Director Talks The Echo Game: EXCL: Trailer, Promo-Art, and Stills

Steve Barton |

Jul 6, 2009

Director Brian Feeney provided Dread Central with an exclusive first look at the trailer for his supernatural slasher flick The Echo Game (see it below) as well as a piece of promotional artwork and a couple of stills from the flick, which is currently in post-production.

The film stars Alisha Seaton and Jeannie Bolet as April Reilly and Casey Lin, “a young lesbian couple who must protect their daughter (Melissa Lee) from rogue scientist Anne Cassavettes (Judy Clement), who’s on a murderous rampage to steal the girl’s psychic powers for herself,” Feeney says. “It’s low-budget but looks great (Jeffrey Waldron served as director of photography), and we got some great gore out of it, too.” Liliya Czarina, Angela Landis, Laurel Vail, and Robert McAtee round out the principal cast.

Shot over the course of several weeks last August and September and co-scripted by Feeney and writer John Ross, the director tells us that making The Echo Game “has been one the best experiences of my life. I was incredibly fortunate to have the producers (Doug Spice and Asa Shumskas-Tait), cast, and crew that I did. Every single member of the crew committed themselves to working incredibly hard on a very tight schedule.”

Director of photography Waldron says of his reaction to Feeney’s initial conceptual art for The Echo Game, and the visual approach he took accordingly, “Though we had a very tight shooting schedule, we paid special attention to creating visually motivated camera moves to progress the tension, danger and drama. Working with production designer Kim Seff, we were able to choose and dress locations that teemed with color, adding our own in the lighting where appropriate. It thrilled me because that meant steering clear of the contemporary hand-held, uber-dark, monochromatic generic (genre)conventions and bringing back color, control and motion.”

“We used the Panasonic 500,” says Feeney in shooting the feature. “The 500 is able to produce very inky, film-like black levels, unlike most HD, where the blacks tend to look grey, and we shot with a cine-zoom lens, which also provides a more film-like look.”

Regarding the aural component, “Our composer, Austin Wintory, is a protege of a guy named Christopher Young (Hellraiser, Drag Me to Hell) and created a very strong, haunting score for the film,” relates the director. “Austin even brought in some pro musicians and vocalists and got them to work for free when doing the final music recordings. I honestly think that the score is really pretty great.”

As for when audiences will be able to see The Echo Game, “We have not yet begun looking for distribution,” says Feeney, “but will once we’ve finished both FX and sound mix, which we should be completing the first week of August.”

Stay tuned to Dread Central for further developments. Check out the stills and the trailer below.