We have got a teaser trailer for Get My Gun, an upcoming indie revenge picture that should be hitting the festival circuit soon. The tagline is “You’ve made your bed. Now die in it.” Here is the official synopsis:
Get My Gun follows the character of Amanda, whom after an innocent prank, finds herself pregnant and out of a job. On the verge of motherhood and out of a job, she becomes the target of a psychotic stalker who will stop at nothing to get her hands on the unborn child.
Cinematographer Mary Perrino lenses the film, shooting in and around New York City with a primarily female cast and crew. The screenplay is by producer Jennifer Carchietta and director Brian Darwas, who share some thoughts on the project below:
Q: The plot of Get My Gun deals with some pretty controversial themes, what inspired the story?
BD: What drives most movies, and stories in general, is the audience’s desire to see the protagonist overcome the odds. We thought “what’s the worst thing that could happen to a young woman just starting out in life. . . and, how could it possibly get worse from there?”
JC: We wanted the viewer to become not only engaged, but also be invested in the character of Amanda’s struggles. If they can go through it with her, they can share in that same feeling of catharsis at the end if she overcomes the odds. . . just about everyone applaudes at the end of the movie, so I think we accomplished that goal (smiles)
Q: The film features a predominantly female cast and crew, was this intentional?
BD: The story lends itself to more a female cast. The cast is small, but as we were working on the script we developed characters that felt right to us. . . we didn’t set out to have it weigh more heavily in either direction.
The same goes for the crew. For me, I just want the best person for the job. Jennifer and myself looked at the work of a hundred or so cinematographers, both male and female. Eventually we narrowed it down to cinematographer Mary Perrino because her work had the look we were after.
JC: As a woman film maker myself, I like to see other females working in roles that are traditionally not held by women. . . but, I wouldn’t pick someone to do a job for that reason, that would just be absurd. We searched, and searched until we found a reel with the right look and feel.
Then we met with several people to just sit down and talk. You have to have some sort of connection that’s deeper than “hey, we both want to work on this” for a movie to successfully come together. Ninety percent of having your set run smoothly is managing personalities. The wrong person could bring things to a crashing halt no matter how good they are at their craft. Mary was on the same page as us not only stylistically, but personality wise as well. It was a great fit, we couldn’t have been happier with our choice.
Q: What were some of the challenges you faced while filming?
BD: We shot in New York City, so there’s always a million people around doing their best to get in the way. On the day we were filming Amanda’s character, dressed as a nun with a shotgun, two middle aged women jogged by said to us “you know, with everything that’s going on in the world right now you think you’d show a little more respect with what you’re filming.”
Meanwhile, we were filming up the street from a monastery and actual nuns were passing by all day long. They stopped to watch, they were laughing, waving, and applauding our heroine.
So, two things occurred . . . a couple of lame moms let us know that we were on the right track. . . . while simultaniously letting us know that the tables have turned, and now nuns are cooler than your mom probably is. It was a glorious day!
JC: (laughs) That question should be “what challenges didn’t you face?” From the guy who wanted to fire up a leaf blower the second we called action (in the middle of the summer), to the guy who drove directly into out shot, almost running Brian over, because he didn’t see the rest of the cast, crew, car rig, sound guy, etc. . . and thought that we just killed someone, in broad daylight, on a NYC street.
I guess that’s the ultimate compliment to our special effects artist, Beatrice Sniper.
The film is due to hit the festival circuit in late 2017, with plans for theatrical and home video releases after that. It looks like it is worth keeping an eye out for it.
