the Box to the Toronto Film Festival, and is also shopping it around to different studios for large scale distribution. In the meantime, he and Rob were thrilled by the response they had from their target audience of horror fans. “It’s the first time we’ve seen a complete cut on a big screen,” Michael shared, “and it’s really something.”
