Luke Paron made the most of his circumstances.
In the near future, Luke Paron will bring a new horror short, entitled “Arachnid,” to the screens of film festivals across the United States and Canada. Before Arachnid makes its chilling debut, though, Paron, the director and writer, spoke with WrestleZone’s Ella Jay about a funny moment that came while putting it together.
Prior to Arachnid’s official filming, Paron and playwright Mars Russell ventured throughout Port Hope in Southern Ontario, Canada to do some camera tests. While doing so, Paron and Russell circled a local theater as a potential shooting location.
“The theater that we wanted to shoot at has this beautiful exterior awning with all these light bulbs and this glowing red big sign that says ‘Capitol Theatre,'” Paron recalled. “I shot these test shots of Mars walking under this awning, and the bulbs are out of focus behind them. The red out of focus is really dynamic, cool lighting. And I’m like, ‘Oh, this is perfect.’ The shots look great. Exactly how I wanted.”
Facing Dilemmas
Three months after picking out their filming spot, Paron returned to it alongside the Director of Photography Michael Cao. Unfortunately, they were met with a pair of dilemmas, as the It television show was also preparing to film around Port Hope. Additionally, the lighting around town seemingly went dark that particular night.
“The whole town is now done up in 1950s-like aesthetic, and the theater has all these signs saying like, ‘Welcome to Derry, Maine.’ It’s all USA stuff because they’re all getting ready to shoot for the It show. And I’m like, ‘Oh my God, we’re cooked. I’m going to have to up the VFX budget to erase all this or something.’ So me and Michael take the test shots again with the new camera gear, looks perfect. We contacted some people who were on the It crew and they said they should be done by like when we were going to shoot. “
“So it’s the night of the shoot. I went to town earlier that day, it’s all back to looking Canadian. And I see those gorgeous light bulbs that red, and I’m so excited. We get there at one in the morning. We pull around the street and some of the crew got there first. My phone rings and they’re like, uh, ‘All the lights are off in the whole town.’ And I’m like, ‘Huh?’ This is a town I drive through every day for the last 20 years. It’s always lit up. This is the whole point of the shot, is this halo of light behind The Young Man coming out of the theater. That’s the whole point.”
A Blessing In Disguise
Though initially worried about the absence of light for this particular shot, Paron and the crew eventually embraced the dark setting. And according to Paron, their improvisions turned out to be arguably even better than their original plan.
“We changed some stuff on the fly, but it adds a whole new energy to the scene, as you’ll see why,” Paron said. “The town looks even more dreary because there’s no light except for a streetlamp. No business signs are on anything because the power grid had been affected by them redoing the street right next to the theater. That was a lesson in just learning to roll with it and learning to go with the flow. I thought that was the worst thing ever, and it ended up being quite a good blessing in disguise.”
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