BELOW THE BASEMENT

Description

Two brothers find themselves stuck in a crawl space with no way of getting out. How they got there may be unknown, but one thing is certain, they must survive.

BELOW THE BASEMENT is a suspensful thriller built on character and tension. What would you sacrafice to protect your family?

Cast

Luke Sorge as Jason
George Kotelnikov as Mike

Crew

JIMMY WEBER - Writer, Director, Post Production
ANNIE BAKER - Producer 
DAVID LIBAN - Executive Producer

About the Film

One day I was helping my Dad put some Christmas decorations under our house and into the crawl space. I looked at all the concrete walls and thought, "Man this would be a great bomb shelter." Then I thought, "Man...that would totally suck to use this as a bomb shelter." At that moment BELOW THE BASEMENT was born. I instantly thought of a story about two brothers stuck in a crawl space and what could happen to them.

What I love about BELOW THE BASEMENT is it is essentially a post apocalyptic film on the smallest scale. The entire world could be burning outside this crawl space. Aliens could be invading. Wars could be raging on all continents but all we know and care about are these two brothers stuck in this little crawl space.

Making The Film

Making movies is an adventure and a challenge. Let me tell you, making a movie in a crawl space is definitely a challenge. Going into this, I kept telling Annie, "After this is over, we'll be able to tell people we shot an entire short in a crawl space." But we both knew that wasn't the selling point of this film - it was the story. This was our first real stab at drama and we knew we had to bring our A game to nail it.

Luckily I had two ridiculously talented actors. Luke and George came prepared, rehearsed, and ready to brave the elements. From the first take, they became their characters and completely embodied them. I spent all of my pre-production time preparing to direct them, but found myself having to say very little. They knew what they were doing and all I had to do was capture it.

The shoot was only two short days and after each of us bumped our heads a dozen times on the support beams, we were finally able to say, "We shot an entire short in a crawl space."