"It's only a five page script," Richard said to me," only one character the whole time, until the ghost shows up at the end. It'll be easy, and we can even shoot it at my house!"
Richard was pitching a short film script to me. It was a horror comedy about a girl who has a ghost encounter. It was actually a pretty fun script! He wanted me to help him make it into a short film. He wanted to direct, and he asked me to be the cinematographer, since he knew I did that professionally.
"Looks like it would be pretty easy," I said after reading the script, "we would only need two or three crew guys, and we'd need to find the right actress."
The main character was called Sarah. The script started with Sarah home alone on her couch reading a book, then she decides to go to bed. She heads to the bedroom, changes into pajamas, which were described as really short shorts and a spaghetti strap tank top with no bra. Then she climbs into bed, pulls the covers over herself and closes her eyes. Moments later the lights in the room come on by themselves, the blanket flies off of her. She wakes up screaming, jumps out of bed and runs through the house while getting chased by a ghost she cant see. It ends with the ghost trapping her in a room, and appearing to her as he's about to kill her, then realizing he has the wrong person. "oops, my bad!" and disappears. It was pretty funny!
"of course!" He said, "who ever plays Sarah would be carrying the whole film! She would need to be attractive, a good actor, and be willing to be in short shorts and a tank top the whole time."
Thats when the story teller in me came out. "what if she's naked?" I said, "that way she feels more vulnerable while being chased by the ghost!"
"Naked?" He asked with a bit of a shock. "we can do that?"
"Why not?" I said, "It's a short film, we can do what we want."
"Thats a good point, I am funding it myself after all." He said.
"We can show the nudity, or we can just elude to it, but if she's naked I think the audience will feel more scared for her, she'll feel more vulnerable."
"I mean, if we're gonna have Sarah be naked we might as well show it." He said, "Do you think we can find an attractive actress who's willing to be naked?"
"Of course, this is LA!" I replied, "You'd have to pay her a little more, but I'm sure we could find someone."
Richard perused the script for a moment, considered his options, then came back with, "I like the idea, but it seems more plausible that she would be sleeping in just panties than fully naked."
"Alright, just panties then," I replied, "the effect will be the same."
