Seeking project funding, Vermont filmmaker teases murder mystery movie

May 17, 2024  |  By Robert Gamache  |  Community News Service 

Film poster image courtesy of the filmmaker

Viewers who attended the recent premiere showing of “Red Raven’s Kiss,” a Vermont-made mystery film, weren’t expected to just sit and watch. 

They had to use the director’s clues — the specific door that a character walks through, the angle of a camera in a bedroom, the placement of an unconscious body — to hone their detective skills and solve the murder.

Barre resident Austen Sprake directs the film with an all-Vermont cast and crew. Last month, he previewed “Red Raven’s Kiss” at the Essex Cinemas with a four-part series of 10-minute snippets from the film, each a scene of the story told from a different character’s perspective to give the audience a teaser of what he hopes to turn into a finished feature.

Sprake, 28, stood up after the screening to ask the audience to help him raise money to reach that end. He has launched a crowd-funding campaign to raise $5,000 for equipment costs, location rentals, and wages for the cast and crew so he can complete the full-length script for an eventual table reading, he said.

For the premiere attendees, the only cost was time. Admission was free, and Sprake encouraged viewers who liked what they saw to donate. In exchange, they’ll receive a copy of the “proof of concept” film – the 40 minutes he has shot so far. 

An online fundraiser received $3,250 from 52 people. A new campaign with just a handful of contributors so far has a $5,000 goal.

Many Vermont filmmakers shoot their movies on a shoestring, relying on local talent and community support. Sprake took the extra step of asking those premiere viewers to assist with the financing – the same way he asked them to play the role of the detective and help solve the murder in the film. 

With one exception, Sprake shot “The Red Raven’s Kiss” on non-traditional recording devices intended to represent the perspective of the character behind them: a body camera to show a police officer’s view; a dashboard camera from a character’s car; an Instagram video to represent an influencer. Filmed entirely at Wilson Castle in Proctor, “The Red Raven’s Kiss” incorporates these modern contrivances as found footage, which has become popular in horror movies.

The film blends traditional suspense with interactivity to immerse viewers in the mystery. In his news release announcing the premiere, Sprake cited classic Italian Giallo thrillers as his inspiration. These slasher murder mysteries and horror films include psychological themes and often graphic violence.

In “Red Raven’s Kiss,” Waterbury resident Neil Towne plays Shawn, an Uber driver who gets roped into the chaos of the murders when he arrives at the castle with three other characters. 

During a question-and-answer session with the audience after the Essex screening, Towne described the cast and crew spending an overnight together on location in the eerie atmosphere of the castle. “The morning after, talking about what we heard and felt, etc. – that span of 12 hours from when we cut to behind the scenes – that's when we really bonded together,” he recalled.

Towne, 38, got into acting almost by accident. “I went to acting and modeling school when I was super young, and I was more modeling in the beginning,” he said in an interview after the Q&A. “I thought acting was just like a Hollywood thing and would never be anything for me, but then I stumbled upon an open casting in Plattsburgh, New York.”

That casting was for the Showtime miniseries “Escape at Dannemora,” a dramatized account of the real-life 2015 prison break of two inmates at the Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, across Lake Champlain. Directed by Ben Stiller, the series starred Benicio del Toro and Paul Dano and received 12 Emmy nominations.

Towne played dual roles as an inmate and a prison employee. “Our first day was actually 22 hours in a live maximum-security prison, and it was so cool,” he said.

The experience got him hooked on acting. He has since picked up small roles and gigs as an extra on other major TV series. “On ‘FBI: Most Wanted,’ I actually got shot in the head and died,” he said. “That was awesome, too. I die a lot.”

Towne also appreciates working closer to home. “Usually I have to trek three to five hours out of state, so seeing Vermont starting to build this foundation of filmmakers, it's really cool because I can work from home.”

Actor Neil Towne in 'The Raven's Kiss' lives in Waterbury. Courtesy photo

Movies like “The Red Raven’s Kiss” require less of a time commitment, he added. “The projects are more concise and smaller, so it takes less time, whereas these bigger productions, you're usually shooting for a month to four months at a time, depending on what your role is.”

Sprake finished making a different film this week and completed another in Vermont over the winter, he said. He credits his interest in filmmaking to his upbringing and his mother's decision to homeschool him and his sister. The flexibility of the nontraditional structure let them explore what interested them.

“I'm more of a storyteller rather than a filmmaker,” Sprake said, “and that was only because I had extra time when I was young to develop my creative skills, which I wish more kids today were able to do.”

As of the “Red Raven’s Kiss” premiere, Sprake had about half of the movie filmed. During the Q&A following the screening, audience members had fewer questions about Sprake’s filmmaking motivations than about the clues they should seek out to solve the mystery.

Sprake explained that every character placement, location and camera setup is strategically calculated to pique the audience’s curiosity. “Every scene you saw is proving something,” he said. “It shows where things should be.”

Sprake encouraged viewers to watch "The Red Raven's Kiss” more than once, which they could do if they donate to the fundraiser and receive their own copy of the film, he pointed out. By the second or third viewing, he hinted, the mystery should be revealed.

One young audience member wasn’t satisfied with Sprake's answer. “Who was the killer?” he demanded. 

The audience, cast and crew all laughed.

Sprake wouldn’t give it away: “I'm not going to answer that,” he replied.

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