u/MattTibby

Quick background: I got my start as the Director's Assistant and Second Unit Director on Sinister and edited 4 of the 5 Super8 films — yes, you can partially thank me for that lawnmower scene living in your nightmares rent-free — and more recently I co-wrote and performance-directed additional capture for Supermassive Games' Directive 8020: A Dark Pictures Anthology. I've spent the better part of fifteen years working in horror in various capacities. Last week I finally launched a Kickstarter to finish my own horror feature, Follow the Dark, and now that the dust has settled from that, I figured r/indiefilm was the right place to be honest about what happened. (Though in a condensed format because really I could write a book from the experience.)

The shoot

In August 2023 we shot for 16 days. James Cosmo (everyone knows the Lord Commander, right?), Arifin Putra (The Raid 2), Hannah Al-Rashid (The Night Comes for Us), a Victorian fort in Kent, England that hadn't seen a film crew in its life, a creature designed by Theo Salisbury (Dune: Part One and Part Two, 1899), all started from an idea Nathan Shane Miller had over a decade earlier that I'd been trying to make ever since I read it.

We shot ninety percent of the film. If you're a filmmaker you already know what I'm about to say.

The shoot was (and I'm being diplomatic here) eventful. A Victorian fort with listed building protections means you cannot drill, fix, or damage anything, which sounds manageable until your cinematographer and production designer are eyeing the same walls for lighting rigs and set dressing. Every lighting decision became a negotiation (and sometimes fight). Every practical had to stand rather than hang. What that forced on us creatively turned out to be a great accident of the production: stranger light positions, more disorienting geometry, but in the moment it was a problem that I wish we had solved before we arrived on set. (And when your lead producer tells you that you don't have money for pre-production, tell him to f**k off and go find the money for pre-production first, especially on a film that was as complex as Follow the Dark.)

A main visual pillar of the film was a massive mirror, that was supposed to be a 5.9 by 3.9 metre practical glass build. We built it. Or at least a compromised version of it. But even that failed on set. We pivoted to massive green screen for that element, which was exactly what I had been trying to avoid since I knew it would make shooting even more difficult and explode our VFX budget. At the time, it felt like a genuine defeat. But in the end, it wasn't. It was the right call. But it cost us time and money we didn't have.

Beyond these logistical and practical nightmares, two days before production I fired my cinematographer. Yeah, okay, maybe not the best move... But that I would actually do again. What I wouldn't do again was ignore the signs that should have noticed from the beginning. Not that he was a bad guy (he's worked on a ton of films and TV shows), but we just did not gel. It wasn't totally clear until we were on set going through the shot list that this film would never get finished with the both of us. So in the end, we parted ways and had another incredible cinematographer join the project with just a day to go before filming. It was an uphill battle for him and if we had time to prep together, we might have possibly finished this ambitious indie film on time and on budget.

Even with all those issues, we wrapped ninety percent of the film. The remaining ten percent required a separate pickup shoot, which we planned to do within a few months. That were things turned even more interesting.

What happened next

Our original production partnership fell apart. Without going into detail I don't think serves anyone, the structure we had in place to finish the film dissolved. Promises had been made, which were slowly revealed to not be kept. And we found ourselves with a nearly-complete film and no clear path to cross the line. We spent the better part of a year trying to find finishing funds through conventional routes (gap financing, new investors, etc): the usual story, I suspect, for anyone reading this. A film that's ninety percent shot is, counterintuitively, a harder sell than a film that hasn't started. Investors want to come in at the beginning or not at all. (Which I personally still find crazy! Why would you not want to come in at the end to reap the rewards of someone else's hard work?!? But anyways that's another story...)

Then our lead actor, Arifin Putra, booked a major long-running Indonesian production — a sinetron, I believe it's called, which is essentially a primetime soap opera in Indonesia, the kind of commitment that means eighteen months of unavailability, six days a week. Which is great for him and genuinely deserved, and also meant that the pickup window we'd been working toward kept moving.

So: broken promises, dissolved production partnership, no finishing funds, lead actor unavailable. For nearly three years.

The lesson I'd offer

Shoot the whole film during principal photography. I know that sounds obvious. I knew it going in. I had my reasons for why we structured the shoot the way we did once it was clear we couldn't get everything filmed in the original 15 day shoot. I didn't want to compromise on my vision and part of me is still glad I didn't. (We'll see how I feel when the film is fully complete.) But if possible, shoot all the scenes you need for your story. At least so in case something like what happened to me, happens to you, you can finish some version of your film.

(Also, if you, one of your other producers, and everyone else on the crew tell your lead producer that you need 20 days to film the movie and he says why can't you do it in 10-15 because he's done it that way before. Stick to your guns if you truly feel your film needs that extra time. I shot my first feature in 10 days, but that's because it was set in a confessional box and one other location. It was clear to everyone apart from the lead producer that our film needed at least 20-25 days, but that's what happens when you try to cut corners.)

The version of this where we pushed harder to capture everything in August 2023 (even rough, even imperfect) is the version where none of the last three years happens. In a parallel world there's a version of the film that was finished during the original shoot. Perhaps I'm already on to my next film or video game. Perhaps not. I'd love to know, but at least for now, parallel lives only exist in movies.

Where we are now

Cutting to the chase. We restructured. We waited. Arifin's schedule finally opened up. We launched on Kickstarter just over a week ago and we're currently 51% funded with 17 days left, which I'll take.

FANGORIA published the exclusive teaser last week, which I'm still pinching myself about.

The campaign funds the pickup shoot in June with the full cast and our stretch goals allow us to do that at the quality I hope we can achieve, as well as post-production, sound, and colour grade. The film gets finished. After three years, that's the whole sentence.

Teaser and campaign links in the comments. Happy to answer anything about the production, the industry side, the Supermassive work, or the specific joys of trying to shoot in a Victorian fort you're not allowed to touch.

The short version: Follow the Dark is a elevated horror feature starring James Cosmo (Braveheart, Game of Thrones), Arifin Putra (The Raid 2), and Hannah Al Rashid (The Night Comes for Us). We shot 90% of it in August 2023 at a Victorian fort in Kent. Post-production stalled for nearly three years due to circumstances outside our control. We launched on Kickstarter just over a week ago to finally finish it.

We’re now 51% funded with 17 days left. Halfway there, but we need the second half.

Last week FANGORIA published the exclusive teaser trailer, which I’m still not quite over: https://www.fangoria.com/follow-the-dark-horror-movie-trailer-exclusive/

What your money does:
• £17,432 — essential pickup shoots completed, post-production can follow
• £32,687 — every scene we need to shoot, shot. The full film as written
• £63,458 — crew properly compensated for work already done and still to do
• £100,893 — everything at once, no compromises, no next mountain to climb

Rewards range from £5 special thanks up to a Guardian creature head bust. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/happy-sisyphus/follow-the-dark

Happy to answer questions about the production, the campaign, or anything else.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ (And would also love any feedback people have on the campaign.)