arts & life
film
Sunrise
Sunsei
A group of U-M
students and grads
go for psychological
scares in their
indie thriller
At Sunrise.
ABOVE: Matthew Gold with
Gina Vittori, who plays a killer
in At Sunrise
Members of the cast
hold the slate for the final shot
of the movie
To keep up with the
progress of At Sunrise,
visit Under the
Moon Pictures at
utmpictures.com .
I
.
Julie Edgar
Special to the Jewish News
I
fit's everything they want it to
be, At Sunrise will leave view-
ers feeling disturbed, possibly
spooked and ultimately satisfied by
its unexpectedness.
Recent U-M grad/producer
Matthew Gold, 22, and director/
U-M student Matt Birnholz, 21,
both graduates of Cranbrook
Schools' high school, shot their
second feature-length movie in
May and June in Metro Detroit
and Northern Michigan. It tells the
aftermath of a slaying of a family
— no blood or gore included —
and the fate of one witness, the sis-
ter of one of the killers. But they're
not revealing much more.
While the film's budget was too
small to qualify for Michigan's
dwindling tax incentives — it's
somewhere between $25,000 and
$100,000, says Gold — he and his
Matt Birnholz, left, watches playback with the camera crew
five partners in Under the Moon
Pictures LLC managed to raise the
money to pay at least one actor:
Meg Foster (ABC Family's Pretty
Little Liars) plays the mother in
At Sunrise. A partnership with the
Motion Picture Institute in Troy led
them to her.
"She was fantastic," Gold says.
"She showed a lot of passion for
what we did. It was nice to have
someone in the business give us
affirmation that what we were
doing was along the lines of what
she's seen:'
The rest of the crew of about
75, most U-M students and locals,
donated their time.
Now, the filmmakers are looking
to raise another $40,000 to finish
the film — it's in post-production
in LA — to promote it with trail-
ers, ads and more, and to get it on
the festival circuit.
Under the Moon's first produc-
tion, Meshes of Dusk, just last
week premiered at the Hot Springs
International Horror Film Festival.
Another micro-budget horror film
they made on a song and prayer
(and some crowd-funded money),
Meshes has served as a launching
pad to pitch the latest film to inves-
tors. It shows them, -Look what we
made with almost no money:" says
Gold, son of Ken Gold and Linda
Stein Gold of Bloomfield Hills.
That film was shot in Oscoda
and centers on a disgruntled film-
maker with one last shot at making
it big — until something, of course,
goes terribly awry.
Gold says they pitched At
Sunrise as a cross between
Reservoir Dogs and Texas Chainsaw
Massacre to investors. He prefers
movies that are more benign
— his last few favorite films are
Frozen, Interstellar and Whiplash.
Birnholz's tastes also run counter
to his actions: His recent picks are
The Wolf of Wall Street, Zero Dark
Thirty and The Social Network.
Birnholz and Gold like to thwart
audience expectations, to keep
them on their toes and to avoid
classic horror-movie tropes.
"I don't like to know where a
film is going, what's coming next,"
says Birnholz, whose parents are
Mark and Paula Birnholz of West
Bloomfield. "We try not to treat the
audience as first-time moviegoers.
There's nothing scarier than what
the audience can imagine on their
own. We want them to be active
viewers:'
Other members of the Under
the Moon team include Birnholz's
older brother Jordan, an associ-
ate producer on the film, Sydney
Friedman, a West Bloomfield High
School graduate who finished U-M
in May and is editing the film in
Los Angeles, and Zachary and Eric
Frankel, U-M students.
Birnholz directed At Sunrise and
was involved in script rewrites.
After he finishes his degree in
screen art and culture at Michigan
— he is two classes shy of fmish-
ing — he plans to devote himself
to getting the movie seen by a wide
audience before pursuing a career
as a filmmaker.
Even as tax incentives for film-
makers are becoming capped and
extinct, Birnholz says, his plan is
to stay in Michigan. Los Angeles is
saturated with aspiring filmmakers,
so there's far less enthusiasm for
up-and-comers. "Nobody wants to
help you because everyone's mak-
ing a film:' he says. "When we were
making films in Metro Detroit
and Up North, everybody was so
accommodating. People here love
to help out. We think Michigan in
general has a great atmosphere:'
Plus, he points out, you can find
pretty much any environment
(except a desert) to set a scene.
"We had 20 different locations,
and except for Up North stuff, we
didn't have to drive more than 30
minutes to find it:' Birnholz says.
"We love Michigan:' Gold agrees.
"All six of us who run the company
are from Michigan. It will take
more than the ending of the film
incentive program to get us out
of here. While some people may
be seeking work elsewhere, we're
happy in the metro area:'
❑
October 1 • 2015
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