Salute Your Shorts/Filmquest 2018 - Deep Dish Apocalypse
Doug is in love with Traci. Traci is in love with Josh. And Josh chose the wrong day to eat pizza.
Interview with Producers Emily Bell and Ron Morehouse
Watch Deep Dish Apocalypse here:
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
We started Bell-House Productions four years ago when our first short, Future Boyfriend, premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival. We are always on the lookout for exciting new projects and we were approached by LA playwright Trey Nichols. He liked what we were doing and asked if we would be interested in turning his play, Deep Dish Apocalypse, into a short film. We read it once and fell in love! It was such a unique take on the zombie genre that we had to do it!
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
It's a super fun movie that turns a very well known genre on its head. When comedy and horror combine seamlessly, you are in for an exhilarating ride.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
Love knows no bounds....even if it is the end of the world. Deep Dish is a fun zombie rom com, that is very much an allegory for what happens to a woman when she gets out of a relationship, and decides if getting back into one right away is really the right thing to do.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
Deep Dish started out as a play (which probably runs about 25 minutes), so there were many drafts done to stream line it into a short film. We worked with our director, David Codeglia, and writer to see how to communicate all the most important themes of the play into a compact 8 minutes, which is challenging. David and Trey are two massive talents who have a keen eye and intelligence for that sort of thing.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
It's been amazing! We had our world premiere at this year's Dances With Film, one of our favorite film festivals. We won Best Ensemble at the Hollywood Horrorfest, Runner up for Best Genre at Salute Your Shorts, nominated for Best Comedy Short at Filmquest, and screened at Hollyshorts. We are in full festival swing. We have screenings coming up at Filmquest, Catalina Film Festival, San Jose International Short Film Festival, San Diego Film Festival, and many more.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
We were surprised at how people responded to the horror aspect. People are much more involved in the story and at times get frightened.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
We're excited to expand our audience with the help of We Are Moving Stories! We hope to reach more people and perhaps stir up some excitement for our other projects.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
We've been enjoying a great festival run so far and would love to keep up the momentum, so getting more film festival directors on board would be fabulous! We'd also love to talk to any distributors and journalists that are interested in the film to help with a strong online debut after our festival run.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
We hope to give people a bit of a scare, maybe a surprise or two, and a few laughs while we're at it. We've always enjoyed making films that don't necessarily follow a predicable plot, so we enjoy hearing when people's expectations are thrown off.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
Is there a wrong time to tell the person of your dreams that you love them?
Would you like to add anything else?
One of our favorite challenges making this film was figuring out how to shoot in an abandoned subway platform. Filming in a real subway was cost-prohibitive and had a number of restrictions that would make it impossible to get the “apocalyptic” effect we were going for. Our director and DP, David and James Codeglia, came up with the idea to shoot the film on a sound stage and create the set ourselves. Most of what you see in the film is actually made from cardboard, and in the case of the concrete pillar, styrofoam. The gaps between the cardboard set are filled in with green screen.
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
At Bell-House Productions we're currently working on writing our next short film, a sci-fi comedy currently in the works. We also plan to produce a feature film in the near future as well.
Interview: August 2018
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Deep Dish Apocalyse
Doug is in love with Traci. Traci is in love with Josh. And Josh chose the wrong day to eat pizza.
Length: 8 minutes
Director: David Codeglia
Producer: Emily Bell and Ron Morehouse (Bell-House Productions)
Writer: Trey Nichols
About the writer, director and producer:
TREY NICHOLS is a Los Angeles-based playwright, screenwriter and actor. Trey is a longtime member of Moving Arts, a Los Angeles theatre company dedicated to developing and producing new plays. For the last few years, Trey has been active with the company's site-specific phenomenon The Car Plays, with performances at festivals throughout Southern California.
DAVID CODEGLIA is an award-winning Director of films like “Key Change” (Best Comedy at ITSA), “Is It Your Refrigerator?“, and Our RoboCop Remake – Scene 9, popular for is giant robot and puppet violence. He’s also directed web series like “Hill Yes“, music videos like “Awkward” (Best Music Video at IndieFest), and secret projects for Disney & Bad Robot. He is currently developing several feature films.
Actors and producers EMILY BELL and RON MOREHOUSE met four years ago at the Los Angeles Sci-FEST Play Festival when they were cast together in the one-act play, Future Boyfriend, by A. Vincent Ularich The two became fast friends and, after shooting the play as a short film and premiering it at Tribeca Film Festival, formed the production company Bell-House Productions. Their next project, the election web series Hill Yes, received honorable mention at the Salute Your Shorts Film Festival, found distribution through ENV pictures, and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime
Key cast: Emily Bell and Ron Morehouse
Facebook: Bell-House Productions AND Deep Dish Apocalypse
Instagram: @morehouseron AND @emilythebell
Made in association with: Daughters and Sons
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month? Filmquest in Utah on Setptember 12th, Catalina Film Festival on September 29th, San Jose International Short Film Festival and San Diego International Film Festival in October.