Erin’s new hearing aids are picking up voices she’s unable to explain. And now they’re talking about her.

Director’s Vision

‘There’s Something in the Silence’ is a proof of concept horror short for a feature film I’ve been developing with Mike Lewis. It’s been difficult organizing COVID-safe productions this year, so I put together a small-scale shoot that would allow us to make the horror feel big… while still managing to fit inside my small NYC apartment. I cast my fiancé (now wife) Chelsea Camp as the lead– and Laura Frenzer, who we remotely zoomed with to film her role. This was entirely a one-man-band production where I wore all the production hats, and Chelsea had to put up with me bugging her to film for two months until our wedding day in November (she got a haircut that put an end to my “pick-up” shoots).

The sound based concept and our small budget lended to us leaning on sound design. Mike Lewis and I spent a great deal of time shaping the sounds to a point that the terror felt real and justified. I wanted to make sure the audience could create their own visuals to illustrate the sounds they were hearing, but I also wanted to set up the expectation that we wouldn’t end up showing anything visually outside the sound design in the short.

This is the first short where I implemented Blender VFX into a film production. I’ve used my time during quarantine to get better at working with 3D objects in Blender and compositing them into live action footage. Since the VFX shots were quick I was able to get away with a lot and cut some corners. I’m proud of how the CG elements worked with the short and sold the horror without overstaying its welcome. This was a big step forward in our filmmaking journeys and we’re very excited to share the final product with you.