Gooey
October 16, 2023
Gooey is a short post-horror film about a young woman’s harrowing experience at a narrow-minded extended family gathering. As she tries her best to appease family values, her world begins melting around her, literally.
My crew role on this film was cinematographer, an opportunity I was excited to jump on and my creative process began with talking to the director, Luciana, about her vision and influences. Working with her script in its evolving iterations and later, storyboard I was able to understand what ideas I should focus on developing for the film’s visuals. I knew the goal of the film was to create a product that was not only scary, but viscerally uncomfortable, as family gathering often tend to be. Having been to my fair share of awkward family situations myself, I tapped into this feeling of otherness and the desperation that can evolve when trying to avoid the shame of receiving back-handed support from disapproving loved ones. This manifested into watching films that evoked similar emotions, Shiva Baby (directed by Emma Seligman), was a major influence on not only the script but my approach to cinematography. With the content of the film verging on supernatural themes, I also explored surrealist imagery and film techniques on websites like Tumblr and Pinterest (like direct to camera addresses and extreme close ups). Most of my creative practise came through on the set, where I took time to experiment with b-roll. I also worked with the director to compromise on shots that I thought could be more effective with my creative approaches. Working on this film was an intense and fun learning experience, I’m super grateful to have been trusted as a part of it.
What I learnt most from this experience was the importance of making time to test and trial everything. Testing equipment, to lighting on location, even staging movement has a profound effect on a film’s outcome, I think our project and my personal contribution to it could have been improved a lot with some more dedication to trailing its visual elements.
Watch Gooey HERE
