Interview with first-time feature director Elizabeth E. Schuch.
By Michelle Cross
Read the full article here: www.areviewlution.com
Q: I’m super excited for The Book of Birdie, which is currently in pre-production, I believe you start filming in January correct? This will be your first full feature film you have written and directed. Tell me about the experience so far in pre-production, casting, locations, ect. Also, please share a little about the film too! I think it’s something a lot of us can get excited about.
A:We’re prepping for shoot in Wisconsin in January, in my hometown of Kenosha, about an hour outside of Chicago. It’s a very tight window to get everything together so it needs to be a very simple shoot: small cast, minimal crew, single location, intimate psychological story with lots of colorful visual trickery we can handle with a mix of low-budget props magic and our specialty CGI flare. The casting is currently underway, and I’m thrilled by the talent I’m finding – I wish it was a bigger cast to fit them all! We’ll be pulling from the local resources and talent (we’ve some great music and theatre programs in town), and using the atmosphere of a wonderful historic building on the shores of Lake Michigan.
The film takes place in a struggling convent on the verge of closure, when a young girl with a mysterious illness and past is placed in their care. In some ways, it’s a kind of sister project to our first feature film The Winter, written for a location that heavily influences the plot, dreamlike hallucination and magical realism, following the journey into imagination and possibly madness for a sensitive individual. This time, however, it’s from a distinctly feminine perspective with an all female cast. Crucially, too, we’re working in the English language this time.
