Attendees of an independent film screening Thursday night will be transported to a community that takes a medication called “torpase” that prevents its users from experiencing psychological pain or pleasure. The smothering of emotion and the dark implications therein couldn’t more purely contradict the namesake of the story’s setting “Cheery Point” in North Carolina.
Ball State alumnus Kenny Stevenson has created a number of short films and started his film company, Versa Studios, at Ball State. After building up Versa Studios, Stevenson set his sights on producing a full-length feature film — which became “Cheery Point.”
On Thursday at 9 p.m., the most open and complete showing of the team’s vision will hit the screen at the AMC 12 Theater in Muncie.
The film is an independent production, where much of the project’s staff are students. Stevenson financed about half of the film’s $20,000 budget with the David Letterman Scholarship he received, rest of the money was raised through loans, contributions and a Kickstarter campaign.
Money is an overwhelming challenge for most independent film projects and “Cheery Point” was no exception. The production team paid for the travel and living expenses for cast and crew. Because the film was shot in locations in Indiana, Illinois and Kentucky, travel reimbursements presented significant costs.
Organizers recruited actors online through the Indiana Filmmakers Network, gaining professional talent close to home. In order to better accommodate professional actors, the primarily student crew developed guidelines and protocols to provide a consistent and professional working environment.
“Something we found out was a big deal is confidence,” junior telecommunications major Andrew Bennett said. “It’s what separates professionalism from amateurism.”
Bennett had directed several of Versa’s short films and is the associate producer for “Cheery Point.”
Shooting a full-length movie around a student’s schedule presented obvious challenges. The leaders of the project spent significant time during preproduction and the crew traveled nearly every weekend during principal photography, which lasted from Spring Break until shortly after school let out.
“That sacrificed any partying, typical college lifestyle,” Bennett said.
While most of the crew had experience in production, much learning was done on the go. If a makeup artist didn’t know how to produce a certain type of wound, they would reference resources like YouTube and continue with their jobs.
Bennett said he believes those who went through these processes were capable of professional quality work by the end of the shoot.
Because most film festivals will not show a movie that has already had an official premiere, the film has not yet hosted its official premiere and instead is currently hosting “private screenings.”
The first of these screenings was held in Louisville, Ky. at the Baxter Theatre, where around 200 viewers, mostly family and friends of the cast and crew, saw the first draft of the film.
The film has is still open to editing because there has been no official premiere, but Bennett said that any changes made from this point are likely to be minute.
Versa hopes to raise enough money from these screenings to submit to film festivals, for which there is a registration cost.
Cheery Point’s publicist is a junior public relations major Dylan Pieri. He has promoted the film by appealing to friends and family, maintaining a website and maintaining a presence for “Cheery Point” on social media.
The crew recorded behind the scenes footage of the production, which can be found on the Cheery Point YouTube channel.
The availability of these videos paid off in unexpected ways. Review of this content, prompted Ball State graduate and Hollywood actor Doug Jones to record a short video promoting the film.
Jones works heavily under prosthetics and has been cast in films like “Pan’s Labyrinth,” “Doom” and the “Hellboy” series.
“It’s about a whole group of people who sacrificed being a college student for a whole year to make sure this would happen,” Bennett said.
