Shelter - Press Pack - shelter-movie

T H E MA K I N G OF
S H E L T E R
Beginning in early 2010, Shelter took just over two years from conception to screen.
Wrion Bowling and Adam Caudill formed Afflicted Pictures with the goal of producing
their first independent feature film. Having developed a history of ambitious projects
and successful collaborations throughout their education at Ohio University, they
started writing their first script together in February of 2010, focusing on a premise that
would allow them to produce the film despite financial and logistical limitations: a
dialogue-heavy story about five characters in a single interior location.
Building their own set in Akron, Ohio, Wrion and Adam recruited a cast and crew as
ambitious and passionate about the project as they were. They shot over three weeks
in the fall of 2010. The crew composed of colleagues, friends and family worked long
hours, diligently taking advantage of having their own studio for the first time.
Production designer Amy Spencer brought their 900-square-foot set to life, producing
dozens of props, costumes, and set dressings on a shoestring budget.
Cinematographers Chad Kean and Jinwei Zeng crafted the look of the film, developing
a shooting style that accommodated more than 750 setups in the 18-day shooting
schedule.
Shelter is a film that would not have been possible to make without recent
technological innovations. Adam lives in Columbus, Ohio, while Wrion lives in New
York City, so they collaborated on the script via video chat and file-sharing services.
The cameras required to produce a quality high-definition image would have been
prohibitively expensive as recently as five years ago. Almost all of the post production
was completed on the directors’ personal computers, 500 miles apart. Now that the
barrier for entry has been so dramatically lowered, the filmmakers are excited to see
what kind of projects will continue to emerge.